Where the First Civilizations Began
The first scenes in the drama of human history are laid in two remarkable river valleys—the one formed by the Euphrates and the Tigris in western Asia, and the other formed by the river Nile in northeastern Africa. The Euphrates and the Tigris poured their waters into the Persian Gulf, the Nile flowed north into the Mediterranean Sea. Both these valleys were possessed of a rich, alluvial soil, that favored the early development of industrial life among their dwellers. Along the lower courses of the Asiatic rivers were the Babylonians, and later, by conquest, the Chaldeans. In the upper reaches were the Assyrians. On the banks of the Nile were the Egyptians. Such, according to our present knowledge, is the first historic zone in which the real history of the civilized world began.
In the basins of the Tigris and the Euphrates were several distinct territories: Armenia, or the mountainous region between Asia Minor and the Caspian Sea; Assyria proper, between the Tigris and the Zagros Mountains; Babylonia, the great plain between the lower courses of the Tigris and of the Euphrates, and extending westward to the Syrian Desert; Chaldæa (in the narrower sense, as a province of the Babylonian Empire), west of the Euphrates, at the head of the Persian Gulf; Mesopotamia, between the middle courses of the Tigris and the Euphrates; Elam or Susiana, east of the Tigris, and at the head of the Persian Gulf.