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Mesopotamia: The Beginning of Beginnings

The Mesopotamians influenced the cultures of Egypt and Greece through long-distance trade and cultural diffusion and, through these cultures, impacted the culture of Rome, which set the standard for the development and spread of Western Civilization. Mesopotamia, generally, and Sumer specifically, gave the world some of its most enduring cultural aspects, and, even though the cities and great palaces are long gone, that legacy continued into the modern era. In ancient times, Mesopotamia impacted the world through its inventions, innovations, and religious vision; in the modern day, its discovery literally changed the way people understood the whole of history and one's place in the continuing story of human civilization.

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"Ever dream of the most perfect kill? Sometimes it keeps me up at night, imagining the best way to send a soul to Sithis. I thought I figured it out once. It came to me in a dream. But a dead chicken and a soup spoon make for terrible weapons." -Elam Drals

 Babylonian Map of the World, 8th or 7th Century B.C.

The Babylonian Map of the World (also Imago Mundi or Mappa mundi) is a Babylonian clay tablet with a schematic world map and two inscriptions written in the Akkadian language. It includes a brief and partially lost textual description.

The tablet describes the oldest known depiction of the known world. Ever since its discovery there has been controversy on its general interpretation and specific features. Another pictorial fragment, VAT 12772, presents a similar topography from roughly two millennia earlier.

The map is centered on the Euphrates, flowing from the north (top) to the south (bottom), with its mouth labelled "swamp" and "outflow". The city of Babylon is shown on the Euphrates, in the northern half of the map. Susa, the capital of Elam, is shown to the south, Urartu to the northeast, and Habban, the capital of the Kassites, is shown (incorrectly) to the northwest. Mesopotamia is surrounded by a circular "bitter river" or Ocean, and seven or eight foreign regions are depicted as triangular sections beyond the Ocean, perhaps imagined as mountains.

The tablet was excavated by Hormuzd Rassam at Sippar, Baghdad vilayet, some 60 km north of Babylon on the east bank of the Euphrates River. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1882 (BM 92687); the text was first translated in 1889. The tablet is usually thought to have originated in Borsippa. In 1995, a new section of the tablet was discovered, at the point of the upper-most triangle.

Clay, Height: 12.2 cm (4.8 in), Width: 8.2 cm (3.2 in)