TimeMaps

Iraq
2500BC

Mesopotamian civilization has flourished over the past thousand years, and has now entered the Bronze Age. Writing has reached a level of sophistication that makes it a vehicle, not only for adminstration, but also for the hymns, prayers and myths of the world’s most ancient literature.

The economic life of the Sumerian city-states is highly centralized on the temples. These small states are constantly at war with one another, and have developed the first organised armies in history, together with the systematic taxation and bureaucracies to support them.

Iraq
1500BC

Over the past thousand years, kingdoms and empires have come and gone in Mesopotomia, and outsiders have raided and settled. Powerful states now dominate the region. Southern Mesopotamia is governed from Babylon, while a new power, the Mitanni, rules northern Mesopotamia. The powerful and warlike kingdom of Elam lies to the east.

Despite all these upheavals, styles of art, architecture and literature derived from the old Sumerian cities retain a powerful grip on the cultures of the region. This period represents the high point of Bronze Age civilization in Mesopotamia.

Iraq
1000BC

The powerful Bronze Age kingdoms of Babylonia, Assyria and Elam have been overthrown or greatly weakened by the incursion of Aramaean and other nomadic peoples into Mesopotamia. Amongst these, a semi-nomadic people called the Chaldeans have settled southern Mesopotamia, the ancient heartland of the Sumerians. Elam has been destroyed by incoming Iranian peoples. Assyria was almost overrun, and has only managed to remain in existence by turning itself into a more militaristic state.

Iraq
500BC

The past few centuries have seen the rise and fall of great Mesopotamian empires, first Assyria, and then Babylon. With the recent replacement of Babylon by Persia, however, the people of Mesopotamia now find themselves ruled by a power from outside the region for the first time in their long history.

The Assyrian and Babylonian policy of moving conquered peoples from one region to another has caused massive population upheaval. This has led to the Aramaic language becoming the lingua franca of Mesopotamia. Along with the spoken language has spread the use of the Aramaic alphabet. These developments make international trade easier, as do the great Persian-built roads which now span the region.

Iraq
200BC

Like the rest of the Persian Empire, Mesopotamia was conquered by the armies of Alexander the Great in the 330s and 320s BC. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC the region fell to Seleucus, one of his generals. Mesopotamia has since been ruled by kings of Seleucus’ line, under whom a Greek-speaking ruling class came to monopolises power. However, in recent years the region of Mesopotamia has become the scene of warfare between the Seleucid kings and a new power in the region, Parthia. These Iranian nomads from the steppe are gaining the upper hand in this struggle.

Under the Seleucid monarchs Greek-style cities – the largest of which is Seleucia-on-the-Tigris - have sprung up, settled by colonists from the Greek and Macedonian homelands. The cultural inter-mixing of Greek and native elements has led to the spread of a hybrid culture throughout the Middle East, which modern scholars label “Hellenistic”.

Iraq
30BC

Mesopotamia has, since the second century BC, been a part of the Parthian empire. Chronic political instability, together with the continuous wars with external foes (Seleucids, Steppe Nomads and Romans) in which the Parthian kings have been engaged, has prevented them from consolidating their control fully over Mesopotamia. As a result several semi-independent kingdoms, only loosely subordinate to the Parthian monarch, now cover large parts of the region, for example Characene, Adiabene and Gordyene.

The Parthian kings have continued to to present themselves as pro-Greek in their sympathies, and to promote “Hellenistic” civilization within the cities. Greek continues as the international language of trade and urban culture within the empire, with Aramaic spoken by most of the rural population.

Iraq
200AD

The "Hellenistic" civilization of the Mesopotamian cities has come under increasing pressure over the past two centuries. Two destructive invasions by the Romans, the heirs of Greek civilization in the west, have irreparably weakened many of the centres of Hellenistic culture, including the largest city in the region, Ctesiphon (the old Seleucia-on-Tigris). Also, a revival of Iranian culture, fostered by the Parthian ruling class, has led to the cities of the empire increasingly becoming home to a hybrid culture, which draws on both Greek and Iranian elements to create its own distinctive style of art and architecture.

Politically, Mesopotamia has experienced increasing fragmentation, with the small kingdoms asserting more and more independence from the Parthian government. Even that part of Mesopotamia which had been directly controlled by the Parthian king, the old province of Babylonia, has now passed into the hands of local rulers.

Iraq
500AD

Along with other regions in the Middle East, Mesopotamia passed from the Parthian empire to the Sassanid empire in AD 222. This Persian dynasty has created a centralized empire, and the small kingdoms which the Parthians tolerated have now come firmly under Sassanid control.

As in the Roman empire to its west, new religions have spread in the region. Whilst the Persian ruling class is loyal to Zoroastrianism, Christianity is widespread amongst the population at large, and many of the cities house flourishing Jewish colonies. A new religion also makes its appearance in Sassanid Mesopotamia, that of Manichaeism.

Under the Sasanian dynasty of Persia, Iraq has experienced one of its golden ages. The ancient irrigation system has been brought up to a pitch never before seen; new land has been brought under cultivation; cities have flourished, and the population has expanded. Iraq is the bread-basked of the Persian empire. Economically, the region probably attains its highest levels prior to the twentieth century.

Iraq
750AD

For Iraq, the last years of the Sasanian empire were marked by foreign invasion (from Byzantium), civil war and a dramatic deterioration in the irrigation system which saw a vast area of southern Iraq revert to swampland (which it remained until the 20th century). It was into this situation that Arab armies swept in and swiftly conquered the country from the Sasanians (634-8).

