The Birth of Civilization: Mesopotamia's Fertile Land Mesopotamia which from the Greek means land between 2 rivers is aptly named due to the land being surrounded by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Although the rivers flooded unpredictably the silt made the land more fertile which allowed for a well-developed agricultural system. The Ubaid period dating between circa five thousand and four thousand one hundred BCE, was this early civilization which led to the development of the Sumerian cit