Mesopotamian rulers buried time capsules in their major buildings. This barrel cylinder was made to record the deeds of King Sargon II of Assyria. He describes how he constructed a new capital city, which he named after himself. It also records that he defeated King Midas, famous today for his fabled power to turn anything he touched into gold. Royal inscriptions like this were vital in reconstructing ancient history.

The Flood Tablet, actually the 11th tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, made international news in 1872. George Smith, cuneiform scholar at the British Museum, translated this story of a Flood that bears a very close resemblance to the biblical account. How could a story thought to have been revealed by God to his chosen people be found elsewhere, and in a text older than the Bible?

The Rosetta Stone is famous for providing the key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The inscription is a priestly decree affirming the cult of young King Ptolemy V. The text, written in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek, played the key role in the decipherment of hieroglyphs.

The ancient world was a cosmopolitan place. In big cities, people from across the known world lived side by side. The different cultures borrowed from each other freely. Here at Palmyra (Syria) was a blend of Roman and Aramaic cultures. Aramaic is still spoken in some villages in southern Syria, as well as by modern Assyrian communities.

The French gave Britain the Rosetta Stone under the terms of the Capitulation of Alexandria. Here, British General Hutchinson tasks the traveller and scientist, Edward Daniel Clarke, to ensure the security of the Stone, and to copy its inscription. A copy was given to the French scholar, Champollion, who succeeded in deciphering the text.