As in other parts of the huge Islamic Caliphate, the conquered masses were allowed to remain Christians and keep traditional laws and customs. Huge numbers of Arabs did come into the country, but were settled in large garrison cities, at Al-Kufah and Al-Basra. After the 660s, Iraq became a centre of opposition to the rule of the Umayyad caliphs, based in Syria. The corruption and abuses of Umayyad officials, and the neglect of the irrigation systems on which much of Iraq's agriculture depended, led to economic depression, spreading poverty and rising brigandage. A large number of Iraqi Muslims joined the Shi-ite sect, formed around support for an alternative line of caliphs. These factors come together to give popular support in Iraq to a rebel army from Iran, which, in this year (750), defeats the forces of the Umayyads and installs a new caliph. He founds the ’Abbasid dynasty and chooses Iraq as his base.

Iraq
979AD

In 762, the new 'Abbasid caliph founded a new capital, Baghdad, which soon became one of the largest cities in the world. Iraq experienced a period of peace and prosperity. From the early 9th century, however, destructive civil wars caused a great deal of damage, to both the city of Baghdad and the surrounding countryside. The complex irrigation systems were again neglected, and large areas of land were lost to cultivation. A ferocious revolt by black slaves in southern Iraq (869-883) made matters worse, with Basra experiencing a terrible sack.

Despite all these troubles, Baghdad has remained a brilliant centre of scholarship, science and culture.

The fertile region of northern Iraq freed itself from Baghdad's control in 905, under a Bedouin tribe, the Hamdanids. They are based in the city of Mosul.

After 945 a group from northern Iran, the Buyids, marched on Baghdad and seized power for themselves. The Buyids have since built an empire that includes most of Iran and all of Iraq, whilst at the same time remaining theoretically subordinate to the caliphs.

Iraq
1215AD

The Buyid dynasty went into rapid decline in the last years of the 10th century, losing control of all Iraq except Baghdad and its neighbourhood. Baghdad sunk into a degraded state, law and order declined to a low ebb and, in the surrounding countryside, brigandage became endemic. Yet despite all this – perhaps even because of it – Baghdad remained a vibrant cultural centre, with a free-thinking environment that firmer government control might have stamped on.

After 1055, things improved greatly, as the Seljuq Turks came in and imposed order over nearly all of Iraq. Baghdad remained the city of the caliph, although real power now resided with the Seljuq sultan at Isfahan, in Iran.

From the mid-12th century, Seljuq power began to decline. Into this vacuum, the power of the caliphs has revived somewhat: since 1160 they have gained direct control of much of southern Iraq. Northern Iraq is now part of a large sultanate spanning Syria and Egypt.

By now, most Iraqis are Muslims, though significant Christian and Jewish communities remain; and most speak Arabic. It is now no longer the wealthiest region in the Middle East, and its population has declined considerably over the past few centuries.

Iraq
1453AD

The Mongols invaded Iraq in the 1250s, and in 1258 they finally entered Baghdad itself. They killed the last of the caliphs and sacked the city. Thousands of Baghdad inhabitants were massacred. Iraq, once again, became a subordinate province of a larger empire, whose capital was far away. Under the Mongol Il-khan rulers, Iraq experienced further economic decline, with tax revenues apparently sinking to a mere one-tenth of their pre-Mongol levels. Matters got even worse when civil wars broke out between rival Il-khanid chieftains.

In the chaos under the later Il-khans the Mongol Jalayrid tribe seized control of Iraq (1356). Then another conqueror from central Asia, Timur, besieged and sacked Baghdad (1401).

Timur and his successors controlled Iraq for only a few years before it again passed into the hands of another group originally from central Asia, the White Sheep Turks. These are now pushing into western Iran.

Iraq
1648AD

The Black Sheep Turks were defeated by the White Sheep Turks in 1467, and the latter became, briefly, the rulers of Iraq. In 1508, Iraq was conquered by the Safavids, a Shi-ite religious movement that had seized control of Iran.  Then, in 1534, Iraq came under the rule of the Ottoman empire.

Iraq has thus become again a subordinate province within a large empire, distant from the political hub. However, the country now knows a measure of peace and stability after centuries of political turmoil, military insecurity and economic neglect. This long period of impoverishment mean that what was once the bread basket of the Middle East now has its agriculture restricted to only a few areas, around Baghdad and Basra, with most of the country given over to a nomadic pastoral economy.

Iraq
1789AD

Iraq is the scene of mounting conflict between the Arab tribes of the desert. To deal with this, as well as to defend the eastern frontier against Persian aggression, the Ottomans have allowed the pashas of Baghdad to impose order on the province using Mamluq forces, recruited in Georgia. These pashas succeeded in imposing a measure of order on the desert tribes and in extending their power throughout most of Iraq. They paid tribute to Constantinople, but otherwise governed as  independent hereditary rulers within Iraq.

In 1747 the Mamluqs seized power in Iraq. They owed only nominal obedience to sultan. The Ottomans' attempts to reassert control have failed.

The Mamluqs behave as the rulers of an independent state in their dealings with Europeans, signing treaties with them and in particular allowing the British East India Company to establish trading relations with them.

Iraq
1837AD

Factional strife within the Mamluq ruling group weakened their power, and led to a progressively loss of control over the Arab tribes in Iraq. In 1801 the weakness of their power was revealed by their inability to to defend the great Shiite shrine of Karbala from a sack by Sunni tribesmen.

Successive attempts by the Ottoman government in Constantinople to re-assert control over Iraq continue to fail until 1831, when the empire is threatened by Mohammed Ali of Egypt. A determined effort by a powerful Ottoman army re-imposes control. Since then, Iraq has been ruled directly from Constantinople.

Iraq
1871AD

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