The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt. As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids. Most were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs...

Khufu (in Greek known as Cheops) was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. He reigned from around 2589 to 2566 B.C. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. He is generally accepted as being the builder of the Great Pyramid o...

The Epic of Gilgamesh, the cycle of poems preserved on clay tablets surviving from ancient Mesopotamia of the third millennium B.C. One of the best and most important pieces of epic poetry from human history, predating even Homer's Iliad by...

Gilgamesh is one of the oldest recorded stories in the world. It tells the story of an ancient King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who may have actually existed, and whose name is on the Sumerian King List. The story of Gilgamesh, in various Sumeria...

Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great "the Great King" was a Semitic Akkadian emperor famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city-states in the 23rd and 22nd centuries BC. The founder of the Dynasty of Akkad, Sargon reigned durin...

Enheduanna was a Sumerian/Akkadian high priestess of the moon god Nanna in Ur, who came to honor Inanna above all the other gods of the Sumerian pantheon. A single tablet records her as the "daughter of Sargon of Akkad" a relationship that...

Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), was a legendary ruler in ancient China famed for his introduction of flood control, inaugurating dynastic rule in China by founding the Xia Dynasty, and for his upright moral character. The dates proposed...

Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II (reigned c. 2061 BC – 2010 BC) was a Pharaoh of the 11th Dynasty who reigned for 51 years. Around his 39th year on the throne he reunited Egypt, thus ending the First Intermediate Period. Consequently, he is conside...

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants, with matre...

The Nimrud lens, also called Layard lens, is a 3000-year-old piece of rock crystal, which was unearthed in 1850 by Austen Henry Layard at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud, in modern-day Iraq. It may have been used as a magnifying glass, or as...

Knossos also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, l...

Khakhaure Senusret III was a pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC, and was the fifth monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Among his achievements was the building of the Canal of the Pharaohs. He was a great ph...

Sobekneferu (sometimes written "Neferusobek") reigned as pharaoh of Egypt after the death of Amenemhat IV. She was the last ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled Egypt for almost four years from 1806 to 1802 BC. Her name means "th...

Hammurabi (Akkadian from Amorite Ammurapi, "the kinsman is a healer", from Ammu, "paternal kinsman", and Rapi, "healer"; died c. 1750 BC) was the sixth Amorite king of Babylon (that is, of the First Babylonian Dynasty, the Amorite Dynasty)...

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacte...