ABSTRACT
Excepting the district of Eridu (Abu Shahreïn), the southernmost city built on an island in the Persian Gulf and separated from the Euphrates valley by sandstone cliffs, the Babylonia of classical writers corresponds precisely to the plain created by the Tigris and Euphrates on their arrival at the sea through the alluvial deposits whose constituents are derived from the Armenian mountains where the rivers rise. Formed in the quarternary epoch after the glacial period, its natural boundaries are: on the west the Arabian desert, inhabited by nomads who make raids upon the sedentary populations: on the north the high plain of Mesopotamia, where the Assyrians were to establish themselves and from which Babylonia is separated by a line commencing at Hit, on the Euphrates, and reaching the Tigris above its junction with the Adhem; on the east the last outposts of the hills which form the present frontier of Persia, with diverse tribes established in all their valleys; thence come stone, metals, timber for building; finally, towards the south the Persian Gulf with its lagoons beyond which navigation scarcely proceeds. At the beginning of historical times this plain did not extend far below the present canal of the Shatt-el-Hai: the country of Lagash, a city whose ruins lie an hour-and-a-quarter to the east of this canal and two hundred kilometres from the gulf, was included in the maritime region.
