Ancient Worlds - BBC Two Episode 1 “Come Together”The Euphrates is the longest river in

Ancient Worlds - BBC Two

Episode 1 “Come Together”

TheEuphrates is the longest river in southwest Asia and one of the most historically important rivers in the world. The Euphrates rises in Turkey and flows southeast across Syria and through Iraq. Along with the river Tigris, it provided much of the water that supported the development of ancient Mesopotamianculture.

The Tigris Euphrates valley was the birthplace of the ancient civilisations of Assyria, Babylonia,Sumer and the Akkadian Empire. The ancient Greeks called that region Mesopotamia “the land between two rivers” (Tigris/Euphrates). People had occupied that marginal land for 1.000 years before the first cities appeared. They arrived as pastoralists with their herds; they stayed on as farmers close to the river banks in scattered communities of 1.000 or 2.000 people at most. Around 3.100 BC Southern Mesopotamia experienced a growth in the number and size of settlements, suggesting strong population growth. People left the security of their family compounds and tribal villages and they came together with other strangers to create something far more complex: a city, a society, a civilisation. Many of these city-states were located along canals of the Euphrates and the Tigris. A similar development, although on a smaller scale than in Lower Mesopotamia, took place in Upper Mesopotamia in the second part of the 3rd millennium BC.

All the ancient civilisations of the world have flourished near the river beds The Tigris Euphrates river system is one of the four river civilisations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valleyinEgypt (Nile River), the Indus Valley civilisation in the Indian subcontinent (Indus River), and the Yellow RiverinChina.