Mesopotamia is known as the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In this land, which has been home to countless civilizations, numerous cities have been established throughout history. Founded on fertile Mesopotamian lands, Mardin has also hosted different civilizations for thousands of years. It has a multicultural, multireligious, multilingual and multiethnic background.
In 1919, a Chicago man with an opulent handlebar mustache had a radical idea. That man was James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute (OI) at the University of Chicago. His radical idea was that scholars should look toward the ancient Middle East, rather than only examining ancient Greece or Rome, to understand the story of western civilization.
Most of our towns and cities were named by the ancient natives of our land, for a purpose. We got used to their pronunciation without knowing their meanings. And yet, these names give us a glimpse at our towns' original history. One thing for sure, after you go through this list, you will never look at these towns the same.
Escaping his war-torn country, Fadil Al Azzavi, a 28-year-old Syrian took refuge in Turkey and now makes a living baking Assyrian buns with butter, Süryani çöreği, which is made with dates and 12 kinds of spices.
The Aksaray Malaklısı -- the largest of the Anatolian sheep dogs, also known as the Turkish mastiff or Anatolian Lion -- was used a war dog by the Assyrians 2,000 years ago, according to a Turkish breeders association. The Aksaray Malaklısı Breed Improvement Association (AKMID) said Sunday that the dog breed is one of the oldest in the world, and has a 3,500-year-long history in Anatolia.
According to a newly translated cuneiform tablet, ancient Babylonian astronomers were the first to use surprisingly modern methods to track the path of Jupiter. The purpose of four ancient Babylonian tablets at the British Museum has long been a historical mystery, but now it turns out that they describe a method that uses figures on a graph to calculate the motion of Jupiter.