Assyriology (from
Greek ,
Assyria; and ,
-logia) is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient
Mesopotamia (essentially ancient
Iraq and some areas of northeastern
Syria and southeastern
Turkey) and of related cultures that used
cuneiform writing. The field covers the
Akkadian sister-cultures of
Assyria and
Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessors,
Sumer and the
Akkadian Empire. The large number of cuneiform clay tablets preserved by these cultures provide an extremely large resource for the study of the period. The region's (and the world's) first cities such as
Ur are archaeologically invaluable for studying the growth of urbanization.