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Mesopotamia was known in antiquity as a seat of learning, and it is believed that Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE, known as the 'first philosopher') studied there. As the Babylonians believed that water was the 'first principle' from which all else flowed, and as Thalesis famous for that very claim, it seems probable he studied in the region. Inte...

Men and women both worked, and “because ancient Mesopotamia was fundamentally an agrarian society, the principal occupations were growing crops and raising livestock” (Bertman, 274). Other occupations included those of the scribe, the healer, artisan, weaver, potter, shoemaker, fisherman, teacher, and priest or priestess. Bertman writes: Women enjo...

The temple, at the center of every city (known as a ziggurat, a step-pyramid structure indigenous to the region), symbolized the importance of the city's patron deity who would also be worshipped by whatever communities that city presided over. Every city had its own ziggurat (larger cities, more than one) to honor their patron deity. Mesopotamia g...

The history of the region, and the development of the civilizations which flourished there, is most easily understood by dividing it into periods: Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age Also known as The Stone Age (c. 10,000 BCE though evidence suggests human habitation much earlier). There is archaeological confirmation of crude settlements and early signs of ...

The legacy of Mesopotamia endures today through many of the most basic aspects of modern life such as the sixty-second minute and the sixty-minute hour. Helen Chapin Metz writes, Urbanization, the wheel, writing, astronomy, mathematics, wind power, irrigation, agricultural developments, animal husbandry, and the narratives which would eventually be...