News from the ancient world
Mesopotamia is the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, mostly in modern Iraq. Cities grew there from the fourth millennium BC, and scribes in Sumer developed cuneiform, a script of wedge-shaped signs pressed into clay with a reed, around 3200 BC. Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians used it for over three thousand years, and neighbouring peoples such as the Hittites and the Urartians in Anatolia adopted it for their own languages.
Recent finds in our stories add detail across that wide area. At Kayalıpınar in Turkey, ancient Šamuḫa, excavators recovered 131 tablets and fragments from the reign of Tudhaliya II in 2026, bringing a Hittite royal archive to 184 pieces; the texts record a fever epidemic and the death of a baby princess. At Hattusa, a fragment of an Akkadian copy of the peace treaty between Ramesses II and Hattusili III preserves clauses on people fleeing between the two kingdoms. In Iraq, clay cylinders published in the journal Iraq are the first foundation inscriptions for Nebuchadnezzar II's rebuilding of the ziggurat at Kish.
Bronze Age · c. 1400 BC · Kayalıpınar (Šamuḫa), Sivas province, Turkey
Excavators at Kayalıpınar, ancient Šamuḫa, recovered 131 tablets and fragments from the reign of Tudhaliya II in 2026, bringing the archive to 184 pieces.
Bronze Age · c. 1259 BC · Hattusa (Boğazkale), Çorum province, Turkey
The clay piece, part of an Akkadian copy of the pact between Ramesses II and Hattusili III, preserves clauses on people fleeing between the two kingdoms.
Iron Age · 10th–8th century BC · Ashur, Iraq
Yale and Münster researchers argue that three short-lived Neo-Assyrian rulers of the 10th and 8th centuries BC were later removed from the official Assyrian King List.
Iron Age · c. 810–786 BC · Körzüt Fortress, Muradiye, Van province, Turkey
Three basalt slabs from a temple at Körzüt Fortress near Lake Van describe Minua taking Luḫiuni, a royal city he claims no one had conquered before.
Iron Age · 604–562 BC · Kish (Tell Al-Uhaimir), Babil Governorate, Iraq
Handed over in 2013 after being found on the surface of the mound and now published in the journal Iraq, the near-identical texts are the first foundation inscriptions for the king's work there.