Mesopotamia: Great Civilizations , Egipt [IGEO TV]
Channel: IgeoNews
Date: 2013-09-23

http://igeo.tv/

The Ancient Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, considered to be the cradle of civilization in ancient times. 
Mesopotamia means a melting pot of cultures: Sumerian, Akkadian , Amorites , Babylonian , Assyrian , Persian... and within each one endless kings, city-states and warfare.

In ancient Mesopotamia there was a great variety of peoples, but they can be divided into two main groups: sedentary people and nomadic people.  The relations between these groups to a large extent shaped the history of the entire Mesopotamian region.

Sumerians and Akkadians developed their civilization in Mesopotamia during the 4th and 3rd millennium B.C.  Centuries later, the Assyrian Empire was one of the most fascinating empires of the ancient history, but the height of Mesopotamia was not only limited to the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. During the Arabic period, Mesopotamia was the headquarters of the caliphate although it began to decline thereafter. 
Not only technical advances developed by the Mesopotamians people, like the wheel, the first cities, the natural resources use, mathematics or writing... but also the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia has transcended and influenced the current western European culture. Studying Ancient Mesopotamia is to study the origin of our way of thinking and living.

Sumer can be considered as the oldest civilization in the world. Probably, the Sumerian culture began to take shape in the city of Uruk, later extended throughout the rest of the Lower Mesopotamia.  In this city appears the wheel around 3500 B.C., and writing around 3300 BC. The latter event marks the transition between Prehistory and History.

The Akkadian Empire begins thanks to the conquests of Sargon of Akkad (the Great) who was the first monarch able to unify ancient Mesopotamia.

After a dark period, Sumerians reappeared, followed by the Amorites dynasties. Not long after the Paleo-Babylonian Empire began, when Hammurabi came to power in Babylon.
After a period marked by the conquests of the Hittites, the Assyrian culture developed, in the region of the ancient Mesopotamia, between 1800 and 600 B.C. They were widely known for their war fighting capabilities and their great cruelty with the defeated enemy. 

Babylon ends with the defeating of the Assyrians and the Chaldean empire develops, until Persia, with Cyrus the Great, conquest all Mesopotamia.


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