"What is religion?" is never an easy question to answer, but imagine trying to offer a clear definition in front of the Supreme Court.

Researchers have discovered an extensive and remarkably well-preserved system of ancient irrigation canals in the Eridu ...

The translation of ancient Assyrian writing into modern languages was a challenge that had long vexed historians. Three ...

The rich history of ancient Egypt involves power struggles, amazing feats of engineering, advances in writing and art, and ...

In many places surveyed, 20% or more of all adults have left their childhood religious group. Christianity and Buddhism have ...

The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia, with their civilization emerging around ... In the following more than 1,000 years, it achieved remarkable accomplishments in politics, religion, ...

A team of archaeologists in Iraq, led by Sebastian Rey, the British Museum’s curator of ancient Mesopotamia, has uncovered compelling evidence of the empire’s formidable bureaucracy.

It’s mid-October in San Francisco, and a crowd of 200 or so congregants—some seated in pews, others standing below cathedral windows at the back—bow their heads in prayer. Over cranberry ...

It is one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge: a vast library of texts amassed by Assyrian King Ashurbanipal, who ruled ancient Mesopotamia about 2700 years ago. But after his death, it ...

In southern Iraq, archaeologists have excavated a remarkable collection of carved clay tablets—ancient records of Akkadia, the world’s oldest empire. Marked with the administrative details of ...

Archaeologists have unearthed “administrative tablets,” which provide the oldest tangible proof of the world’s first empire, the Akkadia. The findings reveal the surprising existence of a ...