This Week in the Ancient Near East

Eau de l’antiquité, or, The Past is a Stinky Country

New research has begun to reconstruct the smell of ancient perfumes from Egyptian tombs. But rich folks always try to smell better. The bigger question is what did the past smell like as whole? Our contestants detect zesty notes of burning dung and a cloying variety of herbs and spices.

Take the Last Boat to Carthage and I’ll Meet You at the Tophet. Or, Who Were the Phoenicians and Why Did They Do Something As Dangerous as Sail West?

A Phoenician cemetery in Spain has us talking about, well, the Phoenicians. Who were they, where did they come from, and why do we even call them Phoenicians in the first place? Isn’t that sort of ‘othering’? And where does famed character actor Michael J. Pollard fit in?

A ‘Dark Age’ Shipwreck Mystery, or When Your Cargo Absolutely, Positively Has to Get There Eventually Between the Byzantine and Umayyad Period Unless the Ship Sinks

A Late Byzantine/Early Islamic shipwreck off the coast of Israel has us donning our Speedos once again. Wasn’t this tramp steamer aware of the momentous political and social changes taking place on land? Who cares when you’ve got walnuts and broken glass to deliver!

Even More Strange and Wonderful Finds from Iron Age Jerusalem, or, You Brought Home Champagne! No, it’s Vanilla Flavored Wine.

Wine flavored with vanilla? Why would any self respecting Jerusalemite touch the stuff except to show off? Anyway, it pairs well with other weird stuff found in Iron Age Jerusalem like shark fossils, dried fish, and writing so why not?

Har Adir, Where the Iron Age Air is Clear, or How to tell a Fortress from a Bird Watching Sanctuary

The early Iron Age site of Har Adir in the mountains of the Upper Galilee is back in the news. Was this an 11^th century fortress of a local polity or a bird watching sanctuary? How can we tell the difference? What is a polity anyway? One thing’s for sure, don’t get us started about ‘Dark Ages.’

Tattoo Who? Or, From Egypt with Ink

The discovery of tattoos on an upper class woman from ancient Egypt has us asking, are these magical, medical, or a right of passage? But what about the tattooed criminals in ancient Greece? Maybe this tattoo thing goes different ways. The main thing is that people in the past looked more like modern Brooklynites than we realized.

The Xbox of the Early Bronze Age? Or, All That’s Left is a Board of Stone.

A stone game board from Oman has us puzzled. Is this rare find a signpost in the evolution of human cognition or a flat rock with divots? What are games anyway? New ways to think or old ways to kill time? It’s all a game to you people, isn’t it?

A Crusader Mass Grave at Sidon, or Blunt Force Trauma Makes the Man

A mass grave of Crusaders at the Lebanese site of Sidon raises many questions about identity, mobility, and warfare in the 13^th century. But it fits right in with our understanding of human cruelty, what with the beheadings and all, so at least there’s that.