Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, was the fertile river plain where civilization was born and where writing first appeared. Southern Mesopotamia was under the control of a series of kings from 3000 B.C. to the 6th century B.C. In its early history, Mesopotamia was a collection of agricultural city-states. These later gave way to centrally controlled empires which spread through conquest.
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| Gudea of Lagash |
Dragon of Marduk |
The Kingdom of Assyria
The northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria, in existence by 1500 B.C., would become a great empire between the 9th and the 7th centuries B.C. The kings of this mountainous region were conquerors who led their armies on an endless succession of foreign campaigns and celebrated their success by building and decorating enormous stone palaces. Royal archives of inscribed clay tablets have left us a vast encyclopedia of Mesopotamian history.
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| Tiglath-Pileser III Receiving Homage | Eagle-Headed Deity |
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Vase |
Glazed Brick Representing a Birdman |
© 2000 The Detroit Institute of Arts
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