The underlying substance is Sumerian bitumen: a naturally occurring petroleum material (often called an asphalt-like “black goo”) long associated with waterproofing and adhesion, and even with ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

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One of the many advantages of homeschooling is the opportunity to learn about things that are not normally taught in schools. For the subject of history, we mostly adhere to the Classical four year ...

Sumer was humanity's first great civilization. Even in today’s society you can still find traces of Sumerian inventions in agriculture, language, mathematics, religion and astronomy. The ancient ...

The civilisation weakened when city rulers began fighting with each other. Flooding meant that crops weren't growing as well. Cities began to struggle. In the end, Sumer was invaded by the Elamites ...

In the third millennium BC, one Sumerian ruler rose from Umma and briefly united the ancient city-states of southern Mesopotamia, even claiming to reach the Mediterranean. This chapter follows ...

If asked to list the most important civilisations of the ancient world, many people of the west would mention Greece, Rome and Egypt. After that, if pressed, some might hazard a guess at Mesopotamia, ...

Narrator: Hello, future people of the UK. Would you like to visit me at the dawn of civilisation in ancient Sumer? Well, to do that, you’ve got to travel back in time. Back before the Vikings, before ...