Mesopotamian Mythology: Did you mean...?

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 temples issued workers with daily rations of barley beer, the staple drink of Mesopotamia. The tablet was impressed with five different types of numerical symbol. From Mesopotamia, Iraq. Late Uruk Period, 3100-3000 BCE. (The British Museum...

On this clay tablet, barley appears 4 times, depicted as a single stalk with ears at the top. Emmer wheat is different from barley, by writing numbers with extra strokes. Three different types of numerical symbol were used. From Mesopotamia...

Clay cylinder with Babylonian characters, recording the restoration of Sin's ziggurat at Ur and also asking him to protect Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar. From Ur, Southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. Neo-Babylonian Period, reign of Nabonidus...

Fragment of a Neo-Assyrian clay tablet, with 8 lines of bilingual text, including proverbs and riddles, from the Library of Ashurbanipal, Kouyunjik, Iraq. The British Museum, London.

This clay tablet fragment gives detailed measurements for the inner city wall called Imgur-Enlil at the start of Nebuchadnezzar II's reign. It names landmarks including Zababa and Urash gates. Modern surveys show that the figures are realistic...

Clay plaque showing a man shooting at a monkey. The monkey is in the branches of a tree, in the centre. There is a boar at the foot of the right side of the tree. A kneeling man assists the shooter. This is possibly a scene from an Indian...

This adminsitrative document is dated to the "24th day of Kislimu in the 11th year Nabonidus, King of Babylon". It mentions "a slave of Bel-sharra-usur (Belshazzar),son of the king". Although Belshazzar is acting as regent, the formal date...

Festivals in ancient Mesopotamia honored the patron deity of a city-state or the primary god of the city that controlled a region or empire. The earliest, the Akitu festival, was first observed in Sumer in the Early Dynastic period (circa...

Enki's Journey to Nippur (c. 2000 BCE) is a Sumerian origin myth explaining the creation of the temple at Eridu by the god Enki and how musical instruments were ordained for use in festivals in ancient Mesopotamia. The poem formed part of...