A bungled looting scheme has led archaeologists to an underground Iron Age complex in Turkey that may have been used by a fertility cult during the first millennium B.C., a new study finds. The ancient complex, which has yet to be fully investigated due to the instability of the structure, has rare rock art drawings on its walls featuring a procession of deities depicted in an Assyrian style.
(BBC) -- In the middle of the Iraqi desert, just north of the city of Mosul, is a pile of limestone blocks. Even at first glance, they're unusual -- each half a metre (1.6 feet) across, with a square shape and one side decorated with enigmatic symbols. Collectively they look like the remains of a giant pyramid. But this was not their purpose.
What comes to mind when you think of an empire? Is it the Roman Empire, with its impressive road network? Or, you could be reminded of the Mongol Empire, which stretched from Beijing in the east to Hungary in the west. What about the British Empire, which was powered by a vast railroad system? These empires pushed the boundaries of human progress while wreaking havoc on their enemies.
In 1849, English explorer Austen Henry Layard discovered a series of clay tablets in the ruins of Nineveh. Once upon a time, Nineveh was a flourishing city and the capital of the mighty Assyrian empire. Layard was excited about his finding. Three years later, his junior archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam unearthed even more clay tablets in the same region.
I was born and raised in the early 1960s in the sleepy delta town of Cuttack in Odisha (formerly Orissa) between a confluence of three rivers. Not many had heard of our town, let alone the rivers Mahanadi, Kuakhai or Kathojori.
Nineveh was the ancient capital city of the Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamian Empire. Nineveh was once the most powerful city in the world (or this region of the world) and was the largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Today Nineveh is located on the outskirts of the city of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River.