Ancient Middle East

The Akkadian empire is one of the oldest civilizations we know of. Dating back to a few thousand years BC, it presents itself with some archaeological finds, as well as long-forgotten mysteries and unanswered questions that will probably remain that way. However, despite of the many secrets this advanced, vast empire holds, it could definitely be worth our time to explore some of the things we do know. We can learn about their language, their government, and, as far as we have sources, about their economy, art, culture, and religion.

In southern Iraq, a crushing silence hangs over the dunes. For nearly 5,000 years, the sands of the Iraqi desert have held the remains of the oldest known civilization: the Sumerians. When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia.

From sacred cats to the invention of toothpaste, Blue Peter Award winning author David Long takes readers on an intriguing investigation into the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The incredible civilisation of ancient Egypt lasted for 3,000 years. Ruled over by pharaohs, the Egyptians developed...

The gods of Ancient Egypt conjure up images of hieroglyphs with animal-headed people, fantastic civilizations, and a past that seems both unimaginably distant and still tenuously connected to the present day. Although the names Ra, Anubis, and Isis still linger today in modern fiction, the truth about these gods reveals the ancient Egyptians themselves. A look at the principal gods of Ancient Egypt gives insight into the culture of the world's first great civilization.

Ur was a considerable Sumerian city-state in old Mesopotamia, situated near modern-day Tell el-Muqayyar in the Dhi Qar Governorate in Southern Iraq. Ur was formerly a seaside city on the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the Euphrates, but the shoreline has modified, and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 kilometers (about 9.9 miles) from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq.