Images

Chinese beauty Yang Guifei, consort of the Tang emperor Xuanzong (AD 685-762), playing the flute, seated alone on an elaborate Chinese-style throne, surrounded by flowering trees and peonies in open mountain landscape. Japanese painting...

This tablet lists the plants in the garden of King Marduk-apla-iddina, the Biblical Merodach-Baladan, including onions, garlic, leeks, lettuce, cucumbers, and turnips, as well as mint, cress, thyme...

This is a classroom experiment. As Babylon grew, the language spoken on its streets changed. This remarkable tablet captures interaction between the age-old cuneiform writing for Babylonian Akkadian and the...

This tablet contains treatments, mostly in the form of ointments to soothe distressed and fractious babies. It also includes instructions for making miniature inscribed clay cylinder-amulets. From the library of...

This finely made clay map of Babylon shows the Tuba area in Babylon, two gateways, a section of the city inner wall, and a gateway fed by the Rover Euphrates. The reverse side of the tablet gives accurate measurements for the...

This tablet states the dimensions of each of the seven levels of Etemenanki, the ziggurat of Marduk at Babylon. This building is the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. From Babylon, Southern Mesopotamia...

This official document chronicles important events in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar between 605-595 BCE. It pin points Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the surrender of Jehoakim, king of Judah ar Jerusalem in 597...

This clay tablet cuneiform inscriptions read "Nebuchadnezzar King of Justice". Once in power, Nebuchadnezzar was presented as a typical Babylonian monarch: wise, pious, just, and strong. Tests such as this clay tablet...

The cuneiform inscriptions on this clay tables narrates the chronicle of the years 608-605 BCE. Nabopolassar (reigned 658-605 BCE) was the king of Babylon and the father of Nebuchadnezzar II. After the fall of Nineveh...

These amulets were inscribed with a spell recruiting the mighty god Ninurta for protection. They were worn around the neck and their size corresponds to the needs of different age groups. From Nimrud and Nineveh, Mesopotamia...