Making a picture of Mesopotamia in our heads

Working in a small rural primary school in North Gloucestershire I was inspired by national news reports from Iraq to change the focus of our Ancient History study from Ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, ‘the land between the rivers'. A study of this region of the Middle East fulfilled so many aspects of the National Curriculum as well as being relevant to events in the news (now more Syria orientated) and a period of history the pupils were unlikely to have any preconceptions about. It was and is a topic about which the pupils can teach their parents.

It is not difficult to identify the region's ‘distinctive contribution to history'...