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Does a Tiny Find Sort of Illuminate a Biblical Figure and Judean Bureacracy? or, Yedayahu, We Hardly Knew You
Episode 123
An itsy bitsy seal impression with the name of a Biblical figure raises the perennial question, was Judah robust and bureaucratic, or was it tiny and only occasionally literate? How robust do little …
Published on 9 hours ago
The Tales Ancient Scripts Can Tell, If We could Only Decipher Them, Like the South Arabian Script a Guy Actually Did Decipher Recently, or, Love Languages Lost (and Found)
Episode 122
The recent decipherment of the South Arabian Dhofari script from the first millennium BCE reminds us that we don’t know as much about ancient peoples and languages as we think. And finding a complete…
Published on 2 weeks ago
The Two Faces of Hatshepsut’s Statues, or, Studies in the Archaeology of Iconoclasm and Pothole Repair
Episode 121
Thuthmosis III had a difficult relationship with Hatshepsut, who was, after all, both his aunt and stepmother. And Pharaoh. But does that mean he had the faces on her statues smashed? Or did he just …
Published on 4 weeks ago
Roman Pigs in Judea, or Close Encounters of the Swinish Kind
Episode 120
Romans sure loved their pigs. Soldiers were even buried with pig jawbones at Legio in the Jezreel Valley after military feasts (which doesn’t sound kosher). They brought pig power to the Levant, but …
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
How Phoenicians Turned Into Carthaginians But Forgot Their Genes, or, The Other Phoenician Scheme
Episode 119
We like to think of the Carthaginians as the western extension of the Phoenicians, but Punic genetics suggest that they were primarily descended from local peoples. Did that create identity crises fo…
Published on 2 months ago
Bronze Age Tin From Cornwall to the Carmel, or How Tinny was My Valley
Episode 118
Bronze is a metal so popular that it has an entire age named after. But to make bronze you need tin otherwise you have squishy copper tools and, well, no Bronze Age. We’ve looked high and low for the…
Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago
The Dead Sea Scrolls Computer Dating Service, Or, Sometimes Things Are Slightly Older Than They Look
Episode 117
New research combines radiocarbon dating and artificial intelligence to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which turn out to be a bit older than expected. Is this a big rewrite of history or small…
Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago
Diving into the Mikvah at Ostia, Or, When is a Pool Not a Pool?
Episode 116
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 spiritual…
Published on 3 months, 1 week ago
Beads, Bangles, and Bowls in Iron Age Judah, Or, Tchotckes Make the Man (and Woman)
Episode 115
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 pummele…
Published on 3 months, 3 weeks ago
Getting Blood From a Stone (Arrowhead), Or, Waging Peace, Unsuccessfully, in the Neolithic?
Episode 114
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 hunte…
Published on 4 months, 1 week ago