Forbidden City: Did you mean...?

Assyrian relief showing a siege, from the Central Palace at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), Mesopotamia, Iraq. Date palms indicate that the city, most of which was on an adjacent slab, was probably Babylonia. The Assyrians have built a siege ramp...

This is an image of the city gate of the ancient Judean and fortified city known as Khirbet Qeiyafa, primarily excavated by Sa'ar Ganor and Yosef Garfinkel. 11th-8th century BCE.

This small alabaster bas relief was part of a larger relief that documented the military campaign of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal against the Elamite city of Hamanu. The Assyrian camp was built before Hamanu's city walls. There are two...

The upper and lower registers show tribute of king Sangar and the city of Carchemish. Shalmaneser III's military campaign in northern Syria, attack on the city of Carchemish, c. 858 BCE. Detail, bronze band from the Balawat gates. Embossed...

Jerusalem is a major holy city for the three Western traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It sits on spurs of bedrock between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea area. To the north and west, it tapers off to the Jezreel Valley...

Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE) was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria (founded by his father Sargon II, r. 722-705 BCE). He is one of the most famous Assyrian kings owing to the part he plays in narratives in the biblical Old...

Tukulti-Ninurta I (reigned 1244-1208 BCE) was a king of the Assyrian Empire during the period known as the Middle Empire. He was the son of Shalmaneser I (reigned 1274-1245 BCE) who had completed the work of his father, Adad Nirari I, in...

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, and its ruins lie in what is modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded the first settlement there, Ur, though...

Teotihuacan, located in the Basin of Central Mexico, was the largest, most influential, and most revered city in the history of the New World. It flourished in Mesoamerica's Golden Age, the Classic Period of the first millennium CE. Dominated...

Xanadu (aka Shangdu, Shang-tu, and Kaiping) located in Inner Mongolia, northern China, was first the capital (1263-73) and then the summer capital (1274-1364) of the Mongol Empire. It came to prominence during the reign of Kublai Khan (r...