Middle East

A counting of goats and rams in cuneiform script, ancient Ngirsu, Iraq, 2360 BC. (DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Cuneiform: 6 things you (probably) didn’t know about the world’s oldest writing system

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Islam’s struggle with modernity podcast

Islam’s struggle with modernity . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The burial mask of Tutankhamun. From the moment Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in The Valley of Kings in 1922, rumours swirled that a curse would fall on those who disturbed the Boy King's eternal slumber. (Photo by Hannes Magerstaedt/Getty Images)

Q&A How many people are supposed to have died from the curse of Tutankhamun's tombs?

This painting in Kensington Palace shows a group standing on a balustrade. Among them are George I’s two Turkish grooms of the chamber, ‘Mustapha’ and ‘Mohamed’. (Photo by Steve Vidler/Alamy Stock Photo)

Tales of the Turk

A scene from ’Othello’ by William Shakespeare, published in 1622. The play “seems to have been influenced by Anglo-Moroccan relations that reached their high point in the summer of 1600,” writes Brotton. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Elizabethan England’s relationship with the Islamic world

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Podcast Website large Sayegh Wissam

BBC Arabic at 80 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Illustation by Femke de Jong.

Michael Wood on Anglo-Saxon Christianity . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Historian Simon Schama.

Books interview: Simon Schama . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

General Edmund Allenby walks into Jerusalem on 11 December 1917

The Balfour Declaration: Britain’s unholy mess

A bust of Queen Nefertiti of Ancient Egypt. (Photo by Oliver Lang/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&A Where is Nefertiti’s mummy?

The USS Liberty arriving for repairs following the attack by Israeli warplanes and motor torpedo boats

Why did Israel attack the USS Liberty?

The crews of Israeli armoured vehicles during the waiting period before the beginning of the Six-Day War. (Photo by David Rubinger/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Six days that shook the Middle East

Seven princesses with the name ‘Cleopatra’ are credited as sitting on the throne of Egypt. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Q&A How many Cleopatras ruled Ancient Egypt?

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Christopher de Bellaigue in conversation

The Islamic Enlightenment: Christopher de Bellaigue and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in conversation . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of the capture of Jerusalem during the third crusade

Crusader, deserter and traitor: the life and legacy of Raymond III of Tripoli