Ancient Mesopotamia
The Ancient World
Alireza.heydear, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Mesopotamia is Greek for "between the rivers." The rivers in question are the Tigris and Euphrates, which flow through modern Iraq. The fertile land surrounding these rivers allowed the very first human civilizations to develop. Mesopotamia is often called the "cradle of civilization" and has a long, complicated history. This is a very inadequate summary.
Many city-states developed along the rivers, including Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Akkad, Assur, Nineveh, and later Babylon.
The first civilization to unite multiple cities under a common culture were the Sumerians. Their capital was Uruk. The Sumerians' most important contribution to world culture was the development of cuneiform, the first known writing system. This also allowed the earliest surviving great work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In the twenty-fourth century BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians under their ruler Sargon. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia, although Sumerian remained the language of literature and high culture.
Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
The Akkadian Empire collapsed in the 22nd century BC and was succeeded by the Assyrian Empire (named after the city of Assur.) The Assyrians were overwhelmed in the 19th century BC by the Babylonians under King Hammurabi, who issued the first known written code of laws. A century later, Babylon declined and the Assyrians again became dominant in the north.
The Hurrian Hymns, the oldest known example of musical notation, date to around this time. Excavated in 1950, clay tablets from the 14th century BC contain a hymn to the orchard-goddess Nikkal, written in cuneiform writing in the ancient Hurrian language. The tablets include musical notation, consisting of interval names and numbers, along with instructions in Akkadian for tuning a lyre to a diatonic scale. Exactly how to transcribe the musical notation is a matter of controversy and there are several different interpretations out there.
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In the 10th century, they conquered just about everyone, including Babylon and even Egypt. After the death of King Ashurbanipal in the late 7th century BC, the Babylonians came back with a vengeance under King Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar, basically ending the Assyrian Empire. The Babylonians were conquered by the Achaemenid Persians (from modern-day Iran) under Cyrus the Great around 530 BC. His son Cambyses conquered Egypt. There were a few usurpers and then Darius became king. He and his son Xerxes came into conflict with Greece. The Persians were in charge for 200 years until they were conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and we will stop there for now. At any rate, when some politician promises peace in the Middle East, be skeptical.