Ancient Mesopotamia: everything you wanted to know

History Extra podcast

Immediate Media

History

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you know your Sumerians from your Babylonians and your Akkadians? All these civilisations formed part of the story of ancient Mesopotamia, where city states were formed, writing flourished, the wheel was possibly invented, mathematics was practiced, and dogs were gods, pets and warriors. Speaking to David Musgrove for today's 'everything you wanted to know' episode, Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid answers listener questions on the ancient region. (Ad) Moudhy Al-Rashid is the author of Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History (Hodder & Stoughton, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fbetween-two-rivers%2Fmoudhy-al-rashid%2F9781529392128. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.6	Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.
0:40.3	Do you know your Sumerians from your Babylonians and your Acadians?
0:46.2	Well, all of these civilizations formed part of the story of ancient Mesopotamia,
0:51.7	the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where over the course
0:56.1	of several millennia, city-states formed, writing flourished, the wheel may have been invented,
1:02.4	mathematics was practiced, and dogs were gods, pets and warriors. In today's Everything You
1:08.6	Wanted to Know episode, Moody El-Ashid, the author of Between Two Rivers, answers your questions on the ancient region. In conversation with David Musgrove.
1:19.5	Right, today we are tackling a very big subject, ancient Mesopotamia, which is big in terms of time and space.
1:27.3	So the first thing we need to do,
1:28.9	the obvious Google search query is what and where was ancient Mesopotamia. So Moody,
1:34.4	can you enlighten us about that, please? With pleasure. So ancient Mesopotamia is the name of a
1:40.0	region between and around the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, that run through
1:45.3	what is now Iraq, up through Syria, and in some cases a little further afield than that.
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