This Week in the Ancient Near East cover art

All Episodes

This Week in the Ancient Near East — 141 episodes

#
Title
1

Home on the Range at Iron Age Hazor, Isotope Edition, Or, The Cows Come Home Regardless of Your So-Called Borders, Humans

2

Sennacherib’s Throne Room of Doom, or Hezekiah Can See His House from Here

3

Seeing the Writing on the Wall at Pompeii (Thanks to New Photographic Techniques), or, More Graffiti about Sex and Gladiators

4

The Archaeology of Grumpy Old Men (and Women) in the Judean Iron Age, or, Grandpa, That’s a Cooking Pot Not a...

5

The Case of the Elephant Bone in Third Century BCE Spain, or, Babar Says, You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry

6

Please Don’t Eat the Halafian Daisies, or Plant Based Mathematics in Prehistory?

7

For Quick Energy, Mamluks Choose Sugar! or, The Archaeology of 13-16th Century CE Sugar Mills in Israel

8

The Opium Trail from Egypt to Persia, or Putting Your Hope in Dope, Ancient Edition

9

The Case of the Very Different Iron Age Shipwrecks at Dor, or, Underwater Insurance Adjusters, Assemble!

10

A Prehistoric Figurine of Problematic Possibilities, or Or, Mythogram for Mother Goose

11

Dear Judah, This is Not a Bill, Except It Really Is, Signed, Assyria; or, The Iron Age Tax Man Cometh

12

The Great Nubian Gold Rush (of the Second Millennium BCE?), or, Gold Bugs of the Bronze Age

13

All I Want for Chanukah is a New Hasmonean Wall in Jerusalem, or, Shameless Holiday Tie In Edition

14

Does Anybody at Iron Age Arad Really Know What Time It Is? Or, If You Can Write the Weekly Invoices, Can You Write the Bible?

15

To Live and Die at Late Bronze Age Yavne Yam, or, I Dream of a Gini with a Jar Full of Opium

16

A Dam Grows in Iron Age Jerusalem, Or, When the Levites Break

17

The Puzzling Case of Children’s Rattles in Early Bronze Age Syria, or, Here Kid, Shake This, Mom and Dad are Working

18

Banking on Silver Hoards in the Bronze Age Levant, or “Baby You are So Money You Don't Even Know it.”

19

Does a Tiny Find Sort of Illuminate a Biblical Figure and Judean Bureacracy? or, Yedayahu, We Hardly Knew You

20

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)

21

The Two Faces of Hatshepsut’s Statues, or, Studies in the Archaeology of Iconoclasm and Pothole Repair

22

Roman Pigs in Judea, or Close Encounters of the Swinish Kind

23

How Phoenicians Turned Into Carthaginians But Forgot Their Genes, or, The Other Phoenician Scheme

24

Bronze Age Tin From Cornwall to the Carmel, or How Tinny was My Valley

25

The Dead Sea Scrolls Computer Dating Service, Or, Sometimes Things Are Slightly Older Than They Look

26

Diving into the Mikvah at Ostia, Or, When is a Pool Not a Pool?

27

Beads, Bangles, and Bowls in Iron Age Judah, Or, Tchotckes Make the Man (and Woman)

28

Getting Blood From a Stone (Arrowhead), Or, Waging Peace, Unsuccessfully, in the Neolithic?

29

Finally, Some Evidence of the Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo, or, How to Excavate in the One Tiny Spot on Your Site That’s Sort of Undisturbed and Find Cool Things

30

New Excavations in the Church at the Navel of the World, or, How to Dig in Jerusalem Without Things Blowing Up (Again)

31

The Case of the Late Iron Age Building in the Middle of the Desert Filled With Dead Young Women Probably Going to Yemen for Unclear and Possibly Unsavory Reasons, or Worst Vacation Ever?

32

Hezekiah Gets His Grooves Off, Or, Cult Consolidator or Cost Cutter?

33

Carbs, The Lower Paleolithic Breakfast of Champions, Or, Pass the Acorns and Water Lillies, Please

34

The Case of the Very Long Roman Legal Papyrus from the Judean Desert, Or, Do You Really Have to Pay Sales Tax on Slaves?

35

The Mysterious Giant Astronomical Observatory of Stone That Wasn't, or Rujm el-Hiri and the Spirit in the Sky

36

The Art of Cursing Your Rivals in Ancient Athens, Or, How to Say #$@#!&! in Greek

37

The Early Alphabet (™) in Third Millennium Syria? Or, Spelling it Out, Lightly Baked Edition

38

Between Death and Taxes in the 8th Century BCE, or Hezekiah’s Beltway Politics

39

The Mesopotamian Map of Mystery, Or, From Babylon to the Boondocks and Back Again, Hopefully

40

How to Go from Spindle Whorls to Wagon Wheels in Just 6,000 Years, or Rotational Energy and the Wheel of Destiny

41

Reading Eclipses for Fun and Profit, or from Divine Intervention to Priestly Protection Racket in the Old Babylonian Period

42

(How) Long Reign Hezekiah, or A 100th Episode for the Ages!

