Mesopotamia Articles

The ancient Near East, and the Fertile Crescent in particular, is generally seen as the birthplace of agriculture. In the fourth millennium BC this area was more temperate than it is today, and it was blessed with fertile soil, two great rivers (the Euphrates and the Tigris), as well as hills and mountains to the north. The region was highly diverse... [continue reading]

The intoxicant known in English as `beer' takes its name from the Latin `bibere' (by way of the German `bier') meaning `to drink' and the Spanish word for beer, cerveza' comes from the Latin word `cerevisia' for `of beer', giving some indication of the long span human beings have been drinking beer. Even so, beer brewing... [continue reading]

Writing is undeniably one of humanity's most important inventions. The earliest forms of storing information on objects were numerical inscriptions on clay tablets, used for administration, accounting and trade. The first writing system dates back to around 3000 BC, when the Sumerians developed the first type script: hundreds of abbreviated pictograms that... [continue reading]

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Mesopotamian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, `When on High'.  All of the tablets containing the myth, found at Ashur, Kish, Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, Sultantepe, and other excavated sites, date to c. 1100 BCE but their colophons... [continue reading]

I:192. As to the resources of the Babylonians how great they are, I shall show by many other proofs and among them also by this: For the support of the great king and his army, apart from the regular tribute the whole land of which he is ruler has been distributed into portions. Now whereas twelve months go to make up the year, for four of these he has... [continue reading]

The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the great goddess and Queen of Heaven Inanna’s journey from heaven, to earth, to the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead.  The poem begins famously with the lines, From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below... [continue reading]

The story of Sargon's birth and childhood is given in the "Sargon legend", a Sumerian text purporting to be Sargon's biography. The extant versions are incomplete, but the surviving fragments name Sargon's father as La'ibum. After a lacuna, the text skips to Ur-Zababa, king of Kish, who awakens after a dream, the contents of which are not revealed on the surviving... [continue reading]

Literacy was not widespread in Mesopotamia. Scribes, nearly always men, had to undergo training, and having successfully completed a curriculum became entitled to call themselves dubsar, which means 'scribe'. They became members of a privileged élite who, like scribes in ancient Egypt, might look with contempt upon their fellow citizens... [continue reading]

All of the Sumerians’ innovations were remarkable contributions, responsible for revolutionizing travel, trade and commerce, written and oral communication, science, and even literature. Many of the things that we take for granted today can be traced back directly to the ingenuity of the Sumerian culture. The Sumerian writing system is probably the... [continue reading]

The heart of the original Assyrian civilization was located off the western coast of the Tigris River in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). At its height, the Assyrian empire stretched far and wide, encompassing several territories and uniting the Near Eastern region for the very first time. This included territories in modern Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey, Israel... [continue reading]