Abstract

Urban areas or cities emerged around 3500 B.C. The first of these urban areas were Warka, Ur and Lagash in Mesopotamia. Five centuries later, cities appeared in Egypt such as Memphis and Thebes 3100 B.C., and their appearance continued in India, china and other places. By the first century until the third century A.D., which is the period in question of this research paper, some of these ancient cities continued to be inhabited and some of them disappeared while others were newly created. As far as concern Iraq, there are a number of sources of information regarding urban areas in it especially the writings of Greek and Roman historians. But what is remarkable is that one of these sources comes from the residents of the area themselves and is written in their national language at that time in which it is represented by the Syriac sources. We will try to evaluate the Syriac sources that we have received from that period and try to answer questions such as: how many early Syriac sources are available? How much the information is rich as far as concern the urban areas? And do these sources draw an integrated urban picture of Iraq and the world in the period under study?