When did the Shatt al Arab form?

there is no Arabian Gulf on valid maps, dude.

all thing about iraq

the land between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates (in Arabic, the Dijla and Furat, respectively), the

Mesopotamian plain was called the Fertile Crescent. This region is known as the Cradle of Civilization; was the birthplace of the varied civilizations that moved us from prehistory to history. An advanced civilization flourished in this region long before that of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, for it was here in about 4000BC that the Sumerian culture flourished

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The civilized life that emerged at Sumer was shaped by two conflicting factors: the unpredictability of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which at any time could unleash devastating floods that wiped out entire peoples, and the extreme richness of the river valleys, caused by centuries-old deposits of 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, the volatility of the rivers necessitated a form of collective management to protect the marshy, low-lying land from flooding.

As surplus production increased and as collective management became more advanced, a process of urbanization evolved and Sumerian civilization took root.

The people of the Tigris and the Euphrates basin, 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 as well as the earliest writing, cuneiform - a way of arranging impression stamped on clay by the wedge-like section of chopped-off reed stylus into wet clay.

Through writing, the Sumerians were able to pass on complex agricultural techniques to successive generations; this led to marked improvements in agricultural production. Writing evolved to keep track of property.

Clay envelopes marked with the owner's rolled seal were used to hold tokens for goods, the tokens within recording a specific transaction. Later on, the envelope and tokens were discarded and symbols scratched into clay recorded transactions such as 2 bunches of wheat or 7 cows. As writing evolved, pictures gave way to lines pressed into clay with a wedge tip; this allowed a scribe to make many different types of strokes without changing his grip. By 3,000 BC, the script evolved into a full syllabic alphabet.

The commerce of the times is recorded in great depth. Double entry accounting practices were found to be a part of the records. This remarkable innovation has been used to this day, as a standard for record keeping.

It was the custom for all to pay for what they needed at a fair price. Royalty was not exception. The king may have had an edge on getting a "better deal", but it wasn't the law as it was in Egypt where the Pharaoh was the "living god" and as such, owned all things. It seems that everyone had the right to bargain fairly for his or her goods. Unlike their Egyptian neighbors, these people were believers in private property, and the kings were very much answerable to the citizens. In Egypt, all things, including the people and property, were owned by the pharaoh. Sumerians invented the wheel and the first plow in 3700 BC.

Sumerians developed a math system based on the numeral 60, which is the basis of time in the modern world. Sumerian society was "Matriarchal" and women had a highly respected place in society. Banking originated in Mesopotamia (Babylonia) out of the activities of temples and palaces, which provided safe places for the storage of valuables. Initially deposits of grain were accepted and later other goods including cattle, agricultural implements, and precious metals. Another important Sumerian legacy was the recording of literature.

Poetry and epic literature were produced. The most famous Sumerian epic and the one that has survived in the most nearly complete form is the epic of Gilgamesh. The story of Gilgamesh, who actually was king of the city-state of

Uruk in approximately 2700 BC, is a moving story of the ruler's deep sorrow at the death of his friend Enkidu, and of his consequent search for immortality. Other central themes of the story are a devastating flood and the tenuous nature of man's existence, and ended by meeting a wise and ancient man who had survived a great flood by building an ark.

Land was cultivated for the first time, early calendars were used and the first written alphabet was invented here. Its bountiful land, fresh waters, and varying climate contributed to the creation of deep-rooted civilization that had fostered humanity from its affluent fountain since thousand of years.

Sumerian states were believed to be under the rule of a local god or goddess, and a bureaucratic system of the priesthood arose to oversee the ritualistic and complex religion. High Priests represented the gods on earth, one of their jobs being to discern the divine will. A favorite method of divination was reading sheep or goat entrails. The priests ruled from their

ziggurats, high rising temples of sunbaked brick with outside staircases leading to the shrine on top. The Sumerian gods personified local elements and natural forces. The Sumerians worshiped anu, the supreme god of heaven, Enlil, god of water, and Ea, god of magic and creator of man. The Sumerians held the belief that a sacred ritual marriage between the ruler and Inanna, goddess of love and fertility brought rich harvests.

Eventually, the Sumerians would have to battle another peoples, the Akkadians, who migrated up from the Arabian Peninsula. The Akkadians were a Semitic people, that is, they spoke a language drawn from a family of languages called Semitic languages; a Semitic languages include Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian, and Babylonian (the term "Semite" is a modern designation taken from the Hebrew Scriptures; Shem was a son of Noah and the nations descended from Shem are the Semites). When the two peoples clashed, the Sumerians gradually lost control over the city-states they had so brilliantly created and fell under the hegemony of the Akkadian kingdom, which was based in Akkad (Sumerian Agade). This great capital of the largest empire humans had ever seen up until that point that was later to become Babylon, which was the commercial and cultural center of the Middle East for almost two thousand years. In 2340 BC, the great Akkadian military leader,

Sargon, conquered Sumer and built an Akkadian empire stretching over most of the Sumerian city-states and extending as far away as Lebanon.

Sargon based his empire in the city of Akkad, which became the basis of the name of his people. But Sargon's ambitious empire lasted for only a blink of an eye in the long time spans of Mesopotamian history. In 2125 BC, the Sumerian

city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia rose up in revolt, and the Akkadian empire fell before a renewal of Sumerian city-states. Mesopotamia is the suspected spot known as the "Garden of Eden."

