That most people do not spend every waking hour contemplating the ultimate origins and regularly shifting meaning of everyday words – especially those of us who are not writing blogs for other’s infotainment – does not mean that this isn’t a very rewarding activity.¹ Especially when it comes to area designations which are so ingrained that we hardly think about them, like the ancient Mediterranean or ancient Mesopotamia. Because it can be interesting to work out under which circumstances such large regions during such long eras can fruitfully be denoted with a single label and when this would obscure important subdivisions or local developments. For instance. if one studies people’s relationship to their immediate environment – be it ideologically, economically, or in any other conceivable way – it may be rewarding to break up familiar areas into what is called microecologies.² And it is this useful methodological tool that I want to discuss with you today. Through this discussion we will also discover the ultimate origins of the label ‘Mesopotamia’ and encounter some of the conspicuous environmental differences within this region in ancient times.

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What Are Microecologies?

My previous two examples were not chosen at random, as you have probably guessed. And no, that I already know a bit about the ancient Mediterranean and ditto West-Asia is not the only reason!³ The ancient and medieval Mediterranean is the stage where much of the early research into the use of the concept of microecologies as a tool when studying history is set. This preeminently includes the monumental The Corrupting Sea by Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, which has been influential and debated ever since its publication roughly a quarter century ago.⁴ And today I intend to extend this influence and continue that debate with respect to ancient Mesopotamia.

Scholarly approaches in the vein of The Corrupting Sea show us how focusing on localities within larger areas can enhance the fidelity of our reconstruction of the past. Prominently present within such a purposeful fragmentation are the feedback-loops and other interactions between human beings, their social structures, and the regional environment – in short, the previously introduced microecologies.⁵ And ancient Mesopotamia is, in my absurdly well-substantiated opinion, a good case study to further advance the advantages of the concept of microecologies. Because almost as far as we can look back there was at least one relevant, regional subdivision in this area during antiquity – between the north and the south.⁶ As such, we may definitively illustrate that, no matter their venerability, the fact that we continue to use certain labels for large areas over long periods of time does not mean that these expanses were uniform in all relevant – or even irrelevant! – aspects.

Mesopotamia and its Antecedents

Before we take a closer look at the necessary nuances, let us first establish what the moniker ‘Mesopotamia’ actually denotes when it comes to antiquity. The term originates in ancient Greek and can roughly be translated as ‘between the rivers’, with μέσος (mesos) meaning ‘middle’ and ποταμός (potamos) meaning ‘river’. Those rivers being the Euphrates and Tigris, which are also Greek names. Today, the relevant area is covered by the modern state of Iraq as well as some of the adjacent parts of other countries, including Türkiye, Syria, and Iran.⁷ Naturally, this was not the only name for the lands surrounding both of these rivers – or even those rivers themselves!⁸

The Sumerians, who spoke the oldest recorded language, called their home in the southern part of the area that we now label Mesopotamia ki.en.gir, meaning something like ‘the land of the native/Sumerian priest-kings’. While the area north of the city Nippur was called ki.uri. Here lay the city of Akkad, which formed the capital for the titular empire that lasted from last quarter of the 24^th century to the beginning of the 22^nd century BCE, and this region was unsurprisingly called Akkadûm in the Akkadian language.⁹ Among the many other available names for certain parts of Mesopotamia, some scholars have also proposed a tentative Akkadian term for the whole region, māt birītim^(ki) – ‘the land between’.¹⁰ As with our use of the ancient Greek term, this would denote the land that lay alongside the two rivers that we know as the Euphrates and the Tigris. The Euphrates was called Buranuna in Sumerian and Purattum in Akkadian, while the Tigris was respectively called Idigina and Idiglat.¹¹ We also find labels for Mesopotamia in other ancient languages, like the classical Hebrew אֲרַם נַהֲרַיִם (ʾ^aram Nah^arayim), which roughly means ‘Aram of the two rivers’ and can be found in the Bible.¹² There were, it appears, many ways to exhibit your geographical and topographical knowledge in ancient West-Asia!

