Nippur: Did you mean...?

Originality in literary compositions in the ancient world did not carry the same weight and value as it does today. In recent centuries, authors have been applauded for the creation of original works and have been derided for plagiarism or...

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...

This law code is considered the oldest known law code surviving today. Many terracotta tablets of this law code have been excavated at several archaeological sites in Mesopotamia. This tablet was found at Nippur (modern Nuffar, Al-Qadisiyah...

Beveled rim bowl, from Nippur, Late Uruk period, c. 3300–3100 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This mortar was an offering from Gudea (ruler of Lagash) to the god Enlil. Neo-Sumerian era, 2141-2122 BCE. From Nippur (modern Nuffar, Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, Iraq), southern Mesopotamia.(Istanbul Archaeological Museums/Ancient Orient...

This literary text gives an advice to a prince on how a king should behave, with the agenda of securing tax exemptions for the cities of Babylon and Nippur. This clay tablet is a copy which was made between 700-650 BCE, of an earlier composition...

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

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."...

Babylon is the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia whose ruins lie in modern-day Iraq 59 miles (94 km) southwest of Baghdad. The name is derived from bav-il or bav-ilim, which in Akkadian meant "Gate of God" (or "Gate of the Gods"...

Ur was a city in the region of Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, and its ruins lie in what is modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq. According to biblical tradition, the city is named after the man who founded the first settlement there, Ur, though...