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Article: Mesopotamia: "the land between the rivers".(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- January 10, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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You've probably been hearing a lot about Iraq lately. Centuries before Saddam Hussein became Iraq's dictator, the area was part of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is an ancient Greek worg that means "the land between the rivers." Historians also call this region the "cradle of civilization." It is here, in the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and beyond, that two of the world's first great civilizations flourished.
The Sumerians settled the region around 3500 B.C., creating the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians invented a system of writing in clay tablets called cuneiform. They also established ...