Abstract: Mesopotamia is the Greek name for the 'Land between the Rivers', the region bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates, which now lies within the modern countries of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The southern alluvial plains within this region were known variously as Sumer and Akkad, Karduniash or Babylonia, while the northern steppe was Subartu, Hanigalbat, or Assyria. At times the two areas were grouped together as the Four Quarters, meaning the entirety of the then-known world. But it is as Mesopotamia that this region has become firmly embedded in archaeological literature and discourse, by way of scholars embedded in Biblical and Classical traditions. The archaeological record of Mesopotamia comprises Palaeolithic through Islamic occupations, but this entry will focus on the periods for which Mesopotamia is best known and most significant: c. 3500–539 BC. These millennia see urban society, nation-states and empires, literature and legal documents, monumental architecture, mass production, and fine art. The legacy of Mesopotamian culture persists; for instance, we owe our divisions of the hour and day to the Sumerian sexagesimal numbering system, and Mesopotamian mathematicians and astronomers are indirectly responsible for much of our understanding of geometry and constellations.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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