LEGACY OF ANCIENT CULTURES

We are living on the verge of the third millennium. Contemporary world evolves faster and faster. Great breakthroughs in sciences esp. microtechnology stimulated the rapid introduction of the computer era. However, with the pursuit of better technologies, people sometimes forget about the roots of their culture.

And the cradle of civilisation is located in the ferocious landscape of Mesopotamia.

·        An advanced civilization flourished in this region long before that of Egypt, Greece, and Rome à it was here in about 4000BC -  the Sumerian culture flourished.

·        The civilized life that emerged at Sumer was shaped by two conflicting factors:      

(1)     the unpredictability of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which at any time could unleash devastating floods that wiped out entire tribes, and

(2)      the extreme richness of the river valleys, caused by centuries-old deposits of fertile, alluvial soil.

·        Thus, while the river valleys of southern Mesopotamia attracted migrations of neighboring peoples and made possible, for the first time in history, the growing of surplus food.

As surplus production increased, a process of urbanization evolved and Sumerian civilization took root.

·        The people of the Tigris and the Euphrates basin (misa), the ancient Sumerians, using the fertile land and the abundant water supply of the area, developed sophisticated irrigation systems and created what was probably the first cereal agriculture.