Oldest Stories

From the Tigris River to the Mediterranian Sea, Assurnasirpal completes the greatest campaign any Mesopotamian king has managed since the time of Sargon the Great, nearly 1500 years prior. Made possible through logistics, a firm grip on his Mesopotmaian heartland, and his own personal spark of genius, our psycho king turns up the charm to travel further than blade alone could allow, reshaping the...

Bonus episode today, a bit of a crossover with the bronze age stuff I am doing on Youtube about the video game Total War Pharaoh. Despite that, I think it will be of general enough interest to go on the podcast feed because the history of cavalry and the evolution and impact of the horse is keenly relevant here in the iron age, ironically more so than in the bronze age that the game is trying to s...

Today we look at the psychology and genius of Assurnasirpal and get a good look at both the strengths and weaknesses of the Assyrian terror-based governance strategy. A massive feast will be held, the Babylonians will be resurgent, and a massive uprising will threaten Assyrian invincibility. If you like the show, consider sharing with your friends, leaving a like, subscribing, or even supporting f...

Today we pause and look at the early Neo-Assyrian army itself, the arm of the empire that was doing all the conquering. It is an infantry focused force, but we also have some to say about the world's first cavalry forces, as well as the prestigious but declining chariot. Sprinkling in some of what we know about Assyrian military tactics, strategy and psychology, we can see that the success of...

Calah, Nimrud, Kalhu - the new city of Assurnasirpal which will serve as imperial capital for the next century and a half has many names, but is built on a foundation of blood and plunder. We look at the city today, the grand buildings and mighty feasts held to inaugurate the new city, but our focus is on the death and slavery upon which it, like the empire, it would serve, is built upon. In the p...

Is Assurnasirpal II, king of Assyria, a relentless narcicisstic psychopath? Or is he a profoundly competant, ruthless tyrant? Can he be both, and does it really matter? Today we begin the first set of great conquest narratives of the Assyrian empire, unrivalled in their detail and shock value by any previous Mesopotamian king. We are deep into the Royal Inscriptions today, with a look at his listi...

King Tukulti-Ninurta II slows down the pace of conquest for a crucial decade. Conquest still happens, and at a breakneck pace, but compared to what we have seen and will see, it is much slower. More importantly, Tukulti-Ninurta spends a lot of his time focused on really establishing what has already been built, constructing more buildings, conducting diplomacy, building out the administration, and...

Today we see Adad-Nirari bring huge quantities of Arameans into the Assyrian empire. This will change the linguistic fabric of the entire near east in time, but as we will see, at the time it just seemed like a set of good decisions, or at least imperialistic decisions. We also discuss what it is to be an Assyrian, and why no one was overly concerned about the sort of ethnic conflicts that seem to...

The king today is Adad-Nirari II, but we have a lot to discuss in the background as well. The Nairi get their spotlight right before they get destroyed, and we look at the dating system for the Neo-Assyrian period and why it is so reliable, compared to the earlier parts of ancient history. And we also ask what an Empire is and whether or not the Neo-Assyrian Empire counts as one, which it does. Ad...

Today we talk about iron working, economics and climate change. Then we watch Assur-Dan II flay his enemies alive and hang their skins from the city wall. The doldrums of the Bronze Age Collapse are now officially over and a new age is rising - an age of iron and an age of empire. The most exciting and historically important period of Mesopotamian history begins now. Also, check out the spin off c...

Most of our modern end of the world literature is set in the future, but the Babylonians, in the midst of a dark age, set their end of the world literature right in their own times, since for them it may have seemed like the world itself was ending. Erra, also called Nergal, wants to destroy a bunch of stuff because that is his nature. He tries protecting the universe, but gets frustrated with tha...

Do dreams count as literature, are the dream records we have an accurate depiction of ancient dreams, and does reading a dream account from a man 3000 years dead give us any insight into his state of mind? Today, we read through a bunch of dreams, read about dreams, and just generally ponder some of this stuff. I have books! About Ancient Mesopotamia! And more on the way!  Check them out here !

