Al-Monitor is an award-winning media outlet covering the Middle East, valued for its independence, diversity and analysis. It is read widely by US, international and Middle East decision makers at the ...

Eridu, Ur, and Uruk were key cities that helped ... showing the complexity of ancient societies. The city’s layout was unique ...

Image caption, A restored Ziggurat in the ancient city of Ur. Mud-brick houses were built around a central courtyard where children could play. People sometimes slept on the flat roofs of their ...

A series of strong Amorite kings—including King Hammurabi, famous for compiling the world’s first legal code—enabled Babylon to eclipse the Sumerian capital, Ur, as the region’s most ...

Al-Monitor is an award-winning media outlet covering the Middle East, valued for its independence, diversity and analysis. It is read widely by US, international and Middle East decision makers at the ...

Canadian musician Peter Pringle gave a haunting performance of the first twelve lines of The Exaltation of Inanna in its original Sumerian on a scale replica of the Gold Lyre of Ur, an ancient ...

Samarra has the best preserved plan of an ancient large city, being abandoned relatively early and so avoiding the constant rebuilding of longer lasting cities. Samarra was the second capital of the ...