Hanging gardens, stunning architecture, a prototype legal code, macabre myths, towering ziggurats, a four-thousand-year-old medical text, predictions of lunar and solar eclipses, quadratic equations, and trigonometry: the ancient Babylonians did it all!The Babylonians were indisputably a formidable force in the ancient world’s stage, but how did they rise to power three separate times in Middle Eastern history? What led to their cataclysmic falls? And why did everyone keep stealing their chief god Marduk?Dive into the riveting stories of the remarkable Babylonians, who transformed the Middle East and left an enduring legacy. Thoroughly researched, engaging, and easy to read, this book will guide you through the fascinating history of a civilization that has left an indelible mark on our world.Some of the intriguing questions you will explore include:Who lived in Babylonia before the Babylonians? And who were the Babylonians?How did Hammurabi's Law Code influence today’s legal systems?Why did the Babylonians study the Earth’s rotation using mathematical models?Did the Babylonians really use the Pythagorean theorem before Pythagoras?How did Babylon become a holy city and pilgrimage destination?Who joined the Babylonians’ massive coalition army against Assyria?Was the Etemenanki ziggurat the Tower of Babel?How was Cyrus the Great of Persia able to conquer Babylon with almost no bloodshed?And much, much more!So if you want to learn more about the Babylonian Empire, scroll up and click the “add to cart” button! Read more

An Important Update: A Navigation Guide (PDF) including a detailed chapter-by-chapter breakdown is now available in your Audible Library after purchase.Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer?Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you.Some of the topics covered are:Mount Olympus and the 12 Olympian gods and goddesses, and then beneath the surface to the gloomy world of Hades.Classic Celtic Myths such as The Life of Cú ChulainnHow did Odin form the world from Ymir’s body and make men and women from wood?Who are Loki’s children, and why does Odin fear them?And more stories of Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian Mythology!The eight manuscripts included in this collection are Books 1 to 8 of the Classical Mythology Series by Scott Lewis.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.  Read more

"As a young man, I came across George S. Clason's classic 1926 book The Richest Man in Babylon, which offered commonsense financial advice told through ancient parables. I recommend it to everyone." (Tony Robbins, in Money: Master the Game)The ancient Babylonians were the first people to discover the universal laws of prosperity. In The Richest Man in Babylon, George S. Clason reveals their secrets for creating, growing, and retaining wealth. Through these entertaining tales of merchants, tradesmen, and herdsmen, you'll learn how to save more out what you earn, get out of debt, put your money to work, attract good luck, choose wise investments, and safeguard a lasting fortune. Read more

When we imagine what life might have been like thousands of years in the past, the images we often conjure are primitive ones: reed and mud huts or plain brick dwellings, cooking pits, villagers, and simple farms. That was indeed what life was like in the earliest settlements, but by 5,000 years ago, life in some places had become much more sophisticated than we might think. Impressive achievements - like stepped temples that towered like mountains, elaborate palaces (some with bathrooms and plumbing), and complex houses - were also a part of life for people who lived in cities that arose thousands of years ago, particularly in the fertile region that emerged along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.Welcome to Mesopotamia, the ancient name for the region that is now Iraq, a remarkably advanced civilization that flourished for two-thirds of the time that civilization has existed on Earth. Mesopotamians mastered irrigation agriculture; built the first complex urban societies; developed writing, literature, and law; and united vast regions through warfare and diplomacy. While civilizations like Greece and Rome have an unbroken tradition of written histories, the rich history of Mesopotamia has only been recently rediscovered, thanks to the decipherment of Mesopotamia's cuneiform writing less than 200 years ago. In this 24-lecture course taught by Professor Podany, you'll fill in the blanks of your historical understanding as you witness a whole new world opening before your eyes.Riveting stories about kings and priestesses as well as ordinary people from all walks of life transport you back in time, giving you invaluable insights into the history of a landmark region that has long been known as the cradle of civilization. Read more

A new history of Assyria, the ancient civilization that set the model for future empiresAt its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield: their vast libraries and monumental sculptures, their elaborate trade and information networks, and the crucial role played by royal women.Although Assyria was crushed by rising powers in the late seventh century BCE, its legacy endured from the Babylonian and Persian empires to Rome and beyond. Assyria is a stunning and authoritative account of a civilization essential to understanding the ancient world and our own.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

This carefully reserched book is a significant addition to this vital foeld of knowledge. It sets forth, in fascinating detail, the history, from earliset recorded times, of the black races of the Middle East and Africa. Read more

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A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a twenty-year quest to decipher cuneiform, the oldest writing in the world—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.It was one of history’s great vanishing acts. Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then…the meaning of the characters was lost. London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Yet Europe’s best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up. Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before. From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past. Read more

The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums BC. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them.Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

