Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia[a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq.[1][2]
In the broader sense, the historical region included present-day Iraq and parts of present-day Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey.[3][4]
The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians), each originating from different areas, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of recorded history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire.
Mesopotamia was next conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.
Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC.
It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture".
It is recognised as the cradle of some of the world's earliest civilizations.[5]
Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire.
It became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of the region coming under ephemeral Roman control.
In 226 AD, the eastern regions of Mesopotamia fell to the Sassanid Persians.
The division of the region between the Roman (Byzantine Empire from 395 AD) and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines.
A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra.
Etymology
The regional toponym Mesopotamia (/ˌmɛsəpəˈteɪmiə/,
Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία '[land] between rivers';
Arabic: بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن Bilād ar-Rāfidayn or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن Bayn an-Nahrayn;
Persian: میانرودان miyân rudân;
Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈
ܝܢ Beth Nahrain "(land) between the (two) rivers") comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος (mesos, 'middle') and ποταμός (potamos, 'river')[6] and translates to '(land) between rivers', likely being a calque of the older Aramaic term, with the Aramaic term itself likely being a calque of the Akkadian birit narim.
It is used throughout the Greek Septuagint (c. 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim.
An even earlier Greek usage of the name Mesopotamia is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander, which was written in the late 2nd century AD but specifically refers to sources from the time of Alexander the Great.
In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.
The Akkadian term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept.[7]
Later, the term Mesopotamia was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey.[8]
The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia.[9][10][11]
A further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia.[2]
Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad.[9]
Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran.[2]
In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation.
It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazira, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date.[8][12]
It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments.[12][13]
After the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian people for a few decades before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the town of Babylon.