This Week in the Ancient Near East

Reading Eclipses for Fun and Profit, or from Divine Intervention to Priestly Protection Racket in the Old Babylonian Period

Some Old Babylonian tablets warn about lunar eclipses and their dire consequences. Drought! Famine! Lions! Surprisingly, the priests had rituals to prevent those consequences. Wait, you don’t seem surprised. With a shoutout to Madame Marie, seer of the Jersey Shore!

(How) Long Reign Hezekiah, or A 100th Episode for the Ages!

For our momentous 100^th episode we’re talking about the age old question, does chronology matter? A bunch of tiny seal impressions seem to have solved the question of when our old friend Hezekiah reigned. Though definitely stolen, they might even be real, probably. Maybe. So we’ve got big problems of reality and morality going for us, which is something.

The Neolithic Shaman Girl from Çemka Höyük, or Terrapin Station in the Tenth Millennium

A Neolithic shaman burial at Çemka Höyük in southeastern Turkey? Why not! Somebody had to be a guide to the spirit world. But why are they always buried with tortoises? Aurochs, sure, weasels, um, ok. Our contestants are stumped and offer wild speculations. So business as usual.

How to Dye a Fabric in the Middle Bronze Age, Or, See, I Told You Those Gross Little Bugs Were Good For Something

A red dyed textile from a Middle Bronze Age cave in the Judean Desert has us wondering, sure, boiled squished insects are colorful, but how did they go from, eww, gross, to, hey maybe I could dye some fabric with them and make myself pop? With psychologically revealing ruminations on our contestants’ favorite colors!

The Tale of the Egyptian Scribes and their Bad Knees, Or, If You Can Build a Pyramid You Can Build a Table

Old Kingdom scribes kneeled or sat on the floor so their knees, backs and hips were as screwed up as ours. But did they have a trusted firm of personal injury lawyers pushing through the red tape to get them the Worker’s Comp benefits they were owed? Let’s hope so.

A Deepwater - Like Really Really Deep- Late Bronze Age Shipwreck or, Down to the Sea in Sunken Canaanite Ships

A Late Bronze Age shipwreck 90 kilometers off the coast of Israel has us asking, what were they doing way out there and if your ship sinks, how do you make an insurance claim without texts? Anyway, why are there are no Canaanite sea shanties? No, really.

Horsing Around the Ancient Near East in the Third Millennium BCE, Or, Let Me Get You Off of That Kunga and onto a Brand New Palomino!

New evidence suggests horses were domesticated over a thousand years later than previously thought, around 2200 BCE, which would mean they caught on pretty fast with wealthy Near Easterners. Still, who wouldn't love a pony? Who wouldn't love a person that had a pony? With touching childhood memories of horsemanship!

A Waxy Buildup at Iron Age Horvat Tevet, Or, Does This Beeswax Make me Look Canaanite or Israelite?

Horvat Tevet was a village in the early Iron Age Galilee. Caananite, Israelite, who knows? They liked beeswax though. Make of that what you will. With a shoutout to The Bangles and a completely incongruent Lightning Round!