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Researchers have finally decoded a Babylonian tablet thought to be the oldest map of the world. Created between 2,600 and 2,900 years ago, the Imago Mundi provided researchers with a unique glimpse into the beliefs and practices of the ancient civilization. The Babylonian tablet has a circular map with pieces of text written in cuneiform - an ancient writing system that used wedge-shaped symbols - which describes the early creation of the world.

The Babylonian map of the world is the oldest map of the world, in the world. Written and inscribed on clay in Mesopotamia around 2,900-years-ago, it is, like so many cuneiform tablets, incomplete. However, Irving Finkel and a particularly gifted student of his - Edith Horsley - managed to locate a missing piece of the map, slot it back into the cuneiform tablet, and from there set us all on journey through the somewhat mythical landscape of Mesopotamia to find the final resting place of the ark. And yes we mean that ark, as in Noah's ark. Although in the...

The mystery surrounding a 4,000-year-old Iraqi temple has finally been solved as archaeologists uncover signs that Alexander the Great was worshipped as a divine figure.Scientists had been puzzled by the discovery of more recent Greek inscriptions at the ancient Sumerian temple of Girsu, in the modern-day town of Tello.Now, British Museum archaeologists believe a Greek temple to Alexander the Great was founded on the site, possibly by Alexander himself.The discovery of a silver coin minted around 330 BCE by Alexander's troops suggests that the conqueror may have visited the temple after defeating the Persians.This would make founding the temple one...

The Code of Hammurabi, named after the king of Babylon, stands as one of the earliest and most comprehensive written legal codes in history. Comprised of 282 rules, this ancient code reflects a blend of cruelty and justice, with echoes of principles found in modern laws. These regulations were inscribed on a massive black stone pillar that lay forgotten for millennia. King Hammurabi, the sixth and renowned ruler of the First Dynasty of Babylon, governed from approximately 1792 to 1750 BC. During his reign, Hammurabi expanded his kingdom, located in present-day Iraq, throughout the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys. However,...

A team of archaeologists from the Iraqi German Mission of the State Board of Antiquities and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute have excavated a 4000-year-old boat near the ancient city of Uruk.Uruk, also known as Warka was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia), situated on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates River.Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanisation of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC, emerging as a major population centre until it was abandoned shortly before or after the Islamic conquest of AD 633–638.The boat was first discovered during a...

An ancient clay tablet shows that the Babylonians used Pythagorean triples to measure accurate right angles for surveying land.Students may not believe that Pythagoras’ Theorem has real-world uses, but a 3,700-year-old tablet proves that their maths teachers are right. The artifact, named Si.427, shows how ancient land surveyors used geometry to draw boundaries accurately. Discovered in central Iraq in 1894, Si.427 sat in a museum in Istanbul for over a century. Now, mathematician Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales, Australia, has studied the clay tablet and uncovered its meaning. “Si.427 dates from the Old Babylonian (OB)...

Si.427 is a hand tablet from 1900-1600 BC, created by an Old Babylonian surveyor. It’s made out of clay and the surveyor wrote on it with a stylus. Credit: Must credit UNSW Sydney ========================================================================================== A UNSW mathematician has revealed the origins of applied geometry on a 3700-year-old clay tablet that has been hiding in plain sight in a museum in Istanbul for over a century. The tablet – known as Si.427 – was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now central Iraq, but its significance was unknown until the UNSW scientist’s detective work was revealed today. Most...

Excavators uncovered a seal and a bullae -- a seal impression use to sign documents or containers during ancient times -- in the Givati Parking Lot Excavation of the City of David in Jerusalem. These two artifacts were found next to the rubble of a structure that was destroyed during the 6th century BC by the Babylonians... The researchers said the finding was very rare and reveals just how badly Jerusalem was damaged during the Babylonian destruction. "The finding of the stamp and seal impression in the City of David indicates that despite the city's dire situation after the destruction,...

What did a meal taste like nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylonia? Pretty good, according to a team of international scholars who have deciphered and are re-creating what are considered to be the world's oldest-known culinary recipes. The recipes were inscribed on ancient Babylonian tablets that researchers have known about since early in the 20th century but that were not properly translated until the end of the century.

The only way to enter the mountain fortress of Sela, Jordan, is to climb the staircase cut into a natural cleft in the rock on its eastern side. Photo: © Sela Archaeological Project (2015).

In Jeremiah 15, God tells the prophet that “I will make [Jerusalem] an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” Can you imagine God saying that He’s going to make you “an object of horror”? Well, as God does, He kept His word. The wealth of Jerusalem’s inhabitants was given as plunder to invaders, only after they were starved, put to the sword, or enslaved. Of course, passages like this one, in which God “speaks,” are rarely taken seriously, much less historically, in academic...

