The Land Between the Rivers

Mesopotamia was an ancient region of Western Asia. It lay between and around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Today, most of it is now the country of Iraq. There are some river valleys like the Nile where yearly flooding is predictable. This was not the case for Mesopotamian rivers. The currents were more violent. That meant people living there had to work harder to produce food. Also, resources like wood were rare. This meant that societies in Mesopotamia had to trade or fight with each other to get the resources they needed.

Five thousand years ago, Mesopotamia was a land of city-states.¹ Most people lived in walled cities under the rule of a king. There were dozens of city-states. They were often at war with each other. Around 2334 BCE, the city of Akkad grew strong enough to start conquering the others.

Five-thousand-year-old text messages!

Before 3000 BCE, the cities of Mesopotamia were mostly Sumerian. Sumerian was the major language of Mesopotamia until this time. It was also the world’s first written language. The Sumerians developed a system of writing called cuneiform.

Around 3000 BCE, a new people arrived in northern Mesopotamia. They spoke a Semitic language.² We call them Akkadians. The name comes from the city they built, Akkad. The Akkadians ruled history’s first empire. An empire is a political system in which a strong central state controls weaker states around it. A bunch of different ancient empires rose in Mesopotamia because it was pretty easy to get to. By contrast, the Nile river valley was surrounded by desert and hard to reach. This is why Mesopotamia was home to the first empires. It was a bunch of separate city-states on fertile land that was easy to march an army across.

The Akkadians

Akkad first became an empire under its king Sargon. In 2334 BCE, Sargon began conquering weaker city-states. Sargon created the world’s first full-time army. This army had around 5,400 soldiers. It allowed Sargon to build the world’s first empire. His empire ran from the Persian Gulf to Turkey.

The Akkadian Empire did not last long. It fell apart soon after Sargon’s death. Mesopotamia then returned to being a group of warring city-states. But before long, another empire arose.

The Assyrians

The Assyrian Empire followed the Akkadian Empire. It was much longer-lived. It lasted from 2025 to 609 BCE. Historians divide the Assyrian empire into three parts: “Old Kingdom,” “Middle Empire,” and “Neo-Assyrian Empire.”³ For about 1,400 years, the Assyrian Empire controlled Mesopotamia.

The Assyrian Empire began with the city of Asur. At first, this city was ruled by Akkad. After the Akkadian empire fell, Asur won control over several nearby cities. One of these was Nineveh. In time, Nineveh became the Assyrian capital.

By the seventh century BCE, the Assyrians ruled a huge empire. It stretched from Egypt to Iran.

Empire and power, violence and management

The Assyrians were really good at war. They were also merciless. They destroyed cities and killed people in horrible ways. One example of this is that when they conquered a new place, the Assyrians stole religious statues from temples and brought them home. This practice of “godnapping” was meant to lower the confidence of conquered peoples.

They also moved conquered people around their empire. Moving conquered people to new areas made cities less unified. That made them less likely to rebel and easier to rule.

The Assyrians closely managed the areas they conquered. They appointed Assyrians to govern conquered cities. This allowed them to keep their control over distant areas.

Production, women, and enslavement

Women had less power than men in Mesopotamian (both Akkadian and Assyrian) society. Most worked in the home. Still, some did hold political power. The Assyrian Empire had at least one female ruler. Women known as sakintus helped run the emperor’s palace.

Both the Akkadians and the Assyrians had slaves. They enslaved their prisoners of war. These slaves did all kinds of work.

Trade networks

The Akkadian and Assyrian empires started for the same reason. Their rulers wanted to control more trade routes. Both Akkad and Asur were inland cities. They were far from any of the major trading ports. Through conquest, they took over important trading centers. They also gained access to the sea.

The Mesopotamian empires traded with distant societies. Not only goods moved along trade routes. New ideas and new technology did too. Assyrian advances in ironworking spread through trade. So did the use of cuneiform.

Conclusion: The land between the empires

Sooner or later, all empires fall. They might last for 100 years or 1,000. But they all end.

The Akkadian Empire only lasted for around 150 years. Why did it fall so quickly? Archaeologists blame dust. Years of dry and dusty weather brought down the mighty Akkadian empire. Dust and drought made farming almost impossible.

The Assyrian Empire fell for a different reason. It simply grew too large. The high cost of running such a huge empire made it fall apart from within. Many empires since then have met with the same end.

1 A city-state is a political system. It consists of a city and the surrounding land under its control. City-states can be ruled by a government or a single ruler.
2 Semitic languages are a family of languages. Today, some are still spoken widely. Among these are Arabic and Hebrew. Assyrian, of course, is no longer spoken.
3 Neo is just a fancy way to say “new.”