The Story of Mesopotamia

The land that fostered the Sumer-Akkad culture of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley that is Mesopotamia, often called the cradle of civilization. By 3000 BC, the Sumerians irrigated bronze as well as polished stone tools, made textiles and wheel-turned pottery, built great temples and palaces, and traveled in wheeled carts and sailing ships. Their accurate calendars predicted seasons, and their cuneiform writing was an international script until the 4th century BC. They worship a sun god, and they lived by written laws.

Although the Sumer-Akkad Kingdom fell to northern invaders, Mesopotamia remained the center of western Asian civilization until 6th century BC. Most important of the later rulers were the Babylonians (C. 1900-1600 BC), the Assyrians (C. 9th-7th BC), and the Chaldeans (C. 7th-6th BC). It was the Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar II who destroyed Jerusalem and deported the Jews. (Already, however, Judaism was a major religious force.) After 1600 BC, nomads from Central Asia swept into Babylonia, sometimes to destroy but overall to build and advance the civilization founded by the Sumerians.

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