"The flood continued forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth . . . and the ark floated on the face of the waters" (Gen 6:17-18 NRSV).In modern times the Genesis flood account has been probed and analyzed for answers to scientific, apologetic, and historical questions. It is a text that has called forth "flood geology," fueled searches for remnants of the ark on Mount Ararat, and inspired a full-size replica of Noah's ark in a theme park. Some claim that the very veracity of Scripture hinges on a particular reading of the flood narrative. But do we understand what we are reading?Longman and Walton urge us to ask what the biblical author might have been saying to his ancient audience. Our quest to rediscover the biblical flood requires that we set aside our own cultural and interpretive assumptions and visit the distant world of the ancient Near East. Responsible interpretation calls for the patient examination of the text within its ancient context of language, literature, and thought. And as we return from that lost world to our own, we will need to ask whether geological science supports the notion of flood geology.To read Longman and Walton is to put our feet on firmer interpretive ground. Without attempting to answer all of our questions, they lift the fog of modernity and allow the sunlight to reveal the true contours of the text. As with other books in the Lost World series, The Lost World of the Flood is an informative and enlightening journey toward a more responsible reading of a timeless biblical narrative.The books in the Lost World Series follow the pattern set by Bible scholar John H. Walton, bringing a fresh, close reading of the Hebrew text and knowledge of ancient Near Eastern literature to an accessible discussion of the biblical topic at hand using a series of logic-based propositions. Read more

Discover the Rich Tapestry of Sumerian MythologySumerian Mythology by Samuel Noah Kramer offers an in-depth exploration of the myths, gods, and legends of one of the world’s oldest civilizations. This scholarly yet accessible work provides a window into the beliefs, culture, and creativity of the Sumerians, whose stories laid the foundation for many later mythologies.Unveiling the World of the SumeriansFrom the tales of creation and the flood to the exploits of gods like Enki, Inanna, and Gilgamesh, this book brings to life the rich oral and written traditions of ancient Sumer. Kramer draws on extensive archaeological findings, including cuneiform tablets, to reconstruct and interpret these fascinating narratives.A Journey Through History and MythIn addition to recounting the myths, Kramer examines the cultural and historical context in which they arose, shedding light on the Sumerians’ understanding of the cosmos, morality, and human destiny. His analysis reveals the profound influence of Sumerian mythology on the religions and literatures of the ancient Near East.A Timeless Resource for Mythology EnthusiastsWith its engaging prose and meticulous scholarship, Sumerian Mythology is a must-read for anyone interested in ancient history, comparative mythology, or the origins of human storytelling. This edition brings Samuel Noah Kramer’s seminal work to modern readers, preserving the legacy of a civilization that shaped the course of history.Perfect for students, historians, and lovers of mythology, this book offers a captivating journey into the world of Sumer and its enduring myths. Read more

What do the Mayan prophecies, the Aztec Calendar Stone, the symbols on America’s Great Seal and the U.S. Capitol Building all have in common? Will the first Antichrist rise again? Will ancient Babylon once again become a prominent player in the Last Days? Will America be the catalyst through which both return? Why do the actions of our presidents, the iconography on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill, and the monuments of Washington, DC all seem to indicate that it will be? Find out in this updated and expanded edition of Babylon Rising: And The First Shall Be Last. Read more

The epic, five millennia history of the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that was the birthplace of civilization and remains today the essential crossroads between East and WestAt the start of the fourth millennium BC, at the edge of historical time, civilization first arrived with the advent of cities and the invention of writing that began to replace legend with history. This occurred on the floodplains of southern Iraq where the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet the Persian Gulf. By 3000 BC, a city called Uruk (from which “Iraq” is derived) had 80,000 residents. Indeed, as Bartle Bull reveals in his magisterial history, “if one divides the 5,000 years of human civilization into ten periods of five centuries each, during the first nine of these the world’s leading city was in one of the three regions of current day Iraq”—or to use its Greek name, Mesopotamia. Inspired by extensive reporting from the region to spend a decade delving deep into its history, Bull chronicles the story of Iraq from the exploits of Gilgamesh (almost certainly an historical figure) to the fall of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 that ushered in its familiar modern era. The land between the rivers has been the melting pot and battleground of countless outsiders, from the Akkadians of Hammurabi and the Greeks of Alexander to the Ottomans of Suleiman the Magnificent. Here, by the waters of Babylon, Judaism was born and the Sunni-Shia schism took its bloody shape.Central themes play out over the millennia: humanity’s need for freedom versus the co-eternal urge of tyranny; the ever-present conflict and cross-fertilization of East and West with Iraq so often the hinge. We tend to view today’s tensions in the Middle East through the prism of the last hundred years since the Treaty of Versailles imposed a controversial realignment of its borders. Bartle Bull’s remarkable, sweeping achievement reminds us that the region defined by the land between the rivers has for five millennia played a uniquely central role on the global stage. Read more

