Excavations on unpromising mounds in the Iraqi desert revealed Sumer’s earliest city. Surviving relics and a rebuilt temple have given experts more clues about the ancient metropolis of Eridu.

Are you as assured as Ashurbanipal about your knowledge of Mesopotamia, or as dim as Nimrud?

UMM AL-AJARIB, Iraq — Iraqi archeologists are striving to bring to light what they describe as Mesopotamia’s largest “city of graves,” where the Sumerians buried their dead nearly 5,000 ...

Last week Danish archaeologists were digging into the ruins of a city on oil-rich Bahrein Island in the Persian Gulf. They think it is Dilmun, the mysterious “home city of the Land of Sumer.” ...

Ancient Sumer civilisation began in around 5300BC and ended around 1940BC. Ancient Sumer lasted from the late Neolithic period to the early Bronze Age. The civilisation weakened when city rulers ...

Writing, laws, cities, and science—these and other innovations were devised by the enterprising peoples living in Sumer, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, some 5,000 years ago.

Sumer is a region in southern Mesopotamia. It is home to some of the oldest known cities — Ur and Uruk. Sumerians were highly devout people. Most of their art work and architecture is colored by their ...