Be that as it may, the appropriateness of one label for this large area can be debated. Even back in antiquity, there were often explicit divisions between northern and southern Mesopotamia besides those which I already mentioned. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, seemed to have lacked designations for the entire region but they did have words for parts of it. The southern part was called Sangara in the topographical lists from the New Kingdom, which lasted from the 16^th until the 11^th century BCE.¹³ And the aforementioned classical Hebrew term – as well as perhaps even the original designation in ancient Greek! – may have referred to merely the northern part of the region that we would expect.¹⁴ But we can also look beyond philology. During the first centuries of the first millennium BCE, the mighty Assyrian Empire – with had its heartland in northern Mesopotamia – could seldom be certain that the population of Babylonia in the south would remain complacent.¹⁵ And even today, as you might know already, we still distinguish between an Assyrian north and Babylonian south.¹⁶ However, there is something to be said for using a term like Mesopotamia for an area approximating our current understanding.¹⁷ For example, the long-term lack of forests in the area meant that many woods had to be imported for all ancient Mesopotamians.¹⁸ But it were also the natural and climatological circumstances which were in large part responsible for the lasting division between northern and southern Mesopotamia in the relevant designations and political situation.¹⁹

Environmental Diversity in Mesopotamia

The main difference is a four letter word and the title of an excellent Beatles-song: Rain.²⁰ In the north of Mesopotamia, humans could practice rain-fed agriculture. While in the south, there was not enough rain. So, in order to quench the plants’ thirst, farmers had to irrigate the water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.²¹ Luckily for those living there, these rivers went from being deeply incised in the landscape in the north, to a more accessible intermingling on flat land in the south before they ultimately flowed into the marches at the coast of the Persian Gulf.²² These differences also brought with them that inevitable changes in the climate or other environmental shake-ups impacted the north and the south of Mesopotamia very differently. Be it fluctuating sea levels, deforestation, the salinization of arable land, the possible exploitation of the coastal marches, or dryer epochs – where one lived in this region and at what point in history did make a difference.²³

When we take an even closer look, we notice that within and even straddling the border of these two distinct parts, there were several microecologies that make us question the rigidity of such divisions. For example, even in northern areas where rain-fed agriculture was technically possible, irrigation was often used anyway in order to feed larger populations more reliably than would otherwise be possible.²⁴ This water would be sourced from even farther north, to avoid the logistical nightmare that was the difference in elevation between the fields and the deeply incised rivers. Hence the majestic canals, tunnels, and aqueducts in the aforementioned Assyrian Empire.²⁵ And there were also differences within the north and the south depending on whether one was counting on the Euphrates or the Tigris as one’s main water source. Because the Tigris was more unpredictable and caused more destructive torrents than its western counterpart.²⁶ As salient as a division between northern and southern Mesopotamia was, we should not hesitate to extend our research beyond this distinction.

The divergence between the northern and the southern part of Mesopotamia that we just discussed – even when considering the vague boundaries and possibly overlapping microlecologies – primarily alluded to their respective ecology. This was of course not the only relevant difference. But our focus on geography, rain, different styles of agriculture, and other variations in the environmental circumstances, helps us to illustrate the necessity and use for microecologies as a conceptual tool.

The Use of Microecologies

Because, if we can gauge the general ecological framework of Mesopotamia as well as the ecology of the localities therein that we might distinguish on the basis of our evidence – archaeological, textual, and more – than this may enhance our understanding of that historical place in different periods.²⁷ This would entail in practice that we try to explicitly situate the text or archaeological finding which we study in the smallest ecological framework that we can establish, as well as within the wider region. As such, we may observe the interactions between people and their ecological conditions more faithfully. Including their reactions to local and widespread environmental changes, which might have encompassed human beings’ own influence on the landscape.²⁸ Like when we just saw that irrigation did play a role in the northern parts of Mesopotamia, even though they had more rain to work with.²⁹ In this way, the geography, nature, flora, and fauna become more than an immutable backdrop, they form a dynamic part of the history of a place as well as interact with the human story.³⁰

Such an explicit attention to localities will bring us closer, supposedly, to the lived experience of those who lived in a specific part of the world and whose connection to the wider region was – as it is with all of us – unmistakable but limited. Implementing such an approach does not explain everything, but it may nonetheless help us to further elucidate matters like “political power, civic culture, religious beliefs, and so forth.”³¹ Though, we should be careful when deciding how our evidence relates to the microecologies that we eventually distinguish. It may be the case that we are able to determine the local environments in the past, but that this will still not be enough to complete our picture of those times and places.³² Sometimes a forest sadly is, at least for the time being, just a forest. But if we heed such cautions, we can attempt to marry culture and nature in our understanding of ancient Mesopotamia as a whole and as a collection of smaller, interrelated microecologies.

Focusing on the local within the whole, not only helps us when we deal with differences throughout a larger area like Mesopotamia, but also with the aforementioned myriad of variations as time goes by. As said, the north and the south of Mesopotamia experienced certain environmental changes differently and, as such, people’s circumstances not only varied throughout the region but also through the ages. Consequently, the microecologies present will also change with the years. They may even converge with other microecologies and disappear from our view. Another generalization breaks down here. As I alluded to above, when most people say ‘Mesopotamia’, they not only reference an area, but also a specific time period.³³ Roughly between the invention of cuneiform writing – of clay tablets fame – among the other amenities of the emerging larger settlements and the conquests of Alexander the Great. The subtitle of Marc van de Mieroop’s excellent book on the history of the Ancient Near East, “Ca. 3000-323 BC” gives a good ballpark estimate of this usual impression.³⁴ And in this period there were large differences, the marshes along the Persian played a smaller role due to climatological circumstances, salinization brought about by rivers had to be dealt with, and so on.³⁵ Microecologies can thus not only aid us to cross distances, but also eras.

