Mesopotamia was one of the earliest regions to produce writing, literature and the fine arts, as well as being one of the first areas to construct states. This comprehensive and detailed survey of the region's prehistory and protohistory shows how these fascinating developments were possible. Petr Charvát explores the economic, social and spiritual spheres in Mesopotamia from the Palaeolithic to the time of the early states, c. 100,000 BC to 2334 BC. The narrative is supplemented by numerous descriptions of the principal archaeological sites for each phase, and by conclusions outlining the most important developments and changes.

Celebrated for numerous developments in the areas of law, writing, religion, and mathematics, Mesopotamia has been immortalized as the cradle of civilization. Its fabled cities, including Babylon and Nineveh, spawned new cultures, traditions, and innovations in art and architecture, some of which can still be seen in present-day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Readers will be captivated by this ancient culture’s rich history and breadth of accomplishment, as they marvel at images of the magnificent temples and artifacts left behind.

"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

Innovative study of the early state and urban societies in Mesopotamia, c. 5000 to 2100 BC.

First Civilizations is the second edition of a popular student text first published in 1996 in Montreal by Les Editions Champ Fleury. This much updated and expanded edition provides an introductory overview of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. It was conceived primarily for students who have little or no knowledge of ancient history or archaeology. The book begins with the role of history and archaeology in understanding the past, and continues with the origins of agriculture and the formation of the Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia. Three subsequent chapters concentrate on Assyrian and Babylonian history and culture. The second half of the book focuses on Egypt, begining with the physical environment of the Nile, the formation of the Egyptian state and the Old Kingdom. Subsequent chapters discuss the Middle Kingdom, the Hyksos period, and the 18th Dynasty, with space devoted to Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, the Ramesside period. The text ends with the Persian conquest of Mesopotamia and Egypt. First Civilizations also contains sections on astronomy, medicine, architecture, eschatology, religion, burial practices and mummification, and discusses the myths of Gilgamesh, Isis and Osiris. Each chapter has a basic bibliography which emphasizes English language encyclopedias, books and journals specializing in the ancient Near East.

The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization,” owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium BCE. In Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization, Guillermo Algaze draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvium affected the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. He argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to easily transport commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, Algaze argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.

The roots of our modern world lie in the civilization of Mesopotamia, which saw the development of the first urban society and the invention of writing. The cuneiform texts reveal the technological and social innovations of Sumer and Babylonia as surprisingly modern, and the influence of this fascinating culture was felt throughout the Near East. Early Mesopotamia gives an entirely new account, integrating the archaeology with historical data which until now have been largely scattered in specialist literature.