Birtha (Mesopotamia) bastions are quite traceable. There are the ruins of a vaulted secret staircase, leading down from the heart of the citadel to the water's edge. Birtha (Mesopotamia) Birtha () was an ancient fortress on the river Tigris, which was said to have been built by Alexander the Great. It would seem, from the description of Ammianus, to have resembled a modern fortification, flanked by bastions, and with its approaches defended by out-works. Shapur II here closed his campaign in 360, and was compelled to retire with considerable loss. D'Anville and Edward Gibbon both identify Birtha as modern-day Tikrit, Iraq. The
Mesopotamia earliest sets of laws found and one of the best preserved examples of this type of document from ancient Mesopotamia. He codified over 200 laws for Mesopotamia. Examination of the laws show a progressive weakening of the rights of women, and increasing severity in the treatment of slaves The art of Mesopotamia rivalled that of Ancient Egypt as the most grand, sophisticated and elaborate in western Eurasia from the 4th millennium BC until the Persian Achaemenid Empire conquered the region in the 6th century BC. The main emphasis was on various, very durable, forms of sculpture in stone and clay;