Part 0 · 1 chapters · ~8 min

Mesopotamia: Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria

Irrigation farming between the Tigris and Euphrates, Uruk and the first cities, cuneiform from accounting to literature (the Epic of Gilgamesh), Sumerian city-states, Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi's laws, mathematics in base 60, Assyria's military empire and its library at Nineveh, Neo-Babylon, and Mesopotamia's legacy.

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Cities, writing, law

Mesopotamia gave the world some of its first cities, writing, written law and mathematics: the base-60 system survives in our 60-minute hours and 360-degree circles. The library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal at Nineveh preserved thousands of tablets including the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest works of literature.

Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC (3rd ed., 2015); Martha Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (1997); Andrew George (trans.), The Epic of Gilgamesh (1999).

MESOPOTAMIA
dates BCE, approximate; from Van De Mieroop 2015
c. 3500-3100Uruk: first citiesc. 3200cuneiform writing
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cities and writing
Between the Tigris and Euphrates, Uruk grew into one of the first true cities. Cuneiform writing began around 3200 BCE as accounting marks on clay tablets, recording grain, livestock and labour.
first cities, first writingwriting began as accounting