Iraq's Antiquities

ziggurat of ur

The Ziggurat of Ur (sometimes called the "Great Ziggurat of Ur"; Sumerian E-temen-nigur meaning "house whose foundation creates terror") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure was built during the Early Bronze Age (21st century BC), but had crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BC of the Neo-Babylonian period when it was restored by King Nabonidus.

Its remains were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by Sir Leonard Woolley. Under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, they were encased by a partial reconstruction of the façade and the monumental staircase. The ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved of those known from Iran and Iraq, besides the ziggurat of Dur Untash (Chogha Zanbil).[citation needed] It is one of three well preserved structures of the Neo-Sumerian city of Ur, along with the Royal Mausolea and the Palace of Ur-Nammu (the E-hursag)

Moulouya, Samarra

Samarra, about 124 km north of Baghdad, is one of the four Islamic Holy Cities of Iraq, and is considered as the largest ancient city known in the whole World with its majestic ruins which extends about 9 km horizontally and 34 km vertically along the eastern bank of the Tigris.

It was built by Caliph Al-Mu'tasim in 836 AD to replace Baghdad as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and abandoned by Caliph Al-Mu'tamid in 892 AD. Despite the short sojourn of the Abbasid Caliphate in Samarra, the city's artistic, literary, and scientific splendors have remained a legend in Arab history 

Agargoaf, Iraq 

An ancient monument city, some 30 km to the north west of Baghdad, built on a Sumero-Babylonian plan in the 15th century BC by King Kurigalzo (thus anciently named "Dur Kurigalzo" which means: the city of King Kurigalzo), on an elongated tongue of natural limestone, and lasted as the capital of the Kassite Dynasty in Mesopotamia up to the end of the 11th century BC.

Water came to Agargoaf from a large river branched out of the Euphrates called by the Babylonian "Bitty Inlil" - the canal of the god Inlil, one of the greatest in the ancient Mesopotamian pantheon.

The city's great ziggurat, built by the Kassites during the rule of King Kurigalzo II (1344-1324 BC), though partially ruined, commands theview with its 57 m height over the surrounding plain. Its base was 69x67 m.

Only the lower level has survived, reinforced by an outer brick wall, with parts of the inner mud-brick core still protruding high above it. To hold the structure together matting and ropes were used every 8 or 9 rows, which also protected it from seepage and damp. The first story has 3 staircases in the middle, and 2 on the sides.

Other remains to see there are a number of palaces, temples, and living quarters. Indications are that the city was inhabited right through the later Babylonian age and, in parts, in Islamic times

Ctesiphon, Iraq 

The historically important site of Ctesiphon, about 30 km to the south east of Baghdad, was built by the Parthian Persians on the opposite (east) side of the Tigris from Seleucia in the middle of the 2nd century BC. The two cities were joined by a bridge, and the Arabs coupled them together, calling them jointly Al-Mada'en (the Cities).Amidst its extensive ruin stands the best-known antique site in Iraq after Ur and Babylon: the fabulous and colossal arch of the great banqueting-hall of the great palace of Sapor, the Shah's luxurious capital, which was built in the middle of the 3rd century of our era.

Experts believe that it is the widest and highest single-span vault built of baked bricks in the World: its construction at that time must have been a miracle of architectural planning.A descendant of ancient Mesopotamian structures in style, it embodied a skilful development of temples and palaces of the 3rd millennium BC, when the front part of great buildings would consist of large halls topped by high arches - as seen clearly at the entrances of Assyrian cities.When the Tigris flooded in 1987 and destroyed almost all of the rest of the building, the Arch of Ctesiphon survived.

Hatra, Iraq

Hatra, the City of the Sun god, and the perfect ruin, or as Arabs say: Hadhar, is one of Iraq's few stone reserved monuments, a site that will be loved unreservedly and at first sight, because of its stunning beauty.

It is an ancient Arab city about 80 km to the south west of Mosul and 296 km north west of Baghdad. In many people's opinion its the loveliest ancient monument in Iraq from any period in that country's immensely long history.

Although archeologists possess few texts that tells about the obscure beginnings of Hatra, it seems things started with a smallish Assyrian settlement which then grew sometime in the 3rd century BC to become a fortress and a trading center. In the 2nd century BC, it flourished as a major staging-post on the famous oriental silk road to become another link in the chain of the great Arab cities: Palmyra in Syria, Petra in Jordan, and Baalbeck in Lebanon.

