Valley of the kings: Did you mean...?

In this interview, World History Encyclopedia sits down with author and Assyriologist Amanda H. Podany to learn all about her new book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East published by Oxford University Press...

The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) was the first great Persian political entity in Western and Central Asia which stretched, at its peak, from Asia Minor to the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia through Egypt. It was founded by Cyrus II (the...

Aryan is a designation originally meaning “civilized”, “noble”, or “free” without reference to any ethnicity. It was first applied as a self-identifying term by a migratory group of people from Central Asia later known as Indo-Iranians (who...

The Sassanian Empire (224-651) was the greatest expression of Persian culture in the ancient world. It was consciously modeled on the earlier Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) which established Persian supremacy in the region and developed...

This gallery gives an overview of 25 stunning châteaux in the Loire Valley of France, some very well known and others that deserve to be discovered. Some of these châteaux date back as far as the 11th century and served as strongholds and...

This statue gallery covers 30 English kings and queens over 1400 years, from the early Anglo-Saxon rulers to Queen Elizabeth II (reign 1952-2022). The statues are primarily located in England. Some have local significance, based in the former...

The Neo-Assyrian kings are among the best-known of the Assyrian Empire and include Tiglath Pileser III, Shalmaneser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal. The term Neo-Assyrian is a modern-day designation; the Assyrians...

The Merovingians were the ruling family of the Franks from roughly 481 CE, when Clovis I rose to power, until 751, when the last Merovingian king was overthrown and supplanted by the Carolingian Dynasty. They established the largest, most...

For well over 1,000 years, sacred stories and heroic epics have made up the mythology of Hinduism. Nothing in these complex yet colourful legends is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, it shifts and changes...

This map illustrates the extent and key urban centers of the Indus Valley Civilization (circa 3300–1300 BCE), one of the world’s earliest complex societies. Spanning parts of modern-day Pakistan and northwest India, this civilization was...