Excavations on unpromising mounds in the Iraqi desert revealed Sumer’s earliest city. Surviving relics and a rebuilt temple ...

Dalrymple contends that ancient India transformed nations and ... whose intellect reflects his father's studies in Kashmir, helped plan Baghdad as a circular city, probably inspired by the mandala.

Evidence from ancient Mesopotamia reveals that bureaucratic ... whose location remains unknown but is thought the be near modern Baghdad. The Akkadian empire lasted for 150 years, ending with ...

The Baghdad Battery is believed to be about 2000 years old (from the Parthian period, roughly 250 BCE to CE 250). The jar was found in Khujut Rabu just outside Baghdad and is composed of a clay jar ...

Baghdad’s libraries were looted and burned ... and they also use special ‘medicines’ for our 1,950 ancient manuscripts because those too are very valuable.” Small groups of students ...

This story appears in the July 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. I haven't returned to Baghdad to be a war tourist, attuning my eyes to the many long shadows cast by trauma, but it's ...