Between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, lies a land once known as Mesopotamia. It was here that humanity found suitable land to rip open and seed. Once the seeds took root, civilization was born...
Ninsun is a female figure found in Sumerian mythology. She is a goddess whose parents are the deities Anu (the sky god) and Uras (a goddess of the earth). As a goddess, Ninsun was worshipped by the...
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...
Amy Gazin-Schwartz / The Conversation The archaeological and historical communities are deeply dismayed about ISIS destroying archaeological sites and materials in the last few weeks. We have seen...
Militants of the Islamic State have destroyed a large portion of the ancient Nineveh wall in Mosul, which dates back some 2,700 years. The tragic loss adds to a series of archaeological, historical,...
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...
The Musasir temple was an important Araratian temple dedicated to Haldi, the supreme god of the kingdom of Urartu, an Iron Age kingdom centered on Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands, which extended...
Written nearly a thousand years ago, the Kitab al-tabikh (book of cookery) written by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, is the most comprehensive work of its kind. It includes more than 600 recipes for culinary...
'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...
Read Part 1 - The Magnificent Ishtar Gate of Babylon The Ishtar Gate was the main entrance into the great city of Babylon, commissioned by King Nebuchadnezzar II (605 BC-562 BC) as part of his plan...
The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate of the city of Babylon (in present day Iraq) and was the main entrance into the great city. It was a sight to behold; the gate was covered in lapis lazuli glazed...
Local village people in the Kurdistan region or northern Iraq have just made a remarkable discovery – the long-lost temple of the city of Musasir, dedicated to the god Haldi. According to a report in...
The Hatra complex, a World Heritage site which features 200-ft high temples, now stands in territory claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) group, and UNESCO fears the precious...
Archaeologists have discovered numerous archaeological sites scattered across the Middle East thanks to work on the new Corona Atlas of the Middle East, which features Cold-War satellite images from...
Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel...
Hasankeyf, Turkey, is one of the oldest ancient sites in the world with evidence of human settlement. Dating back 12,000 years, it has been home to virtually every major Mesopotamian civilisation,...
It is sad when common sense doesn’t prevail in simple matters like an ancient artefact that belongs to a country. Well, in this case the object of desire is a 3,000-year-old Assyrian gold tablet. The...
In a move that has pleased many historians and archaeologists, Cornell University has forfeited their vast collection of cuneiform tablets , which detail daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, considered...
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient city called Idu , hidden beneath a mound in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, which is thought to have thrived between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago. The...
Iraqi authorities have approved the restoration of the ancient Arch of Ctesiphon , which is the world’s largest brick-built arch and the last structure remaining intact from the ancient Persian...
One of the most interesting and highly debated artefacts of the Baghdad Museum in Iraq is a clay pot. It is 5-6 inches high and encapsulates a copper cylinder. Suspended in the center of this...