| The word "Mesopotamia" is in origin a Greek name | | | | influence on the society is manifested by a change in |
| (mesos ‘middle' and potamos ‘river', so ‘land | | | | type of personal names. Sometimes the names are |
| between the rivers'). The name is used for the area | | | | the only remains of their original language. In their new |
| watered by the Euphrates and Tigris and its tributaries, | | | | positions, they often stimulate further cultural |
| roughly comprising modern Irak and part of Syria. | | | | development. |
| South of modern Baghdad, the alluvial plains of the | | | | Akkadians, speaking a Semitic language, may have |
| rivers were called the land of Sumer and Akkad in the | | | | been present in Mesopotamia since the time the |
| third millennium. Sumer is the most southern part, while | | | | Sumerians arrived, or they may have diffused into the |
| the land of Akkad is the area around modern | | | | region later. Their culture intermingled and they must |
| Baghdad, where the Euphrates and Tigris are close to | | | | have been living peacefully together. On Sumerian clay |
| each other. In the second millennium, both regions | | | | tablets dated around 2900-2800 BCE found in Fara, |
| together are called Babylonia, a mostly flat country. | | | | Semitic (Akkadian) names are attested for the first |
| The territory in the north is called Assyria, with the city | | | | time. It concerns the names of kings in the city Kish. |
| Assur as center. It borders to the mountains. | | | | Kish is in the north of Babylonia where according to |
| Two cultural groups form the principle elements in the | | | | the Sumerian King Lists `kingship descended again |
| population of Mesopotamia before the beginning of | | | | from heaven' after the great Flood. The proper names |
| history and in the millennium thereafter (the 3rd | | | | often contain animal names like zuqiqïpum `scorpion' |
| millennium BCE). These are the Sumerians and the | | | | and kalbum `dog'. Kings with Semitic names are the |
| Akkadians. They lived peacefully together and created | | | | first postdiluvial kings to rule Kish. They started the first |
| in mutual fertilization, by symbiosis and osmosis, the | | | | historical period called the Early Dynastic Period. |
| conditions for a common high civilization. Mesopotamian | | | | A few centuries later the first Akkadian king Sargon of |
| sources in all periods seem to be free of strong racial | | | | Akkad ruled over an empire that included a large part |
| ideologies or ethnic stereotypes. Enemies, both groups | | | | of Mesopotamia. Apparently, Semitic speaking people |
| and individuals, may be cursed and reviled heavily, but | | | | have lived for centuries amidst the Sumerians and |
| this applies more strongly to the ruler of a nearby city | | | | gradually became an integral part of the Sumerian |
| than to one of a remote territory. | | | | culture. We do not hear much about them in the first |
| (Semi-) nomads in the Near East. Even at the time that | | | | part of the third millennium, because the (scholarly) |
| a large part of the population in Mesopotamia had a | | | | language used in writing is Sumerian. |
| sedentary (non-migratory) life in settlements; large | | | | Mesopotamia has no natural boundaries and is difficult |
| groups of people (nomads) at the same time are | | | | to defend. The influence of neighboring countries is |
| migrating. Nomads roam from place to place in search | | | | large. Throughout the history of Mesopotamia trade |
| for pasture and moving with the season. Semi-nomads | | | | contacts, slow diffusion of foreign tribes and military |
| graze their small livestock near the fields of the | | | | confrontations have been of great influence. |
| settlements, often trading for goods obtained | | | | In the west: city of Ebla, the discovery in the third |
| elsewhere and having all kinds of other interactions. | | | | millennium city Ebla took Assyriology by surprise. The |
| This characteristic is still present in the Near East | | | | extent of the Sumerian culture in the third millennium |
| today. Nomads leave little archeological trace and are | | | | was not known, but not expected to go so far west. |
| illiterate, so not much is known about them by direct | | | | Ebla is situated at Tell Mardikh 65 km south of Aleppo |
| means. However, some description does appear in | | | | in Syria and appeared to be an urban culture in the |
| written form: recorded by the Sumerians and later by | | | | middle of the 3rd millennium in the far west of |
| the Akkadians. Some of the (semi-)nomads, either as | | | | Mesopotamia. The site shows impressive archeological |
| individuals or as groups, mix with the sedentary | | | | remains (royal palace) and has a rich archive of |
| population or become sedentary themselves. In times | | | | cuneiform tablets, which attests a new (western) |
| of political or economical crisis, they may do so by | | | | Semitic language (called Eblaite) different from and |
| force, but they adapt quickly to the current civilization | | | | even slightly older than Old Akkadian. |
| and even to the dominant language. Their increased | | | | |