Är mesopotamien ett land

Vad är mesopotamien?

Equally, centripetal tendencies amongst city-states have meant that central authority over the whole region, when imposed, has tended to be ephemeral, and localism has fragmented power into tribal or smaller regional units. Mesopotamia [a] is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris—Euphrates river system , in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.

The documented record of actual historical events — and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia — commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings. In the Anabasis , Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria. Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the neighboring Armenian highlands.

In the long span of this period, Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed, and socially complex states. Today, Mesopotamia occupies modern Iraq. The area is generally lacking in building stone, precious metals, and timber, and so historically has relied upon long-distance trade of agricultural products to secure these items from outlying areas. 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.

Mesopotamien so-rummet

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. It became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of the region coming under ephemeral Roman control. This entire history ends with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 6th century BC or with the Muslim conquest and the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq.

The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of political authority. The demands for labor has from time to time led to population increases that push the limits of the ecological carrying capacity, and should a period of climatic instability ensue, collapsing central government and declining populations can occur.

Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and neglect of irrigation systems. Old Aramaic , which had already become common in Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire , and then the Achaemenid Empire : the official lect is called Imperial Aramaic.

Agriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent-dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats and later camels from the river pastures in the dry summer months, out into seasonal grazing lands on the desert fringe in the wet winter season. Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform , in the Uruk IV period c. It is recognised as the cradle of some of the world's earliest civilizations.

This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high peaks of the northern Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian Highlands, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that give the region its name. The Sumerians and Akkadians including Assyrians and Babylonians originating from different areas in present-day Iraq , dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history c. Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used in temples for some centuries.

Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10, 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 ". Akkadian came to be the dominant language during the Akkadian Empire and the Assyrian empires, but Sumerian was retained for administrative, religious, literary and scientific purposes.

Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. Different varieties of Akkadian were used until the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia. The region was one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valley in Ancient Egypt , the Indus Valley civilization in the Indian subcontinent , and the Yellow River in Ancient China.

The last Akkadian texts date from the late 1st century AD. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. The arid environment ranges from the northern areas of rain-fed agriculture to the south where irrigation of agriculture is essential if a surplus energy returned on energy invested EROEI is to be obtained. Scientists analysed DNA from the 8,year-old remains of early farmers found at an ancient graveyard in Germany.

Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. It is used throughout the Greek Septuagint c. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,square-kilometre 5, sq mi region of marshes, lagoons, mudflats, and reed banks in the south.

In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times and has added to the cultural mix. Periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation. They compared the genetic signatures to those of modern populations and found similarities with the DNA of people living in today's Turkey and Iraq.

Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk , Nippur , Nineveh , Assur and Babylon , as well as major territorial states such as the city of Eridu , the Akkadian kingdoms, the Third Dynasty of Ur , and the various Assyrian empires. The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian , an agglutinative language isolate.