Many of us tend to think that the people of early cultures were less sophisticated than us. The wealthiest people may have lived lives of luxury with gold and slaves, but admittedly we cannot really...
An archaeologist has admitted that around 1,400 cuneiform tablets might have been stolen from Irisagrig, a 4,000-year-old lost Sumerian city in modern day Iraq. While the robbers obviously know the...
A researcher studying an ancient Assyrian cuneiform tablet has found an image of a demon. The demon was believed to have been the cause of epilepsy. The tablet was used to treat health conditions,...
A team of Italian and Iraqi archaeologists has unearthed hundreds of cuneiform tablets in central Iraq. They also uncovered some clay coverings and seals with the tablets. The collection of cuneiform...
With new technology available to us, we’re inching closer to the end of the days when deciphering ancient languages is a painstaking task filled with frustration and confusion. Nifty machines...
Archaeologists are hailing, as very important, the dramatic discovery of a Bronze Age Palace . It was revealed as the waters of a reservoir fell because of a severe drought in Iraq. The ruin is...
Spectacular things were happening in Mesopotamia in the period we call the Early Bronze Age, particularly in the southern part of it, commonly called Babylonia. It was here that the wealthy,...
Ancient languages are captivating despite the fact that studying them or learning about them is a long, complex process. Of course, many students just get briefly acquainted with this subject and...
Cuneiform is a system of writing that was invented by the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. Believed to have been created sometime during the 4th millennium BC (between 3500 and 3000 BC), this script...
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal has sometimes been described as the ‘first library’ in the world, or the ‘oldest surviving royal library in the world’. The library was discovered by archaeologists...
Archaeologists studying a group of five unique stone tablets dating to the first millennium in Babylonia and Assyria have announced that they reveal a hitherto unknown level of astronomical...
Louise Pryke / The Conversation The world’s first known author is widely considered to be Enheduanna, a woman who lived in the 23rd century BC in ancient Mesopotamia (approximately 2285 – 2250 BC)...
Ancient Mesopotamia was a vast region in Western Asia which has become known as the ‘cradle of civilization’ due to the huge number of feats the culture achieved. Agriculture, animal herding, and...
Almost 2,000 years after falling out of use, a Cambridge University linguistics specialist, Dr. Martin Worthington has learned how to speak ancient Babylonian and is not only campaigning to revive it...
In an exciting discovery, archaeologists have found the location of the lost royal city of Mardama. The ancient Hurrian city had laid buried for millennia until archaeologists unearthed the remains...
450 Stolen Sumerian tablets are being repatriated to Iraq with a ceremony in Washington D.C. on May 2. Many of the cuneiform texts come from a mysterious city called Irisagrig – a land from which...
In a recent article on Ancient Origins , Jason Jarrell and Sarah Farmer discussed the possibility that Zecharia Sitchin mistranslated several Sumerian Texts. According to Sitchin, there were a number...
“Whoever discards this image from the presence of Salmanu puts it into another place, whether he throws it into water or covers it with earth or brings and places it into a taboo house where it is...
In a previous 2-part article (1), the authors wrote about the faulty associations of the Sumerian deities known as the Anunnaki as they are portrayed in the books, television series, and other media...
A group of archaeologists digging at the site of Ziyaret Tepe in southeastern Turkey, has uncovered a unique cuneiform tablet that narrates a tale of exasperation and disappointment reported by an...
A 4,000-year-old Assyrian tablet discovered in central Kayseri province, Turkey, is an ancient marriage contract with the first known diagnosis of infertility. The clay record says that the wife...
The discovery of ancient writing is always exciting for researchers. Documented events, letters, lists, literature – it is all helpful in reconstructing the story of our predecessors. Thus, the...
It is a little-known piece of history that Saddam Hussein was a great fan of ancient Mesopotamian literature. His enthusiasm for epics written in cuneiform – the world’s oldest known form of writing...
“Forget death and seek life!” With these encouraging words, Gilgamesh, the star of the eponymous 4000-year-old epic poem, coins the world’s first heroic catchphrase. At the same time, the young king...