At its peak some 3,000 years ago, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was the largest metropolis on Earth. Renowned for ...

The full hymn was scattered among fragmented pieces of clay tablet, but using an AI program, experts were able to piece ...

The text was a description of an unknown hymn that praised Marduk, the Esagil, Babylon, and the Babylonians, hinting at the ancient people’s lives.

A carved panel found at Nimrud depicts Assyrian soldiers swimming across a river and using inflatable goat skins as floaties.

Cuneiform script, developed in Mesopotamia around 3,200 B.C.E., is the oldest known writing system. Closely associated with the legendary kingdom of Babylon, this distinctive script—seemingly ...

A recent study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science has revealed the materials and techniques used in the production of writing tablets from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, found in the ruins ...

A bowl, likely used for ceremonial libations, was uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Credit: Penn Museum Researchers also discovered clay tablets in excellent ...

Oldest writing Cuneiform writing used a stylus to make wedge-shaped impressions in unbaked clay. These impressions created signs representing sounds to make a record of spoken language.

After cuneiform was replaced by alphabetic writing sometime after the first century A.D., the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets and other inscribed objects went unread for nearly 2,000 years.

The substitute-king ritual is associated with the Neo-Assyrian period, which lasted from about 900 B.C. to 612 B.C., though it may have been practiced later as well.

Believed to date back to the 15th century B.C.E., the artifact’s surface is carved with cuneiform script in the ancient language of Akkadian.

Inspired by a relief from 728 B.C.E. that depicts a pair of scribes from the Assyrian Empire using two different writing methods, The Handless King imagines a deadly rivalry between the eunuchs ...