After minor surveys and excavations by the British scholar Claudius James Rich (1811 and 1817), the British archaeologist and sometime diplomat Austen Henry Layard (1850), the French Orientalist Fulgence Fresnel, the German Assyriologist Jules Oppert…

It was the largest city in the world for approximately fifty years[2] until the year 612 BC when, after a bitter period of civil war in Assyria, it was sacked by a coalition of its…

Initial excavations at Nimrud were conducted by Austen Henry Layard, working from 1845 to 1847 and from 1849 until 1851.Following Layard’s departure, the work was handed over to Hormuzd Rassam in 1853-54 and then William…

Larsa was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu with his temple E-babbar. It lies some 25 km (16 mi) southeast of Uruk in Iraq’s Dhi…

Adab or Udab (Sumerian: 𒌓𒉣𒆠 , spelled UD.NUNKI) was an ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Wasit Province of Iraq. The city-god of Adab was The Sovereign Appointed by Ellil Initial examinations of the site of Bismaya…

Sippar (Sumerian: Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern city on the east bank of the Euphrates river, located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah in Iraq’s Babil Governorate, some 60 km north of…

Eridu lion / British officer Taylor found it in 1855 after the residents of the area showed him his place and when he was unable to move it, he buried it to be re-extracted in…

Members of the excavation expedition in Kurigalzu for the year 1944 with Mr. Fouad Safar (1), Dr.. Taha Baqir (2), Mr. Muhammad Ali Mustafa (3), Seton Lloyd (4), Ulrike Lloyd (5), Dr. Naji Al-Aseel, Director…

The Sumerian king list states that Kish was the first city to have kings following the deluge. After irregularly excavated tablets began appearing at the beginning of the twentieth century, François Thureau-Dangin identified the site as being…

In the late 1920s antique dealers in Baghdad were acquiring large quantities of unusual, high quality artifacts from the desert east of the Diyala River, just north of its confluence with the Tigris. In 1929 the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago obtained a concession to excavate the area James Henry Breasted (1865–1935), the founder of the institute, invited the Dutch Archeologist Henri Frankfort (1897–1954) to lead the expedition.

Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100…

was an ancient Sumerian city. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil,  Nippur was located in modern Nuffar 5 miles north of modern Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. It is roughly 200 kilometers south of modern…

When Ur was founded, the Sumiran Gulf’s water level was two-and-a-half metres higher than today. Ur is thought, therefore, to have had marshy surroundings; irrigation would have been unnecessary, and the city’s evident canals likely…

Shuruppak” is sometimes also the name of a king of the city, legendary survivor of the Flood, and supposed author of the Instructions of Shuruppak” The report of the 1930s excavation mentions a layer of…

Larsa was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu with his temple E-babbar. It lies some 25 km (16 mi) southeast of Uruk in Iraq’s Dhi Qar Governorate, near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal at the site of…

“Sargon, king of the world, king of Assyria (says): ‘Because I wanted to, I built a city. Dur-Šarruken (i.e. Sargon’s Fortress) I called its name. An ideal palace which in the four quarters (of the world) does not have one rivalling it I built in its midst.’

The remains of prehistoric Samarra were first excavated between 1911 and 1914 by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld. Samarra became the type site for the Samarra culture. Since 1946, the notebooks, letters, unpublished excavation reports…

Khinnis is an Assyrian archaeological site, also known as Bavian, its neighbouring village) in Duhok Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is notable for its rock reliefs, built by king Sennacherib around 690 BC. During the reign of Sennacherib (705–681 BC), Khinnis was built…

Ashur and Qal’at Sherqat, was the capital of the Old Assyrian city-state (2025–1364 BC), the Middle Assyrian Empire (1363–912 BC), and for a time, of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC). The remains of the city lie on the western bank of the Tigris River,…