Many millennia ago, the tides turned for ancient Sumerians who built the first civilization - literally. Rising in southern Mesopotamia around 6,000 years ago, Sumer bridged a network of city-states ...

This adage seems especially poignant at this moment with the twin conflicts that are playing out in the Western and Eastern hemispheres. For, this is not the first time we’ve witnessed the ...

New research shows that the rise of Sumer was deeply tied to the tidal and sedimentary dynamics of ancient Mesopotamia. Early communities harnessed predictable tides for irrigation, but when deltas ...

Here, we explore six notable civilizations that have collapsed, shedding light on some of the causes behind their demise and some interesting parallels relative to today. Ancient civilizations that ...

The Great Ziggurat of Ur dedicated to the Moon god. Ziggurats were massive structure typical for Mesopotamia. Sumerians believed that the gods lived in the temple at the top of the ziggurats. Woods ...

Catalog of an exhibition held at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, Malibu, from March 18-July 27, 2020. Translated and adapted from L'histoire commence en Mésopotamie, which was published ...

Guest: Paul Cooper is a podcaster, a historian, and the author of Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline. He writes, produces, and hosts the Fall of Civilizations podcast which ...