People In many countries around the world cannot imagine their cuisine without olive oil. Apart from gastronomy, the gift of oil from the magnificent olive tree is also used today for other purposes...
Traditionally, it has been thought that civilization in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean began in two centers, Sumer in the east between the Tigris and Euphrates, and Egypt in the west...
The Ebla clay tablets have provided researchers with a wealth of information regarding cultural practices and myths, judicial affairs, ancient languages, business, and foreign and domestic policies...
The 7,000-year-old ancient city of Mari (known today as Tell Hariri) is one of the oldest known cities in the world, located on the west bank of the Euphrates River in what was once northern...
The Sarcophagus of King Ahiram (spelled also as Ahirom) is an incredible monument that was unearthed in Lebanon. As its name suggests, the sarcophagus belonged to a king by the name of Ahiram, who...
Sutton Hoo in East Anglia is one of the most important archaeological sites in England. The weapons, clothing and other objects buried in the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries show that trade networks in the...
For 1,000 years, the mysterious origin of the Druze people – who live almost exclusively in the mountains of Syria, Lebanon and Israel – has captivated linguists, historians, and sociologists. There...
The year is 745 BCE and much of the Middle East is about to be conquered and confiscated by the powerful Assyrian Empire under King Tiglath-pileser III. Tiglath-Pileser III: stela from the walls of...
Palmyra is an ancient city located in modern Syria which served as the capital of the Palmyrene Kingdom during the 3rd century AD. In May 2015, this city made the headlines and grabbed the attention...
A team of researchers using DNA analysis has determined a group of decapitated, animal-bitten, injured men from Roman-era Britain were mostly of European origin, but one was from the Middle East,...
The city of Damascus, which lies in the southwestern part of Syria, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. This city is located in a desert oasis on the eastern foothills of...
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...
The war has so disrupted parts of the Near East that scholars have just a few Roman Empire sites to study in what was the Roman province of Syria. But archaeologists are able to work a few sites,...
Ancient Urkesh was once a major hub of the ancient Near Eastern Hurrian civilization, known in mythology as the home of a primordial god. Little was known about Urkesh and the mysterious Hurrian...
Did an ancient meteor have such a life-changing impact on witnesses of the day that it shaped a religion and altered the course of history? Astronomers theorize that the dramatic flash and boom that...
In 30 BC, the last active Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, was dead. According to the written sources, she committed suicide by holding a poisonous snake to her breast, so as to avoid being...
Huge stone circles in the Middle East have been imaged from the air, but researchers remain puzzled as to why they exist, and who made them. 11 Big Circles dot the landscape across Jordan and Syria...
In 2014, scholars from the University of California at Berkeley brought to life the ancient sounds of Mesopotamia following the decryption and study of a set of ancient cuneiform texts that date back...
Fans of the popular video game series Assassin’s Creed would be familiar with the castle of Masyaf in Syria. In the series, the castle of Masyaf was the headquarters of the notorious Assassins, and...
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...
Ain Dara is a small village in the northwest of Aleppo, Syria, which boasts a remarkable structure – the Ain Dara Temple, located just west of the village. The temple was discovered in 1955, when a...
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...
The Qanat Firaun, otherwise known as the Gadara Aqueduct, is an ancient aqueduct that was built to supply water to the Roman-Hellenistic Decapolis, which now lie in present-day Syria and Jordan...