CHAPTER 1A MESOPOTAMIA THE BIRTHPLACE OF CIVILIZATION The area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq is the site of ancient Mesopotamia birthplace of the world's first civilizations The name is Greek for land between the rivers As the muddy streams flooded and receded their silt built a plain with rich soil ideal for agriculture Tradition locates the biblical Garden of Eden in Mesopotamia The nomadic peoples of the Arabian Desert on the west and what are now Iran and Turkey on the east and north coveted the fertile river basin From the earliest times successive tribes swept into it and fought to possess it founding their nations and then falling in turn before more powerful foes Since 1840 groups of archaeologists have excavated sites in Mesopotamia and have found signs that there were primitive set tlements here as far back as 10 000 BC In about 3300 BC the Sumerians a non Semitic people from the east abandoned their wan dering tent dwelling existence and settled in IO
ESOPOTAMIA THE BRTHPACE OF CIVILIZATION As Mesopotamian people have been doing for thousands of years an Iraqi man collects the wheat harvest This field is near the marshes crossing the southern Iraqi town of al Axeir Essam Al Sudani AFP Getty Images an area called the Plain of Shinar Here they tilled the soil built houses and constructed irrigation systems draining marshes and dig ging canals dikes and ditches The need for cooperation on these large irrigation projects led to the growth of government and law The Sumerians are thus credited with forming the earliest of the major ancient civilizations of this region II
MesopoTMLA WIL This model represents an early brick dwelling from the ancient Mesopotamian settlement of Jericho around 5000 BC The walls are n of packed mud blocks made of fine clay mixed with straw SSPL via Getty Images GEOGRAPHY OF MESOPOTAMIA The flat Mesopotamian plain is very fertile The land was built up of mud and clay depos ited by two great rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates These twin rivers come down from mountains in the north cut southeastward through hilly grasslands and finally cross the plain they created to reach the Persian Gulf TGRIS RIVER The streams that join to form the Tigris River begin in high mountains that rim Lake I2
ESOPOTAMIA TuE BRTHPACE OF CIVILIZATION W Caspian Sea TURKEY SYRIA IR AN IRAQ Persian S AUDI ARABIA KUWAIT Gulf 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc This map shows the course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers AAA 13
