1 / 12

Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia. The history of the Middle East begins with the ancient civilizations living in Mesopotamia, an area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamia is famous as the site of some of the oldest civilizations in the world.

fayre
Download Presentation

Ancient Mesopotamia

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Ancient Mesopotamia

  2. Mesopotamia • The history of the Middle East begins with the ancient civilizations living in Mesopotamia, an area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. • Mesopotamia is famous as the site of some of the oldest civilizations in the world. • Writings from Mesopotamia are among the earliest known in the world, giving Mesopotamia a reputation of being the “Cradle of Civilization".

  3. Sumerians • Sumer formed the southern part of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. • One of the major cities in Sumer was Ur, the birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham. • Some of the earliest known forms of language and art • The Sumerians had the first recorded beliefs and the source for much of later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.

  4. Akkadians • Akkad was a city and its region of northern Mesopotamia, situated on the left bank of the Euphrates in modern day Iraq. • Sargon is traditionally cited as the first ruler of a combined empire of Akkad and Sumer

  5. Babylonians • Babylonia, named for the city of Babylon, was an ancient state in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. Its capital was Babylon. • Hammurabi (played an important role as a lawgiver) extended Babylon’s lands from the Persian Gulf to parts of Assyria before he died in 1750 BC. • Babylon’s first empire lasted almost 300 years when they were defeated by the Hittites.

  6. The Hittites • At its peak, it spread from Anatolia(Asia minor) and equaled territory equal to modern England and France put together. • The Hittites were destroyed by the Marauders, so much so that it took until the 19th century to rediscover their existence.

  7. The Assyrians • Common enemies of the Hittites and Egyptians, ruled Mesopotamia too. • They were a bloodthirsty peoples who commonly beheaded their enemies(shown in their art and writing) • (sheet)

  8. The Chaldeans/Neo-Babylonians • Babylon emerged as the center of a new empire in the late seventh century BC-Chaldeans(Semitic people related to Arabs and Jews) based themselves in the city and conquered lands stretching to the Mediterranean. • This empire was ruled by Nebuchadnezzar II who later conquered Jerusalem. • Babylonia as an empire fell in the Persian conquest of 539 to 538 BC, but the city of Babylon remained an urban center even in 323 BC, the year Alexander died there.

  9. The Persians • In 512 BC, Cyrus the Great, a young Persian King, got tired of paying tribute to the king of the Medes(powerful archers from Northern Iran) who was his grandfather. • He gathered up his troops and built the Achaemenid Persian Empire that would rule western Asia for two centuries. • Darius I built a 1,500-mile highway from Susa in Iran to Turkey with stations providing fresh horses for messengers. • Persia’s empire comes to an end by Alexander, later Mithradeates’(attempt to restore) and then Muslim Arabs

More Related