Sumerians. The Sumerians were the first developed civilization in the world. It began in the 4th millennium BC. They built the first city-states with temples, palaces, and their own laws. They worshiped their gods in temples called ziggurats, and these temples became the centers of social life.

They invented cuneiform writing and wrote on clay tablets about business, myths, and laws. They opened the first schools where children learned to write cuneiform. They also developed early math, wrote laws, and wrote down their stories. One of the most famous stories was The Epic of Gilgamesh.

They also invented the wheel and built the first irrigation systems with canals and dams to bring water to dry land.

The Sumerians made a sexagesimal, or base-60 , number system. Because of this, we have 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute, and 360° in a circle.

Their ideas became the foundation for the next Mesopotamian civilizations.

Akkadians. The Akkadian civilization began around 2334 BC. They took many of the inventions the Sumerians had made and improved some of them. The Akkadians understood that it was easier to rule a large land when there was one law, one language, one army, and one government. Sargon of Akkad united many city-states into the first big empire.

The Akkadian language was different from Sumerian and belonged to the Semitic language family. It became the main language for all of Mesopotamia. People wrote business records, king’s orders, and stories in this language. They still used cuneiform writing that they inherited from the Sumerians.

They created a strong central government with one law and one tax system for all their lands. This made ruling the country easier. They also built a strong professional army that served all the time, not only in war.

They traded with faraway places and exchanged goods, ideas, and technologies.

Naram-Sin proclaimed himself a god and called himself “the king of the four corners of the world”.

Assyrians. The Assyrian civilization began around 2000 BC. The Assyrians were cultural heirs of the Akkadians. They took their language, their writing, and their idea of empire. Assyrian kings copied and praised the Akkadian rulers to show that they had the right to rule all of Mesopotamia.

The Assyrians became one of the strongest military powers in the ancient world. They improved many military skills from earlier civilizations. Their armies were the first to use many iron weapons, sharp spears and arrowheads, heavy war chariots, and horses in battle. Their generals used smart siege tactics: battering rams, tall siege towers, and tunnels under city walls to capture large cities.

To control their big empire, the Assyrians built a clear system of government and good roads, so news and orders could travel quickly.

King Ashurbanipal made a big library in Nineveh. It had thousands of clay tablets with myths, laws, and scientific texts. People call it the first great library in history.

The Assyrian Empire became one of the most powerful country in Mesopotamia.

Babylonians. The Babylonian civilization started around 1890 BC. They took ideas from older civilizations like the Sumerians and Akkadians and made them even better. They also learned a lot from their powerful neighbors, the Assyrians, whom they later defeated, specifically military strategy and how to run an empire.

Their king, Hammurabi, created one of the first sets of written laws, called the Code of Hammurabi. Laws already existed, but the Babylonians put them all into one book so that everyone could understand them easily. In this book, the king promised to protect the weak and keep justice.

The Babylonians were also great at math and studied the stars. They built schools and big temples for their many gods. They believed in the same gods as the Sumerians and Akkadians, but named them differently.

The city of Babylon was famous for its incredible buildings, like the strong city walls, the tall Tower of Babel, and the beautiful Hanging Gardens, which were one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Why these civilizations declined. The Sumerian city-states weakened themselves by constantly fighting each other . The large empires like Akkad, Assyria, and Babylon faced internal problems, including rebellions from over-taxed and mistreated citizens. They were also weakened by periods of drought and famine. In the end, a combination of these internal weaknesses and attacks from powerful external enemies led to their collapse.