The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are a key part of life in the Fertile Crescent.

The following are places to know.

After hundreds of

years of struggle among

Mesopotamian city-states,

Hammurabi united much

of the region

under the control of Babylon.

Hammurabi’s Code was a set

of laws that governed life

in the Babylonian

empire.

This is how Nineveh may have looked like in Ashurbanipal’s time.

The ancient Persian capital of Persepolis, in what is now Iran,

includes many detailed carvings.

THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

Phoenician sailors steered ships full of trade goods from Western Asia

throughout the Mediterranean region.

Phoenician traders developed what is perhaps the world’s first alphabet.