Ancient Mesopotamia | Early Civilizations | World History | Khan Academy

In other videos, we talk about how 10 to 15,000 years ago, you have the emergence of agriculture primarily around river valleys. It's no surprise that agriculture first came about around river valleys because the rivers would flood, making the soil around them fertile. They would provide fresh water for crops and for the people who would live near them. Later on, the rivers could be useful for transporting things like crops. So, it's not surprising that our first significant civilizations also emerged where the first agriculture emerged.

Our first civilizations we'll see in ancient Egypt along the Nile. We will see it in the Indus Valley along the Indus River. We'll see it in China along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, and we'll also see it in Mesopotamia along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. What we're going to focus on in this video in particular is Mesopotamia. Now, the word Mesopotamia literally comes from "mesos" (between) and "poes" (I'm probably not pronouncing it right) Rivers. So, the area between rivers is literally what Mesopotamia is referring to, and it's primarily modern-day Iraq.

Now, the reason why this is particularly interesting, and it's called the cradle of civilization, is not only is it one of, or perhaps the first place that agriculture developed, it was at the crossroads of many other early civilizations. Notice it's right in between the Indus Valley civilization here and then the ancient Egyptians and other civilizations that were emerging in the area. So, it's not surprising that this was a geography that had significant developments in terms of technology, in terms of architecture, in terms of religion, and in terms of writing.

The first civilization we believe that emerged in Mesopotamia are the Sumerians. Sumerians and Sumer, and Sumerians are most associated with this region right over here. Let me circle it. This region right over here of southern Mesopotamia, and we currently think that this civilization started to emerge around 4,000 BCE. You can see it on this timeline here in orange. They developed things as basic as the wheel. The first wheel that was ever discovered was 3500 BCE in Sumeria. They are famous for their architectural structures.

This is a picture here of a ziggurat, which was at the center of many of the Sumerian and, as we'll see, Mesopotamian cities. This would have required an incredible amount of labor to produce, and at the top of these, they had temples to their gods. Their gods took human form. Also, in amongst the Sumerians is where we think one of the first written languages developed. It wasn't the first; you also have the Egyptian hieroglyphics. We think written language emerged amongst the Hurrians, the Indus Valley civilization, and amongst the Chinese. But it was one of the first languages.

This right over here is an example of a cuneiform tablet. This is a cuneiform tablet written in the script cuneiform developed by these ancient Sumerians. Now, when you talk about Mesopotamia, you'll talk about Sumerians, but we'll also talk about other civilizations that emerge. In particular, let me write them all down. You have the Sumerians, you'll also hear something called Akkadian, and as we'll see, Akkadian is both a language and an empire that will emerge in Mesopotamia over the roughly 3,000 years BCE.

The two primary languages are Akkadian, which is considered a Semitic language. It's related to modern Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew. The reason why they're called Semitic is because they're purported to be spoken by the descendants of Shem, who was Noah's son in the Hebrew Bible. So, you have the language Akkadian, which is Semitic, and then you have the other language, which is Sumerian.

As we get into the third millennium BCE, the Sumerians start to have a lot of interaction with Akkadian-speaking people. Akkadian-speaking people are initially associated primarily with northern Mesopotamia, and we believe the first true empire, perhaps the first empire in the world, emerged from Akkadia, and it was called the Akkadian Empire. If we scroll down over here, we can see how the Akkadian Empire spread. We believe that the town of Akkad, which the Akkadian Empire is named for, is someplace in this region right over here.

The first significant ruler who really spread that empire was Sargon, often referred to as Sargon the Great. You can see that this would have been established around the middle of the 23rd, or actually the 24th century BCE. So, around 2350, you have Sargon establishing what might be the first dynastic empire in the world, the Akkadian Empire. He was able to take control of both northern and southern Mesopotamia. So, even the Sumerians were under the control of the Akkadians.

As we'll see, over time, you have a lot of mixing between the Akkadian language and the Sumerian language. Akkadian gets written in the cuneiform script, and starting at around this period, Sumerian starts to die as a spoken language, and Akkadian really becomes dominant. Now, the Akkadians ruled for a little over a hundred years, and then you have several other empires.

It can get confusing. The way I've structured this timeline is this top line right over here is southern Mesopotamia, and this bottom line right over here is northern Mesopotamia. This orange shows you where the Sumerians were reigning. Some people think that they might have been the first empire. This bottom line here, you can see the Akkadian speakers, but they were fragmented until you have Sargon the Great establishing the Akkadian Empire.

Now, you briefly then have a short-term Neo-Sumerian Empire, but the next significant empire that's often talked about when associated with Mesopotamia is the Babylonian Empire. Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, was centered at Babylon right over here, and it really became a significant empire under the ruler Hammurabi. Hammurabi is perhaps most known; you can see how he was able to spread the empire. The dark brown is what he had with his empire when he took rule, and the light brown is what he was able to spread, once again, both north and south.

He's perhaps most famous for his famous Code of Hammurabi, which is depicted here. It wasn't the first written code, but it was one of the earliest, and you could view it as almost like a proto-constitution. It was based on things that the Sumerians had before, but they even influenced things like biblical laws, things that come down to modern codes of law today.

Now, after the Babylonians, the other significant empire that would have control over significant portions of Mesopotamia is the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian Empire is named for their, I guess you could say, their home base, the town of Assur. You can see it on this map here when we showed the Akkadian Empire. Both the Babylonians and the Assyrians were Akkadian-speaking.

As we get into the later Assyrian period, we'll start to have Aramaic be a more significant language, another Semitic language. But as you can see here, the Assyrian Empire at its peak controlled much of the modern-day Middle East.

Now, the Assyrian Empire would eventually collapse in the 7th century BCE and would be taken over by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. I have a map of that right over here, which also controlled much of the modern Middle East. Probably the most famous ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was Nebuchadnezzar II, from the Hebrew Bible, famous for taking the early Jewish people captive, the famous Babylonian captivity.

But eventually, they would be overthrown—in fact, they were overthrown in the 6th century BCE by the Persians and Cyrus the Great. That will actually be the end of the Babylonian captivity according to biblical accounts.

But the big picture is that Mesopotamia is called the cradle of civilization for good reason. Not only do we have these technological and architectural advancements, their religion, their writing has influenced civilization since, for the last five, six, seven thousand years.

Well, I'll say definitely the last 5,000 years, and a lot of these ideas that came out of Mesopotamia—like written codes of law and the technologies and all the rest—follow with us today.