The Cradle of Civilization Exhibit is Under Construction.

Afterall, we're still a new museum...

 

The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations identified as the sites of the emergence of civilization. In Western European and Middle Eastern cultures, it has frequently been applied to the Ancient Near East, especially in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia and Levant) and Egypt, but also extended to sites in Asia Minor (Anatolia), Armenia and the Iranian Plateau (Elam). Other civilizations arose in Asia, among cultures situated along large river valleys, notably the Indus River in the Indian Subcontinent and the Yellow River in China. Civilizations also arose independently in Egypt, Norte Chico in present-day Peru, the Andes and in Mesoamerica.

 

Scholars have defined civilization using various criteria. The use of writing is a common one. Some standard criteria include a class-based society and public buildings. Current thinking is that there was no single "cradle", but several civilizations that developed independently, of which the Near Eastern Neolithic was the first. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and those of East Asia is disputed. Scholars accept that the civilizations of Norte Chico in present-day Peru and that of Mesoamerica emerged independently from those in Eurasia.

 

Historically, the ancient city states of Mesopotamia in the fertile crescent are most cited by Western and Middle Eastern scholars as the cradle of civilization. The convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers produced rich fertile soil and a supply of water for irrigation. The civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. Because Ubaid, Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylon civilizations all emerged around the Tigris-Euphrates, the theory that Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization is widely accepted.

 

We are working to prepare our own collections about ______. In the meantime, please visit the following exhibits and websites which will help provide a great understanding of ______.

 

The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

The term Mesopotamia comes from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers’. It was an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, closely corresponding to today’s Iraq, but also including parts of modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The 'two rivers' of the name referred to the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah '(the island) by the Arabs referencing what Egyptologist J.H. Breasted would later call the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization began.

 

Sumerians

 

Babylon

 

Gilgamesh

 

Other Resources From

Ancient History Encyclopedia

The British Museum

National Geographic

The University of Chicago