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PERIOD GUIDE · Mesopotamia

The Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia: Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian

In the Met's timeline the Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia runs about 2000-1600 BCE. In the north it is the Old Assyrian period, in the south the Old Babylonian, both with exactly the same bounds.

Approximately 2000-1600 BCE
2 articles and guides

Move through the periods

Its place in the Mesopotamia scheme

The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.

All periods and subdivisions
  1. The Neolithic in Mesopotamia10,000-5,500 BCE
  2. The Chalcolithic in Mesopotamia5,500-3,000 BCE
  3. The Early Bronze Age in Mesopotamia3,000-2,000 BCE
  4. The Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia2,000-1,600 BCE
  5. The Late Bronze Age in Mesopotamia1,600-1,200 BCE
  6. The early Iron Age in Mesopotamia1,200-911 BCE
  7. The Neo-Assyrian period911-612 BCE
  8. The Neo-Babylonian period626-539 BCE
  9. Achaemenid Mesopotamia539-331 BCE
  10. Macedonian and Seleucid Mesopotamia331-138 BCE
  11. Parthian Mesopotamia138 BCE - 224 CE
  12. Sasanian Mesopotamia224-637 CE
  13. Early Islamic and Abbasid Mesopotamia637-1,258 CE
  14. Mesopotamia from the Ilkhanids to the Aq Quyunlu1,258-1,508 CE

The frame

The Met's timeline page for Mesopotamia, 2000-1000 BCE, gives this period the label "Middle Bronze Age", about 2000-1600 BCE. In the north it lists the "Old Assyrian period" and in the south the "Old Babylonian period", both about 2000-1600 BCE. The page's events fall into two stages: about 2000-1800 BCE, the trade of Assyrians from the city of Ashur with Anatolia; and about 1800-1600 BCE, the time of Hammurabi, whom the overview presents as king of Babylon about 1792-1750 BCE, and the destruction of the palace at Mari. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The sources show one overlap and one gap. The overlap: the page for Anatolia and the Caucasus dates the "Assyrian Trading Colony period" about 1950-1750 BCE, while the Mesopotamian page places the trade in the event of about 2000-1800 BCE; both ranges lie within this period. The gap: in the south the list leaves a short interval between the end of the Old Babylonian period, about 1600, and the start of the Kassite dynasty, about 1574 BCE, while in the north the Old Assyrian period is followed by the Mitanni period, from about 1600 BCE. Sources 1, 2.

On this site

Two articles are placed in this period. "From Ashur to Kanesh: how a transaction leaves a trace" looks at the tablets, envelopes and seal impressions of the trade between Ashur and Anatolia, and is also placed in the Middle Bronze Age in Anatolia; it shows that the two timeline pages give it different dates. "Mari: a palace that is also an archive" looks at the palace of Zimri-Lim, its paintings and its tablet archive, and at the distinction between kinds of evidence. Both rest on the timeline pages only; no dated museum object from this period has been added to the site yet. Sources 1, 2.

Source

Sources and further reading

The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.

  1. 1 Mesopotamia, 2000-1000 B.C. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Chronology)

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked

  2. 2 Anatolia and the Caucasus, 2000-1000 B.C. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Chronology)

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked

Related periods, objects and places

Period

The Early Bronze Age in Mesopotamia: city-states, Akkad and Ur

Approximately 3000-2000 BCEPeriod

The Late Bronze Age in Mesopotamia: Mitanni, Middle Assyrian and Kassite

Approximately 1600-1200 BCE

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