Mesopotamian Inventions: Did you mean...?

Ereshkigal (also known as Irkalla and Allatu) is the Mesopotamian Queen of the Dead, who rules the underworld. Her name translates as "Queen of the Great Below" or "Lady of the Great Place." She was responsible for both keeping the dead within...

Recipes were written in cuneiform inscriptions. They concern conditions such as infertility and pregnancy. Probably from Babylon, Mesopotamia, Iraq. Circa 600-400 BCE. (The British Museum, London)

A medical recipe was written on this clay tablet to prevent miscarriage. It recommends that a women should wear for 3 days a particular species of dried edible mouse which has been stuffed with myrrh. Probably from Babylon, Mesopotamia, Iraq...

This tablet lists purchases of land by a man named Tupsikka, with payments made in baskets of barley. One transaction reads "The price of the field is 90 gur-sag-gal 16 quarts of oil". Stone tablet, about 2400-2200 BCE. Excavated by Hormuzd...

For how long do we build a household? For how long do we seal a document? For how long do brothers share the inheritance? For how long is there to be jealousy in the land(?)? The Epic of Gilgamesh, chapter 10, Tablet X. I have always...

Mesopotamian clay tablet with the episodes of the epic of creation. It narrates how the god Anshar summons the gods together for a banquet. They celebrate Marduk's appointment as champion; Marduk defeated Tiamat in the primeval chaos. From...

Gypsum alabaster eye idol from the Middle Uruk period, c. 3700-3500 BCE, Tell Brak, Syria. Many similar artifacts have been found at Tell Brak; they were likely amuletic objects honoring the Mesopotamian goddess Ningal, wife of Nanna, or...

Babylonian tablet, a scholar speculating on how powerful, independent Mesopotamian gods can be seen as aspects of the god Marduk. From Babylon, Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq. Neo-Babylonian Period, reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 605-562 BCE. The...

Mesopotamian male worshiper votive figure, from Eshnunna, Mesopotamia (modern-day Tell Asmar), 2750-2600 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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...