Ancient Near East

Odyssey - Near East: People

In parts of the Near East today, people's lives are in some ways very similar to their ancestors' thousands of years ago. Researchers can observe today's lifestyles along with archaeological evidence from the past to better understand the people of the ancient Near East. Let's look at how people supported themselves over thousands of years and how ...

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Marriage and Divorce Documents

From the Ancient Near East. Old Assyrian, 19th century B.C. Text: B. Hrozný, Inscriptions Cunéiformes du Kultépé (Praha, 1952). Transliteration and translation, Hrozný, in Symbolae Koschaker (Studia et Documenta II, 1939), 108ff. For bibliography of discussions cf. H. Hirsch, Orientalia, xxxv (1966), 259f...

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The Sumerian People

The people of Sumer could own slaves, although the majority of residents were free. Slaves had a number of rights, including the right to borrow money, transact business, and even buy their own freedom. The children of Sumer had few rights -- the authority of their parents was supreme. Children were expected to obey their parents in all cases. For ...

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Hanging Garden's of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. The Greek historian Herodotus described Babylon in great detail. King Nebuchadnezzar built them in 580 BC apparently for his wife Amytis, daughter of the Median King Astyages, who was homesick for the mountains and vegetation of her native land. The site was loc...

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The Hammurabi Stele

The Hammurabi Stele, also known as the Code of Hammurabi, is a well-preserved ancient Babylonian legal text on a basalt stele. Dating back to around 1754 BC, it is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. This ancient code of law was commissioned by King Hammurabi of Babylon to establish rules and standards for gove...

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Hittite Palace in Turkey

Hittite palace area. This photograph shows the ruins of a Hittite palace in Turkey. Rectangular shaped stones show the outline of where rooms had been and grass grows up between them. Three large terra cotta jars can be seen in one of the "rooms". Visitors to the site are kept back from the ruins by barbed wire fences....

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Nebuchadnezzar's Palace

King Nebuchadnezzar's Palace in Ancient Babylon http://architecture.about...com/od/themiddleeast/ig/Iraq-...

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The Ziggurats

Ancient Babylonia "" The Ziggurats (Bible History Online) One of the most important aspects of Babylonian religion and tradition, and probably the best known, is the ziggurat. Ziggurats were huge "stepped" structures with, on their summit, far above the ground, a temple. This Temple would have been to the city god. The city ziggurat would easily b...

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Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III was discovered by the late Henry Layard in 1845. The 7 foot black limestone monument was found in the ruins of the palace of Shalmaneser III at ancient Calah, near Nineveh. It contains many panels displaying the Assyrian kings exploits. The Black Obelisk is one of the most important discoveries in Biblical Archa...

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Hattusa

Contains images of monuments on Hattusa. Hattuþa is a fantastic site. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The earliest traces of settlement on the site is from the 6th millennium BCE. Before 2000 BCE the site was settled by the Hatti, the pre-Hittites. Around 1700 BCE, this city was destroyed, apparently by King Anitta from Kushar. A generation la...

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