Mesopotamia, the world's oldest civilisation, arose in ancient Iraq, pioneering writing, law, and science. Explore its ...

Archaeologist and scholar Giorgio Buccellati’s book At the Origins of Politics describes how Mesopotamia’s urban revolution ...

Over 8,000 years ago, early farming communities in northern Mesopotamia were already thinking mathematically—long before numbers were written down. By closely studying Halafian pottery, researchers ...

The origins of writing in Mesopotamia lie in the images imprinted by ancient cylinder seals on clay tablets and other artifacts. A research group from the University of Bologna has identified a series ...

An ancient civilization that ruled Mesopotamia nearly 4,000 years ago was likely wiped out because of disastrous dust storms, a new study suggests. The Akkadian Empire, which ruled what is now Iraq ...

On a set of broken clay bowls from northern Mesopotamia, delicate flower patterns have turned out to be something far more radical than decoration. New analysis of this ancient art suggests that early ...

Researchers studying clay balls from Mesopotamia have discovered clues to a lost code that was used for record-keeping about 200 years before writing was invented. The clay balls may represent the ...

When New Art’s Really Old: From the Valley of the Kings to Pompeii to a Rubens in a Paris Closet Wall Panel with a Striding Lion, neo-Babylonian period 605–562 B.C. Glazed brick. Object: H: 99.7 × W: ...

His name meant “true king,” and Sargon of Akkad (unknown–2279 B.C.) took advantage of that presumed legitimacy to establish the world’s first empire around 2330 B.C. in Mesopotamia, the fertile land ...

To reopen Wednesday after a yearlong closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Getty Villa has at last unveiled “Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins.” The show, originally scheduled to open in March 2020 ...