Conclusion: No Miracle Cure

Applying the concept of microecologies to our study of lost worlds and subsequently adding more nuance to sweeping designations for large areas and time frames, like the general idea of ancient Mesopotamia, is a useful addition to our scholarly arsenal. But, at least with regard to the clay tablets that are found throughout ancient West-Asia, it is no silver bullet. Because many of these texts were being copied for several centuries and ended up wide and far.³⁶ It is thus difficult to connect them to the microecologies where they ultimately originated – to say nothing of a hypothetical oral tradition underpinning these texts. As such, some sources can hardly be viewed through the lens of microecologies, but this does not mean that we should not try to attempt this whenever possible. And be explicit when this was not possible. Because clarity and openness lie at the heart of sincere scholarship – including when we reach the limits of our methods.³⁷

Finally, we are left with one last question, which underpinned this entire blog: why do we today actually employ the moniker ‘Mesopotamia’ for such a large region in its entirety, while ancient designations were mostly confined to parts of it? This appears to have less to do with similar sounding labels in ancient languages or even geography and more with how the study of the ancient world used to be conducted. Which was in turn a remnant of the colonization of this part of the globe. Specifically the large archaeological projects during the nineteenth and early twentieth century CE were often very much conducted within a colonial context.³⁸ It was in this time period and, at least partly, through the publications of those projects that terms like ‘Mesopotamia’ reached a larger public in the West and was there taken to denote the larger area as it has now long been used in scholarship to reference the entire region during long stretches of time in antiquity.³⁹

And this is useful to know! Because when we become acquainted with the history of such terminology, we are also presented with a chance to unearth and – if necessary – discard inherited burdens on the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies that may interfere with our understanding of these places in those times, as well as of the peoples that lived there and then.⁴⁰ In this way we can easier make observations that would otherwise be hampered by an unconscious and uncritical use of labels that should at least come with some caveats and so make even more progress with our research.

