This Week in the Ancient Near East

The Case of the Elephant Bone in Third Century BCE Spain, or, Babar Says, You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry

The discovery of an elephant bone in third century BCE Spain has us asking questions. Was the circus in town or was it a war elephant, like one of those Hannibal used to climb the Alps? But where did it come from and how did Carthaginians learn to drive them? After all, the trunk is in the front.

Please Don’t Eat the Halafian Daisies, or Plant Based Mathematics in Prehistory?

New research suggests that the painted designs on prehistoric Halafian pottery represent mathematical reasoning. If you count all the leaves and bushes, this tracks. What kind of crazy people count the leaves and bushes? Archaeologists, that’s who.

For Quick Energy, Mamluks Choose Sugar! or, The Archaeology of 13-16th Century CE Sugar Mills in Israel

Did Mamluks mill sugar in the Beth Shean Valley of Israel using water powered mills? Do elites own industries creating tasty and addictive foodstuffs and foist the products on the unsuspecting? Talk about a sugar rush!

The Opium Trail from Egypt to Persia, or Putting Your Hope in Dope, Ancient Edition

The discovery of opium residues in an Egyptian alabaster jar with the Achaemenid king Xerxes’ name on it has us wondering. How stoned were they in the past? Was that why the jar ended up at Yale? Talk about a legacy admission!

The Case of the Very Different Iron Age Shipwrecks at Dor, or, Underwater Insurance Adjusters, Assemble!

The lagoon off Tel Dor is filled with shipwrecks and wouldn’t you know it, new excavations have turned up three from the Iron Age. Our contestants talk about the finds, changing patterns of Mediterranean trade, and the problem of getting insurance. Iron Age maritime economies? Learn to swim.

A Prehistoric Figurine of Problematic Possibilities, or Or, Mythogram for Mother Goose

The discovery of a teeny tiny figurine at the 12,000 year old site of Nahal En Gev II has us asking uncomfortable questions. Why is the woman carrying the goose on her back? Why does the goose seem pleased about this? Are women and geese separate parts of nature or sort of the same? Wait, what? It’s the Mother Goose mythogram of the millennia!

Dear Judah, This is Not a Bill, Except It Really Is, Signed, Assyria; or, The Iron Age Tax Man Cometh

In Iron Age Jerusalem, finding a tiny bit of a cuneiform tablet is a big deal, since in that town, they use the alphabet. But when the Neo-Assyrian authorities ask, hey, where’s our tax money, they can do it in any script and language they want. So you’d better read the email, otherwise -there- will be a meeting, and you won’t like it.

The Great Nubian Gold Rush (of the Second Millennium BCE?), or, Gold Bugs of the Bronze Age

How much gold was mined in antiquity anyway? A new economic analysis suggests that second millennium BCE Nubia produced hundreds of tons of the stuff, which is way more than anyone ever thought. Mining expeditions were super profitable too. So where’s the archaeological and textual evidence? Screw that, where’s all the gold now dammit?