Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, ziggurats were not places of royal burials, but temples dedicated to the patron deity of a city ...

Millennia ago, in the Fertile Crescent, the land nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now present-day Iran, the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer arose. Sumerians ...

Over 5,000 years ago, in the scorching heart of ancient Mesopotamia, the city of Uruk rose to become the largest and most advanced settlement in the world. Home to nearly 80,000 people, it boasted ...

The origins of writing in Mesopotamia lie in the images imprinted by ancient cylinder seals on clay tablets and other artifacts. A research group from the University of Bologna has identified a series ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. This photo provided by researchers shows rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, ...

The discoveries shed new light on life in ancient Mesopotamia. Examples of the cuneiform tablets found, and an aerial view of Fayadia District, Iraq. Photo: Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and ...

New discoveries by a UCF researcher and her team at the ancient Mesopotamian site of Kurd Qaburstan, including clay tablets with ancient cuneiform writing, a game board and large structural remains, ...

Assyrian cylinder seal from the late ninth to seventh centuries B.C.E., made of chalcedony and inscribed with a cultic scene. The image on the right shows the impression the seal would make. Gift of ...

Examination of an ancient alabaster vase in the Yale Peabody Museum’s Babylonian Collection has revealed traces of opiates, providing the clearest evidence to date of broad opium use in ancient ...

Rock-cut tombs in Nuwayrat, Egypt where a pottery vessel in which the remains of a man, radiocarbon dated to around 2855–2570 cal BCE, was discovered. (John ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. WASHINGTON (AP) — Ancient DNA has revealed a ...