Civilization was born eight thousand years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period and explores the political and social systems, as well as the technical and cultural innovations, which made this land extraordinary. At the heart of this book is the story of Babylon, which rose to prominence under the Amorite king Hammurabi from about 1800 BCE. Even as Babylon's fortunes waxed and waned, it never lost its allure as the ancient world's greatest city. Engaging and compelling, Babylon reveals the splendor of the ancient world that laid the foundation for civilization itself. Read more

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A tour of an ancient library transports us to Mesopotamia, introducing us to its people, their ideas, and their humanity.   The library of Ashurbanipal, Assyria’s last great king, held an astonishing collection at the forefront of knowledge in its day, from ancient traditions in religion and literature to the latest developments in magic and medicine. When the Assyrian empire fell, the library burned to the ground, and its contents, clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing, lay buried for thousands of years until a team of Victorian archaeologists discovered the remnants in modern-day Iraq. The clay had baked and hardened; the very fire that consumed the library had helped its texts to survive for millennia.   In The Library of Ancient Wisdom, scholar Selena Wisnom, one of only a few hundred experts able to read cuneiform script today, guides us inside this important collection and, through its contents, brings ancient Mesopotamia and its people to life. Introducing us to Ashurbanipal and his family, scribes, astrologers, physicians, and more, Wisnom explores the library’s tablets and the details they divulge about how these ancient people thought about the world. Like us, they had concerns about job security, jealous rivalries, and profound friendships, and questions about the meaning of life. Wisnom ushers us into a world where magic was commonplace, where the gods spoke to you in dreams, and where the secrets of the universe were revealed through puns—taking us to the heart of what it means to be human.   Offering a close look at a major historical landmark as well as a readable account of the world’s earliest civilizations, The Library of Ancient Wisdom lays bare the ideas, hopes, fears, and desires that survive on humble clay. Read more

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Discover the remarkable history of the first ancient empire of Mesopotamia after the long-lived civilization of Sumer!Where did Sargon the Great come from—this abandoned baby rescued from the river?How did he grow up to daringly and dramatically conquer all of Mesopotamia and beyond?What propelled his stunning ascent to rule the world’s first empire, which stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea?What can we learn about the fascinating origins and culture of the Akkadians and their unprecedented rise?What curse preceded the empire’s cataclysmic fall?This extensively researched, authoritative history of the Akkadian Empire will unlock the little-known and awe-inspiring stories of the people who boldly changed the world. This easy-to-read, comprehensive, and engaging presentation with striking illustrations brings the Akkadian civilization to life.Some of the fascinating questions you will explore include:What prehistoric people lived in Mesopotamia at the dawn of time?How did the world’s first cities vie for power?What precipitated Sargon’s rise from gardener to cupbearer to king?Why was Mesopotamia’s “Golden Age” golden?What horrific drought impelled the empire’s collapse?Why was the Akkadian military machine indomitable?How did the Akkadian’s life-like sculptures rival classical Greece 1,600 years later?Why was the first empire so short?What gods did the Akkadians worship, and how did their religion impact their lives?And much, much more!Scroll up and click the “add to cart” button to learn more about the Akkadian Empire! Read more

Explore the Captivating History of BabylonFree History BONUS Inside!The Babylonian influence upon its successors and even modern society knows no bounds. One of the leading civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Babylonians provided the fundamentals of mathematics, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, and other influential and necessary fields required to develop other great civilizations such as the Greeks, Romans, and even contemporary nations like China and the United States. Without them, no neoteric world could exist.In Babylon: A Captivating Guide to the Kingdom in Ancient Mesopotamia, Starting from the Akkadian Empire to the Battle of Opis Against Persia, Including Babylonian Mythology and the Legacy of Babylonia, you will discover topics such asThe Land of the BabyloniansLife, Culture, and Gender Roles Throughout the YearsWhere Superstition Met ScienceBabylonia Before the BabyloniansThe Amorite Dynasty or the First BabyloniansThe First Fall of Babylon and the Rise of the KassitesAssyrian Domination and Rule, 911-619 BCEThe Neo-Babylonian EmpireThe Persian Conquest and Hellenistic PeriodReligion, Mythology, and the Creation MythsThe Short Version of the Biblical BabyloniansAnd much, much more!So if you want to learn more about Babylon, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button! Read more

George Rawlinson (1812 – 1902) was a 19th-century English scholar, historian, and Christian theologian. He was appointed canon of Canterbury, and after 1888 he was rector of All Hallows, Lombard Street. In 1873, he was appointed proctor in Convocation for the Chapter of Canterbury. Contents: Egypt Phoenicia Chaldea Assyria Media Babylon Persia Parthia Sasanian Empire The Kings of Israel and Judah The History of Herodotus: Translated by George Rawlinson Read more