REVIEW BY JONATHAN VALK Assyria stands out in history as the fountainhead of empire. It was perhaps the first state to subdue the bulk of its world, extending in every direction until its frontiers consisted almost entirely of sand, sea,…
Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings are offering an important opportunity to identify variations in the Earth’s magnetic field thousands of years ago.
REVIEW BY ECKART FRAHM Mesopotamian history, Amanda Podany argues in the introduction to her new book, ‘is more of a weathered mosaic than a grand narrative’. What she provides in her long but never boring account, which covers events and…
Review by Diana Bentley The ancient Near East has not always attracted the popular attention it deserves, especially in comparison with other cultures of the surrounding area, like Greece, Rome, and Egypt. This latest work by Amanda H Podany, Professor…
• Painting Pompeii: how Roman houses were decorated
• Silk Road oases: exploring ancient Uzbekistan
• Chariot kings: the evolving image of the pharaoh
• Shock and awe: the imaginative work of Henry Fuseli
• Persia and beyond: the mythical legend of Alexander the Great in the East
Ancient Mesopotamian literature, written in cuneiform from around 3000 BC, is haunted by omens and ghosts. Most of the sources on ghosts come from the 1st millennium BC, written in Akkadian, but some texts and ideas hark back to even…