Lamassu are human-headed, eagle-winged, bulls or lions that once protected cities in Mesopotamia. They were believed to be very powerful creatures, and served both as a clear reminder of the king’s...
A new analysis of a set of ancient clay tablets has revealed that ancient astronomers of Babylonia used advanced geometrical methods to calculate the position of Jupiter – a conceptual leap that was...
Mitanni was a state that existed between the 16th and 13th centuries BC. This state occupied the land of the Hurrians. This area is located in the upper Tigris-Euphrates basin, and corresponds today...
Dilmun (Telmun) was a civilization located in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Although this was quite an old civilization, it is much less famous than the four cradles of civilization of...
One of the most well-known forms of punishment today is imprisonment. One could argue that for any society to function properly, public order has to be maintained. This is an important function of...
An Assyriologist at the University of London (UCL) has discovered that a stolen clay tablet inscribed with ancient cuneiform text that was recently acquired by a museum in Iraq, contains 20...
New research reveals that some of the earliest civilizations in the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent may have been affected by abrupt climate change. These findings show that while socio-economic...
The ziggurat is arguably the most distinct architectural feature of the Mesopotamian civilization. Nevertheless, some of these structures have been found to exist outside the area once occupied by...
The time is 360 BC, the dawn of Western civilization. Athens, the cradle of democracy, is the epicenter of the ancient world. In his dialogues of Timaeus and Critias, Plato introduces a tale of an...
Some young boys in Israel took great care in excavating a winepress about 1,400 years old, not realizing they were doing anything wrong. The Israel Antiquities Authority got wind of the dig and took...
A clay tablet from ancient Babylon reveals that no matter where (or when) you go, good customer service can be hard find. So it was revealed by the irate copper merchant, Nanni, in 1750 B.C. The...
Sun and moon iconography can be found on the impressive standing pillars of Göbeklitepe, the Neolithic temples that are among the most important archaeological sites of our time. Guest author Özgür...
The weapons, tactics and strategies of warfare have changed enormously through the centuries, but the hellish aspects of war and the deep psychological scars it leaves on warriors were apparently...
Archaeologists digging in the Burnt City of southeastern Iran have excavated a piece of leather adorned with drawings from the Bronze Age. The Burnt City, known as Shahr-e Sukhteh in Persian, is a 5,...
Stories of epic cosmic battles can be found in many world cultures. In these battles, the lines are often drawn clearly, with the forces of good on one side and the forces of evil on the other. For...
Graham Hancock, in his famous work “The Fingerprints of The Gods” argues that certain civilizations around the globe showed these signs of unusual intelligence in their architecture, science and...
Archaeologists have discovered an enormous 5,000-year-old stone monument shaped like a lunar crescent near the Sea of Galilee in what is now Israel, according to a report in Live Science . Its...
For the first time in history, the academic world is paying attention to the spectacular underground world of Ani, a 5,000-year-old Armenian city located on the Turkish-Armenian border. Hurriyet...
'Bridegroom, dear to my heart; goodly is your beauty, honeysweet; lion, dear to my heart'. These are the passionate words of a lover to a king, from more than 4,000 years ago, in the oldest known...
Scientists at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia recently re-discovered a rare and important find in their storage rooms – a complete human skeleton who lived around 6,500 years ago in the Sumerian city...
Myths are traditional stories that address the various ways of living and being. The well-known myth of Gilgamesh has been cited in many sources as one of the first stories in our recorded human...
Nothing else has fascinated both archaeologists and theologians alike more than the identity to the location of man’s paradise lost; that is, the Garden of Eden. Throughout history, the idea of a...
Latest research shows that schistosomiasis, a disease caused by flatworm parasites, may have been spread by earliest crop irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia, suggesting early technology exacerbated...
The city of Ur was one of the most important Sumerian city states in ancient Mesopotamia during the 3 rd millennium BC. One of best preserved and most spectacular remains of this ancient city is the...