(RNS) — Earlier on Saturday, Pope Francis had a historic meeting with the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the Iraqi Shiite leader. VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Speaking on Saturday (March 6) before the ...

Rising from the plains of southern Iraq, the Great Ziggurat of Ur was built around 2050 BCE as a sacred link between heaven ...

The city of Ur, once the largest in the world and the crown jewel of one of humanity's first civilizations, sits in a wasteland at the edge of a war zone. In late spring, the temperature easily hits ...

Near the present-day city of Basra in Iraq, and about 12 kilometers southwest of the site of ancient Ur, is the site of Eridu (Eridug in Sumerian), the southernmost of all the great Mesopotamian ...

LONDON — Amazing what you can find when you do a good clean out. Bristol University in Britain learned this firsthand when researchers discovered a box containing materials from archaeologist Sir ...

As Iraq fitfully rebuilds, a groundbreaking exhibition is showcasing that nation’s rich roots in Mesopotamia, the region that gave birth to the world’s first urban civilization some 5,000 years ago.

Contrary to the assumption that ancient cities always grew outwards from a central point, the urban site of Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria appears to have emerged as several nearby settlements ...

Almost everyone in the world who knows how to read cuneiform tablets is in Philadelphia this week. About 300 people from 32 counties have come to the University of Pennsylvania for a major academic ...