43

The Neolithic Shaman Girl from Çemka Höyük, or Terrapin Station in the Tenth Millennium

44

How to Dye a Fabric in the Middle Bronze Age, Or, See, I Told You Those Gross Little Bugs Were Good For Something

45

The Tale of the Egyptian Scribes and their Bad Knees, Or, If You Can Build a Pyramid You Can Build a Table

46

A Deepwater - Like Really Really Deep- Late Bronze Age Shipwreck or, Down to the Sea in Sunken Canaanite Ships

47

Horsing Around the Ancient Near East in the Third Millennium BCE, Or, Let Me Get You Off of That Kunga and onto a Brand New Palomino!

48

A Waxy Buildup at Iron Age Horvat Tevet, Or, Does This Beeswax Make me Look Canaanite or Israelite?

49

Welcome to Çatalhöyük, Population ? Or, Does Size Matter, Neolithic Edition

50

The Case of the Missing Branch of the Nile That Everyone Sort of Knew Had to be There Right Next to the Pyramids, or, You Can See a Lot of Cool Stuff from Space or Maybe With a Really Tall Ladder

51

And Now Even Iron Age Jerusalem Gets Radiocarbonated! Or, Hezekiah Climbs the Hallstadt Plateau

52

For Fuller, Redder Bronze Age Lips, or, It's That Lipstick from Iran

53

A Tale of Two Cities, Which Happen to be from the Hellenistic Period and are Located on the Euphrates River Only a Few Miles from Each Other, or, Dura Europos and its One Sister

54

That Sunny Little Temple at Tel Azekah, or, The Temple’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

55

The Love Call of the De-Extincted Mammoth, or, Ethics in Paleo-genomic Research (for Fun and Profit)

56

The Case of the Roman Medical Instruments from Southwest Turkey, Or, The Doctor Will See What’s Left of You Now

57

How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep in Antiquity, or Sleeping with the Television on in the Ancient Near East?

58

Remember That Time When Alexander the Great Became Ningirsu? Or, Naming Rights in Mesopotamia

59

How to Decorate a Philistine Temple, or, Flower Power Tell es Safi Style

60

Dog Days of Domestication, or, Humans and Canines from Prehistory to the Present

61

Hello Assyriological Computer, Or, Artificial Intelligence and the Ancient Near East?

62

Listening to Ancient Greek Sanctuaries, Or, The Past Was a Noisy Country

63

The Neolithic Canoes of Capri, Or, Have Obsidian, Will Travel?

64

Iron Age Gezer gets Radiocarbonated, or, From Archaeology to Text, to Text, and Back Again to, Wait, What?

65

A Note to Our Listener

66

The Prehistoric Spanish Cave of Drugs, Death and Fun! Or, the Clan of the Cave Hair?

67

The Toilets of Iron Age Jerusalem, A View from Below, or, Dysentery and the Bible?

68

The Copper Age Princess of Iberia? Or, I Want to Live With A Cinnabar Girl

69

A Late Roman Cave of Necromancy and Intrigue, or, A Backdoor to the Underworld in Beth Shemesh?

70

The Bird Calls of Prehistory, or the Squeaky Flutes of the Natufian

71

The Stone Receipts of Early Roman Jerusalem, or, Economic History on the Rocks

72

The Dismembered Hands of Avaris, or How Do You Say “The Sound of One Hand Clapping” in Egyptian?

73

What Pairs Well with Extreme Desert Conditions? or New Evidence for Wine in the Late Antique Negev

74

Iron Age Religion East of the Jordan, Or, Ammon, Moab, and Edom Have Entered the Chat.

75

The Little Tavern at Lagash, or, The Real Craft [and Beer] Revolution?

76

New Jerusalem Inscription Points to (Previously Known) Iron Age Spice Trade, Or, Solomon and Sheba Get Spicy?

77

The Book of the Dead Club, Or, If a Lion-Hippo-Crocodile Comes to the Door, Don’t Open It.

78

It’s This Week in the Ancient Near East at the Movies! The Special Inadvertent Pre-Holiday Biblical Epic Edition!

79

The Archaeology of Ancient Fingerprints, or Profiling Potters for Fun and Profit

80

A Mediterranean Metal Mystery, or, Those Tin Ingots from Uzbekistan? Yeah, Well, They’re at the Bottom of the Ocean

81

How I Made Your Mummy, Or, A Special Blend of Herbs and Spices with a Side Order of Sun Dried Crocodiles

82

Crime Grips Uruk, Sheep and Tunic Stolen!, Or, Law and Order: Neo-Babylonia

83

What’s Cooking in the Middle Paleolithic and Is It Toxic? Or, Soak, Pound and Char Your Way to Better Health!

84

New Inscriptions from Hezekiah’s Chunnel? Or, If An Inscription Drops in a Newspaper Does it Really Make a Sound?