Around 156 AD, and before the foundation of kingship, Hatra was governed by Arab rulers who combined religious and secular authority. Prominent among them was Nasr, father of the first two kings of Hatra: Lajash and Sanatruq. The latter whose title was King of the Arabs as inscriptions discovered in 1961 reveals and who, it seems, completed the Temple of Shamash (the Sun God), was succeeded by his son Abd Samya (190-200 AD), who in turn was succeeded by his son Sanatruq II (200-241 AD), the last Arab king of the city.

It is good to take one's time in Hatra as there is so much to look at and the compulsion is to go on looking. Hatra is fortified with two city walls and citadels. The outer wall is 8 km long, and the inner is 6 km long. The center of Hatra consists of a group of temples enclosed by a special wall. The most important is the temple of Shamash and the shrine of the goddess Shahiro (the morning star).

The group of temples has been partly restored and exemplifies the unique Hatran architecture: an elegant combination of eastern and western influences. Excavations of Hatra have only started recently. The town itself has not been uncovered yet but you are able to see the temples, the tombs, the wall and the remains of towers.

Impressive examples of Hatran art, with its statues of kings and precious collections of golden, silver and copper objects, can be admired at the National Museum of Iraq.

Nineveh, Iraq

The ancient city of Nineveh is situated just outside Mosul on the east bank of the River Tigris. Nobody knows exactly when it was inhabited for the first time, but it was a cultural settlement in the 6th millennium BC, right through Sumerian and Babylonian periods. In fact, the name of Nineveh is of Sumerian origin. Nineveh was the 3rd capital of Assyria Empire after Assur and Nimrud , dating from the reign of the great King Sennacherib (704-681 BC) and was one of the most powerful cities of the Middle East: the hub of the civilized ancient World. Its downfall came in 612 BC, when it was sacked by the Medes of Northern Persia whom killed the last great king of Nineveh, Ashurbanipal (669-624 BC).

This city, a beloved of the goddess Ishtar, was ruled by a number of great Assyrian Kings, such as Sargon II (721-705 BC), before he moved to Khorsabad, succeeded by his son Sennacherib who abandoned his father's new capital and went back to Nineveh, and Esarhaddon (681-669 BC) and Ashurbanipal, all of whom enlarged and built up the city turning it into a beautiful 700 hectares large city of wide boulevards, large squares, parks, and gardens.

Ukhaidhir, Iraq

Ukhaidhir, the colossal pre- or early Abbasid (late 8th century) fortified pleasure palace is 50 km south west of Kerbala and about 173 km south west of Baghdad, standing alone in the desert as one of the most impressive buildings in the whole World and one of the greatest monuments of early Islam.

It was built with stone and plaster on a plan which suggests the high skill of its architects in the use of vaults and arches, consisting of a fortified rectangular enclosure measuring 175x169 m, with a gateway in the center of each side. It has 4 rounded corner towers and 10 intermediate half-rounded towers.

Ukhaidhir's huge walls rise like a cliff out of the plain, and inside them you have the feeling of being in a particularly large warlike castle. The walls are immensely thick, the chambers legion, the whole massive structure 21 m high. Every room is vaulted and majestic.The word Ukhaidhir means "small green place". It is one of several fortified mansions built by Arabs on the east and northern fringes of the desert; there are others in Jordan and Syria. Some authorities claim it is an early example of Arab architecture - that is, something not a straight copy from the Persian or Byzantine.

The open-fronted hall (or ewan) and its archway framed in a rectangular panel are both Persian in origin. Byzantine acanthus leaves decorate fallen stone capitals. The whole building with its circular buttresses and vaulted colonnades is neither Greek nor Persian, but the first, perhaps overbold step in the evolution of an individual (Arab) style, which later produced the Caliph's palace in Samarra. There are interesting sights on the way to this leviathan of a building. Just outside Kerbala is a tiny shrine, with the usual dome of colored tiles, to Hurr bin Yazid El-Riahi, an officer in the army of Ubaidullah who joined Hussein's band when he realized that Ubaidullah would have no mercy. Hurr, ironically, was the first to fall.

Nimrud (Calah), Iraq

Nimrud, lying on the east bank of the Tigris, 37 km to the south east of Mosul, is the 2nd capital of Assyria Empire founded in 883 BC, and had been a well-settled place for a thousand years before it was built as a center of the kingdom of Shalmaneser I (1273-1244 BC).A famous king of Nimrud was Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC); who firstly designated it as the Assyrian capital in 879 BC housing perhaps as many as 100,000 inhabitants, making it part of a great complicated building assigned to the god Nabu (the god of Arts), and so was his son Shalmaneser III(858-824 BC) who constructed its ziggurat, the most important monument of the city, together with a temple next to it.

