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.
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.
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.
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.
ArchitectureWas Etemenanki the Tower of Babel?
Babylon's great ziggurat and the story in Genesis: what links Etemenanki to the Tower of Babel.
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.
Myth and Religion