Mesopotamia is the region defined by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers extending from the Taurus Mountains of Asia Minor on the north, to the Persian Gulf on the south. This region (located mostly in present-day Iraq) is known in the Hebrew Scriptures as Paddan (Genesis 48:7 NASB) or Paddanaram, “land of Aram,” (Genesis 25:20 NASB at the marginal note) and also Aram–naharaim, “Aram of the two rivers,” (Genesis 24:10 NASB; Deuteronomy 23:4 NASB; Judges 3:8-10 NASB at the marginal note). Arabs refer to this region as Al-Jazira. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia (3300-1200 BCE) included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. In the Iron Age (1200-586 BCE), it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires.
The indigenous Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (ca. 3100 BCE) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE, when conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE when he overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world. About 500 BCE the Persian Empire extended from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece. The Mesopotamian region fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. After his death it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.
The invention of cuneiform script occurred early in Mesopotamia’s history (around the mid-4th millennium BCE). The word “cuneiform” refers to the wedge-shaped characters produced by the triangular tip of the stylus utilized in impressing signs on wet clay. Cuneiform signs evolved from the use of pictograms or pictographs (pictures which resemble what they signify) in communicating. The hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians are an example of communicating by pictographs.
The earliest known cuneiform texts were found at Uruk in a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna. The vast number of extant cuneiform tablets are records of commercial transactions (necessity is the mother of invention). The development of early cuneiform signs took a long time to evolve into a logographic system of cuneiform script. There remains an abundant supply of untranslated cuneiform records.
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