Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning 'between the
rivers'. The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates which flow through modern Iraq.
The Euphrates also flows through much of Syria
Visit
the British Museum
The word 'Mesopotamia' is in origin a Greek name (mesos
`middle' and 'potamos' - 'river' so `land between the rivers'). 'Mesopotamia'
translated from Old Persian Miyanrudan means "the fertile cresent". Aramaic name
being Beth-Nahrain "House of Two Rivers") and
in Arabic :ما بين النهرين .
Visit
the Metropolitan Museum
for comprehensive details on Mesopotamia.
Brief Timeline 4000-1000
BC
- 4000
Sumerians arrive in Mesopotamia.
- 3800
Sumerians supplant Ubaidians in Mesopotamia and start cities.
- 2800
Kish, the dominant city, challenged by Lagash; Semites dominate Kish.
- 2700
Sumerian King, Gilgamesh, rules the city of Uruk.
- 2340
Sargon (a Sumerian in the city of Kish) overthrows the Sumerian king of
Nippur. Sargon's new kingdom is called Akkad; Sargon extends his kingdom to
Syria.
- 2320
Sargon conquers Sumer.
- 2230
Akkadian dynasty ends.
- 2150
Nomadic Gutians overruns Akkadians and Sumer, but Sumer revives.
- 2130
Sumer regains independence from Akkadian rule.
- 2000
Hittites migrate to Asia Minor.
- 1950
Elamites from Zagros attack Sumer. They overrun the Syrian Amorites.
Amorites go to Babylon to create colonies with Ashur as center of a kingdom
that will be called Assyria.
- 1753
Ammorite King Hammurabi conquers all of Sumer. Hammurabi rules to 1750. His
empire lasts until 1600, when the Kassites conquer most of Mesopotamia.
- 1800
Kassites defeat the Babylonians.
- 1593
Hittites sack Babylon and end Hammurabi's dynasty.
- 1365
Ashur the Great, King of Assyria marries his daughter to a Babylonian.
- 1300 The
Assyrians control all of Mesopotamia.
- 1200
Hittites' capital Hattusas is wiped out (plague); Phrygians move in.
- 1000
Assyrian Empire.
Map of Modern Iraq
The Iraqi
Flag Story 
The Birth of modern Iraq
