The western German tribes consisted of the Marcomanni, Alamanni, Franks, Angles, and Saxons, while the Eastern tribes north of the Danube consisted of the Vandals, Gepids, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths. The Alans, Burgundians, and Lombards are less easy to define. There were many Germanic tribes: the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, Swedes, Danes, and others. During the first millennium AD a great deal of the European continent came under Germanic rule and thus their names were imported into southern regions such as Spain and Italy.

Mesopotamia is a Greek word which means ‘The land between the two rivers'. It was so called because the whole area of Mesopotamian civilization was planked by the two rivers, Tigers and Euphrates.
The important centres of this civilization were Sumer, Babylonia, Akkad and Assyria.

Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction.  Evolution in its contemporary meaning in biology typically refers to the changes in the proportions of biological types in a population over time (see the entries on evolutionary thought before Darwin and Darwin: from Origin of Species to Descent of Man for earlier meanings).

The three unique characteristics of Mesopotamian civilization were:

1. Towns were constructed according to pre-planned strategy.
2. Baked bricks were used for construction.
3. Most of the houses were of single story having a courtyard.

Vassalage is a kind of feudal system who is obliged to follow his lord or monarch. The obligation may be in the form of military support when required or mutual protection in return to certain privileges.

• City life began in Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia is derived from the Greek words ‘mesos’, meaning middle, and ‘potamos’, meaning river.)
• It is a flat land between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers that is now part of the Republic of Iraq.

• The Arabs were skilled warriors.
• The Arabs were successful merchants, who maintained their trade relations with the far off countries.
• The spread of Islam in different countries, also helped them in consolidating their empire.
• They collected information from the available sources and developed it still further.

The term ‘Abbasid revolution’ refers to the Dawa Movement initiated by Abu Muslim from Khurasan against the Umayyad dynasty. This revolution put an end to the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled from 661 to 750. With the fall of Umayyad dynasty in 750, the Abbasid came to power and ruled till 1258.

The three orders are three social categories: Christian priests, landowning nobles and peasants.The term ‘feudalism’ has been used by historians to describe the economic, legal, political and social relationships that existed in Europe in the medieval era.

The Three order

First Order

Priests (The Clergy)

– The Catholic Church

– Europe guided by bishops and clerics.

– Pope lived in Rome

– Women could not be become priests

– Monks – The church and Society

Second Order

Nobles

– Vassals of the king

– They enjoyed a privileged status

– Absolute control over property

– Could raise troops

– Even coin his own money

Third Order

– Peasants

– Free peasants and serfs

– Serfs cultivated plots of land, but these belonged to the lord.

(i) The division of the year into 12 months according to the revolution of the moon around the earth, the division of the month into four weeks, the day into 24 hours, and the hour into 60 minutes - all that we take for granted in our daily lives has come to us from the Mesopotamians.

(ii) These time divisions were adopted by the successors of Alexander and from there transmitted to the Roman world, then to the world of Islam, and then to medieval Europe.

(iii) Whenever solar and lunar eclipses were observed, their occurrence was noted according to year, month and day. So too there were records about the observed positions of stars and constellations in the night sky.

In the West, by contrast, the empire fragmented politically as Germanic groups from the North (Goths, Vandals, Lombards, etc.) took over all the major provinces and established kingdoms that are best described as ‘post-Roman’

In the West, by contrast, the empire fragmented politically as Germanic groups from the North (Goths, Vandals, Lombards, etc.) took over all the major provinces and established kingdoms that are best described as ‘post-Roman’

Senate: The body which had controlled Rome in the days when it was a Republic. Senate was composed of the wealthiest families of the Roman and Italian descent, mainly landowners. Senate was so powerful that emperors were judged by their behavior towards the Senate.

Army: This was another key institution of imperial rule, and its position came after the emperor and the Senate. The Romans maintained a paid professional army. The soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25 years of service. The army was the largest single organized body in the empire. Its strength had become 600,000 by the fourth century. The army had the power to determine the fate of the emperors. The success of the emperor depended on his control of the army.

