Excavations on unpromising mounds in the Iraqi desert revealed Sumer’s earliest city. Surviving relics and a rebuilt temple have given experts more clues about the ancient metropolis of Eridu.

Mesopotamia, located in the fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was one of the cradles of civilization around 6000 years ago and the birthplace of the first writing system. Each ...

The first museum. The world’s first known museum, and its curator, Ennigaldi-Nanna, are among these many firsts.The daughter of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, Ennigaldi-Nanna was a priestess ...

At its peak in the third millennium BC—from around 2600BC to 2200BC—it was a megacity covering hundreds of hectares, and revered as a sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu.

Around 2300 B.C.E., the Mesopotamian king Sargon—a native of the elusive Akkad—conquered Girsu and other Sumerian cities, and he whipped them into administrative shape.

While the texts may not be great masterpieces of Sumerian literature, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, the British Museum’s curator for ancient Mesopotamia, director of the Girsu Project, Sébastien ...

Ziggurat of Ur. Credit: flickr / Joshua McFall CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Archaeologists have uncovered an extensive irrigation system, including canals and farms, near Sumerian Eridu, an ancient Mesopotamian ...

THE great and inventive people who settled 5,500 years ago in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (now part of Iraq), founded one of the world's first major ...

The "oldest map of the world in the world" on a Babylonian clay tablet was deciphered to reveal a surprisingly familiar story, according to the British Museum's Irving Finkel.

Researchers are shedding light on an ancient Babylonian tablet known as the oldest map of the world. The map was likely created around 2,600 years ago and offers a glimpse into the past.