MESOPOTAMIA

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, the other being Egypt. Both are established a little earlier than 3100 BC.

Unlike Egypt, where a stable society is established along hundreds of miles of the Nile, Mesopotamia will be characterized by constant warfare and a succession of shifting empires. Towns here shelter within thick protective walls.

Sumer and Gilgamesh: 3100-2500 BC

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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. The Sumerian temple priests, needing to keep accurate accounts, are the first people to develop a system ofwriting.

The region can also claim other significant innovations. The first knownpotter's wheel, dating from around this period, has been found in Mesopotamia. And a Sumerian ruler, the semi-historical Gilgamesh, is hero of the world's earliest surviving work of literature, theEpic of Gilgamesh.

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Gilgamesh is listed in later Sumerian records as the king of Uruk and builder of its great city wall. He may be largely legendary, but his city is real enough as an early centre of civilization. The wall, dating from a little after 3000 BC, is about six miles long. And it is from Uruk that the earliestwritten tabletssurvive.

Uruk is soon eclipsed by a neighbouring city state - that of Ur, famous later for its greatziggurat and (in the Bible) as the home of Abraham. The discovery of The royal cemetery at Ur has revealed an astonishing level of sophistication in objects created in around 2500 BC for the local ruling family. But in about 2300 BC both Ur and Uruk yield to a conqueror from beyond Sumer.

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