In antiquity, the town was known by the name Kalhu (Calah in the Old Testament). The Arabs called it Nimrud after Nimrod, the biblical mighty hunter, father of Ashur (Assur), the Assyrian hero whose name explains why Assyrians are called Assyrians.

Hotels in Iraq

DIVAN ERBIL

Five Star Service and Accommodations in Iraq

The ideal site for business and relaxation, Divan Erbil is a luxury Erbil hotel. Located in northern Iraq, near the ancient city of Citadel, Divan Erbil welcomes guests with true five-star luxury. Enjoy fine Iraq dining at a variety of on-site restaurants, each serving delicious and distinct cuisine. The hotel also offers first class accommodations. Each guestroom offers luxury amenities, including rainforest showers and LCD televisions. 

Al-Rasheed - Baghdad 

Category     5 Stars

Number of Rooms & Suites  338 & 52

Hotel Al-Rasheed (sometimes spelled Al-Rashid) is an 18-story hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, favored by journalists and media personnel due to its location within Baghdad's Green Zone. It is named after the eighth century Caliph Harun Al-Rashid. It has been a focal point in a number of conflicts in the region, most recently the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Babylon - Baghdad 

Category   4 Stars

Number of Rooms  300

The hotel was established in 1982, before the Conference of Non-Aligned Countries

Design hotel from above gives Lion of Babylon

Contains 5 Restaurants first class Chinese restaurant, French and Hnachel Palace sky

Coral, Baghdad 

Debuts in Iraq with Coral Boutique Hotel Baghdad

Situated in the heart of Baghdad in one of most prestigious avenues inJadriya area, the Coral Boutique Hotel Baghdad is merely 5 kilometers from International Zone (formerly known as the Green Zone) district – a heavily guarded diplomatic area. Conveniently located 30 kilometers from Baghdad International Airport, the deluxe hotel is the perfect starting point for exploring the city’s key attractions such as the National Theatre, the National Museum, the Latin Church and Aaras Tourist Village. 

Meridian, Baghdad  

Category  5 Stars

Number of Rooms  400

The Palestine Hotel often referred to simply as The Palestine, Iraq located on Firdos Square in Baghdad , across from the Sheraton Ishtar. It has long been favored by journalists and media personnel. The hotel overlooks the Tigris on its eastern bank and is located several hundred metres south of the Baghdad Hotel 

Babylon, Iraq 

Babylon, the legendary city, is indeed, the most famous ancient city in the whole World. It was the capital of ten Mesopotamian dynasties starting with the dynasty of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC); the 6th king of the 1st dynasty; reaching prominence as the capital city of the great kingdom of Babylonia. The last dynasty at which Babylon achieved its zenith, is well known particularly of its 2nd king, Nebuchadnezzar II (605-563 BC), to whom most of Babylon's existing buildings belongs.
Babylon was renowned for its high, well-fortified walls and for the magnificence of its temples and palaces. Its famous Hanging Gardens, built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Amytas, were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Amytas was a Medes and her home was in mountainous country, so the King reputedly had the Hanging Gardens built to allay her homesickness.

Nowadays, its ruins covers about 302 km lying on the east bank of Euphrates 90 km south of Baghdad and about 10 km north of Hilla. The most important of the standing monuments of Babylon today are the Summer and Winter Palaces of King Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ziggurat attached to it, the Street of Processions, the Lion of Babylon, and the famous Ishtar Gate.
In Akkadian times, around 2350 BC, Babylon was a small village, which in 5 or 6 centuries had grown in size and importance, mostly during the reign of the 3rd Dynasty, until it rose like a city meteor to deal the coup de grace to Sumerian authority in Mesopotamia under Amorite kings. Babylon itself became a major city-state, as the capital of the great Amorite soldier, the famous king, law-giver and social reformer King Hammurabi, with a code of common law, and a king with genuine concern for the well-being of his subjects - an unusual feature in those times.


