Lower Mesopotamia Lower Mesopotamia Lower Mesopotamia is a historical region of Iraq. Also known as the Sawad and al-'Irāq al-'Arabi ("Arabian Irāq") in the Middle Ages. Lower Mesopotamia was home to ancient Sumerian and Babylonian civilisations. An alluvial plain begins north of Baghdad and extends to the Persian Gulf. Here the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lie above the level of the plain in many places, and the whole area is a river delta interlaced by the channels of the two rivers and by irrigation canals. Intermittent lakes, fed by the rivers in flood, also characterize southeastern Iraq. A fairly large area ()
Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia) this area was better known than neighboring regions, but the excavation and publication of the archives of Ebla have changed this perspective by shedding more light on surrounding areas, such as Upper Mesopotamia, western Syria, and southwestern Iran. These new findings revealed that Lower Mesopotamia shared many socio-cultural developments with neighboring areas and that the entirety of the ancient Near East participated in an exchange network in which material goods and ideas were being circulated. Dutch archaeologist Henri Frankfort coined the term "Early Dynastic" (ED) "period" for Mesopotamia, the naming convention having been borrowed from the similarly named "Early Dynastic