X-Nico

10 unusual facts about Mesopotamia


Arbayistan

The area was a constant area of contention between Rome (and later the Byzantines) and the Sassanids, who fought over Mesopotamia.

Arbayistan was a Sassanid Persian satrapy in Late Antiquity, which reached across Upper Mesopotamia toward the Khabur river and north to the lower districts of Armenia.

Bloodletting

Bloodletting is one of the oldest medical techniques, having been practiced among ancient peoples including the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks.

Brigade Temporelle

When the series begins, 20th century archeologist Jason Spell on a dig in Mesopotamia is recruited to become a member of Delta Hand 28, a four-person operative unit of the Time Brigade, a time-travelling organization from the 40th century.

Deep history

The concept of prehistory is thus recast as an arbitrary boundary that limits the longue durée perspective of historians, and which rests upon outmoded assumptions that history follows a teleological path beginning with the origins of civilization in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Günter Dreyer

In 1998 Dreyer found writing on small ivory labels, he concluded that these challenged the prevailing view that the first people to write were the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) sometime before 3000 BCE.

Mesopotamia, Argentina

Mesopotamia has some of the most popular tourist attractions in Argentina, mainly the Iguazú Falls, the Iguazú National Park and the Jesuit mission stations in Misiones.

Mesopotamia, Oxford

The name Mesopotamia in Greek means "between the rivers" and originally referred to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq.

Padanaram, Massachusetts

The Laban of the Bible lived on the plain of Aram in northwest Mesopotamia and sired a significant family of daughters, notably Leah and Rachel, wives of Jacob.

S. F. Said

In his dreams, Varjak finds himself transported from his gritty urban surroundings to the deserts, rivers and mountains of Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq).


106th Hazara Pioneers

In 1918, the whole regiment proceeded to Mesopotamia where, after serving for some months with the 18th Indian Division on the Tigris above Baghdad, they joined the 2nd Corps and were employed in helping the drive the railway through the Jabal Hamrin from Table Mountain on the Dajla (Tigris River).

195 BC

Mithridates I (or Mithradates), "Great King" of Parthia from about 171 BC who will turn Parthia into a major political power and expand the empire westward into Mesopotamia (d. 138 BC)

Abgar II

In 64 BC, he sided with the Romans helping Pompey's legate Lucius Afranius when the latter occupied northern Mesopotamia, but it is alleged that he helped to betray Marcus Crassus by leading him out onto an open plain, resulting in 53 BC in the Battle of Carrhae, which destroyed an entire Roman army.

Adnan

Adnan died after Nebuchadnezzar II returned to Babylon, after that his son Ma'ad moved away to the region of Central-Western Hijaz after the destruction of the Qedarite kingdom near Mesopotamia, and the remaining Qedarite Arabs there were displaced from their lands and forced to live in Al-Anbar province and the on the banks of the Euphratesriver under the rule of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Alexander Winchell

He then taught at Pennington Male Seminary of New Jersey, Amenia Seminary of New York (where he had previously been a student), an academy in Newbern, Alabama, and the Mesopotamia Female Seminary of Eutaw, the last of which was founded by him.

Anglo-Persian War

The British then shifted their focus north up the Persian Gulf, invading Southern Mesopotamia by advancing up the Shatt Al Arab waterway to Mohammerah (future Khorramshahr) at its junction with the Karun River, short of Basra.

Bengal Engineer Group

World War I: La Bassée 1914, Festubert 1914 '15, Givenchy 1914, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers, Loos, France and Flanders 1914–15, Megiddo, Sharon, Damascus, Palestine 1918, Aden, Kut al Amara 1915 '17, Ctesiphon, Defence of Kut al Amara, Tigris 1916, Baghdad, Khan Baghdadi, Sharqat, Mesopotamia 1915–18, Persia 1918, North West Frontier India 1915 '16–17, Baluchistan 1918;

Chaldean Neo-Aramaic

Before the schism of 1552, most Assyrian Christians in northern Mesopotamia were members of the Assyrian Church of the East.

Deucalion

took his children, their wives, and pairs of animals with him on the ark, and later built a great temple in Manbij (northern Syria), on the site of the chasm that received all the waters; he further describes how pilgrims brought vessels of sea water to this place twice a year, from as far as Arabia and Mesopotamia, to commemorate this event.

Document

Through time, documents have also been written with ink on papyrus (starting in ancient Egypt) or parchment; scratched as runes or carved on stone using a sharp apparatus (such as the Tablets of Stone described in the bible); stamped or cut into clay and then baked to make clay tablets (e.g., in the Sumerian and other Mesopotamian civilisations).

Edward Elers Delaval Henderson

On 25 January 1917 on the west bank of the River Hai, near Kut, Mesopotamia, he performed the deed for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Ekallatum

The history of upper Mesopotamia in this period is documented in the archives of Mari, Syria.

Fertile Crescent

In current usage, all definitions of the Fertile Crescent include Mesopotamia, the land in and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

George Stuart Henderson

Henderson was 26 years old, and a captain in the 2nd Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, British Army during the 1920 Iraqi revolt, than called Mesopotamia when the following deed took place on 24 July 1920 near Hillah, Mesopotamia for which he was awarded the VC.

Godfrey Collins

He served in Egypt, Gallipoli, and Mesopotamia from 1915–1917, and was appointed a Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1916.

