Novels set in ancient Mesopotamia
This is a curated, but not ranked, collection of historical fiction and historical fantasy set in ancient Mesopotamia.
Some of it was published recently, and some more than a century ago. Some is traditionally published; some is independently published.
Please note that some of these titles are part of a series. The title listed will always be the first volume.
Like all ancient-world fiction lists on this site, this one is a living document that I’ll expand over time as I discover new titles. If you’d like to suggest a book for consideration, please submit it via the form at the bottom of the page.
Whether or not each book is right for you is a decision between you and Goodreads. A book’s inclusion on this list should not be taken as a personal recommendation from me. I’ve read some but not all of these titles. I have, however, researched all of them to minimise the chances of AI-generated or otherwise very low-quality fiction appearing on the list. Different readers have different tastes, and my goal is to spread the word about ancient-world fiction, not review it.
Related lists:
Fantasy books inspired by ancient Mesopotamia
The Assyrian
By Nicholas Guild. Published in 1987. Follows the relationship between Assyrian royal brothers Esarhaddon and Tiglath Ashur through war, romance, and political intrigue.
The Cradle and the Sword
By Ben Thomas. Published in 2017. Less a novel, more a collection of interwoven short stories and novellas that span Mesopotamian history by moving progressively back in time.
Dawn of Empire
By Sam Barone. Published in 2006. A war- and sex-heavy imagining of life in the Bronze Age Tigris Valley.
Babylonia
By Constanza Casati. Published in 2024. Covers the early life story of the legendary Babylonian queen Semiramis, with a focus on her romantic relationships with Onnes and Ninus and the men’s own relationship.
The Prince of Eridu
By Jesse Hudson. Published in 2016. Adolescent prince Ammon-shur’s royal life is turned upside down in this humorous saga. The author refers to the book as ‘Christian’, but it’s not biblical.
The Golden Bull
By Marjorie Cowley. Published in 2008. A children’s novel about a young brother and sister navigating survival in the big city of Ur after their father sends them there to earn their own living.
In the Court of the Queen & The Ambassador’s Daughter
Both by Elisabeth Roberts Craft.
In the Court of the Queen was published in 2001 and takes place in 2000 BCE. It follows a man’s attempt to rescue the woman from her fate as one of the ten maidens to be entombed along with the ageing Babylonian queen they serve.
The Ambassador’s Daughter was published in 2007. It takes place in 1830 BCE in the Hurrian kingdom of Mittani and follows the story of an orphaned girl and her relationships with royalty and with the ambassador who is her guardian.
The Iraqi Enigma
By Leah Larson. Published in 2019. A dual-timeline novel intertwining the stories of princess, priestess, and poet Enheduanna and Leonard Woolley, the British archaeologist who discovered tablets containing her poems in the 1920s.
The Physician of Nineveh
By Glen Cooper. Published in 2025. An archaeological time-travel novel about a chief physician to King Ashurbanipal, the modern female London Assyriologist whose life he walks into 2,700 years later, and their shared destiny.
Mesopotamia: A Bronze Age Adventure
By Sandra Saidak. Published in 2016. In 2000 BCE, a young merchant finds himself caught in the role of interpreter and mediator for a group of bandits and an equally unsavoury group of barbarians forced to work together to achieve their goals.
The Tablet of Destinies
By Peter Henne. Published in 2021. An Amurru laborer finds himself caught up in the rise of the Akkadian empire in this adventure story that’s also a ‘speculative work on the connection between the Akkadian Empire and the emergence of Judeo-Christian religion’.
Creation
By Gore Vidal. Published in 1981. A highly intellectual novel. The narrator travels extensively through the world of the 5th century BCE, but his story includes scenes in the Babylon of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Howl of the Golden Jackal
By Kristin Swenson. Published in 2025. Amytis, the illegitimate daughter of a Median king, fights to protect her homeland from Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, eventually becoming queen. Her nephew later becomes Cyrus the Great.
Belshazzar
By H. Rider Haggard. Published in 1902. Set in Babylon, the story follows the Egyptian prince Ramose’s attempt to rescue his wife, Myra, from the Babylonian king.
She Wrote on Clay
By Shirley Graetz. Published in 2013. In the Sumerian city of Sippar, a woman chooses a monastic life to achieve her dream of becoming a scribe, a profession dominated by men.
All Our Broken Idols
By Paul M.M. Cooper (host of the Fall of Civilizations podcast). Published in 2020. A dual timeline novel intertwining the life of a woman in Ashurbanipal’s Nineveh (7th century BCE) and a modern British-Iraqi archaeologist struggling to protect Nineveh’s ruins from looters.
The Three Brothers of Ur
By J.G. Fyson. Published in 1964. The story follows three sons of a wealthy merchant in Ur, with a focus on the mischievous youngest.
The Tomb Above the Gate
By Denik deBro. Published in 2026. A novel of the legendary Babylonian queen Nitocris and the trap she lays for future kings.
