<Li> Asōristān (3rd to 7th century AD) </Li> <Li> Muslim conquest (mid-7th century AD) </Li> <P> The earliest language written in Mesopotamia was Sumerian, an agglutinative language isolate . Along with Sumerian, Semitic languages were also spoken in early Mesopotamia . Subartuan a language of the Zagros, perhaps related to the Hurro - Urartuan language family is attested in personal names, rivers and mountains and in various crafts . Akkadian came to be the dominant language during the Akkadian Empire and the Assyrian empires, but Sumerian was retained for administrative, religious, literary and scientific purposes . Different varieties of Akkadian were used until the end of the Neo-Babylonian period . Old Aramaic, which had already become common in Mesopotamia, then became the official provincial administration language of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and then the Achaemenid Empire: the official lect is called Imperial Aramaic . Akkadian fell into disuse, but both it and Sumerian were still used in temples for some centuries . The last Akkadian texts date from the late 1st century AD . </P> <P> Early in Mesopotamia's history (around the mid-4th millennium BC) cuneiform was invented for the Sumerian language . Cuneiform literally means "wedge - shaped", due to the triangular tip of the stylus used for impressing signs on wet clay . The standardized form of each cuneiform sign appears to have been developed from pictograms . The earliest texts (7 archaic tablets) come from the É, a temple dedicated to the goddess Inanna at Uruk, from a building labeled as Temple C by its excavators . </P>

Political units of city and surrounding land in mesopotamia