Mesopotamian Inventions: Did you mean...?

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 – referred to as a "country."...

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, London).

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 Akkadian Empire of Sargon of Akkad (the Great...

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 their enemies, including the Akkadians...

Nanna (also known as Nannar, Nanna-Suen, Sin, Asimbabbar, Namrasit, Inbu) is the Mesopotamian god of the moon and wisdom. He is one of the oldest gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon and is first mentioned at the very dawn of writing in Sumer...

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 events in the minds of the people...

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 three peg-shaped copper...

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. There is a cuneiform...

Fashion and dress in Mesopotamia – clothing, footwear, and accessories – were not only functional but defined one's social status and developed from a simple loincloth in the Ubaid period (circa 6500-4000 BCE) to brightly colored robes and...