World History › Section B · The first civilizations › Topic B.2

Ancient Mesopotamia

Between two unpredictable rivers grew some of the world's first cities, the earliest known writing and the first known empire, in a land the Greeks later named for its rivers. This topic follows Sumer's city-states, the invention of cuneiform, the rise and fall of empires, and the law code that lets us read their society today.

In this topic

  • The land between the rivers
  • Sumerian inventions
  • Cuneiform: writing on clay
  • Worked example: how did writing begin?
  • Gods, temples and the ziggurat
  • Lugals: kings by war and worship
  • Sargon and the first empire
  • Hammurabi and Old Babylon
  • Worked example: reading a law code as evidence
  • Economy, work and the afterlife
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Key takeaways

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