The Ancient Near East Today

Welcome to The Ancient Near East Today, a digital platform for public scholarship on the Ancient Near East and beyond. Whether you are a student, scholar, or enthusiast, you are bound to learn something new.

Subscribe to our Substack Newsletter!

Recent Articles

Close-up of a seal impression on a mudstopper from Saqqara tomb S3503 with serekhs (rectangular symbols that were used to frame an Egyptian king’s name in the Early Dynastic period). Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society; used with permission from the author.

Digital Archaeology

Did Meretneith Rule Egypt as a Female King in the First Dynasty?

October 1, 2026

Nahal Omer textile collection: a. Supplementary weft cotton; b. Ikat cotton; b. Wool fragment; d. Green cotton with Ikat patch e. wool and cotton; f. Supplementary weft cotton; g. silk.

Archaeological Method

From Trash to Treasure: Nahal Omer and the Virtual Silk Road

September 17, 2026

Captured Sea People from wall relief in the mortuary temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu. Photo by Rémih, CC By-SA 3.0.

Bronze Age

Who Were the Sea Peoples? And Did They Bring About the End of the Bronze Age?

September 3, 2026

Featured Articles

Bible

Royal Illness in the Bible and the Ancient Near East

September 20, 2021

The bow end of ship 11 showing the hole where a piece of the keel has been carefully removed (Photograph Christoph Gerigk © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation)

Egypt

The Afterlife of Ships in Thonis-Heracleion: Recycling, Abandonment, and Ritual Sacrifice at an Egyptian Port

June 23, 2020

The Egyptian village of Kom Ishqaw. Photograph by Clement Kuehn. Used by permission.

Daily Life

Life in a Late Antique Village

April 3, 2019

Scene from the Bāveru Jātaka: The veneration of the peacock in Babylon (Shwezigon Pagoda, Pagan, Burma). From: Duroiselle, Chas. 1916. Pictorial Representations of Jātakas in Burma. Pp. 87–119 in: Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1912–13, ed. John Marshall. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India: Fig. 21.

South Asia

Contacts Between the Cuneiform Cultures and India

July 26, 2021

Bible

Translating the Bible Against the Ancient Near Eastern Background

February 24, 2019

Granary tableau. Tomb of Meketre (Thebes), Dynasty 12. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 20.3.11. Public Domain.