Ancient World
Senusret III: Warrior Pharaoh of Egypt's Middle Kingdom
Egypt's southern frontier was fixed at Semna, guarded by a chain of fortresses, and royal power over the provinces was strengthened.
Era · c. 3000 BC – AD 500
Ancient World
The first cities, empires and written records, from the pyramids of Egypt to Greece and the Roman Empire.
Ancient World
Pyramid of Amenemhat III at Hawara and the Egyptian Labyrinth
Amenemhat III's final pyramid and the huge temple beside it, later famous to Greek and Roman visitors as the Labyrinth.
Ancient World
Shamshi-Adad I: Founder of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia
Shamshi-Adad built a short-lived kingdom across northern Mesopotamia that broke up soon after his death but was later claimed as part of Assyria's royal tradition.
Ancient World
Sobekneferu: First Confirmed Female Pharaoh of Egypt
She ruled as a fully titled female king for nearly four years; her death ended the Twelfth Dynasty.
Ancient World
Plimpton 322: The Babylonian Tablet of Pythagorean Triples
The tablet shows that Babylonian scribes understood the relationship behind Pythagorean triples more than a thousand years before Pythagoras.
Ancient World
Indo-Aryan Migrations into South Asia: Evidence and Debate
Indo-Aryan languages, ancestral to Sanskrit and most languages of northern India today, spread into South Asia through gradual migration and mixing rather than conquest.
Ancient World
Linear A: The Undeciphered Script of Minoan Crete
The Minoan language written in Linear A remains unknown; only numbers, some sign values and a few words such as 'total' can be read with confidence.
Ancient World
Mari Royal Archives: Zimri-Lim's Palace on the Euphrates
Hammurabi conquered and destroyed Mari, but the buried palace preserved one of the largest royal archives of the ancient Near East.
Ancient World
Hammurabi's Conquests: How Babylon United Mesopotamia
Babylon became the dominant power of southern and central Mesopotamia, and the region was ruled from Babylon for the rest of Hammurabi's reign.
Ancient World
Code of Hammurabi: Babylon's Famous Law Code of 1754 BC
The best-preserved law collection of the ancient Near East, copied for over a thousand years and now in the Louvre.
Ancient World
Phaistos Disc (c. 1700 BC): The Mysterious Stamped Disc of Crete
An undeciphered text stamped with movable signs, unique in the Bronze Age world and now kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Ancient World
Poverty Point: The Ancient Earthworks of Northeast Louisiana
The largest earthwork complex of its time in North America, built by people who did not farm; a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014.