I’ll give a rough outline of the history of Mesopotamia up till about 1.000 BCE.
People in the Ancient Near East lived mostly as hunter/gatherers in the early periods of civilization around 11.000 BCE. Sites such as Hallan Cemi show that some of these groups became sedentary. By the start of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B around 8.400-7.000 BCE farming societies started to emerge and agriculture spread throughout the region, all this created more and more complex settlements. The Ubaid period (6.000-4.000 BCE) and the Uruk period (4.000-3.000 BCE) are characterized by distinctive material cultures. Some have suggested that by this time social relations started to the change and that there was a rich upper layer of citizens.(1)
By the end of the Uruk period settlements started to grow significantly in size, and there is evidence that not everyone was a farmer: some people started to specialize. This meant that they shifted to a redistribution economy because not everyone was producing their own food anymore. This meant there were people in charge of this redistribution: this led to the eventual emergence of the priest-king. The Uruk/Warka vase from roughly 3.150 BCE shows a procession offering food to a powerful individual, possibly this priest-king. Uruk was one of the bigger and stronger cities of the period, but was not the only one. During the Uruk period many city-states started to emerge.
The Early Dynastic Period (2.900-2.350 BCE) ushered in a period of political fragmentation and heavy competition between the various city-states that had emerged in earlier centuries. Each city was home to a specific god, and most cities were ruled by priest-kings, or something similar. The Sumerian King List details a long list of the kings that supposedly ruled. However, considering that according to the list some kings ruled for literal centuries, it is likely that the list is rather untrustworthy and was largely written as ancient propaganda. Large palace complexes such as that at Ebla started to appear, showing that the ruling elite of the city lived in grandiose structures and luxury.
The first empire (that we know of) to emerge did so in the Old Akkadian Period (2.350-2.000 BCE) that spanned beyond the confines of a single city was the Empire of Akkad. King Lugal-zagesi conquered the cities of Uruk, Lagash and Kish, but was then subsequently defeated by Sargon of Akkad who used the small collection of cities to found the Empire of Akkad. He was succeeded by his first son Rimush (2.278-2.270 BCE), then his second son Manishtushu (2.269-2.255 BCE) and eventually his grandson Sargon. A generation later under the kingship of Shar-kali-shar the empire finally fell.
The Ur III Empire was the next to emerge, somewhere around 2.095-2.0004 BCE. Utu-hegal of Uruk conquered several Gutian cities and was subsequently betrayed and killed by his brother Ur-Nammu who then took control and founded the Ur III Empire. His empire was rather neatly organized. The core of the empire was Ur and the surrounding region. Capitals in the core had their own governors who were each aided by a military leader, and each province around the core paid something called a bala tax. (Taxes were specifically tailored for certain cities. Cities with great wool production would pay wool, those with metalworking paid in metal, etc..) Shulgi was the next king in line between 2.094 and 2.046 BCE. Due to internal rebellions the empire eventually fell in 2.004 BCE when the city of Ur was captured. The lament of Ur, an ancient text describing the fall of the empire, suggests that this was considered a major event at the time.
After the fall of the Ur III Empire a new period of political fragmentation occurred during the early Old Babylonian Period (2.0004-1.792). During this period the region was invaded by Amorites, whose origins are rather shrouded in mystery. They managed to quickly rise amongst the ranks and became kings of various cities throughout Mesopotamia. By 1.815 BCE there were three large states left, Eshnunna, Babylon, and Larsa. Between 1.792 and 1.750 BCE Hammurabi of Babylon managed to conquer Eshnunna, Mari, and Malgium. Hammurabi is well known for his codex, which lists various punishments for specific crimes. Under the reign of his son, Samsu-iluna the southern part of the empire was lost due to rebellions, but the northern part flourished for 150 years under 5 different rulers. Eventually around 1.595 BCE the Babylonian Dynasty was ended by a Hittite raid.
The International Period (1.600-1.000 BCE) was marked by the rise of and balance between several large states encompassing the entirety of Mesopotamia. The Hittites in modern day Turkey; The Mitanni to their east covering east Turkey, Syria and Iraq; Assyria in the eastern part of the Mitanni region; Egypt; and Babylon in the south-east of Mesopotamia.
The Mitanni confederation was the first to fall, and did so likely because of external border pressure, and internal rebellions and a plague. They were absorbed by the Hittites, while Assyria grew as well. The Hittites grew and under Suppiluliuma (1.344-1.322 BCE) they conquered much of Mesopotamia. He was succeeded by his sons Murshili II and Muwatalli II, one of whom blamed their father for the plague that also troubled their empire. Eventually their empire ended due to a mysterious internal crisis.
During the same period Assyria started its rise to power. Assur-uballit I (1.368-1.328 BCE) was the first Assyrian king sending letters to Egypt to demand to be recognized as an equal. When the Mitanni Confederation fell the Assyrians began absorbing the region into their own. This process was completed under Shalmeneser I who used mass deportations to prevent uprising in the conquered regions. Tukulti-Ninurta I (1.243-1.207 BCE) expanded the empire further and overthrew Babylon. The empire of Assyria eventually fell because Tukulti-Ninurta I was murdered by his son for his tyrannical behavior. Babylon rebelled immediately and conquered Assyria’s capital of Assur, claiming the empire as their own.
The end of the International Period came around 1.200 BCE, although its unclear why exactly it happened. Many of the large empires fell apart or significantly downsized in the following two centuries. Suggested causes are, A) climate change, forcing mass migrations, B) Dorian movements, C) The emergence of the mysterious sea people who invaded the Levant and raided many of the coastal cities. Waves of pestilence and famine struck the region, political turmoil followed, and everything crumbled. As a result city-states gained more autonomy and the Phoenician regions(Israel/Judah), which had almost always been under the control of one state or another, finally gained independence.
About 400 years later Babylon rose to power once more under the leadership of Nabopolassar (626-605 BCE). But when the Persians came knocking at their door several decades later under Cyrus and Darius they forever lost their status as a mighty empire and would always be under the yoke of foreign rulers.
(1) Stein, G. 2012, “The development of indigenous social complexity in Late Chalcolithic Upper Mesopotamia in the fifth-fourth millennia BC: An initial assessment”.
Bibliography