When a vast library of texts amassed by Mesopotamian King Ashurbanipal was burned to the ground about 2700 years ago, the ...

In southern Iraq, archaeologists have excavated a remarkable collection of carved clay tablets—ancient records of Akkadia, ...

The finds, which also include dozens of clay sealings, contain details of a metric system used to measure resources, as well ...

Red tape may feel like a modern-day frustration, but according to archaeologists, it's been a part of governance for ...

Modern historiography has tended to assume that violence was the primary driving force behind the formation of the first ...

Nothing validates my parenting quite like discovering an ancient Mesopotamian teen’s clay tablet complaint that could have been written yesterday—minus the effort of carving it into actual stone.

One of the most outstanding messengers in ancient history was Euchid, who gained fame for his journey following the Battle of ...

A learned man, he restored the region’s ancient architectural and cultural traditions, especially those from the Akkadian Empire, which had dominated Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C.—a ...

At first, like most students of the ancient near east, he wanted to work on Mesopotamia. The 2003 invasion of Iraq put paid to that. At Cleuziou’s suggestion he turned instead to Iran and contacted ...