Important points about the four Mesopotamian city-states

	Sumerians	Akkadians	Assyrians	Babylonians
From	3500 BCE onwards	2334 BCE	2154 BCE	1900 BCE
Main city	Ur , in Sumer (southern Mesopotamia)	Akkad (central Mesopotamia)	Assur (northern Mesopotamia)	Babylon (central Mesopotamia)
Language	Sumerian	Akkadian - different from Sumerian	—	—
Script	Cuneiform - they invented it	Cuneiform - the same script	Cuneiform	Cuneiform
Known for	First city-based civilisation; irrigation; bricks; ziggurats; the invention of writing ; the wheeled cart, sailboat and base-60 system	The world's first dynastic empire ; Sargon ; trade with Meluhha, Dilmun and Magan; creative literature	Dominance spread rapidly across Mesopotamia; lasted till early 1700 BCE	Hammurabi (1792 BCE) and the Code of Hammurabi
How it ended	Overshadowed by the Akkadians in 2334 BCE	Lost supremacy to Assur in 2154 BCE	Supplanted as Babylonia rose	Weakened by Hittite attacks , environmental degradation and internal problems by 1400 BCE