Sumer, Akkad, Babylon & Assyria are the out come of the first civilization which moved from prehistory to history in the Mesopotamia present Iraq. An advanced civilization flourished in Sumer long before that of Egypt, Greece & Rome. It is deep-rooted civilization had fostered humanity from its affluent fountain for thousands of years. Now Iraq contains the world's richest known archaeological sites.

Mesopotamia was a land of lush vegetation, abundant wildlife, & copious water resources. By 6000 B.C., many people migrated from neighboring areas into its water rich land where the Tigers meet Euphrates in the South.

The civilized life emerged in Sumer was shaped by the unpredictable devastating floods of the two rivers & the deposit of soil to make a low level fertile Marshy land.
For the first time in history, the Sumerian people learned to grow surplus food. As surplus production increased and as collective management became more advanced, a process of urbanization evolved and Sumerian civilization took root in the Southern Iraq.

The Sumerians were highly innovative people who responded creatively to the challenges of nature. They innovated many great legacies to the humanity, such as writing, irrigation, the wheel, astronomy, & literature.

The first letter in history was written in Sumer as a pictograms (simplified pictures on clay tablets), gradually they created the Cuneiform writing which contains phonetic & syllabic, elements providing a flexible way of communication. Through writing, the Sumerians were able to pass on knowlege & exprience to successive generations; this led to marked improvements in agricultural production & science advancment.

2. Literatures:

Recording of poetry, epics, events & history was started by the Sumerians. The famous Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh has survived in almost the complete form. Laden with complex abstractions & emotional expressions, the epic of Gilgamesh reflects the intellectual sophistication of the Sumerians, & it has served as the prototype for all Near Eastern inundation stories.

3. Religion:

The precariousness of existence in southern Mesopotamia led to a highly developed sense of religion. Cult centers like Eridu, 5000 B.C., served as important centers of pilgrimage & devotion. These cult centers emerged in most Sumerian cities, thus reinforcing the close relationship between communities & people with important political aspects. A powerful priesthood emerged to oversee ritual practices.
The priests ruled from the temples, (ziggurats) which were essentially artificial mountains of sun-baked brick, built with outside staircases that tapered toward a shrine at the top.

4. Civil Rules:

Sumerian considered that all properties belong to God & land rentals, agricultural questions, trade, commercial relations, & war were determined by law. Unlike Egypt where Pharaoh used to own every thing including the people & properties as the living God, in Sumer the Royalty were no difference from the people & they are questionable by them. The Summerian used to believe in private property & any one including the Royalty may bargain for their own goods. The Sumerian society was a "Matriarchal" & women had a highly respected place in the community.

5. The Math system:

The Sumerian care for the wellbeing of the community led to close observation of the scientific phenomena which led to innovation of the basic unit of calculation & numbers. They developed a math system based on the numeral (60) which is the basis of time in the modern world.

6. Time scale:

The concept of minutes & hour is Sumerian innovation. The first human calnder was the Sumerian Calnder.

7. Agricultural system:

The first land cultivated by a man was here in the South of Iraq. The Sumerians then developed a highly advanced agricultural system with refined irrigation & water-control systems which was spread to the near & far neighboring countries by the invented Sumerian writing.

8. City's plans:

In Sumer emerged for the first time city planning before building the cities. With advancement of this the Sumerian who lack stones built bricks & achieved marked advancement in the technologies of making bricks. They also the first to use these bricks for roads. Their big cities like Uruk, Eridu, Kish, Lagash, Agade, Akshak, Larsa, & Ur attracting many immigrant who are looking for more settled & prosperous life to go there. Ur was the birth place of Prophet Abraham (PUH) who is the Grand father of Prophet Mohammad (PUH).

9. The Wheel & Bronze:

Both were innovated by the Sumerian 3700 B.C & led to advancement in war & technology. They discovered that when Tin melted with Copper it produce Bronze which is stronger & on the same time more durable. The first war was fought there & since then may wars happened a long it history.

10. Role of peace:

Sargon 2334 BC, was the first king to send his troops as far as to Egypt & Ethiopia to unify the unsettled areas who used to fight for lands and water & to introduce law & prosperity by creating mass jobs for the people with large mobilization of laborer. Sargon created the first empire in the history. Wars then started to get more so often for the wealth of this region. With civilization law & roles get more advanced but the first written & well documented law was established by Hammurabi the King of Babylon to the North of Sumer.

11. Administrative structure:

This was innovated by Hammurabi to the North of Sumer (Babylon) but he later ruled over Sumer as well. It was the first complete written structure for civil life in the human history called the Cod of Law.

12. Banking activities:

Banking originated in Mesopotamia in Babylon first temples then palaces provided a safe place for the storage of valuables. Initially deposits of grain were accepted & later other goods including cattle, agricultural implements, then precious metals.

Sumer became the most prosperous region & the others start to battle it for the wealth like the Akkadians who are Semitic & migrated up from the Arabian Peninsula. When the two peoples clashed, the Sumerians gradually lost control over the city-states they had so brilliantly created and fell under the hegemony of the Akkadian kingdom, which was based in Akkad (Sumerian Agade). This great capital of the largest empire humans had ever seen up until that point that was later to become Babylon, which was the commercial and cultural center of the Middle East for almost two thousand years.
In 2125 BC, the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia rose up in revolt, & the Akkadian empire fell before a renewal of Sumerian city-states.

A dramatic growth in science & mathematics were then set up, like the great mathematical inventions of the division of the circle into 360 degrees and were among the first to invent longitude and latitude in geographical navigation by the Assyrians. The Mesopotamians also developed a sophisticated medical science, which greatly influenced medical science everywhere. They invented the first medical law which regulated for the first time in man history the practice of medicine & the responsibility of the practitioners for their own mistakes toward the patients & society. Hammurabi's law was the first to put rules of who should and how should medicine practiced.



Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), was the 6th king of Amorites in Babylon. Babylon comes from Bab-ili which means the "Gate of God". Babylonian rule encompassed a huge area covering most of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley from Sumer and the Persian Gulf in the south to Assyria in the north. Hammurabi united the land again after the fall of the great state of the Summerians & extends the empire from the Arabian Gulf to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Under Hammurabi's dynasty, (the First Dynasty of Babylon - 200 years), Babylonia entered into a period of extreme prosperity & relative peace. Throughout his long reign he personally supervised navigation, irrigation, agriculture, tax collection, & the erection of many temples & buildings. Although he was a successful military leader and administrator, Hammurabi is primarily remembered for his codification of the laws governing Babylonian life. Under Hammurabi the Assyrians & the Babylonians achieved complete harmonious fusion & peace.

Hammurabi was a great lawgiver. He introduced his Code of Law in the second year of his reign. It is considered the earliest legal comprehensive code known in history. Hammurabi recorded the law code on a block of black diorite 2.4 m (8 ft) high. This was discovered by a team of French archaeologists at Susa, Iraq, during the winter of 1901 & is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Many of his concepts were adopted by the other nations & used as principles of law in modern time like:

1. The state is the authority responsible for enforcing the law
2. Social justice should be guaranteed
3. The punishment should fit the crime
4. Legal protection should be provided to lower classes



As mentioned before the prosperity, peace, well advanced life & system led the others to fight many wars in that region but the Mesopotamian continued to make more advancement in all aspect of their life & system. In summary the following major events happened:

1. Around 1590 BC a Kassite tribes succeeded to control Babylonia & set itself as a dynasty.