Ur of the Chaldees, and that's where Abraham came from, (that's just north of the traditional site of the Garden of Eden, about twenty-five miles northeast of Eridu, at present Mughair), was a great and famous Sumerian city, dating from this time. Predating the Babylonian by about 2,000 years, was Noah, who lived in Fara, 100 miles southeast of Babylon (from Bab-ili, meaning "Gate of God").

The early Assyrians, some of the earliest people there, were known to be warriors, so the first wars were fought there, and the land has been full of wars ever since.

The Assyrians were in the northern part of Mesopotamia and the Babylonians more in the middle and southern part.

Hammurabi

After the collapse of the Sumerian civilization, the people were reunited in 1700BC by King

Hammurabi of Babylon (1792-1750 BC), and the country flourished under the name of Babylonia. Babylonian rule

encompassed a huge area covering most of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley from Sumer and the Arabian Gulf (Persian Gulf). He extended his empire northward through the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys and westward to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. After consolidating his gains under a central government at Babylon, he devoted his energies to protecting his frontiers and fostering the internal prosperity of the Empire. Hammurabi's dynasty, otherwise referred to as the First Dynasty of Babylon, ruled for about 200 years, until 1530 BC. Under the reign of this dynasty, Babylonia entered into a period of extreme prosperity and relative peace.

Throughout his long reign Hammurabi personally supervised navigation, irrigation, agriculture, tax collection, and the erection of many temples and other buildings. Although he was a successful military leader and administrator, Hammurabi is primarily remembered for his codification of the laws governing Babylonian life. Under Hammurabi the two cultures which compose Mesopotamian civilization [the Assyrians and the Babylonians] achieve complete and harmonious fusion.

Hammurabi Code

Hammurabi was a king and a great lawgiver of the Old Babylonian (Amorite) Dynasty. His law code was produced in the second year of his reign. Many new legal concepts were introduced by the Babylonians, and many have been adopted by other civilizations. These concepts include: Legal protection should be provided to lower classes; The state is the authority responsible for enforcing the law; Social justice should be guaranteed; The punishment should fit the crime.

Hammurabi Code, ("An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.") is still quoted today attests to its importance, is a collection of the laws and edicts of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, and is considered the earliest legal comprehensive code known in history. A copy of the code is engraved on a block of black diorite nearly 2.4 m (8 ft) high. A team of French archaeologists at Susa, Iraq, formerly ancient Elam unearthed this block, during the winter of 1901-2. The block, broken in three pieces, has been restored and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

On Hammurabi's death, however, a tribe known as the Cassites (Kassites) began to attack Babylonia as early as the period when Hammurabi's son ruled the empire. Over the centuries, Babylonia was weakened by the Cassites. Finally, around 1530 BC (given in some sources as 1570 or 1595 BC), a Cassite Dynasty was set up in Babylonia. The Mitanni, another culture, were meanwhile building their own powerful empire. They were having a "considerable, if temporary importance"--they were very powerful but were around for only about 150 years. Still, the Mitanni were one of the major empires of this area in this time period, and they came to almost completely control and subjugate the Assyrians (who were located directly to the east of Mitanni and to the northwest of Cassite Babylonia).

The Assyrians, after they finally broke free of the Mitanni (who were having political troubles of their own), were the next major power to assert themselves on Babylonia. After defeating and virtually annexing Mitanni, the Assyrians, reasserted themselves on Babylonia. They weakened Babylonia so much that the Cassite Dynasty fell from power; the Assyrians virtually came to control Babylonia, until revolts in turn deposed them and set up a new dynasty, known as the Second Dynasty of Isin. Nebuchadnezzar the First, of this Dynasty, added a good deal of land to Babylonia and eventually came to attack Assyria, the land was under Assyrian rule for about two centuries.

The Assyrian culture showed a dramatic growth in science and mathematics, among the great mathematical inventions of the Assyrians was the division of the circle into 360 degrees and were among the first to invent longitude and latitude in geographical navigation. They also developed a sophisticated medical science, which greatly influenced medical science as far away as Greece. In the 6th century BC (586 B.C.), Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea (Judah), destroyed Jerusalem; Solomon's Temple was also destroyed; Nebuchadnezzar carried away an estimated 15,000 captives, and sent most of its population into exile in Babylonia.

It was not until the reign of Naboplashar (625-605 BC) of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty that the Mesopotamian civilization reached its ultimate distinction. His son, Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is credited for building the legendary Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It is said that the Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife or concubine, Amyitis, who had been "brought up in Media and had a passion for mountain surroundings". He did this because his wife had lived in the mountains and she was homesick on the flat plains of Babylon. He planted a large amount of brightly colored tropical plants on the roof of the palace.

The gardens were completed around 600 BC. The Hanging Gardens were built on top of stone arches 23 meters above ground and watered from the Euphrates by a complicated mechanical system. It was Nebuchadnezzar II who restored Mesopotamia to its former Babylonian glory and made Babylon the most famous city of the ancient world

The Hanging Gardens on the east bank of the River Euphrates, about 50-km south of Baghdad, Iraq, used to be considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. "Has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns... Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels... These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches... This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labor of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators."

In 626 BC, the Chaldeans helped Nabopolassar to take power in Babylonia. At that time, Assyria was under considerable pressure from an Iranian people, the Medes (from Media). Nabo-polassar allied Babylonia with the Medes. Assyria could not withstand this added pressure, and in 612 BC, Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, fell. The entire city, once a great capital of a great empire, was burned and sacked