Articles

The Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898 saw General Kitchener lead an Anglo-Egyptian-Sudanese army to victory over 50,000 Mahdists in Sudan. The death of General Gordon during the...

The Hymn to Ninkasi is at once a song of praise to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, and an ancient recipe for brewing (though this claim has been challenged). Written down...

The siege of Khartoum from March 1884 to January 1885 was the most dramatic episode of the Mahdist War (1881-99) in Sudan when an army led by the inspirational Muslim leader, Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed...

Burial in ancient Mesopotamia was the practice of interring a corpse in a grave or tomb while observing certain rites, primarily to ensure the passage of the soul of the deceased to...

The field of public health was transformed by the introduction of vaccination, from the Latin word “vacca” meaning cow, to guard people against infectious diseases. It was well known that...

Medical texts from ancient Mesopotamia provide prescriptions and practices for curing all manner of ailments, wounds, and diseases. There was one malady, however, which had no...

Among the many contributions to world culture credited to Mesopotamia is an object so familiar to people in the modern world that few pause to consider its origin: the dog...

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...

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...

Mesopotamia is the ancient Greek name (meaning "the land between two rivers," the Tigris and Euphrates) for the region corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran...