This is the History of the World Podcast with me Chris Hasler

And you're listening to volume three, the classical world

episode 20

The Battle of Galga Miller. Oh, Galgamela as a place name doesn't really mean much to us here in the history of the

World Podcast but we are definitely familiar with this area so let's remind ourselves

what happened in the part of the world where this

famous battle took place. We are talking about a place that is very closely linked to Mesopotamian life.

We first recognize sedentary lifestyles taking place around 8,000 years ago, specializing in dry agriculture, which is the cultivation of

crops that require minimal irrigation.

The culture is called the Hasuna culture by historians and we spoke of this

culture all the way back in volume one particularly episode 22.

These people lived in close proximity to the Tigris River,

and archaeology demonstrates that there seemed to be trade links with other Tigris River

and Mesopotamian societies existing at the same time.

The city of Nineveh is the closest ancient city to the battle site and its own

history is likely to stretch back to the times of the Hasuna culture.

Over the course of the next three millennium's, society in the highly fertile lands of southern

Mesopotamia flourished.

And as such, the dry agricultural lands where Galgumella has been located came under the

control of the Sumerians, who were based in the south near the Persian

Gulf and the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Ninova may well have become an important trade post city

...