The thrilling conclusion of the Enuma Elish is an extended hagiographical top-50 list extolling the virtues of Babylon's patron god. As we are now well into the period where Marduk is unquestionably supreme within Babylon's walls, it is high time that we focused out attention a bit more on just who this Marduk fellow truly is. We look at the context of the naming, the fact that by some cou...

Today we look at Pazuzu, Lamashtu, Samanu, Mushussu, and Lamassu. These are not the great gods of myth, nor are they the personal gods that would have absorbed the majority of the average Mesopotamian's attention and worship. They exist somewhere in the middle, in the realm of magic, of diseases, of charms, and of the middle spirit realms. This means there isn't a good place to talk about...

Today we read through the Dialogue of Pessimism and the Poor Man of Nippur. Both are comedies with a bit of edge to them, though in very different formats, showing the richness of ancient literature. Dialogue of Pessimism is basically a two-man standup routine, with a fair amount of philosophical ideas thrown in as part of the comedy. Poor Man of Nippur is a farce mixed with a revenge tale, ground...

Today we overview the historical portions of the bible and look at the fallibility of heroes, resolving moral conflicts with God, and the historical problems with strict literalism. I have gotten specific questions on these three topics over the course of the series, but rather than answering the specific questions, I thought it would be more useful and interesting to consider the underlying issue...

Christmas Special! We are reading Isaiah chapter 55, a pretty short one, partly because it is nice, and partly because it illustrates the theological maturity present very early in Jewish history. Also, if you got any money for Christmas, you should spend it on the Oldest Stories book: https://a.co/d/3CzuRQQ

Today we read through the five poems of Jeremiah's Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem. We look in particular at the historical context and the humanness of this 2600 year old performance, but also at some of the theological innovations that, already at the start of the Babylonian exile, are marking the exilic Jews out as a faith distinct from their neighbors and unique in the world...

Today we go on a wide ranging survey of the Near Eastern predecessors to the Book of Job, including the biblical books that also speak to the same themes, before looking through the Book of Job to see a fairly unique answer to the question of why do good things happen to bad people. The first Oldest Stories book, covering Sumer and Akkad, is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w

Today we ask the question - Who put the "Deuteronomic" in the Deuteronomistic Histories? Plus thousands of people die, so all in all a pretty jam packed episode. Our focus is King Josiah, about whom much ink has been spilled, and after him we will briefly look around at the emerging Babylonian Empire, then quickly destroy Jerusalem to finally round out our extended look at biblical histo...

Israel has been destroyed by the Assyrians, and Judah very nearly follows. But Jerusalem never does fall to the Assyrians, and the re-emergence of the southern kingdom is almost as shocking as the internal discord that accompanies it. We look today a lot of prophets and religious policies alongside military issues, because these do seem to be driving politics and polarized factionalism in a big wa...

The first Oldest Stories Book is available for purchase: https://a.co/d/64mxp6w Today, we go in depth with what it might have been like as the Assyrians invaded, first Israel and then Judah, looking deeply at the battle of Lachish. Today's is a tale of hard times and despair, though today is more the despair at what is coming, and next time will be more the despair at what has passed. Of cours...

Celebrating 1 million downloads and my birthday, the first Oldest Stories book releases on November 24th, 2023. Pre-order is available only for the digital editions, you will need to wait until the release date for a physical copy, but definitely at least think about it. I am very excited. Amazon link: https://a.co/d/hKmiIrY

Today we are in a mad gallop through decades and kings, each of them having pretty short, one or two episode lives, and also mostly having the same or extremely similar names to get everything super confused. This part of Israelite history moves pretty quickly, but there are a lot of interesting things that can be pulled from relatively short mentions, plus we get the first and only artistic depic...

Today we talk about Phoenicia, overviewing where it has been since we left our bronze age Canaan series, discussing the nature of the economic prosperity it brought to the region, and talking a bit about the causes and nature of their famous trade colonies. We also actually look at Jehoshaphat, after mostly ignoring him for a few episodes. Also, even though it builds over a few centuries, the deve...