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The history of Mesopotamia extends from the Lower Paleolithic period until the establishment of the
Caliphate A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
in the late 7th century AD, after which the region came to be known as Iraq. This list covers dynasties and monarchs of Mesopotamia up until the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, after which native Mesopotamian monarchs never again ruled the region. The earliest records of writing are known from the Uruk period (or "Protoliterate period") in the 4th millennium BC, with documentation of actual historical events, and the ancient history of the region, being known from the middle of the third millennium BC onwards, alongside
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic writing system, script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East, Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is nam ...
records written by early kings. This period, known as the Early Dynastic Period, is typically subdivided into three: 2900–2750 BC (ED I), 2750–2600 BC (ED II) and 2600–2350 BC (ED III), and was followed by
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
(~2350–2100 BC) and
Neo-Sumerian The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to ...
(2112–2004 BC) periods, after which Mesopotamia was most often divided between
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the ...
in the north and Babylonia in the south. In 609 BC, after about a century of the kings of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
ruling both Assyria and Babylonia, the Neo-Babylonian Empire destroyed Assyria and became the sole power in Mesopotamia. The conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC initiated centuries of Iranian rule (under the Achaemenid, Parthian and
Sasanian The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...
empires), which was only briefly interrupted by the Hellenistic Argeads and Seleucids (331–141 BC) and the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
(AD 116–117). This list follows the
middle chronology The chronology of the ancient Near East is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Historical inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers: "in the year X of king Y". Com ...
, the most widely used chronology of Mesopotamian history.


Early dynastic period (c. 2900–2350 BC)

Before the rise of the
Akkadian Empire The Akkadian Empire () was the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer. It was centered in the city of Akkad () and its surrounding region. The empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one ru ...
in the 24th century BC, Mesopotamia was fragmented into a number of city states. Whereas some surviving Mesopotamian documents, such as the '' Sumerian King List'', describe this period as one where there was only one legitimate king at any one given time, and kingship was transferred from city to city sequentially, the historical reality was that there were often many political leaders at any one given time. The ''Sumerian King List'' is generally not regarded as historically reliable given the exaggerated reign lengths (some rulers are described as ruling for hundreds or even thousands of years) and the fact that out of the massive amount of pre-Akkadian rulers listed in the ''SKL'', very few are actually attested in surviving evidence from the Early Dynastic period. It is considered most appropriate by modern scholars to rely solely on actual Early Dynastic sources for reconstructing historical events during the Early Dynastic period. As such, the table below only lists rulers whose existence is attested by other more contemporary sources.


Akkadian and Neo-Sumerian periods (c. 2334–2004 BC)


Isin–Larsa and rise of Babylon (c. 2025–1750 BC)


Fragmentation of Babylonia (c. 1749–1475 BC)


Babylonia and Assyria (c. 1475–539 BC)


See also

*
Chronology of the ancient Near East The chronology of the ancient Near East is a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Historical inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers: "in the year X of king Y". Com ...
*
List of kings of Akkad The king of Akkad (Akkadian: , ') was the ruler of the city of Akkad and its empire, in ancient Mesopotamia. In the 3rd millennium BC, from the reign of Sargon of Akkad to the reign of his great-grandson Shar-Kali-Sharri, the Akkadian Empire rep ...
* List of Assyrian kings * List of kings of Babylon * Sumerian King List *
List of monarchs of Persia This is a list of monarchs of Persia (or monarchs of the Iranic peoples, in present-day Iran), which are known by the royal title Shah or Shahanshah. This list starts from the establishment of the Medes around 671 BCE until the deposition of th ...
*
List of rulers of Elam The kings of Elam were the rulers of Elam, an ancient civilization in modern-day south-western Iran. The earliest known Elamite dynasty was the Awan dynasty, which came to power in the Early Dynastic period. Elam was conquered by the Akkadian Em ...
*
List of pharaohs The title "Pharaoh" is used for those rulers of Ancient Egypt who ruled after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Narmer during the Early Dynastic Period, approximately 3100 BC. However, the specific title "Pharaoh" was not used to ad ...
* List of Hittite kings * Mitanni


Notes


References


Bibliography

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Web sources

* * {{Early Rulers of Mesopotamia
Dynasties A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...
Mes
Mesopotamian Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...