Did the ancient Mesopotamians invent irrigation?

Question

I know they used it to farm, but I'm not sure if they created it or not.

Answer 1

No one can asy for certain. Earlier forms of irrigation have been found in Mesopotamia. The most sophisticated out of the ancient world are the "shadoufs" used in Egypt, which are still in use today.

Answer 2

Among the earliest civilizations were the diverse peoples living in the fertile valleys lying between the Tigris and Euphrates valley, or Mesopotamia, which in Greek means, "between the rivers." In the south of this region, in an area now in Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia, a mysterious group of people, speaking a language unrelated to any other human language we know of, began to live in cities, which were ruled by some sort of monarch, and began to write. These were the Sumerians, and around 3000 BC they began to form large city-states in southern Mesopotamia that controlled areas of several hundred square miles. The names of these cities speak from a distant and foggy past: Ur, Lagash, Eridu. These Sumerians were constantly at war with one another and other peoples, for water was a scarce and valuable resource. The result over time of these wars was the growth of larger city-states as the more powerful swallowed up the smaller city-states. Eventually, the Sumerians would have to battle another peoples, the Akkadians, who migrated up from the Arabian peninsula. The Akkadians were a Semitic people, that is, they spoke a Semitic language related to languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. When the two peoples clashed, the Sumerians gradually lost control over the city-states they had so briliantly created and fell under the hegemony of the Akkadian kingdom which was based in Akkad, the city that was later to become Babylon.

Answer 3

Yes, I believe irrigation was invented by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians.

Answer 4

It is believed that it did develop first in Mesopotamia -
this site has a good detailed discription of the early history and origins of farming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farming