describe the distinctive features of Mesopotamian civilization (8 marks)
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Answer:
History of Mesopotamia, history of the region in southwestern Asia where the world’s earliest civilization developed. The name comes from a Greek word meaning “between rivers,” referring to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the region can be broadly defined to include the area that is now eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and most of Iraq. The region was the centre of a culture whose influence extended throughout the Middle East and as far as the Indus valley, Egypt, and the Mediterranean.
History of Mesopotamia
HISTORICAL REGION, ASIA
WRITTEN BY: Richard N. FryeWolfram Th. von SodenDietz O. Edzard
See Article History
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Learn about the culture of Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
Learn about the culture of Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
An overview of Mesopotamia.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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History of Mesopotamia, history of the region in southwestern Asia where the world’s earliest civilization developed. The name comes from a Greek word meaning “between rivers,” referring to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the region can be broadly defined to include the area that is now eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and most of Iraq. The region was the centre of a culture whose influence extended throughout the Middle East and as far as the Indus valley, Egypt, and the Mediterranean.
Sites associated with ancient Mesopotamian history.
Sites associated with ancient Mesopotamian history.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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History of Mesopotamia
QUICK FACTS
KEY PEOPLE
Julian
Seljuq
Hormuzd Rassam
Sir Leonard Woolley
Sir Austen Henry Layard
Paul-Emile Botta
Henri Frankfort
Parrot, Andre
Gordian III
MAJOR EVENTS
Armistice of Mudros
RELATED PLACES
Iraq
Babylon
Sumer
Assyria
RELATED TOPICS
irrigation
cuneiform
“Eridu Genesis”
Lahmu and Lahamu
DID YOU KNOW?
The oldest wheeled vehicles ever found were discovered near Ur in Mesopotamia.
Concepts such as the empire, the city, and the demarcation of hours, minutes, and seconds are all first attributed to Mesopotamia.
The city of Uruk is said to have had around 50,000 citizens at one point, which was a massive population for its time.
This article covers the history of Mesopotamia from the prehistoric period up to the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE. For the history of the region in the succeeding periods, see Iraq, history of. For a discussion of the religions of ancient Mesopotamia, see Mesopotamian religion. See also art and architecture, Mesopotamian.
In the narrow sense, Mesopotamia is the area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, north or northwest of the bottleneck at Baghdad, in modern Iraq; it is Al-Jazīrah (“The Island”) of the Arabs. South of this lies Babylonia, named after the city of Babylon. However, in the broader sense, the name Mesopotamia has come to be used for the area bounded on the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and on the southwest by the edge of the Arabian Plateau and stretching from the Persian Gulf in the southeast to the spurs of the Anti-Taurus Mountains in the northwest. Only from the latitude of Baghdad do the Euphrates and Tigris truly become twin rivers, the rāfidān of the Arabs, which have constantly changed their courses over the millennia. The low-lying plain of the Kārūn River in Persia has always been closely related to Mesopotamia, but it is not considered part of Mesopotamia as it forms its own river system.