A new interdisciplinary study shows that the rise of the first urban civilization was not solely a product of human ingenuity, but a complex response to coastal dynamics and the predictable rhythms of ...

The story of how the first cities rose from southern Mesopotamia has long fascinated scientists and historians. Many explanations point to fertile soil, farming, and trade networks as the engines of ...

When historians look back into time to name the first civilized people, they usually pick the Sumerians, who built imposing cities, including Abraham’s Ur of the Chaldees, in southern Mesopotamia ...

The Great Ziggurat of Ur dedicated to the Moon god. Ziggurats were massive structure typical for Mesopotamia. Sumerians believed that the gods lived in the temple at the top of the ziggurats. Woods ...

A recent study is changing the understanding of how urbanization developed in ancient Mesopotamia. According to the analysis, the emergence of the Sumerian civilization was not only the result of ...

On the bitter plains of modern Iraq there remain large piles of baked bricks covered with much sand. They have sat there in silent witness to a lost religion for 4,000 years. Only in the 19th century ...