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Babylonian mathematicians made extensive use of the sexagesimal positional system of counting created by the Sumerians. Sumero-Babylonian mathematics was developed on this basis toward the end of the third millennium B.C. The most important factor in the development of science was the economic system which required, first of all, the elaboration of a system of measures and also the creation of methods for determining the area of fields, volume of granaries and artificial bodies of water, and calculation of work standards in digging canals, in building, and in handicrafts. The Assyrians built the first stone aqueduct in the seventh century B.C. Approximately between the end of the second and beginning of the first millennium B.C., a new irrigation technology developed with the waterwheel (sakieh) and “endless” rope with leather pails ( cherd). Iron tools appeared in Assyria and Babylonia in the first millennium B.C., and artisans began to use the diamond drill. Stone bridges and floating bridges (on leather wineskins) were built. Armor made from copper metal plate (middle of the second millennium), cavalry, the sword, fortified military camps, and siege weapons (such as the battering ram) were other innovations. Chariot armies were introduced (beginning of the second millennium). Marked progress in technology was made later on. The arch, the drainage system, and other structures were known but little used. The main building material was crude brick and, less commonly, kiln brick. Metallurgy in the middle of the third millennium consisted of casting, forging, engraving and coinage, making of gold and silver wire, and filigree work. However, stone tools did not finally go out of use until the beginning of the third millennium B.C. The material culture of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia was on a comparatively high level. Their culture was characterized by a relatively high level of science, literature, and art, on the one hand, and by the predominance of religious ideology, on the other.
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These peoples were the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, creators of the great states of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria. The culture of the peoples who, in antiquity, between the fourth and first millennia B.C., inhabited Mesopotamia-the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (the region of present-day Iraq).