Ancient Iraq: THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION - World Documentary Channel

Mesopotamia; Syriac: is a name for the location of the Tigris-- Euphrates river system, representing modern Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern area of Syria as well as to a much lesser level southeastern Turkey and smaller parts of southwestern Iran.
Widely thought about to be the cradle of world in the West, Bronze Age Mesopotamia consisted of Sumer and also the Akkadian, Babylonian, and also Assyrian realms, all belonging to the region of modern Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian realms. The indigenous Sumerians as well as Akkadians (consisting of Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia initially of written record (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It dropped to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and also after his death, it entered into the Greek Seleucid Empire.
Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthians. Mesopotamia came to be a battlefield in between the Romans and also Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman command.

Ancient Iraq: THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION

The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the old Greek root words (meso) "mid" and (potamia) "stream" as well as essentially indicates "(Land) between streams". It is made use of throughout the Greek Septuagint (ca. 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. An even earlier Greek use of the name Mesopotamia appears from the Anabasis Alexandri, which was written in the late 2nd century AD, but particularly refers to sources from the moment of Alexander the Great. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to mark the land eastern of the Euphrates in n. Syria. The Aramaic term biritum/birit narim represented a similar geographical principle. Later on, the term Mesopotamia was more usually used to all the lands in between the Euphrates as well as the Tigris, thereby integrating not only parts of Syria yet also mostly all of Iraq as well as southeastern Turkey. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and also the western part of the Zagros Mountains are additionally frequently included under the larger term Mesopotamia. An additional distinction is usually made between Upper or Northern Mesopotamia and also Lower or Southern Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, additionally called the Jezirah, is the location between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia includes southerly Iraq, Kuwait and also components of western Iran. In modern-day scholastic use, the term Mesopotamia usually also has a chronological undertone. It is generally made use of to mark the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jezirah, as well as Iraq being made use of to describe the region then day. It has actually been suggested that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms credited to the area in the middle of numerous 19th-century Western infringements.