Thousands of years ago, the agricultural revolution of the Neolithic age precipitated the rise of human civilization in the hospitable climes of the Fertile Crescent. The sedentary peoples of Mesopotamia, especially the ancient Sumerians, required rapidly increasing levels of social coordination to utilize the sporadic flooding of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, a need that could only be accommodated by implementation of a governmental structure. Surplus crop yields generated by the organizational success of this primitive government allowed for the presence of specialists in Sumerian society, which in turn led to great technological developments, the most important of which was a system of writing using phonetic characters. Gradually, cultural elements unique to the Sumerians, such as their shared religion and heroic epics, acted to unite the once-isolated cities of Southern Mesopotamia into a single people.
The unquestioned authority of the local Sumerian rulers, maintained for centuries, was broken by Sargon, ruler of Akkad, in 2340 B.C.E. His army of professional soldiers, one of the earliest of its kind, swept north from the Arab
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After Ashurbanipal’s death, the Assyrian empire was destroyed when Nabopolassar of Babylon led a great uprising which culminated in the destruction of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Nebuchadnezzar was also a great military commander, conquering the kingdoms of Phoenicia and Judah, and leading a staunch defense of his homeland from Egyptian and Syrian invasions. In the wake of Nebuchadnezzar’s death, however, religious tensions with the defeated Assyrians worked to undermine the Neo-Babylonian empire. , who altered the traditional pantheon of Babylonian gods by placing the Assyrian moon god, Sin, above Marduk in importance and influence. A great literary achievement of the Amorites is their translation and compilation of the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh.
Indo-European conquerors, namely the Hittites and Kassites, held dominion over the Babylonian peoples for nearly four hundred years until the rapid expansion of the warlike Assyrians from Northern Mesopotamia. The malcontented clergy of Babylon, distressed at the corruption of their ancient faith, surrendered the city to the Persians in 539 B. The Assyrians were the first to divide the circle into 360 degrees, and also devised the use of longitude and latitude in geographical navigation. Perhaps most notable is the contribution made by the Amorites in the realm of law: their greatest ruler, Hammurabi (c. invasion of the Hittites ended the great and thriving Amorite empire.
Approximate Word count =
770
Approximate Pages =
3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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