Uruk period

Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers in Iran. It represents the current city of Shush, located on the site of ancient Susa. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital of Elam and the winter capital of the Achaemenid Empire, and remained a strategic centre during the Parthian and Sasanian periods.

Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and sex. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar. Her primary title is "the Queen of Heaven".

Eridu (; Sumerian: eridugki; Akkadian: irîtu) was a Sumerian city located at Tell Abu Shahrain (), also Abu Shahrein or Tell Abu Shahrayn, an archaeological site in Lower Mesopotamia. It is located in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, near the modern city of Basra. Eridu is traditionally considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia based on the Sumerian King List. Located south-southwest of the ancient site of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another. The city gods of Eridu were Enki and his consort Damkina.

archaeological culture

citadel and archaeological settlement hill in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan

thumb|A Hittite lion from the Neo-Hittite era (1180-700 BC) at the entrance to the ruins of Arslantepe. thumb|A Hittite relief of a libation to Tiwaz and Arma from the ruins of Arslantepe at the [[Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara.]] Arslantepe, also known as Melid, was an ancient city on the Tohma River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains. It has been identified with the modern archaeological site of Arslantepe near Malatya, Turkey.

Archaeological site in Syria

limestone tablet with proto-cuneiform Sumerian inscriptions

Hamoukar (, known locally as Khirbat al-Fakhar) is a large archaeological site located in the Jazira region of northeastern Syria (Al Hasakah Governorate), near the Iraqi and Turkish borders. The early settlement dates back to the 5th millennium BCE, and it existed simultaneously with the Ubaid and the early Uruk cultures. It was a major center of obsidian production. In the 3rd millennium, this was one of the largest cities of Northern Mesopotamia, and extended to 105 ha.

archeological site in Iraq

ivory and flint knife dating from Egyptian prehistory

person named in Kushim Tablet

Khafajah or Khafaje (), ancient Tutub, is an archaeological site in Diyala Governorate, Iraq east of Baghdad. Khafajah lies on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. Occupied from the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods through the end of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was under the control of the Akkadian Empire and then the Third Dynasty of Ur in the 3rd millennium BC. It then became part of the empire of the city-state of Eshnunna lying southwest of that city, about from the ancient city of Shaduppum, and near Tell Ishchali, both of which Eshnunna also controlled. It then fell to First Babylo

archaeological site

human settlement

human settlement

archaeological site in Iran

Archaeological site in Syria

Middle Eastern international relations

clay bowls most common in the 4th millennium B.C

archaeological site in Iraq

The proto-cuneiform script was a system of proto-writing that emerged in Mesopotamia c. 3350–3200 BC (during the Uruk period), eventually developing into the early cuneiform script used in the region's Early Dynastic I period.

archaeological site in Iraq