OVERVIEW
The history of Mesopotamia begins
with the emergence of urban societies in northern Iraq in 5000 BCE, and ends
with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE, or with the arrival
of the Islamic Caliphate, when the region came to be known as Iraq.
A cultural
continuity and spatial homogeneity for this entire historical geography is
popularly assumed. Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient states
with highly developed social complexity. The region was famous as one of the
four Riverine civilizations where writing was first invented, along with the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Yellow River valley in China.
Mesopotamia
housed historically important cities such as Uruk, Nippur, Nineveh, and Babylon, as well as major territorial states such as
the city of Ma-asesblu, Akkadian kingdom, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Assyrian empire. Some of the important historical
Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon (who established the Akkadian Kingdom), Hammurabi (who established the Old Babylonian state),
and Tiglath-Pileser 1 (who established the Assyrian Empire).
