Ancient history

Babylon was probably the most famous city of ancient Mesopotamia. Until today the city is a symbol for wealth, power, and sin (largely due to its treatment in the Bible). The name Babylon is the Greek form of Babel of Babili, which means "the gate of the god" in Semitic, which again is the translation of the original Sumerian name Ka-dimirra... [continue reading]

Assyria was a Mesopotamian empire that grew out of the city-state of Ashur. It was one of the greatest empires in Mesopotamia, together with the Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great and the Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi. At its height, the Assyrian Empire extended from Anatolia in the west, to Armenia in the... [continue reading]

An empire is a political construct in which one state dominates over another state, or a series of states. At its heart, an empire is ruled by an emperor, even though many states in history without an emperor at their head are called "empires". At its core, an empire is the domination of one state by another. This idea lies at the heart... [continue reading]

Lydia arose as a Neo-Hittite kingdom following the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the twelfth century BC. According to Greek sources, the original name of the Lydian kingdom was Maionia. Herodotus relates that that the "Maiones" were renamed Lydians after their king, Lydus (Greek: Λυδός), son of Attis, in the mythical epoch that preceded the rise of... [continue reading]

The Medes, (Greek Μῆδοι, from an Old Persian ماد Mādai) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area is known as Media (also Medea; Greek Μηδία, Old Persian Māda; the English adjective is Median, antiquated also Medean). They entered this region with the first wave of Iranian tribes, in... [continue reading]