TTC - Between the Rivers: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia

What pieces of a distant past drift before our mind's eye when ancient Mesopotamia is mentioned?

Do we see the temples known as ziggurats, thrust toward the sky by stepped platforms that would bring worshippers closer to the gods they honored? Entire populations paralyzed by fear before a dreaded invader, their dreams haunted by images of their own severed heads held aloft? Priests making sacrifices to the gods who ruled over and protected their city? Or the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, their terraces as shadowed by mystery as they are set alight by color?

Any of these, of course, may come to mind. Perhaps all of them. And with the exception of Babylon's fabled gardens, whose existence has never actually been confirmed, they are all true—each a part of the legacy of a region from which our own culture has drawn so many essential aspects, including writing, the first code of law, the idea of cities, and even the first epic poem. All cultures lie in the shadow of Mesopotamia.