The ENTIRE History of Mesopotamia Explained

The entire history of Mesopotamia in one video: the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the first farmers, the first canals and the Ubaid villages of Eridu; Uruk, the first city, and the invention of writing around 3300 BC (and why the first texts are beer and barley receipts); the Sumerian city-states, Lagash against Umma, the Stele of the Vultures, the Royal Tombs of Ur and queen Puabi, Gilgamesh, and Urukagina, who wrote down the word freedom; Sargon of Akkad and the first empire (2334 BC), Enheduanna, the first named author in history, Naram-Sin and the collapse of Akkad; Ur-Nammu, the ziggurat of Ur and the oldest law code, Shulgi and his hundred thousand tablets, the fall of Ur in 2004 BC; Hammurabi of Babylon (1792 to 1750 BC), his 282 laws and what they really were, the Hittite raid of 1595 BC and the quiet Kassites; how Mesopotamia worked: base 60, the 360-degree circle, the zodiac, schools, beer, the Assur merchants, and the flood of Gilgamesh read again in 1872; the Assyrian war machine: Ashurnasirpal II and the Nimrud banquet, Tiglath-Pileser III, deportations, the fall of Samaria (722 BC) and the lost tribes; Sennacherib, Nineveh, Lachish and Jerusalem (701 BC), the destruction of Babylon, Esarhaddon in Egypt and the library of Ashurbanipal; the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ishtar Gate, Etemenanki and the Tower of Babel, the Babylonian exile and the Hanging Gardens problem; Nabonidus in Tayma, Belshazzar, the writing on the wall and the night of 12 October 539 BC when Cyrus took Babylon without a battle; Alexander, Seleucia and the last cuneiform tablet; Baghdad, Rawlinson, Layard, Rassam, the rediscovery, the 2003 looting of the Iraq Museum, Nimrud in 2015 and what Mesopotamia left us. Five thousand years of history in about thirty minutes. Chapters: 00:00 The night Babylon fell 01:32 I. The Land Between the Rivers (10,000 to 4000 BC) 03:30 II. The First Cities (4000 to 2900 BC) 05:44 III. Sumer: Kings, Gods and a Very Old War (2900 to 2350 BC) 08:16 IV. Sargon and the First Empire (2334 to 2150 BC) 10:38 V. Ur and the First Laws (2112 to 2004 BC) 12:46 VI. Hammurabi and Babylon (2000 to 1595 BC) 15:30 VII. How Mesopotamia Worked (2000 to 1000 BC) 18:22 VIII. The Assyrian War Machine (911 to 705 BC) 21:04 IX. Sennacherib, Nineveh and the Library (705 to 627 BC) 23:41 X. The Fall of Nineveh and the New Babylon (627 to 562 BC) 26:17 XI. The Night Babylon Fell (556 to 539 BC) 29:21 XII. Lost and Found (AD 75 to today) DISCLAIMER - This video is intended for entertainment and educational purposes. To fit five thousand years into half an hour, events are simplified; dates before about 1500 BC follow the Middle Chronology and may be off by decades or more; many numbers (city populations, army sizes, deportations, the Nimrud banquet, the library) are ancient claims or modern estimates on which historians disagree, and the video says so. Main sources: the Sumerian King List; the Epic of Gilgamesh; the Code of Ur-Nammu; the Code of Hammurabi; the Nabonidus Chronicle; the Cyrus Cylinder; the annals of Sennacherib (Taylor Prism); the Banquet Stele of Ashurnasirpal II; the Babylonian Chronicle; Herodotus; Xenophon; the Books of Kings and Daniel; Leonard Woolley, Ur Excavations; Robert Koldewey, The Excavations at Babylon; A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains; George Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis; Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East; Amanda Podany, Weavers, Scribes and Kings; Paul Kriwaczek, Babylon; Eckart Frahm, Assyria; Stephanie Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah; UNESCO; the Iraq Museum; Britannica. The dialogue scenes are dramatized. Don't rely on a single video, go explore the sources yourself.