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References

1. Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 22-31.
2. Peregrine Horden & Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 2; Christopher Schliephake, “Introduction”, in: Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017), p. 8.
3. You can find more of my writings on the ancient history of these two regions on the archive page.
4. Horden & Purcell, The Corrupting Sea; Christopher Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 16-17. For these debates, see: Peregrine Horden & Nicholas Purcell, “Four Years of Corruption: A Response to Critics”, in: William V. Harris, Rethinking the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 348-376.
5. Horden & Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, p. 53–88; Saygın Salgırlı, The Fluctuating Sea: Architecture and Movement in the Medieval Mediterranean (Abingdon: Routledge 2021), p. 28, 45.
6. Marc van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East: Ca. 3000 – 323 BC (Malden: Blackwell, 2024), p. 5. Naturally, this is not the only pertinent subdivision. To give just one example, the Syrian parts of the area that we now designate as Mesopotamia also had their own ecological, social, and political characteristics, see in general: Peter M.M.G. Akkermans & Glenn M. Schwartz, The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c. 16,000 – 300 BC) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 1, 5, 9.
7. Alhena Gadotti & Alexandra Kleinerman, Living and Dying in Mesopotamia (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024), p. 1; Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 2; Amanda H. Podany, Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), p. 6.
8. As in my earlier blog on the cuneiform sign ĜEŠTUG, Sumerian words will be bolded, and Akkadian words will be italicized. Because, as with almost everything relating to cuneiform, even after some six millennia there is still enough perplexity to go around.
9. For a succinct overview, see: Theo J.H. Krispijn, Inleiding in de Sumerische Taalkunde (Leiden: Reader Oude Culturen van de Mediterrane Wereld, 2012), p. 6. For the names themselves, see: John A. Halloran, Sumerian Lexicon: A Dictionary Guide to the Ancient Sumerian Language (Los Angeles: Logogram Publishing, 2006), 138, 142; Karel van der Toorn, “Amurru”, in: Karel van der Toorn et al (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1999), p. 32; A. Leo Oppenheimer et al, The Assyrian Dictionary: Volume 12 (P) (Chicago: The Oriental institute, 1964), p. 272. For the Akkadian Empire, see: Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 63-74.
10. Jacob J. Finkelstein, “Mesopotamia”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1962, 21 (2), p. 74.
11. Gadotti & Kleinerman, Living and Dying in Mesopotamia, p. 1. For the Akkadian names, see: Martha T. Roth et al, The Assyrian Dictionary: Volume 12 (P) (Chicago: The Oriental institute, 2005), p. 534. For the Sumerian names, see: Halloran, Sumerian Lexicon, p. 36, 120.
12. John W. Wevers, “Aram and Aramaean in the Septuagint”, in: Paulette M.M. Daviau, John W. Wevers & Michael Weigl, (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans – Vol. 1: Biblical Studies in Honor of Paul-Eugène Dion (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), p. 237-251.
13. Kenneth, A. Kitchen, “Egyptian New-Kingdom Topographical Lists: An Historical Resource With ‘Literary’ Histories”, in: Peter Brand & Louise Cooper (eds.), Causing His Name To Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane (Leiden: Brill, 2009), p. 133. This distinction between northern and southern Mesopotamia seems also to suggested by the selection of place names for topographical lists, see for example: Michael C. Astour, “Mesopotamian and Transtigridian Place Names in the Medinet Habu Lists of Ramses III”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 1968, 88 (4), p. 733-752. For the New Kingdom, see: Marc van de Mieroop, A History of Ancient Egypt (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 364-365.
14. Wevers, “Aram and Aramaean in the Septuagint”, p. 244-245; Finkelstein, “Mesopotamia”, p. 73.
15. Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 254.
16. For example, the separate entries in Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions, see: Karen Radner, Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Trevor Bryce, Babylonia: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
17. Amanda H. Podany, The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 7; Mario Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, Translated by Soraia Tabatabai (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), p. 8.
18. Podany, The Ancient Near East, p. 2. Even the Assyrians, who lived relatively close to forested mountains, appeared to have gotten their woods from elsewhere, see: Daisuke Shibata, “Assyria from Tiglath-pileser I to Ashurnasirpal II”, in: Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller & Daniel T. Potts (eds.), The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East – Vol IV: The Age of Assyria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), p. 176-177, 231-232. And there were forests in those mountains, see for example: Yervand Grekyan, “The Kingdom of Urartu”, in: Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller & Daniel T. Potts (eds.), The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East – Vol IV: The Age of Assyria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), p. 787.
19. Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 5.
20. For the Beatles-song, see: Richie Unterberger, “Rain Review”, Allmusic.com (retrieved on February 12^th 2025).
21. Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 11-12.
22. Jennifer R. Pournelle, “Physical Geography”, in: Harriet Crawford (ed.), The Sumerian World (London Routledge, 2013), p. 14-20; Ariel M. Bagg, “Irrigation”, in: Daniel Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archeology of the Ancient Near East (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), p. 261-277.
23. For these changes, see: Pournelle, “Physical Geography”, p. 19-20, 27-28; Roger Sands, Forestry in a Global Context (Wallingford: CABI Publishing, 2005), p. 16. For a general comparison of the different consequences of these changes for the north and south of Mesopotamia, see: Guillermo Algaze, “The End of Prehistory and the Uruk Period”, in: Harriet Crawford (ed.), The Sumerian World (London Routledge, 2013), p. 70.
24. Bagg, “Irrigation”, p. 273.
25. Ibidem, p. 275; Stephanie M. Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 84.
26. Bagg, “Irrigation”, p. 263.
27. Christopher Schliephake, “Introduction”, in: Christopher Schliephake (ed.), Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017), p. 8-9.
28. Horden & Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, p. 403-404.
29. Bagg, “Irrigation”, p. 273.
30. Horden & Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, p. 9.
31. Horden & Purcell, “Four Years of Corruption”, p. 357.
32. Gadi Algazi, “Diversity Rules: Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea”, Mediterranean Historical Review 2005, 20 (2), p. 234.
33. Zainab Bahrani, “Conjuring Mesopotamia: Imaginative Geography and a World Past”, in: Lynn Meskell (ed.), Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (London Routledge, 1998), p. 160.
34. Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. v.
35. Bagg, “Irrigation”, p. 269-270.
36. Alan Lenzi, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature: Contexts and Content (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2019), p. 24-6. Sometimes we are aided by clues found in the text or on the physical tablet itself, see: Ibidem, p. 12.
37. Thomas S. Mullaney & Christopher Rea, Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022), p. 134.
38. Bahrani, “Conjuring Mesopotamia”, p. 160, 162-167.
39. John M. Lundquist, “Babylon in European Thought”, in: Jack M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), p. 68.
40. See in general: Agnès Garcia-Ventura & Lorenzo Verderame (eds.), Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020); Magnus Thorkell Bernhardsson, Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); Karen Emmerich, “‘A Message from the Antediluvian Age’: The Modern Construction of the Ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, Comparative Literature 2016, 68 (3), p. 251-273.