• The system of nuclear family in the Roman society was one of its modern feature. The family used to be patriarchal in nature. Slaves were included in the family.
•  Marriages were generally arranged, and there is no doubt that women were often subject to domination by their husbands.
• The literacy rate was casual and varied greatly between different parts of the empire.

The city of Babylon had played an outstanding role in the ancient history of Mesopotamia. It was Akkad ruler, Sargon, who ruled from 2370 to 2315 BCE. Being situated on the north-west bank of river Tigris it made tremendous progress under Humurabiera. Babylon witnessed the emergence of glorious era of its history under Keldian ruler Nabopolassor. At that time, it covered an area of more than 850 hectares. Some magnificent features of Babylon were as follows:

• A triple wall was constructed all-around the city to safeguard it from any foreign threat.
• A massivq Ziggurat was the main center of attraction in Babylon.
• It was also a famous commercial center.
• The city had also made a tremendous progress in the field of language, literature, science, medicine, etc.

A man of the southern marshes, Nabopolassar, released Babylonia from Assyrian domination in 625 BCE. His successors increased their territory and organized building projects at Babylon. From that time, even after the Achaemenids of Iran conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and until 331 BCE when Alexander conquered Babylon, Babylon was the premier city of the world, more than 850 hectares, with a triple wall, great palaces and temples, a ziggurat or stepped tower, and a processional way to the ritual centre. Its trading houses had widespread dealings and its mathematicians and astronomers made some new discoveries.

1. Ur was a town whose ordinary houses were systematically excavated in the 1930s Narrow winding streets indicate that wheeled carts could not have reached many of the houses. Sacks of grain and firewood would have arrived on donkey-bac.

Narrow winding streets and the irregular shapes of house plots also indicate an absence of town planning. There were no street drains of the kind we find in contemporary Mohenjodaro

.

Drains and clay pipes were instead found in the inner courtyards of the Ur houses and it is thought that house roofs sloped inwards and rainwater was channelled via the drainpipes into sumps* in the inner courtyards

2. This would have been a way of preventing the unpaved streets from becoming excessively slushy after a downpour.

3. Yet people seem to have swept all their household refuse into the streets, to be trodden underfoot! This made street levels rise, and over time the thresholds of houses had also to be raised so that no mud would flow inside after the rains.

 Babylon witnessed the emergence of glorious era of its history under Keldian ruler Nabopolassor. 

Nabonidus was the last ruler of independent Babylon. He writes that the God of Ur came to him in a dream and ordered him to appoint a priestess to take charge of the cult in that ancient town in the deep south. He writes: ‘Because for a very long-time the office of High Priestess had been forgotten, her characteristic features nowhere indicated, I bethought myself day after day.

Then, he says, he found the stele of a very early king whom we today date to about 1150 BCE and saw on that stele the carved image of the Priestess. He observed the clothing and the jewellery that was depicted. This is how he was able to dress his daughter for her consecration as Priestess.

On another occasion, Nabonidus’s men brought to him a broken statue inscribed with the name of Sargon, king of Akkad. (We know today that the latter ruled around 2370 BCE.) Nabonidus, and indeed many intellectuals, had heard of this great king of remote times. Nabonidus felt he had to repair the statue. ‘Because of my reverence for the gods and respect for kingship,’ he writes, ‘I summoned skilled craftsmen, and replaced the head.’

The great Assyrian kings, who had been immigrants, acknowledged the southern region, Babylonia, as the center of high culture and the last of them, Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE), collected a library at his capital, Nineveh in the north. He made great efforts to gather tablets on history, epics, omen literature, astrology, hymns and poems. He sent his scribes south to find old tablets. Because scribes in the south were trained to read and write in schools where they all had to copy tablets by the dozen, there were towns in Babylonia where huge collections of tablets were created and acquired fame. And although Sumerian ceased to be spoken after about 1800 BCE, it continued to be taught in schools, through vocabulary texts, sign lists, bilingual (Sumerian and Akkadian) tablets, etc. So even in 650 BCE, cuneiform tablets written as far back as 2000 BCE were intelligible – and Ashurbanipal’s men knew where to look for early tablets or their copies.