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Between the rivers: 4500-3100 BC
From about 4500 BC there are settlements on the edges of the marshes where the Tigris and the Euphrates reach the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the region between these two rivers, will be the area of one of the world's first two civilizations. -
Between the rivers: 4500-3100 BC
From about 4500 BC there are settlements on the edges of the marshes where the Tigris and the Euphrates reach the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the region between these two rivers, will be the area of one of the world's first two civilizations. -
Sumer and Gilgamesh: 3100-2500 BC
Sumer, close to the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates, is where the first Mesopotamian towns develop. Each grows up round a local temple, which acts as the centre of the region's economic activity. -
Sumer and Gilgamesh: 3100-2500 BC
Sumer, close to the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates, is where the first Mesopotamian towns develop. Each grows up round a local temple, which acts as the centre of the region's economic activity. -
Sargon and Akkad: c.2350 BC
He gradually conquers the Sumerian cities - first Kish, then Uruk, then Ur - before founding a capital city of his own, Akkad. He then adopts a new title, 'King of the Nation'. -
Baghdad: 8th century
the Arabic and early Persian languages coalesce to become, from the 10th century, what is now known as Persian - combining words from both sources and using the Arabic script. -
From the 9th century
From the 9th century the rule of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad is often, in many parts of the Muslim world, more nominal than real. -
The slow end 10th and 16th century
There are times in the 10th century when the caliphs have little power outside the confines of Baghdad itself, but from the 11th century their prestige is to some degree restored. -
The slow end 10th and 16th century
It is said that 800,000 of the inhabitants are killed -
15th - 20th century
Mesopotamia is now a border of a region -
Maespotamia 1914-1916
The date, 22 November 1915, is exactly a year after the successful capture of Basra -
Maespotamia 1914-1916
The date, 22 November 1915, is exactly a year after the successful capture of Basra -
Mesopotamia 1914-1916
Yet this history is not complete -
Babylon, Assyria and others: from 2200 BC
Over the next 1500 years or more, Mesopotamia goes through many periods of chaos, with small city states struggling for power or for survival. But there are also times of imperial stability, when centralized control is reestablished.