Reforming (and Decolonising) Excavation and Survey in Iraq
December 2022 | Vol. 10.12 By Jaafar Jotheri Archaeology in Iraq has always been bound up with its external and internal politics. Iraq’s heritage law was written in 1936, four y
Modern Wars and Ancient Governance: Archaeology and Textual Finds from First Millennium BCE Babylon
November 2022 | Vol. 10.11 By Odette Boivin When the German architect-turned-archaeologist Robert Koldewey and his colleagues unearthed cuneiform tablets from the ruins of Babylon
Camels in the Biblical World of the Ancient Near East
September 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By Martin Heide and Joris Peters The question ‘what is a camel’ is more complicated than it seems. Domesticated Old World camels comprise two forms,
The Concept of Music in Ancient Mesopotamia
April 2022 | Vol. 10.4 By Daniel Sánchez Muñoz Cuneiform texts, more or less well-preserved real musical instruments, and iconography inform us about the instruments, performers,
Were There Sumerians?
February 2022 | Vol. 10.2 By Paul Collins The Sumerians can seem very familiar. They have been understood as a distinct people, speaking a common language, who occupied the alluvia
The Medico-Magical Squill
January 2022 | Vol. 10.1 By Maddalena Rumor Penetrating the deepest meaning of a word allows our brain not only to make sense of the idea it conveys, but also to disentangle relate
The Exceptional Career of a Mesopotamian Ruler without a Crown: Kudur-Mabuk and the Kingship of Larsa
January 2022 | Vol. 10.1 By Baptiste Fiette Where did Mesopotamian kings come from? In the second third of the 19th century BCE, the kingdom of Larsa in southern Mesopotamia went t
Mesopotamian Sculpture in Color
Like other ancient sculpture, Mesopotamian statues were painted. Small traces can now be analyzed with scientific techniques and help explain Mesopotamian concepts such as “posit
Glass: Lapis Lazuli from the Kiln
Like other ancient sculpture, Mesopotamian statues were painted. Small traces can now be analyzed with scientific techniques and help explain Mesopotamian concepts such as “posit
Epidemics in Mesopotamia
Epidemics have been with us since long before the dawn of history. Three collections of documents record some of the ways ancient Near Eastern societies suffered and coped.