The relationship between ancient west Asian countries

Mesopotamia is divided into two parts: Assyria in the north, Babylon in the south, and Babylon in the south, Sumer in the south and Akkad in the north.

The initial civilization of the two river basins belongs to the Stone Age.

But the civilization at that time did not inherit, because the legendary flood, that civilization has dissipated without a trace.

The civilization after the flood is the oldest civilization known to mankind, that is, Sumerian civilization. Sumerians have successively created many firsts in the world. They took the lead in digging canals, using carts pulled by donkeys, boats made of reeds and wood, mastering brick arch technology and using copper nails, and wrote the first written law. They used 65,438+02 months of the lunar calendar, leap months to make up for the missing days, and used a unique hexadecimal system. They mastered four operations, cube root and square root formulas, brewed ancient beer, used the world's earliest soap, had the world's earliest plow, cultivated the world's earliest wheat and barley, ground the wheat into flour, put it aside for baking powder and baked it into ancient bread. Coupled with honey as a sweetener and date palm juice, it is very beautiful and has become a staple food in the western world. Sumerians also soaked bread crumbs in water to make liquid bread, which actually invented beer. For meat, they also followed the bread making method-baking, for which Sumerians also invented the world's earliest fork. Western food is baked and Chinese food is cooked, which has evolved into different cultures, which will be discussed later.

They come from mountainous areas, so their worship of mountains is very heavy. Their temples are built on high platforms to communicate with gods.

Mesopotamian civilization is essentially urban civilization and commercial civilization. Cities are the basic units, and each city worships a god. Cities are regarded as sacred beings belonging to God. Monasteries and kings were the richest people at that time, but many private capitals also invested in land, handicrafts, business investments and loans. Most civilians live on farmers, craftsmen, businessmen, fishermen and cattle. Every city has a craftsman class, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, potters and five treasures craftsmen. They sell their handicrafts in the free market, and buyers pay for them or replace them with physical objects. Money is usually a silver bar or a silver ring, which should be weighed after each transaction.

Outside the city wall is farmland, and the life of urban residents ultimately depends on the harvest of farmland. Most of the land is occupied in the form of large real estate, and the occupiers are kings, priests and some rich people. They divided the land into small pieces and distributed them to farmers who served them, as well as seeds, farm tools and livestock. Farmers provide labor, run their own businesses, and then pay the surplus products to temples, courts or landlords in return. The basic crops at that time were barley and wheat. The livestock that provide emulsion are goats and cows. Sheep provide wool, which is the main textile fiber in Mesopotamia. The most common vegetables are broad beans, peas, garlic, leeks, onions, carrots, lettuce and cucumbers. Fruits include melons, dates, pomegranates, figs and apples.

Their area is short of minerals and wood, so their buildings are made of mud bricks. Their agricultural tools are pottery and their mathematical tools are clay tablets, so they can turn Sumerian civilization into clay civilization, but they are not without metal instruments. Sumerian merchants once traveled to and from mining fields in the south, copper mines and gold mines in Sinai Peninsula, and timber producing areas in Lebanon, which gave birth to Egyptian civilization.

The Sumerian war for hegemony has always been fierce, first Kish, then uruk, and then Ur. Ur also established the first dynasty of Ur, and the last overlord was Lacangshi. He invented the Great Shield to improve the defense of soldiers, and then he was defeated in the hegemonic war with Iraq because uruk and other allies refused to participate in the war, so that Iraq and New Zealand unified all Sumerians.

When Iraq and New Zealand unified the whole of Sumer, the Akkadian king in the north failed to compete for hegemony in the south and was wiped out. Only 200 members of the palace guard are safe and sound. Sargon, the leader of the Guards, used these 200 people to plan a military coup, overthrew the original king, and achieved a feat-establishing the first standing army with 5,500 people.

After sargon's army unified Akkad, it went south to compete for hegemony with Ishin in its heyday, and defeated it, and established the second unified country of mankind-Akkad Kingdom, which ruled Assyria, Akkad, Sumer and now Lebanon. After his death, the Akkadian kingdom began to decline, and only the fourth king made a difference. Around 2230 BC, the sargon Dynasty was overthrown by barbarians from the Northeast Plateau.

