the story of writing astronomy and law
the story of civilization itself
begins in one place
not Egypt not Greece not Rome but
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is an
exceedingly fertile plain situated
between the Tigris and their Euphrates
rivers for five millennia the small
strip of land situated in what is today
Iraq Kuwait and Syria fostered
innovations that would change the world
forever inhabited for nearly 12,000
years mesopotamias stable climate rich
soil and steady supply of fresh water
made it ideal for agriculture to develop
and thrive about 6,000 years ago
aiming lees overnight some of these
agricultural settlements blossomed into
some of the world's first cities in the
period between 4,000 and 3100 BC
Mesopotamia was dotted with a
constellation of competing city-states
at one point they were unified under the
Akkadian Empire and then broke apart
forming the empires of Assyria and
Babylon despite near constant warfare
innovation and development thrived in
ancient Mesopotamia
they built on a monumental scale from
palaces to ziggurats mammoth temples
served as ritual locations to commune
with the gods they also developed
advanced mathematics including a base 60
system that created a 60-second minute a
60 minute hour and a 360 degree circular
angle the Babylonians used their
sophisticated system of mathematics to
map and study the sky they divided one
earth year into twelve periods each was
named after the most prominent
constellations in the heavens a
tradition later adopted by the Greeks to
create the zodiac they also divided the
week into seven days naming each after
their seven gods embodied by the seven
observable planets in the
guy but perhaps the most impactful
innovation to come out of Mesopotamia is
literacy what began as simple pictures
scrawled on to wet clay to keep track of
goods and wealth developed into a
sophisticated writing system by the Year
3200 BC this writing system would come
to be called cuneiform in modern times
improved so flexible that over the span
of three thousand years it would be
adapted for over a dozen different major
languages and countless uses including
recording the law of the Babylonian king
Hammurabi which formed the basis of a
standardized justice system but
Mesopotamia success became its undoing
babylon in particular proved too rich
estate to resist outside envy in 539 BC
the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon
and filled his control over the entirety
of Mesopotamia for centuries this area
became a territory of foreign empires
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eventually Mesopotamia would fade like
its Kings into the mists of history and
its cities would sink beneath the sands
of Iraq but its ideas would prevail in
literacy law math astronomy and the gift
of civilization itself
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