85

Apocalypse When? A Very Special This Week in the Ancient Near East One Part Docu-Drama in Response to Something You Might Have Seen On Netflix

86

The Lice Combs of Lachish, Or, Bless This Beard and All Who Dwell Within It

87

Born on the (Mesopotamian) Bayou, or Welcome to Lagash; There is No Lifeguard on Duty, Swim at Your Own Risk

88

A 25th Dynasty Egyptian Cheese Fit for the Afterlife, or, Why Expiration Dates Matter

89

The Little Iron Age Papyrus That Could, Go from Jerusalem to Montana and Then Back to Jerusalem, or, Call Him Ishmael?

90

The Uncomfortable Ivory Decorated Chairs of Iron Age Jerusalem, or, Wait, There Were Elephants Wandering Around in the Iron Age?

91

The Archaeological Puzzle of Playing in the Past, Or, Bronze Age Barbie Bonanza?

92

Sticky Fingers in the Valley of the Kings, or Howard Carter and the Case of King Tut’s Tomb

93

Introducing Opium, the Late Bronze Age Miracle Cure! Or, Smacked into a Trance in the Second Millennium BCE

94

Cult of the Head or Cult of the Dead? Or, Human Sacrifice in the Neolithic, What? Eww!

95

The Archaeology of Finger Licking Goodness, or, Why Did the Chicken Cross the Planet?

96

The Mystery of King Tut’s Sky Iron Knife, or, How Much Would You Pay for a Knife Like This?

97

The Secret Aramean or Maybe Assyrian Underground Cult Site at Başbük: Stairway to Heaven or Rec Room of the Gods?

98

Feeding Spice Caravans in the Negev, or Midnight at the Oasis, Try the Oysters and Crabs

99

The Archaeology of Big Giant Stone Heads, Sardinian Edition

100

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

101

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?

102

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

103

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

104

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

105

Tattoo Who? Or, From Egypt with Ink

106

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

107

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

108

Two Synagogues at Magdala, or, was Mary in the Multipurpose Room?

109

Garbage Dump of the Gods

110

The Strange Case of the Neo-Assyrian Armor in the Chinese Tomb, or The Ballad of the One Off Wonder

111

Even More New Amazing Iron Age Finds from a Cult Site West of Jerusalem, or, To Gaze Upon the Knees of God

112

The Curse of the Mummy’s Double Chins, or, It’s Better to Look Good than to Feel Good

113

It’s the Very Nearly Live from ASOR 2021 Conference With Extra Special Guests Edition! Part 3-The Last Waltz

114

It’s the Very Nearly Live from ASOR 2021 Conference With Extra Special Guests Edition! Part 2-After Hours

115

It’s the Very Nearly Live from ASOR 2021 Conference With Extra Special Guests Edition! Part 1-The Ballroom Tapes

116

So You Need a Stone Floor For Your Hittite Temple? I Know a Guy.

117

11,500 Year Old Cultic Site With Huge Stone Circles, Pillars, and Skulls Mystifies Easily Mystified Archaeologists, Or, Gimme That Really, Really, Really Old Time Religion

118

Middle Bronze Age Site Smashed by Exploding Comet, Film at 11, Or, Who You Crushing with that Cosmic Debris?

119

New Underwater Discoveries in the Nile Delta, or, Our Ship Sank, but We Brought You a Fruit Basket

120

It’s the End of Summer Archaeology Super Mega Fun Round-Up Episode!

121

That’ll Do Iron Age Pig, That’ll Do, or, Jambon in Jerusalem

122

(Almost) Biblical Writing, or How to Go From Lunchboxes to Bureaucracy in Only 300 Years.

123

The Gospel of “Who the Heck Falls for This Stuff?”

124

And That’s How We Solved the Mystery of the Fossil Shark Teeth in Iron Age Jerusalem

125

Where Did Babies Come from in the Iron Age, or, Biblical Archaeology Smokes a Cigar in the Waiting Room

126

Death on the Euphrates, or, a Kunga Line to Heaven?

127

A Resurrected Date by Any Other Name Would Still Taste As Sweet, or, Jurassic Park in the Judean Desert

128

The Strange Story of the Roman Era Half Lamp, or A Sconce to Light Their Way

129

Solomon: Portrait of an Iron Age Onassis, or How to Have a State without Really Making a Statement

130

Which is the Best Bronze Age Note-Taking App, or Why Did it Take the Alphabet a Thousand Years to Catch On?

131

Boozing in the Bronze Age, or, Narmer, He’s the King of Beers

132

Desert Caves Yield Ancient Faves, or, A Tisket, A Tasket, a 92 Liter Basket

133

Mummy Murder Mystery, or, Hyksos Hippo Protestation Spells Egyptian Cranial Molestation

134

The Mysterious Case of the Purple Shmattas in the Desert, or, Snood Indigo

135

Underwater Olive Adventures, or, From the Mediterranean to Martinis

136

The Other Kind of Throne, or, So What's the Deal with Toilets in the Iron Age?

137

The Bronze Age Goes Bananas, or, By Your Teeth They Shall Know Thee

138

Coroplasticus Deus Antiqui, or, What Does God Really Looking Like?

139

Cosmic Debris, or New Adventures in the Origins of Agriculture

140

High Times in the Iron Age, or Wait, What Were We Talking About?

141

Squeaky Clean, or The Rediscovery of Soap in the Past