Long before Cyrus the Great, the Medes rose from the fringes of the Iranian plateau, forged a kingdom from scattered tribes, and helped bring down Assyria. This story traces how their shadowy empire ...

A ziggurat (also spelled ziqqurat) was a raised platform with four sloping sides that looked like a tiered pyramid.

Many of the world’s earliest archives and libraries were destroyed thousands of years ago, leaving behind only fragments of ...

As we reflect upon the places and people in which Jesus begins his ministry, we are invited to consider if there are other ...

The 1850 discovery of King Ashurbanipal's vast library of cuneiform tablets at Nineveh illuminated fascinating records and ...

Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world’s grandest imperial capitals Archaeologists didn’t know what to expect when they began searching for a 2,700-year-old ...

New York: Basic Hachette, 2024. Pp. xx, 508+. Illus., maps, table, notes, index. $22.99 paper. ISBN: 1541605152 The Bad Boys of the Old Testament. Most of us are familiar with the later Assyrians as ...

Archaeologists in northern Israel uncover a luxurious Iron Age cremation burial, revealing elite lifestyles, long-distance trade, and Assyrian influence thousands of years ago. For a long time, life ...

When the Amarna Letters were first discovered in Egypt, many scholars thought they were fake. They were not written on papyrus, but clay tablets—a material that wasn’t used in the region. Nor were ...

I was recently in Yerevan, Armenia, sitting among a crowd gathered for European Heritage Days 2025 and the Day of National Minorities in Armenia. The air was alive with color and music. On stage, the ...

A group of excavators recently uncovered the first-ever Assyrian inscription found in Jerusalem — shedding light on ancient power struggles described in the Bible. The inscription, which was carved on ...