The seal was deciphered by Dr. Anat Mendel-Geberovich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem A 2,600-year-old seal from the Kingdom of Judah bearing the inscription “(belonging) to Nathan-Melech, Servant of the King” was recently discovered in the City of David, according to an announcement Sunday. The seal was deciphered by Dr. Anat Mendel-Geberovich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem. ADVERTISING Read More Related Articles Trump cuts foreign aid to three countries with strong relations with Israel One of France's most advanced warships...

The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon are exactly that: legendary. And they may not have been located in Babylon. The gardens, famous as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were, according to Stephanie Dalley, an Oxford University Assyriologist, located some 340 miles north of ancient Babylon in Nineveh, on the Tigris River by Mosul in modern Iraq. Dalley, whose book The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon will be published later this summer, writes that earlier sources were translated incorrectly, leading to the confusion. The misinterpretation also explains why years of excavations never yielded any credible...

The structure in which shattered jugs were found during the summer 2017 Israel Antiquities Authority dig, attesting to the destruction. (Eliyahu Yanai, Courtesy of the City of David Archive) On the eve of the Hebrew commemoration of the destruction of the Temples, archaeologists discover remnants of a blaze indicating the city was grander than thought New finds in the City of David confirm the veracity of the biblical account of the Babylonian capture and conquest of First Temple period Jerusalem. The event is commemorated next Tuesday on the Hebrew date Tisha B’av (August 1) in a day of fasting and...

The Babylonian Gap Revisited Perhaps the greatest disaster to befall ancient Israel was the conquest, at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. and start of the fifth, by the Babylonian empire. The fall of Judah to this new regional superpower occurred in two stages: Major strongholds like the Philistine cities of Ashkelon and Ekron fell to the armies of Nebuchadrezzar (Biblical Nebuchadnezzar) in 604 B.C.E. Jerusalem was besieged in 597 B.C.E. and capitulated to the Babylonians. Under the leadership of the puppet king Zedekiah, the Judahite capital survived another decade. But when Nebuchadrezzar learned that Zedekiah had conspired with...

The 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York. Credit: UNSW/Andrew Kelly ================================================================================ UNSW Sydney scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3700-year old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world's oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, possibly used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces and temples and build canals. The new research shows the Babylonians beat the Greeks to the invention of trigonometry - the study of triangles - by more than 1000 years, and reveals an ancient mathematical sophistication that had been...

..... “For archaeologists, an ashen layer can mean a number of different things,” said Shimon Gibson, a UNC Charlotte professor of history and co-director of the project. “It could be ashy deposits removed from ovens; or it could be localized burning of garbage. However, in this case, the combination of an ashy layer full of artifacts, mixed with arrowheads, and a very special ornament indicates some kind of devastation and destruction. Nobody abandons golden jewelry and nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse.” "The arrowheads are known as 'Scythian arrowheads' and have been found at other archaeological conflict sites from...

Researchers discovered what they believe is evidence of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem that is detailed in the Bible. Layers of ash, arrowheads, Iron Age potsherds, lamps, and jewelry from the period were uncovered on Mount Zion by a team led by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “For archaeologists, an ashen layer can mean a number of different things,” UNC Charlotte professor of history Shimon Gibson explained in a statement. “It could be ashy deposits removed from ovens; or it could be localized burning of garbage. However, in this case, the combination of an ashy layer full of...

ERRIADH, TUNISIA // In 586BC the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to Jerusalem, inadvertently sowing seeds for a Jewish haven across the sea that has outlived his realm by 25 centuries and counting. Legend tells that refugees fled to the Tunisian island of Djerba, carrying a block from the ruined Temple of Solomon. Today it lies beneath the El Ghriba synagogue, the cornerstone of a thriving Jewish community. And after decades of Jewish exodus from Arab countries, that community is growing. For western holidaymakers, Djerba is a strip of lavish resorts along a sandy Mediterranean coast. For Tunisians, it also...

Mathieu Ossendrijver of Humboldt University in Berlin found the tablet while combing through the collections at the British Museum. The written record gives instructions for estimating the area under a curve by finding the area of trapezoids drawn underneath. Using those calculations, the tablet shows how to find the distance Jupiter has traveled in a given interval of time. Until now, this kind of use of trapezoids wasn't known to exist before the 14th century. ... By 400 B.C. Babylonian astronomers had worked out a coordinate system using the ecliptic, the region of the sky the sun and planets move...