Definitions

Ashur (also known as Assur) was an Assyrian city located on a plateau above the Tigris River in Mesopotamia (today known as Qalat Sherqat, northern Iraq). The city was an important center of trade, as it lay squarely on a caravan trade route...

Marsyas the satyr, or silen, was seen as a mythological founder of aulos playing or a divine judge of it by the ancient Greeks. The way in which his aulos playing enraptured his audience was likened to the way in which Socrates mesmerised...

Chocolate was one of the most desired foods of Mesoamerica and was consumed by the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations, amongst others. Its consumption even spread via trade routes to other parts of the Americas including the Chaco Canyon...

Tukulti-Ninurta I (reigned 1244-1208 BCE) was a king of the Assyrian Empire during the period known as the Middle Empire. He was the son of Shalmaneser I (reigned 1274-1245 BCE) who had completed the work of his father, Adad Nirari I, in...

Tiglath Pileser I (reigned 1115-1076 BCE), an Assyrian king of the period known as the Middle Empire, revitalized the economy and the military that had been suffering, more or less, since the death of the king Tukulti Ninurta I (1244-1208...

Adad Nirari I (r. 1307-1275 BCE) was the king of the Assyrian Empire who initiated the first major expansion of the Assyrian kingdom from the city of Ashur throughout the region of Mesopotamia. He also instituted what would become standard...

In 509 BCE, with the exit of the last Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the Roman people were presented with a unique opportunity, an opportunity that would eventually have an immense impact on the rest of Europe for centuries to...

Tiglath Pileser III (745-727 BCE) was among the most powerful kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and, according to many scholars, the founder of the empire (as opposed to the claims for Adad Nirari II (912-891 BCE) or Ashurnasirpal II (884-859...

Syria is a country located in the Middle East on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered, from the north down to the west, by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon. It is one of the oldest inhabited regions in the world with archaeological...

Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE) is considered the greatest king of the Ur III Period in Mesopotamia (2047-1750 BCE). His father was Ur-Nammu (r.2047-2030 BCE), who founded the Third Dynasty of Ur, and his mother was a daughter of King Utu-Hegal...