Mesopotamia
After the Flood: There Are Rivers in the Sky, by Elif Shafak, reviewed
Water – essential to life and civilisation, but also a potentially destructive force – is the theme linking three disparate strands in Shafak’s magnificent new novel
Does knotted string constitute ‘writing’?
What particularly excites Silvia Ferrara, the author of The Greatest Invention, is not language per se but writing – that…
Meet Congo, the Leonardo of chimps, whose paintings sell for £14,500
Three million years ago one of our ancestors, Australopithecus africanus, picked up a pebble and took it home to its…
Cooling is as important to civilisation as making fire — only much harder
Modern civilisation depends on refrigeration — but we have been trying to manufacture cold for at least 4,000 years, says Michael Bywater
The Islamic State is destroying the greatest melting pot in history
The fighters of the Islamic State are bringing a deadly new intolerance to a territory rich in ancient sects
Baghdad's rise, fall – and rise again
Ali A. Allawi on the fluctuating fortunes of Iraq’s fabled capital
