The story of how the first cities rose from southern Mesopotamia has long fascinated scientists and historians. Many explanations point to fertile soil, farming, and trade networks as the engines of ...

Recent events in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey recall ancient and equally dramatic events in Babylon and Mesopotamia, whose lands these countries now occupy. A magnificent storyteller and a careful historian ...

In the third millennium BC, one Sumerian ruler rose from Umma and briefly united the ancient city-states of southern Mesopotamia, even claiming to reach the Mediterranean. This chapter follows ...

On the bitter plains of modern Iraq there remain large piles of baked bricks covered with much sand. They have sat there in silent witness to a lost religion for 4,000 years. Only in the 19th century ...

In ancient times, Mesopotamia, meaning 'land between two rivers', was a vast region that lay between the Tigris and Euphrates river systems, and it is where civilization emerged over 7,000 years ago.

A new interdisciplinary study shows that the rise of the first urban civilization was not solely a product of human ingenuity, but a complex response to coastal dynamics and the predictable rhythms of ...

The Sumerian takeoff -- Factors hindering our understanding of the Sumerian takeoff -- Modeling the dynamics of urban growth -- Early Mesopotamian urbanism : why? -- Early Mesopotamian urbanism : how?

Ancient Mesopotamia produced some of the earliest written accounts of demons and supernatural beings. These creatures were not abstract myths but explanations for disease, storms, and sudden death.