Ancient Sumeria
This ancient Sumerian city boasted six miles of defensive walls, was home to 80,000 residents, and is known in mythology as the hometown of Gilgamesh.
Uruk
According to legend, Sargon’s mother did this with her infant son: an action repeated in the later Jewish story of Moses.
Sargon's mother placed him in a reed basket and set him adrift on on the Euphates River.
Hammurabi expanded his kingdom, now known as the Old Babylonian Empire, by defeating the Elamites and uniting these two city-states.
Sumer and Akkad (thus uniting all of Mesopotamia)
Taking the throne in a 722 BCE coup, Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II chose his name for these two reasons.
1) The name Sargon meant "true king" and 2) was the name of a famous king in Mesopotamia's ancient Akkadian past, Sargon of Akkad, on whom Sargon the II modelled himself.
Ruling from 605 to 562 BCE, this king brought the Neo-Babylonian Empire to its peak following its rise under the Chaldeans.
Nebuchadnezzar II
This ancient ruler appears on Sumerian "King List" as a former "woman tavern-keeper" who took the throne of Kish around 2500 B.C.E. and stands as Sumer's only recorded female monarch.
Kubaba
Before seizing power, Sargon of Akkad served in the city-state of Kish as this trusted official to the King, a role in which he guarded the king against poisoning.
The king's royal cupbearer
Hammurabi’s famous law code was primarily based on this legal revenge-based principle.
Lex Talionis, or "an eye for an eye"
In 722 BCE, Sargon II defeated this small kingdom to the west and deported over 27,000 of its residents, giving rise to the legend of this kingdom's "Ten Lost Tribes"
The Northern Kingdom of Israel
In 586 BCE (or 587 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar II conquered and destroyed this city to the west of his kingdom, bringing an end to the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
The City (and Temple) of Jerusalem
Ancient Sumerians loved this particular beverage, which they considered key to a “joyful heart and a contented liver.”
Barley Beer
Sargon of Akkad created this by uniting different Mesopotamian city-states under a central authority.
World history's first recorded multinational empire: the Akkadian Empire.
To legitimize his authority, Hammurabi elevated this patron deity of Babylon to supreme status over the traditional Sumerian pantheon.
Marduk
During his 714 BCE campaign against the northern mountain kingdom of Urartu, Sargon II had his engineers hack a road through a formidable peak to create a surprise attack using these tools.
Bronze axes
Until its conquest under Nebuchadnezzar II in March 597 BCE, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was governed by this ruling dynasty.
The Davidic dynasty
The Sumerians created this writing system around 3500–3400 BCE, establishing documented history and the world's oldest written language.
Cuneiform
Sargon of Akkad established this new capital city along the Euphrates River to serve as the seat of power for his vast Akkadian Empire.
The city of Akkad
In extending his authority across Mesopotamia, Hammurabi subjugated the northern lands of this rival kingdom.
Assyria
The immense treasury Sargon II seized upon taking Carchemish, a wealthy trade capital, in 717 BCE converted the entire Neo-Assyrian economy from a bronze-based standard to this.
A silver-based standard because of the immense amounts of silver in the siezed treasury.
In political myth, Nebuchadnezzar II’s Neo-Babylonian empire was framed as being created out of the "body" of the defeated Assyrian empire, mirroring on earth the divine victory of Babylon's god Marduk over this primordial sea monster from the Enuma Elish.
Tiamat
Around 2700 BCE, the King of Kish led the Sumerians to victory against Elam in this historical first.
The first recorded war in history.
Sargon of Akkad did not invent siege warfare. That was the ancient Sumerians. But he did command the largest standing army, the composite bow was invented during his reign, and his soldiers successfully fought in this famous formation.
Phalanx formation
Following Hammurabi's death in 1750 BCE, the Old Babylonian Empire fractured and was eventually conquered by these formerly nomadic invaders, placing Babylon under 400 years of chaotic foriegn rule.
The Kassites
Sargon II founded the Sargonid Dynasty of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, until the fall of this capital city in 612 BCE: the same city in which the Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered in the 19th c.
The Ancient City of Nineveh
Under Nebuchadnezzar II's rule, exiled Jews in Babylon (of the priestly class) rewrote these 3 sacred stories to remind their people that their god YHWH had delivered them out of chaos before: in the mythic past, the ancient past, and the near past.
1. Genesis (or Creation), the mythic past
2. The Flood, the ancient past
3. The Exodus, the near past