两河之间 · BETWEEN THE RIVERS
Where Cities Were Invented — Iraq · Tigris & Euphrates
在底格里斯与幼发拉底两河之间，灌溉把平坦的荒漠变成了余粮——约公元前 3200 年，乌鲁克膨胀到约四万人，成为当时世界上最大的城市，文字也在此前后诞生。
两条河把安纳托利亚山间的融雪带过这片无雨的平原；挖一道渠，荒漠便绿了。余粮养活了不事农耕的祭司、书吏与君王——为了记清谁欠谁多少，苏美尔书吏在泥板上压下楔形的刻痕，历史从此有了文字。
Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, irrigation turned flat desert into surplus grain — and around 3200 BCE Uruk swelled to perhaps 40,000 people, the largest city the world had yet seen, and near where writing was born.
The two rivers carried snowmelt out of the Anatolian mountains across a rainless plain; dig a canal, and the desert greened. Surplus grain freed hands for priests, scribes and kings — and to keep track of who owed what, Sumerian clerks pressed wedge-marks into clay, and history began to be written down.