Akkadian: Did you mean...?

Assyria was the region located in the ancient Near East which, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, reached from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) through Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and down through Egypt. The empire began modestly at the city of Ashur...

The Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia is the modern-day archaeological term for the era in Mesopotamian history – circa 2900 to circa 2350/2334 BCE – during which some of the most significant cultural advances were made, including the...

Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such “guidebooks” from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul's fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety...

The Legend of Cutha (also known as the Cutha Legend and Kutha Legend) is a fictional work dated to the 2nd millennium BCE belonging to the genre known as Mesopotamian Naru literature. It features the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (r. 2261-2224...

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

The Curse of Agade is a story dated to the Ur III Period of Mesopotamia (c. 2112-c.2004 BCE) though thought to be somewhat older in origin. It tells the story of the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (r. 2254-2218 BCE) and his confrontation with the...

The lives of women in ancient Mesopotamia cannot be characterized as easily as with other civilizations owing to the different cultures over time. Generally speaking, though, Mesopotamian women had significant rights, could own businesses...

Sumer was the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day southern Iraq and parts of Kuwait), which has long been considered the cradle of civilization. The name comes from Akkadian, the language of the north of Mesopotamia, and...

The government of ancient Persia was based on an efficient bureaucracy which combined the centralization of power with the decentralization of administration. The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) founded by Cyrus the Great (r. c. 550-530...

The Behistun Inscription is a relief with accompanying text carved 330 feet (100 meters) up a cliff in Kermanshah Province, Western Iran. The work tells the story of the victory of the Persian king Darius I (the Great, r. 522-486 BCE) over...