Related Resources • Just Another Old Story • Archaeology of Mesopotamia • The Archaeology of Iraq

From Other Guides • Iraq War on Ancient Artifacts, from your guide to Ancient History, N.S. Gill • Before You Lend a Hand to the Iraqi People, from your guide to Islam, Huda

Elsewhere on the Web • BBC: War risk to Iraqi treasures • ABC: Archaeologists Fear History Could Be Lost in a New Gulf War

As the US leads the west into battle with Iraq, the ancient land of the fertile crescent, archaeologists all over the world are speaking up against the cost that a sustained battle will have on the remnants of one of the most ancient civilizations of our planet: Mesopotamia. Ironically, perhaps, Mesopotamia is considered the 'cradle of western civilization'. Beginning five thousand years ago, the valleys between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq saw monumental architecture, domesticated wheat and barley, domesticated cattle and sheep, some of the earliest writing systems, and some of the earliest urban dwellings on our fragile world.