In ancient Mesopotamia, cuneiform writing was the domain of a small elite. Scribes, trained for years, mastered a complex ...
The image of a stable Assyrian kingdom, with an orderly dynastic line and mostly peaceful father-to-son successions, has for ...
Across the ancient southern Levant, some cylinder seals carried inscriptions that looked like cuneiform but could not be ...
A geometric writing system made up of diamonds, curves, and broken lines, silent since its discovery in 1903, has finally ...
This cuneiform tablet, just over ten centimetres wide, describes a ceremonial ritual. Researchers at Germany's University of Wurzburg have unveiled a groundbreaking artificial intelligence tool that ...
It is a little-known piece of history that Saddam Hussein was a great fan of ancient Mesopotamian literature. His enthusiasm for epics written in cuneiform – the world’s oldest known form of writing – ...
Symbols and markings carved into tools and figurines by Stone Age humans over 40,000 years ago could be an ancient precursor to writing, according to a new analysis. The marks, found on 260 artifacts ...
Archaeologists working in the depths of Kateřinská Cave have made a series of remarkable discoveries that challenge our understanding of ancient human activity in Central Europe. Recent excavations ...
These files consist of 3D scans of historical objects in the collections of the Smithsonian and may be downloaded by you only for non-commercial, educational, and ...
A clay tablet with proto-cuneiform writing. Image credits: Jim Kuhn/Wikimedia Commons. Imagine a world without written records — no books, no laws, no way to document discoveries or communicate ideas ...
A fragment of a cuneiform seal that’s now the first direct evidence of official communication between the kingdoms of Judah and Assyria has emerged at an archaeological site in Israel. According to ...
The man in the center with the full white beard is Mr. Finkel, an expert on cuneiform writing. The British Museum has 130,000 cuneiform clay tablets waiting to be deciphered. Finkel has a clay tablet ...