Episodes

Monday May 26, 2025
Monday May 26, 2025
New research on Iron Age Judah has us asking questions, specifically about tchotckes. Just how elite does having an alabaster bowl make you as opposed to say, a bead? How about after you were pummeled by Assyrians? What was flair in the Iron Age anyway? Was fifteen the minimum? Brian, for example, has thirty seven pieces of flair, okay. And a terrific smile.

Monday May 12, 2025
Monday May 12, 2025
A new study of Neolithic arrowheads from the Negev shows they had human as well as animal residues on them. Like human blood and guts residue, not, oh I got a tiny little nick residue. Peaceful hunter-gatherers, amirite?

Monday Apr 28, 2025
Monday Apr 28, 2025
The Pharaoh Necho has finally turned up at Megiddo (well, his guys have), which isn’t so surprising since the Bible says he killed King Josiah there. But this raises questions like, do pots equal peoples? Why did so many Greeks become mercenaries? And why did Judean kings make so many bad decisions? With a shoutout to our late friend and mentor Doug Esse!

Monday Apr 14, 2025
Monday Apr 14, 2025
The new excavations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have us asking questions. What’s it like digging in the holiest place in the Christian world? Is it as stressful as it sounds? How many phases could there be in a 1700 year old building anyway? And was the Crusaders’ North Atlantic cod fresh or frozen?

Monday Mar 31, 2025
Monday Mar 31, 2025
A late Iron Age building in the Negev Desert has us asking questions. Why is it filled with dead young women? Who were they and what were their connections with Yemen? Why don’t we call it The Yemen any more? And what does frankincense really smell like anyway?

Monday Mar 17, 2025
Hezekiah Gets His Grooves Off, Or, Cult Consolidator or Cost Cutter?
Monday Mar 17, 2025
Monday Mar 17, 2025
Newly published excavations of cultic rooms cut into the living rock of the City of David have us asking questions. Why are there big grooves cut in the floor? Who was crushing olives and/or grapes and for what? Why was the standing stone so skinny? And why did Hezekiah put this funky little place out of business? Spring cleaning or something else?

Monday Mar 03, 2025
Monday Mar 03, 2025
New research shows that prehumans collected and prepared carb heavy foods around 780,000 years ago. So who says that processed foods are bad for you? After all, it made their brains bigger. With a shoutout to everyone’s favorite starch, the potato!

Monday Feb 17, 2025
Monday Feb 17, 2025
The publication of a really long Roman legal document from the Judean Desert has us wondering about crime. Is changing a location on a contract really forgery? How about a little light counterfeiting of silver coins? Ok fine, but there’s sales tax on slaves? That makes all this even worse.

Two real professors of archaeology and one guy from a fake institution discuss cutting edge archaeological discoveries at a high professional level using technical knowledge and stuff. A scholarly podcast for the discerning listener, it’s handmade, artisanal, and bespoke!
Critics say, “A cheeky and irreverent take,” and “the good kind of shenanigans.” Other critics say, “damaging to archaeology,” and “deeply discreditable.”
High-level discourse informed by neo-Brechtian, Deleuzian, or post-post processual theory, or just more BS from a couple of bored, middle aged hacks? You be the judge!
The Panelists
JP Dessel is the Steinfeld Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is the author of Lahav I. Pottery and Politics The Halif Terrace Site 101 and Egypt in the Fourth Millennium B.C.E. (2009).
Rachel Hallote is Professor of History at Purchase College, SUNY. She is a co-author of Photographs of the American Palestine Exploration Society (2012) and author of Bible, Map and Spade (2006).
Alex Joffe is Director of the Bob and Ray Institute of Archaeology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople. This is fake institution. But he is the author of several real books, most recently Operation Crusader and the Desert War in British History and Memory: ‘What Is Failure? What Is Loyalty?’ (2020).
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