Grimoire

The earliest known written magical incantations come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where they have been found inscribed on various cuneiform clay tablets excavated by archaeologists from the city of Uruk and dated to between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

Hajji Firuz

Mehrdad Bahar opined that the figure of the Haji Firuz is derived from ceremonies and legends connected to the epic of prince Siavash, which are in turn derived from those associated with the Mesopotamian deities of agriculture and flocks, Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi).

Humphrey de Verd Leigh

He entered the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in 1915, serving in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) flying seaplanes for the relief of Kut, and went on to serve in the early Royal Air Force (RAF) 1918–19.

Iron Lore Entertainment

Titan Quest is set in ancient Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia and China, and makes extensive use of the mythology of those civilizations.

James Baillie Fraser

He also wrote An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia (1834); A Winter's Journey ((Tâtar,) from Constantinople to Teheran (1838); Travels in Koordistan, Mesopotamia, etc. (1840) Mesopotamia and Assyria (1842); and Military Memoirs of Col. James Skinner (1851).

Jim Gerald

Fitzgerald enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 5 May 1916 and served in Mesopotamia as a driver with the 1st Australian and New Zealand Wireless Signal Squadron.

John Kourkouas

The ground work for his successes had certainly been laid by others: Michael III, who broke the power of Melitene at Lalakaon; Basil I, who destroyed the Paulicians; Leo VI the Wise, who founded the vital theme of Mesopotamia; and Empress Zoe, who extended Byzantine influence again into Armenia and founded the theme of Lykandos.

Laurence York

York was appointed coadjutor to Matthew Pritchard, Vicar Apostolic of the Northern District on 13 May 1741, and consecrated the Titular Bishop of Nebbi (Bishop of Nisibis in Mesopotamia) on 10 August 1741.

Legio II Parthica

The legion was on the Tigris frontier in the middle of the 4th century, just before a major Roman defeat by the Persians in Singara, Mesopotamia.

Marcia Otacilia Severa

In February 244, Gordian III was killed in Mesopotamia and there is a possibility that Severa was involved in the conspiracy.

Maurice Nicoll

After his Army Medical Service in the 1914 War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist.

Military history of New Zealand in World War I

In Mesopotamia the New Zealand troop was amalgamated with the 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron, forming "C" Wireless Troop of the Anzac Squadron.

Movable type

The uneven spacing of the impressions on brick stamps found in the Mesopotamian cities of Uruk and Larsa, dating from the 2nd millennium BC, has been conjectured by some archaeologists as evidence that the stamps were made using movable type.

Nehemias Folan

John Folan won the Distinguished Conduct Medal for Gallantry while serving in Mesopotamia in 1916 with the 3rd Battalion of the Connaught Rangers.

Ninkasi

In ancient Mesopotamia the brewer's craft was the only profession which derived social sanction and divine protection from female deities/goddesses, specificially: Ninkasi, who covered the production of beer, Siris, who was used in a metonymic way to refer to beer, and Siduri, who covered the enjoyment of beer.

Patriarch Alexius of Constantinople

He promoted the zealous actions of John of Melitene whose interest it was to limit the influence of the Syro Jacobite Church in the south east of the Byzantine Empire, especially in the newly conquered themes of Mesopotamia and Telouch.

Proto-Elamite

The Mesopotamian civilization emerged during the period 3700–2900 BC amid the development of technological innovations such as the plough, sailing boats and copper metal working.

QF 13-pounder 6 cwt AA gun

At the end of World War I there were only 20 of the guns in service worldwide, with 12 in Egypt and Palestine, 4 in Mesopotamia, 2 in Greece (Salonika front) and 2 on the Western Front.

Roman–Parthian Wars

In 195, another Roman invasion of Mesopotamia began under the Emperor Septimius Severus, who occupied Seleucia and Babylon, and then sacked Ctesiphon yet again in 197.

Second Battle of Kut

The Second Battle of Kut was fought on 23 February 1917, between British and Ottoman forces at Kut, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).

South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition

The culture of Geoksyurtepe was correlated with an eastern Anau group of tribes linked to Elam and Mesopotamia.

Stephen Glanville

Both of these works are set in ancient Mesopotamia, and Christie herself acknowledged in her autobiography that neither of these works would have been possible without Glanville.

Tara Jaff

Along with Fran Hazelton and June Peters she founded Zipang, a storytelling group which focuses on stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

Telassar

According to those two scriptures, Tel-assar was a place inhabited by “the people of Eden” and is mentioned along with Gozan and Haran, which are in northern Mesopotamia, and Rezeph, the exact location of which is not known, several places having had this name.

Third Dynasty of Ur

Akkad's primacy instead seems to have been usurped by Gutian invaders from the Zagros, whose kings ruled in Mesopotamia for an indeterminate period (124 years according to some copies of the kinglist, only 25 according to others.) An illiterate and nomadic people, their rule was not conducive to agriculture, nor record-keeping, and by the time they were expelled, the region was crippled by severe famine and skyrocketing grain prices.

Whammy!

The B-52's' goal was to craft an album that would return to the New Wave sound and atmosphere of their debut album while updating their signature sound with drum machines and synthesizers, a slight contrast to their previous 1982 EP Mesopotamia, produced by David Byrne of Talking Heads who was intent on broadening the band's sound.