Hammurabi's lasting monument is the Code. It was inscribed on eight-foot steles, like the eight-foot black diorite stela, pillaged from Babylon by an Elamite King and found in 1901 by French archaeologists in Susa, the ancient Elamite capital (to the east of modern Amara). The French transported it to the Louvre where you can see it and read, in Babylonian cuneiform writing, the 3000 lines of the Code.
In the next thousand years or so it witnessed the growth of other Mesopotamian cities which surpassed it in power and influence until, in the 2nd Chaldean Kingdom (625-538 BC) it flourished again as the capital of a mighty and prosperous country. King Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt it in accordance with a new plan that took special care of its fortifications, and Babylon thus became the largest and loveliest city of its time.
As he was pursuing his conquests, Alexander the Great stopped for a time in Babylon and had intended to rebuild. He later returned only to die in it in 322 BC. Seleucus Nicator I, one of his commanders and successors, built Seleucia, south of Baghdad, whereupon Babylon lost its political significance.

 Baghdad, the capital of Iraq

In Iraq, all roads lead to the capital Baghdad, the City of the Caliphs and birthplace of Sinbad, the famous sailor and prosperous merchant. A city with a glorious past and a magnificent present.

Baghdad indeed, reflects the most unusual country that frames it. Iraq, after all, is the old, old Mesopotamia of Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, of the glorious sun-burst of the Abbasid Empire of Harun Al-Rashid, of Persian intrusions, and the affliction of 4 hundred dead years of Ottoman rule. In other words, Baghdad is the still-beating heart of a former cradle of civilization, a country as historically dramatic as the Nile Valley or Ancient Greece.

How old is Baghdad?

Baghdad, as a name, had been mentioned as Baghdadu on the Assyrian cuneiform records of the 9th century BC, and Babylonian bricks bearing the Royal Seal of King Nebuchadnezzar (6th century BC) were found in the Tigris here. It also appeared in many other historical records prior to the Christian era. But whatever settlement existed then, historic Baghdad was undoubtedly founded by the 2nd of the Abbasid Caliphs, Abu Ja'far Al-Mansour (AD 754-775), who had established his capital (The Round City) in almost the same location on the west bank of the Tigris River in 762 AD, and the name Baghdad is probably a combination of two Persian words meaning "Founded by God". Arabs call it "Dar Essalam" (The City of Peace).

Welcome to Iraq 

Iraq is a country with unmatched history in the history. When you visit Iraq, unlike any other country in the World, you feel, taste, and smell history. Its indeed the birthplace of Civilization 9000 years ago, where Age of Empires started, and where we, all of us, moved from prehistory to history.
In ancient times, Iraq's land area was almost equivalent to Mesopotamia, the land between the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates (Dejla and Furat in Arabic); which sweep down from the mountains of Turkey to meet, 136 km north of the  Arabian Gulf, at one of the alleged sites of the Garden of Eden.


Civilization of Iraq

record keeping), private properties, the numeral 60 based math system (which is the basis of time in the modern world), banking, recording of literature (like the epic of Gilgamesh), early calendars, bureaucratic system of priesthood, the first wars fought, the earliest legal comprehensive code known in history (Hammurabi Code), the first wheel, the first seed plow, the first sailboat, the division of circle into 360 degrees, invention of longitude and latitude in geographical navigation, the first sophisticated medical science, algebraic equations and invention of zero, and much much more, were all founded and developed in Iraq, in historical order, giving witness to the greatness the country has known over the centuries in terms of human achievements.

Here, in Iraq, lived ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cassites, and Chaldeans.. Here lived ancient Gudea, Ur-nammo, Sargon, Hammurabi, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar.. In Lagash, Babylon, Sumer, Eridu, Ur of the Chaldees, Subarum, Assur, Nineveh and Nimrud (Calah).. Leaving behind the legendary Babylonia, the legendary Ziggurats, the legendary Hanging Gardens; one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, and the countless other sites of Iraq's antiquity which outnumber those of the Valley of the Nile, Greece, or Rome.

Iraq's history

And here lived Prophet Noah (pbuh), the 2nd father of people, in Fara 160 km southeast of Babylon, Prophet Abraham "Ibrahim Al-Khalil" (pbuh), the Father of all Prophets, in Ur, Prophet Azra "Auzayr" (pbuh), Prophet Hizkael "The El-Kifl" (pbuh), and Prophet Jonnah "Yonus" (pbuh) in Nineveh.

Among Islamic countries, Iraq enjoys a very important position, as it has been cradle of inspiration miracles and virtues throughout the history of Prophets, Imams, and self denying pious men.

There are many holy cities and sites in Iraq with a unique and distinguished heritage like Kerbala and Najaf.. as well as many important Islamic cities like Kufa, Samarra, and the capital Baghdad, which was once, the center of the Muslim glorious world.