During the ancient rule, the Amauri people came from the southwest and established many cities, among which the Babylonian city-state was one.

It was uruk and his allies who overthrew the Guti people, but the fruits of victory were stolen by the Ur people and the third Ur dynasty was established. It is very strong. After the Five Dynasties, the Ur Dynasty fought everywhere, and finally in 2006 BC.

King Ibsen was captured by the army of Elam (the predecessor of Persia) in 1600, and the dynasty perished.

In 2004 BC, the third dynasty of Ur was replaced by two dynasties, Ising and Larsa. Since this period, some Sumerian cities, such as Lahash and Marvin, have declined, become uninhabited and finally become ruins.

The Babylonian dynasty, founded in the city of Babylon near Baghdad, ruled the country after being defeated by Ishin and Larsa in the southern Sumerian region. As the southern cities were gradually abandoned, the Sumerians disappeared completely among the Babylonians.

The most outstanding king of Babylon was the sixth king Hammurabi (reigned from about 1792 BC to 1750 BC), who founded the Babylonian empire. According to the records in the clay tablet, Hammurabi was a clever and capable young man, and he was the most outstanding of all the kings in Babylon. After he ascended the throne, he launched a war to unify the two river basins. Hammurabi adopted a more flexible foreign policy. First of all, he formed an alliance with Larsa and destroyed Yixin. Then join hands with Mali to conquer Larsa; After the destruction of Larsa, he turned his gun and sent troops to Mali at the gates, forcing Mali to kneel. Except for Assyria in the north, the two river basins are basically unified, and finally Babylon is the capital.

After the rise of the Hittite Empire in the north, the Babylonian Empire in the south perished, and then withdrew from the territory of the Babylonian Empire due to internal problems. Gassett invaded and easily occupied Babylon and established the Babylonian dynasty in Gassett.

At the same time, Assyria in the north got rid of the slavery of Mitanni, the suzerain country, and began to enter the Middle Kingdom period (the hegemonic thought in the ancient kingdom period was defeated and enslaved by Mitanni). In14th century BC, Assyria got rid of Mitanni's rule and re-emerged as a militaristic power. In the next four centuries, Assyria vented its militaristic fanaticism in raids that had neither goals nor achievements, but such raids could not achieve the goal of controlling a region for a long time. At least in the last stage of the Great Migration from about 65438 BC to 0250 BC to 950 BC, the western line of Assyria was under the pressure of Arameans. Aramaic people settled in Mesopotamia, which once belonged to Mitanni. In the later establishment of Assyrian Empire, Arameans became the first victims.

Then Babylonia was destroyed by Sisyphus.

Before 1000 BC, there were no strong enemies around Assyria: the Egyptian empire was no longer strong, and Egypt in the post-dynasty era was often threatened by foreign enemies, and it was even more unable to conquer the outside world; The "marine nation" destroyed the Hittite kingdom; Babylonia in the south is weaker; The Medes and Persians have not yet formed a climate in the East; Urartu, a little stronger in the north, could not stop the expansion of Assyria. Assyria's use of iron can open up more land, make the social economy develop rapidly, and have a solid material foundation, which is conducive to external expansion. Iron also provided its troops with sharper weapons and enhanced their combat effectiveness. Assyria began at the end of 10 BC, and after more than two centuries of continuous conquest, it ruled the southern part of the two river basins and Egypt, becoming the first empire in the Iron Age.

Assyria made serious preparations before conquering every region. Assyria sent spies to spy on information long before conquering a region. During the reign of Sirpa II, the Assyrian Empire began to conquer foreign countries, and he conquered northern Syria. After him, Shahr Manas III fought three wars with the southern alliance of Syria supported by Arabs and Egyptians, established the leading position for the whole of Syria, and forced Babylonia to pay tribute to it.

