Mesopotamia (or Iraq) is the land between two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. It does not have such great floods as Egypt because these rivers start in the mountains of Armenia, in Asia Minor, where there is less rain than in central and eastern Africa where the river Nile begins. The people who became settlers in Mesopotamia therefore found another way of watering their crops. They caused the river to flow to the fields in waterways cut in the earth, i.e., irrigation canals. This was a great invention. Some of those old irrigation canals can even now be seen in Mesopotamia. Some have been broken and in those parts the land has again become a sandy waste.
There was no stone in Mesopotamia, as there was in Egypt. But there was much sticky earth or clay in the river valleys, and the people soon became experts in making bricks. They made use of bricks not only for their buildings, but even for writing on it. Their books were on bricks, not on paper, and scientists interested in the history of the past (archaeologists) have come across libraries of thousands and thousands of those bricks, with writings on them, in the deserts of Mesopotamia where once there were great towns and fertile fields.
For thousands of years men lived in Mesopotamia and gradually became more civilized. The early civilization of Mesopotamia is noted specially for one important development. When men formed into groups living together, it was found necessary to have rules for keeping peace among them, and ways of putting those rules into force. Strong men, who made themselves leaders and kings, had armies which they used to force those under their rule to do what they were ordered to do. But it was also necessary for the people to know the ruler’s orders. Among the old books on bricks which, scientists of our times have found in Mesopotamia, are some in which the laws of those times have been written down by order of a king names Hammurabi. They are the oldest books of law in existence.
- Early Civilization – Egypt
- Early Civilization – Mesopotamia
- Early Civilization – India
- Early Civilization – China
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