UR, Iraq — As the world mourns the looting of invaluable antiquities from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, farther south, curator Dhief Muhsen calmly recounted how he remained at his post here ...

It's got pageantry, art, gold-studded costumes, royalty and human sacrifice to recommend it as drama. It's got history, too. Known as the cradle of civilization, it's the probable source of everything ...

Writing, laws, cities, and science—these and other innovations were devised by the enterprising peoples living in Sumer, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, some 5,000 years ago. High ...

Around 2112 B.C., the Sumerian king Ur-Namma (r. 2112–2095 B.C.) united the city-states of southern Mesopotamia into a short-lived kingdom known today as the Third Dynasty of Ur, or Ur III. More than ...

As Iraq fitfully rebuilds, a groundbreaking exhibition is showcasing that nation’s rich roots in Mesopotamia, the region that gave birth to the world’s first urban civilization some 5,000 years ago.

Picking one period or dynasty to represent the entirety of this era was far too difficult. So I’ve decided that I will be dedicating two blog posts to Near Eastern art. Today’s blog post will be ...

Leonard Woolley’s excavation of Ur yielded an archaeologist’s dream: a series of intact burials from one of the world's most important ancient cities. Dating from 2600-2300 B.C., a decorative bull's ...

Iraq intends to open a tourism town dedicated to one of Mesopotamia’s oldest civilisations, the Sumerians. Two years after it was launched, most of the work on a tourism project near the Sumerian Ur ...

The story of Ur is the story of war. It is as true today as it was 4,000 years ago when the neighboring Elamites swept in and destroyed what had become the first great city in recorded history. Ur`s ...