The Eclipse of the Ancient Mesopotamian City

Abstract What happened to the ancient Mesopotamian city? Did it die out suddenly or gradually or did it form the basis for a long evolution leading to the medieval cities of Iraq? In this book the bulk of documentation was derived from archaeological and textual sources dating to the early third millennium through the fourth century BC, the period traditionally identified as that of ancient Mesopotamian history. Scholars have rarely addressed the issue of when this period ends, and various dates seem to be tacitly accepted for different purposes. Some define the end of Mesopotamia as when it ceased to exist as an independent political entity by its integration in the Persian empire in 539; while this is seen as a convenient date, most scholars see the conquest by Alexander of Macedon and the coming of Hellenism as the decisive moment. But scholars working with sources written in cuneiform from the Persian and Seleucid periods are readily considered ancient Mesopotamian specialists and themselves often emphasize the continuity with earlier periods. Alexander has been called the last of the Achaemenids, ending a period of Persian reforms based on Assyrian antecedents, while the end of Babylonian culture has been seen as caused by Iranization under the Parthians starting in the second century BC, rather than by Hellenization under the Seleucids two centuries earlier.