Mesopotamian Inventions: Did you mean...?

An Arab folio on which is depicted a pharmacist preparing an elixir. From the manuscript of the De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, 1st century CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Two boxers are fighting while two musicians are playing the drum and are beating clappers together. Old Babylonian Period, 2000-1600 BCE. From Larsa, Southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. (The British Museum...

The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization flourished between circa 4000 and 1750 BCE. Their name comes from the region, which is frequently – and incorrectly...

The Nimrud Dogs, five clay canine figurines found at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nimrud, were only a few of the many startling finds in the region in the 20th century. During the 19th century...

Daily life in ancient Mesopotamia cannot be described in the same way one would describe life in ancient Rome or Greece. Mesopotamia was never a single, unified civilization, not even under...

The Gutians were a West Asiatic people who are thought to have lived around the Zagros Mountains in a region referred to as Gutium. They had no written language and all that is known of them comes from...

The literary genre of Mesopotamian Naru Literature first appeared in the region around the second millennium BCE and the stories not only became very popular, but seemed to replace the actual historical...

Certain types of figurines were commonly placed within foundations of buildings during the third dynasty of Ur (2100-2000 BCE) of the Neo-Sumerian Period, to commemorate the building of temples by the ruler. These...

Calcite figure of a man, with a cuneiform inscription on the right shoulder/upper arm. The text hasn't been deciphered yet, but probably it bears the dedicator's name. The nose might well have been attached separately...

Chogha Zanbil (literally "basket mound") is an ancient Elamite temple complex located in the modern-day province of Khuzestan, Iran. It is also known as Dur-Untash (Fortress/City/Town of Untash), Tchogha...