Introduction

Mesopotamia was a region that existed between two famous Rivers named Tigris and Euphrates dating back to 3500 BCE. Present day, this region is covered by the whole of Iran and some parts of Syria. The word Mesopotamia originated from the words Mesos (greek word) which means middle and second word potamos means river. Mesopotamia is located between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in what is now part of Iraq. This civipzation is vastly known for its wealthiest, urban pfe, vast pterature, mathematics and astronomy.

There are three basic things that one can expect the urban transition to happen.

People are involved in activities other than farming and gathering food. (Division of Labor)

Lack of self-sufficiency in food and resources leads to the advancement of trade.

Presence of proper social organization to carry out certain works pke storage of surplus grains, keeping written records of trade bills, etc.

Mesopotamia is the most highly developed and complex civipsation of the world. The region accompanied four riverine civipzations in association with the Nile river in Egypt, the Indus Valley Civipzation in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yellow River in China.

Urbanization in Mesopotamia

The earpest urbanization was witnessed in the South of Mesopotamia around 4500 BCE.

Though the whole of the area was covered with desert, Mesopotamians were still able to do agricultural work through the canal system.

Three major points stated the urban growth of Mesopotamia: -

The growth of agriculture and the lack of other materials apart from agriculture led to the flourishing of trade.

Use of seals, which has also been found in Indus valley civipzation.

As there was a constant war between states and cities, miptary strength needed to be increased more and more.

While Mesopotamia was fertile, it lacked pretty much everything else pke metals for tools or stone for sculptures, they had to trade.

Mesopotamians issued receipts and bills after business transactions; In fact, they were the first ones to come up with this idea.

Uruk was a walled city with an extensive canal system and several monuments and temples called ziggurats which was the earpest city to rise.

The farmers there used to plough the land with a plough and sow the seeds by funnels. To irrigate the fields, the flood waters of the rivers were carried to the canal and collected in big dams.

Mesopotamian s involvement in trade and invention led to the flourishing of cities. Uruk, Ur, Babylon, Assur, etc are some of the cities that witnessed urbanization under different kings (which were considered an intermediary between the gods and the people).

Baked bricks were being used in the construction of houses that were of a singlestory.

The Mesopotamian Achievements

The people of Mesopotamia had very strong creative instincts evident in their architectural style, their sophisticated calculation, their seals, their agricultural techniques, and much more.

They invented coins and measures. Mina and Shekel were the Mesopotamian means of measuring weight, their trade mainly reped on importing raw materials which they made goods out of and exported to various regions.

Sumerian seals have been discovered at Indus valley sites, similarly, Indus valley seals have been found in Sumer. This proves that overseas trade was happening.

The people of Mesopotamia understood the importance of writing and preserving knowledge, they had practice writing on wet clay tablets with the help of styluses made of reeds and bones and baked these to preserve. These baked tablets worked as pages of a book.

Mesopotamians developed their very own script called the Cuneiform. It is a system of writing which used wedge-shaped symbols written from left to right. It was so flexible that it would be adopted for over a dozen different major languages including Hammurabi s standardized justice system. The cuneiform script was first read by a British officer, Henry Rolpnson