Ancient World
Shulgi of Ur: The Runner King of Sumer's Third Dynasty
Shulgi turned the kingdom founded by his father into a centralised state with standard measures, a vast bureaucracy and a deified king.
Region
Middle East
Ancient World
Fall of Ur (2004 BC): Elamite Sack and the Lament for Ur
Ur was sacked by an Elamite-led army, Ibbi-Sin was taken to Elam, and the Third Dynasty of Ur came to an end.
Ancient World
Old Assyrian Merchants of Kanesh: The Trade Network of Ashur
Ashur's merchants built one of the best-documented long-distance trade systems of the ancient world, linking Mesopotamia with Anatolia for about two centuries.
Ancient World
Story of Sinuhe: Masterpiece of Ancient Egyptian Literature
The tale became a classic of Egyptian literature, copied by scribes for centuries, and is now regarded as one of the finest works to survive from ancient Egypt.
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
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
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
Hyksos in Egypt: Foreign Kings of the Second Intermediate Period
A dynasty of West Asian origin ruled northern Egypt for about a century before being driven out by the Theban kings around 1550 BC.
Ancient World
Hattusa: Capital of the Hittite Empire in Central Anatolia
Seat of the Hittite kings for some 450 years; its archives of about 30,000 tablets made the rediscovery of Hittite history possible.
Ancient World
Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa: Babylonian Astronomy and Dating
A record of Venus's appearances that underpins the competing high, middle and low chronologies of the ancient Near East.