Uruk Period: Did you mean...?

The Uruk archaeological site at Warka in Iraq, photo by SAC Andy Holmes (RAF), 2008.

Of all the pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt, there is one in particular that stands out from the rest. Over the course of his 17-year reign (1353-1336 BCE), Akhenaten spearheaded a cultural, religious, and artistic revolution that rattled...

The Early Three Kingdoms Period in ancient China, from 184 CE to 190 CE for the purposes of this article, was one of the most turbulent in China's history. With an ailing Han government unable to control its empire, brutal localised wars...

Egypt's Early Dynastic Period (3150-2613 BCE) lay the foundation of what would become one of the most impressive civilizations of the ancient world. The kings of this era, except for Narmer and Djoser, are often overlooked but were responsible...

Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven is a Sumerian poem relating the event, now famous from The Epic of Gilgamesh, in which the goddess Inanna/Ishtar sends the celestial bull to attack Gilgamesh after he has rejected her advances. The epic changes...

There is a hole on the back of this stone calf for vertical posts or other attachments. Late Uruk period, 3300-3000 BCE, from Ur, Mesopotamia, Iraq. (The British Museum).

Ur-Nammu (circa 2112-2094 BCE) was the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur in Sumer, who initiated the so-called Ur III period (circa 2112 to circa 2004 BCE), also known as the Sumerian Renaissance. He is best known as the king who composed...

Among the most interesting and revealing artifacts discovered from ancient Mesopotamia are cylinder seals. These fairly small items may be seen today in museum exhibits around the world, but, perhaps owing to their size, they are not given...

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and also of war. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess Ishtar, and further with the Hittite Sauska, the Phoenician Astarte...

Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning "between two rivers") was an ancient region located in the Near East (Middle East) bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to modern-day...