The tablets are believed to come from Sippar - a city that flourished during the Babylonian Empire in what is now Iraq and date back to the middle and late Old Babylonian periods from about 1894 ...

British Museum, London Photograph by Erich Lessing, Album Babylonian citizens ... Babylon the capital of his empire, he died before that came to pass. The great city would eventually be abandoned ...

The Romans made Dura-Europos part of their empire in A.D. 165, using it as an eastern trading post. But the city was abandoned in A.D. 256 after being besieged by soldiers from the Sasanian Empire ...