In 745 BC, Tigray Parashar III came to power and carried out military reform, dividing the army into several specialized arms, which greatly strengthened Assyria's military strength. Tigray Parashar III defeated Uratu, made the whole Syrian region submit to himself, fostered a puppet king in Babylon, and then merged Babylon and Assyria into one and became the king of Babylon himself. The real founder of Assyrian Empire was Tigray Parashar III. He defeated Israel and Uratu twice and suppressed the uprisings in Syria and Phoenicia supported by Egypt.

Sinna Hrib, the successor of Tigray Parashar III, quelled the Phoenician, Jewish and Babylonian uprisings and destroyed the ancient capital of Babylon. In the 7th century BC, during the reign of Assal Hadong, Assyria conquered Egypt, and Memphis was easily captured by Assal Hadong. It is called the king of upper and lower Egypt and the king of Ethiopia, and makes Egyptians pay 65,438+080 kilograms of gold and 9 tons of silver every year. Soon, Egypt regained its independence. Asare Hadong also rebuilt the city of Babylon in order to win over the Babylonians.

As mentioned earlier, wherever the Assyrian army went, towns were destroyed into ruins, property was looted, residents were killed or taken away, large areas of land were deserted, and many places were bare, with a sharp drop in population and a decline in output. This barbaric policy aroused extremely fierce resistance from the people in the occupied areas. Temple priests, slave owners and industrial and commercial slave owners were also dissatisfied because they could not be exploited.

Therefore, Tigray Parashar III carried out reforms in the late 8th century BC. Instead of burning and looting all the conquered areas, he moved the residents from one place to another. Moreover, residents from different regions and speaking different languages live together, which makes their communication inconvenient. However, he was allowed to take part of his property and that of his wife and children. At the same time, the land is distributed to those who have been moved to different places to operate independently, but the land is not owned by them, and these people have no personal freedom. Most of the products were given to Assyrian slave owners. The reform of Tigray Parashar III eased the contradiction between different groups to some extent, enhanced Assyria's military strength and conquered more places.

The Assyrians brutally suppressed all the defeated countries. Not only the people of conquered countries or regions have to bear very heavy taxes, but also the kings and nobles have been humiliated, and the whole East is groaning under the brutal rule of Assyria. Slaves and lower-class civilians in the conquered countries and nobles in the enslaved countries all look forward to the demise of the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrian Empire has a vast territory and strong military power, which was established by bloody plunder and cruel repression. Subanj was the last famous king of Assyria. A good education made him a great politician and diplomat. He built the earliest library in the world in the palace. But this is only his bright side, and his other side is the cruelty of his ancestors. In order to consolidate his rule, Subanj ordered the destruction of residents, old people, women and children who dared to resist Assyrian rule.

Assyria's brutality aroused an increasingly fierce wave of resistance. After the death of Subanj Bart, the huge Assyrian empire soon fell apart. Egypt declared independence first, followed by Syria and Phoenicia. In order to gain independence, Babylon formed an alliance with the Medes against Assyria in 626 BC. Mites captured Assyria in 6 14 BC, all the nobles in the city were killed and the city was looted. The combined forces of Babylon and Miti captured Nineveh in 6 12 BC and looted the city. The last Assyrian king committed suicide by jumping into the sea in order not to be captured alive. In the Battle of Hermes in 605, the Assyrian remnant army was defeated by the combined forces of Babylon and Medea, and Assyria perished.

The newly established Babylonian Empire was different from the past. It was not founded by Amauri, but by a branch of barbarians, the Chaldeans. When the new Babylonian era came, Nabopolassar, who was born in Chaldea, rebuilt the city of Babylon.

Babylon rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II is a square city with a length of 17.7 km. The Euphrates River runs through the city: in addition to luxurious palaces (including the legendary Hanging Garden, one of the seven wonders of world history), there are also 50 temples in the city (Babel is the most important one).

In 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, a "prisoner of Babylon", captured Jerusalem, and most of the population of the Jewish kingdom (especially nobles and craftsmen) was exiled to Babylon.

Around 540 BC, Ju Lushi, the founding monarch of the Persian Empire, led an army to invade Babylon.

The empire of the two river basins is over.