Author Description

With their former glorious cities in ruins and their once lush land a scorching desert, the lives and civilizations of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia have never seemed more distant to us. Although we find it easy to relegate them to the dusty shelves of history, we are left with one inescapable fact: that the seed for what is today the Western civilization was planted long ago among the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians might still conjure up images of ancient walled cities, ziggurats and mystical religions. Their way of life seems so remote and complicated. Yet, what if we could go past the average notions routinely taught in history classes? What if we could look closer at their lives and realize that these civilizations existed not in a bubble, but arose and fell according to a logical historical process? Rich with illustrations and a compelling narrative, we will try to answer these questions and realize that not just archaeologists and academics can understand the history of Mesopotamia and the Near East, but that the story of these lands remains as vibrant today as it was thousands of years ago.