In southern Iraq, archaeologists have excavated a remarkable collection of carved clay tablets—ancient records of Akkadia, the world’s oldest empire. Marked with the administrative details of ...

When a vast library of texts amassed by Mesopotamian King Ashurbanipal was burned to the ground about 2700 years ago, the clay tablets were preserved by the heat. Selena Wisnom's new book reveals more ...

The finds, which also include dozens of clay sealings, contain details of a metric system used to measure resources, as well as evidence of a cult of personality around a particularly charismatic rule ...

A discovery in southern Iraq has given us a rare glimpse into the world of ancient bureaucracy. Researchers from the British Museum and Iraq have unearthed over 200 clay cuneiform tablets and 60 ...

It is one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge: a vast library of texts amassed by Assyrian King Ashurbanipal, who ruled ancient Mesopotamia about 2700 years ago. But after his death, it ...

This is a Sumerian cuneiform clay tablet from the Ur III period, c.2100 B.C. This was the heyday of the Sumerian civilisation which occupied much of modern day Iraq. Sumerian was a non-Semitic ...

A team of archaeologists in Iraq, led by Sebastian Rey, the British Museum’s curator of ancient Mesopotamia, has uncovered compelling evidence of the empire’s formidable bureaucracy.

One of the two clay tablets is 4.5cm high and dates from around 3,000 BC. The other measures 3.2 cm and originates from the Irin/Eridu region in southern Iraq. It dates from 1,900-1,700 BC.