Civilizations

A curated reading list across the ancient world: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Egypt, China, Greece and Rome, Mesoamerica, plus resources.

· Updated Jul 12, 2026

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Overview

  • The Other Ancient Civilizations
  • The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East, 5 Vols.
  • Ancient Worlds: A Global History of Antiquity – Michael Scott

Mesopotamia & the Near East

  • The Epic of Gilgamesh - Trans. Andrew George
  • The Code of Hammurabi
  • The Code of Ur-Nammu
  • Samuel Noah Kramer – History Begins at Sumer
  • Benjamin Foster – Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature
  • "The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures" – James B. Pritchard
  • "The Ancient Near East: History, Society, and Economy" – Mario Liverani
  • "Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization" – Paul Kriwaczek
  • Georges Roux – Ancient Iraq
  • University of Pennsylvania – Ancient Near East
  • Christopher Woods – The Earliest Mesopotamian Writing
  • Karen Radner & Eleanor Robson – The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture
  • Videos

Indus Valley

  • Asko Parpola – The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization
  • "India’s Ancient Past" – R.S. Sharma
  • Gregory Possehl – The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective
  • Andrew Robinson – The Indus: Lost Civilizations
  • HarvardX – The Ancient Indus Valley Civilization
  • Asko Parpola – Deciphering the Indus Script
  • Iravatham Mahadevan – The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance, and Tables
  • Walter Fairservis – The Harappan Civilization and its Writing
  • Indus Script Corpus & Archaeological Studies (Excavation reports).
  • Jonathan Mark Kenoyer – Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization
  • Shereen Ratnagar – Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age
  • Dilip Chakrabarti – The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities
  • The Rigveda
  • The Upanishads

Egypt

  • The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts - James P. Allen, Raymond O. Faulkner
  • Raymond O. Faulkner – The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts (3 Vols.)
  • The Book of The Dead - Raymond O. Faulkner, Thomas George Allen
  • Erik Hornung – The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife
  • R. S. Simpson – The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt
  • William Moran – The Amarna Letters
  • Trevor Bryce – The Kingdom of the Hittites
  • R. B. Parkinson – The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems
  • Miriam Lichtheim, “Ancient Egyptian Literature” (3 Vols.) - The Teachings of Ptahhotep
  • "The Literature of Ancient Egypt" – William Kelly Simpson (Ed.)
  • Toby Wilkinson, “The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt”
  • "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt" – Ian Shaw
  • "The Mind of Egypt" – Jan Assmann
  • Mark Lehner, “The Complete Pyramids”
  • Richard Wilkinson, “Reading Egyptian Art”
  • Raymond Faulkner, “A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian”
  • James P. Allen, “Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs”
  • Mark Collier & Bill Manley, “How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs”
  • The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt”
  • Rosalie David, “Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science”–
  • John F. Nunn, “Ancient Egyptian Medicine”
  • Annette Imhausen, “Mathematics in Ancient Egypt”

Early China

  • Oracle Bone Inscriptions
  • The Mandate of Heaven Texts
  • HarvardX – Ancient China: From the Neolithic to the Han Dynasty
  • "The Cambridge History of Ancient China" – Michael Loewe & Edward Shaughnessy
  • "The Book of Documents" (Shu Jing) (Trans. James Legge)
  • "The Analects" – Confucius (Trans. Arthur Waley)
  • "The Tao Te Ching" – Laozi (Trans. D.C. Lau)

Ancient Greece & Rome

  • "The Histories" – Herodotus (Trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt)
  • "History of the Peloponnesian War" – Thucydides (Trans. Rex Warner)
  • "The Republic" – Plato (Trans. C.D.C. Reeve)
  • "The Gallic Wars" – Julius Caesar (Trans. Carolyn Hammond)
  • "The Annals" – Tacitus (Trans. Cynthia Damon)

Ancient Mesoamerica & South America

  • "Popol Vuh" (Trans. Dennis Tedlock)
  • "The Florentine Codex" – Bernardino de Sahagún
  • "The Huarochirí Manuscript" (Trans. Frank Salomon)
  • "The Maya" – Michael D. Coe & Stephen Houston
  • "The Incas" – Terence D’Altroy

Resources