Summary
Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the site of the world's first stable civilizations, including Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria. As people settled permanently along the Fertile Crescent, they built irrigation systems to bring water to crops and constructed levees as protection against the flooding rivers. For the first time, humans had some control over the natural world around them, providing them with the stability and time needed to develop governments, religion, and legendary heroes such as Gilgamesh. As various city-states sprang up along the rivers, the first trade routes were laid among them. Cuneiform, the first writing system, eventually developed into various dialects and spread throughout western Asia and beyond. Although the empires of ancient Mesopotamia ended with the Persian conquest in the sixth century BCE, their importance cannot be underestimated. From a legal system to a school system, these ancient inhabitants of modern-day Iraq pioneered the groundwork that forms the basis for modern societies.
Featuring full-color photographs and maps, summaries of key people and key sites, primary source documents, a chronology, glossary, bibliography, and up-to-date further resources, Empires of Ancient Mesopotamia, Third Edition details the development of this area, the growth of its city-states, the daily life of its peoples, and how their influence is still felt today.
About the Author(s)
Barbara A. Somervill is a professional children's nonfiction writer. Her numerous published works include biographies of Carrie Chapman Catt, Ida Tarbell, Franklin Pierce, and Mary McLeod Bethune, as well as a history of Korea for young adults. She has also written Empire of the Incas and Empire of the Aztecs in the Great Empires of the Past series, Amistad: Fighting for Freedom, and Brown v. the Board of Education. Somervill is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the North Carolina Writer's Network.
Historical consultant Leslie Schramer received her Masters Degree in Mesopotamian Archaeology from the University of Chicago in 2003. She has been editor of Serial Publications in the Publications Office at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago since 2005. The Oriental Institute is a world-renowned publisher of books on the Near East, from Libya to Iran.