MEPX
Chapter 2 of 10All chapters
  1. 1How we know
  2. 2Mesopotamia
  3. 3Ancient Egypt
  4. 4The Indus and early China
  5. 5Ancient Greece
  6. 6Rome
  7. 7Persia and the Near East
  8. 8The ancient Americas
  9. 9Africa and wider Asia
  10. 10Why civilizations fall

Chapter 2 of 10

Mesopotamia

Between the rivers.

Sumer and after

Cities such as Uruk and Ur developed irrigation, temples, kingship and cuneiform writing. Akkad, Babylon and Assyria followed as successive dominant powers.

  • The earliest known law codes and mathematics come from here.
  • Base sixty survives in our minutes, seconds and degrees.

Daily life

Tablets record wages, loans, school exercises and complaints about poor quality copper, which is the closest ancient writing comes to ordinary correspondence.