Period 2 · c. 3500-539 BCE
Mesopotamia
Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now Iraq, people built the first cities, wrote the first texts and raised temple towers of mud brick. Their kings carved lion hunts and laws in stone and lined Babylon's gates with blue glazed bricks. Start here to see how much of city life began in one river valley.
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MesopotamiaMesopotamian Art and Architecture: A Beginner’s Guide
Mudbrick, glazed brick, reliefs and seals: how Mesopotamia built cities, power and belief out of clay.
MesopotamiaIshtar Gate: Which Animals Appear, and Why?
Bulls for Adad, dragons for Marduk, lions for Ishtar: which god each animal served, and why.
MesopotamiaTemple of Inanna at Uruk: What Remains and What We Know
Foundations, cone mosaics and a brick façade in Berlin: what survives of Inanna's temples at Uruk.
MesopotamiaWhy Is the Ishtar Gate Blue?
Glass fused onto brick and coloured with cobalt: how Babylon made the blue of the Ishtar Gate.Most read first
All Mesopotamia guides
ArchitectureIshtar Gate: Which Animals Appear, and Why?
Bulls for Adad, dragons for Marduk, lions for Ishtar: which god each animal served, and why.ArchitectureTemple of Inanna at Uruk: What Remains and What We Know
Foundations, cone mosaics and a brick façade in Berlin: what survives of Inanna's temples at Uruk.ArchitectureWhy Is the Ishtar Gate Blue?
Glass fused onto brick and coloured with cobalt: how Babylon made the blue of the Ishtar Gate.
ReliefsThe Stele of Hammurabi: What It Says and Shows
A god, a king and 282 laws on one block of basalt: what the stele says and what it shows.
Myth and ReligionWhy Do Sumerian Votive Statues Have Big Eyes?
Shell, black stone and bitumen: why Sumerian worshippers left statues with huge eyes to pray for them.ArchitectureMesopotamian Art and Architecture: A Beginner’s Guide
Mudbrick, glazed brick, reliefs and seals: how Mesopotamia built cities, power and belief out of clay.
ReliefsBas-Relief vs High Relief: What Is the Difference?
Shallow carving tells long stories along a wall; deep carving stands guard at the door. How to tell them apart.
ArchitectureEtemenanki: What Did Babylon’s Great Ziggurat Look Like?
Seven stages, 91 metres a side and 91 high: what Babylon's great ziggurat probably looked like.
SculptureMask of Warka: The First Monumental Face from Uruk
A marble face from Uruk, about 3100 BCE, built for inlaid eyes, stolen in 2003 and recovered that September.
ArchitectureZiggurat of Ur: What Makes It Unique?
Three stairways, a fired-brick skin and 4,000 years of repairs: what sets the Ziggurat of Ur apart.
SculptureGudea Statues: Why Hard Stone Mattered
Dark stone brought from distant Magan and carved with abrasives: why Gudea of Lagash wanted his statues in diorite.
ReliefsThe Famous Assyrian Reliefs: A Beginner’s Guide
Lion hunts, the siege of Lachish and Nimrud's winged spirits: the Assyrian reliefs to know first, and where they are.
ArchitectureWas Etemenanki the Tower of Babel?
Babylon's great ziggurat and the story in Genesis: what links Etemenanki to the Tower of Babel.
ReliefsStele of the Vultures: Battle, Burial and Divine Power
A king's army on one side, a god's net full of enemies on the other: Sumerian war in stone.
ReliefsLamassu of Khorsabad: The Five-Leg Illusion Explained
From the front it stands still, from the side it walks: why Assyrian gate guardians have five legs.
ReliefsIshtar Gate Lion Panel: Why One Lion Mattered
About 120 glazed lions lined Babylon's festival road: how one panel was made, and where to see it.
ArchitectureWhat Is a Ziggurat? The Stepped Base of a Temple
A solid stepped tower with a god's house on top: what a ziggurat was, and what it was not.
ReliefsThe Dying Lion Relief: Why Is It So Moving?
Three arrows, paralysed back legs, open jaws: why Ashurbanipal's dying lioness still stops visitors in London.
Myth and ReligionFoundation Figure with Basket: Building as Royal Ritual
Copper kings with baskets of earth on their heads, buried under temple walls: why nobody was meant to see them.
ReliefsGroom Leading Horses: What Does the Relief Depict?
A foreign groom, two horses in Assyrian harness and traces of paint: what the Khorsabad relief shows.
ArchitectureDur-Sharrukin: Why Build a New Assyrian Capital?
A capital built from scratch in eleven years and abandoned the year after: Sargon II's Dur-Sharrukin.
Pottery and ObjectsStandard of Ur: What the War and Peace Sides Show
Chariots and captives on one side, a royal banquet on the other: how to read the Standard of Ur.
ArchitectureDid the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Exist?
Greek writers praised them, Babylon kept silent: the evidence for the Hanging Gardens, and the case for Nineveh.
ArchitectureHow Did the First Cities Form in Mesopotamia?
Canals, granaries, temples and clay tablets: how Uruk and its neighbours became among the world's first cities.
Sculpture