This Week in the Ancient Near East

The discovery of a mikvah or Jewish ritual bath in a house at Ostia Antica, the port of Rome, shows that Jews brought their practices wherever they went. After all, a ritual bath leaves you spiritually clean on the inside and a dip leaves you refreshed on the outside. But the Romans and Christians were also crazy about the water, so whose influence is washing over whom?

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.

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?

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!

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?

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?

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?

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!

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.

You know that giant prehistoric stone circle on the Golan Heights, Rujm el Hiri? Yeah, its not really aligned with the sun and stars and isn't the only big stone thing up there. So what is it? Beats us, but never underestimate the human need to get other people to pile up stones. And really, aren't we all aligned with the sun and stars?

In 4th and 3rd century BCE Athens lead curse tablets were snuck into cemeteries so the dead could take the messages to the underworld. Asking the departed to help put a hit on a business or romantic rival seems like a lot of responsibility. Pretty good business if you were a living sorcerer though.

Some lightly baked clay cylinders from a late third millennium tomb in Syria have alphabetic markings. They’ve got us thinking. Does this mean -the- alphabet originated hundreds of years earlier than we thought? What is -the- alphabet anyway? Why did we think we understood any of this? Who, in fact, is lightly baked in this scenario? 

An excavation in southern Jerusalem revealed a tax office belonging to Hezekiah. This raises a question, was Jerusalem really a capitol district and not just a city? A more pressing question, however, is why Hezekiah thought rebelling against the Assyrians was a good idea in the first place.

A wonderful newish video about the famous 6th century Babylonian tablet showing a map of the world has us thinking. Sure, there are a bunch of Mesopotamian field and building plans, more of a zoning and taxes thing, but why aren’t there more maps? Maybe they knew that no matter where you go, there you are. See the video here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUxFzh8r384

New studies on the origins of the wheel have us wondering, why did it take thousands of years to go from 10th millennium BCE spindle whorls in Israel to 4th millennium BCE wheels in the Carpathian mountains, were rollers and copper mining really involved, and how much rotational energy is really provided courtesy of Fred Flintstone’s two feet?

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!

For our momentous 100th 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.

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.

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!

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 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.

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!

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!

Today we’re talking about research suggesting Çatalhöyük was way less populous than once thought, like, hundreds and not thousands of people. How many people does it take to get stuff done anyway, and what’s up with all the frescoes and cow heads? Come for the Neolithic, suffer through a deep dive with Patrick McGoohan, Mayberry, and Lake Wobegone!

New research shows that a long vanished branch of the Nile came right up to the pyramids at Giza, which made it easier to make deliveries. You’d think someone would have noticed that a branch of the river vanished but what do we know. Maybe it was one of those slowly, then all at once situations.