A flash flood in southeastern Iran exposed evidence of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization. This episode traces how looted artifacts led archaeologists to the Halil River valley, revealing ...

Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, ziggurats were not places of royal burials, but temples dedicated to the patron deity of a city ...

How does she do it, grip each new generation with her thrillers? On her 50th death anniversary, we add it all up: truth, toxins, an unerring eye for detail.

New analysis of ancient Mesopotamian medical prescriptions suggests that, in a small but striking set of cases, patients were instructed to seek out the sanctuary of a deity as part of their healing ...

Repeated flower designs on ancient pottery hint that early village life relied on counting and shared ideas way before math ...

A new study suggests flower patterns painted on 8,000-year-old pottery reveal early ideas of balance, symmetry and numerical ...

Flower designs on 8,000-year-old Mesopotamian pots reveal a “mathematical knowledge” perhaps developed to share land and crops, archaeologists say.

“Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black” at Harvard Art Museums is among the most glorious how-to’s you’ll ever find. The Harvard prints and drawings collection is one of the best in the ...

The world's oldest known botanical art, from the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia around 6000 BCE, hides fascinating cultural shifts in its seemingly simple motifs, a new study reveals. The ...

A relief portraying Sphinx from the 9th century BC, found in Syria, is among the highlights in Encounter Mesopotamia: An Exhibition of Antiquities From Ancient Syria, in Beijing. WANG KAIHAO/CHINA ...

A new study reveals that the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia (c. 6200–5500 BCE) produced the earliest systematic plant imagery in prehistoric art, flowers, shrubs, branches, and trees painted ...