Photograph by Werner Forman, GTRES This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Mesopotamia—“the land between two rivers”—gave birth to ...

Mesopotamia, with its dense network of ancient cities in the fertile plains along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near the Persian Gulf, is often regarded as the birthplace of urban civilization.

A significant portion of human development and history may be traced back to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, in and around present-day Iraq. The study of these new tablets could reveal ...