section_path: History by region/West Asia/Mesopotamia
section_name: Mesopotamia
paragraph_text: Mesopotamia
  
  Mesopotamia is the site of some of the earliest known civilisations in the world. Agricultural communities emerged in the area with the Halaf culture around 8000 BC and continued to expand through the Ubaid period around 6000 BC. Cities began in the Uruk period (4000–3100 BC) and expanded during the Jemdet Nasr (3100–2900 BC) and Early Dynastic (2900–2350 BC) periods. The surplus of storable foodstuffs created by this economy allowed the population to settle in one place instead of migrating after crops and herds. It also allowed for a much greater population density, and in turn required an extensive labour force and division of labour. This organization led to the necessity of record keeping and the development of writing.
  
  Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad.
  
  The Neo-Babylonian Empire, or Chaldea, was Babylonia from the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, it conquered Jerusalem. This empire also created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the still-surviving Ishtar Gate as architectural embellishments of its capital at Babylon.
  
  Akkad was a city and its surrounding region near Babylon. Akkad also became the capital of the Akkadian Empire. Despite an extensive search, the precise site has never been found. Akkad reached the height of its power between about 2330 and 2150 BC, following the conquests of King Sargon of Akkad. Through the spread of Sargon's empire, the language of Akkad, known as Akkadian from the city, spread and replaced the Sumerian language in Mesopotamia and eventually by 1450 BC was the main language of diplomacy in the Near East.
  
  Assyria was originally a region on the Upper Tigris, where a small state was created in the 19th century BC. The capital was at Assur, which gave the state its name. Later, as a nation and empire that came to control all of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt and much of Anatolia, the term "Assyria proper" referred to roughly the northern half of Mesopotamia (the southern half being Babylonia), with Nineveh as its capital. The Assyrian kings controlled a large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the Old (20th to 18th centuries BC), Middle (14th to 11th centuries BC), and Neo-Assyrian (9th to 7th centuries BC) kingdoms, or periods.
  
  Mitanni was a Hurrian empire in northern Mesopotamia founded around 1500 BC. The Mitanians conquered and controlled Assyria until the 14th century BC while contending with Egypt for control of parts of modern Syria. Its capital was Washukanni, whose precise location has not been determined by archaeologists.