Curated category
Ancient Mesopotamia
- Akkadian EmpireIn the year 2334 BC, a man named Sargon stood before the city of Kish as a cupbearer to its ruler. He held no royal blood and wore no crown.
- AssyriaIn 2600 BC, the settlement of Assur emerged in northern Mesopotamia as a small agricultural village. Archaeological evidence dates the earliest occupation to…
- Sasanian EmpireIn 224 AD, Ardashir I defeated Artabanus IV at the Battle of Hormozdgan to end four centuries of Parthian rule. The victor crowned himself shahanshah, or…
- UrukIn the mid-4th millennium BC, a small Ubaid settlement named Unug merged with its neighbor Kullaba to form Uruk. This new city grew from scattered…
- CtesiphonMithridates I of Parthia established a military camp across from Seleucia in the late 120s BC. This small outpost grew into Ctesiphon, a city that would…
- MesopotamiaThe Tigris and Euphrates rivers rise in the Armenian highlands, flowing southward to empty into the Persian Gulf. Their waters fed a semi-arid landscape that…
- Silk RoadIn 1877, German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen published a series of lectures that introduced the phrase "Silk Road" to describe ancient trade networks…