The Great Ziggurat of Ur rose above one of Mesopotamia’s most powerful cities, a major center of trade, religion, and royal authority founded around 5,800 years ago in southern Iraq. Built for the ...

The world’s first known author is widely considered to be Enheduanna, a woman who lived in the 23rd century BCE in ancient Mesopotamia (approximately 2285-2250 BCE). Enheduanna is a remarkable figure: ...

Catalog of an exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, Malibu, from March 18-July 27, 2020. Translated and adapted from L'histoire commence en Mésopotamie, which was published ...

The idea of Mesopotamia has intoxicated the West for centuries. Alastair Sooke takes a look at a civilisation where much of modern culture took form. “Everybody has heard of the Hanging Gardens of ...

In Greek, Mesopotamia means 'land between the rivers', and the term came to be applied to the land between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which flow from eastern Turkey, through ...

Researchers have uncovered a vast and well-preserved network of ancient irrigation canals in the Eridu region of southern Mesopotamia, shedding new light on early farming practices. The research team, ...

This is a companion volume and sequel to Early Mesopotamia and Iran: Contact and Conflict, c. 3500-1600 BC. "Funded by a gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler." Published for the Trustees of the ...

Things like laws, scripts and languages are vital parts of civilisations. But they don't just suddenly pop into being out of the blue. They take centuries to change and evolve. In fact, some of our ...

For instance, there's some doubt over whether Thomas Edison really came up with the idea of the motion picture camera — or whether he pinched it. There's also a question mark over whether "ignored" ...

Picture writing was invented in Mesopotamia before 3,000 BC. This clay tablet, dating to about 3,100 BC, has written on it a list of rations. It shows how writing was developing from using pictures to ...