The History of Isaiah and the Age of Empires
October 2022 | Vol. 10.8 By Jacob Stromberg The prophet Isaiah stood at the beginning of an age of empires in the ancient Near East. In order, the age saw the rise of the neo-Assyr
Prismatic Gilgamesh
October 2022 | Vol. 10.10 By Sophus Helle It is 150 years ago since George Smith, a self-taught Assyriologist working at the British Museum, first translated a line from the Epic
The Cuneiform Wide Web: From Card Catalogues to Digital Assyriology
october 2022 | Vol. 10.10 By Shai Gordin and Avital Romach Can computers read cuneiform better than experts? The answer, at the moment, is no. But will computers read cuneiform bet
Carved, Signed, Crossed Out – Documents on Wooden Sticks from Ancient South Arabia
October 2022 | Vol. 10.10 By Peter Stein Legal contracts carved on palm-leaf stalks, correspondence laid down on cigar-shaped sticks? The mode of writing used in Ancient South Arab
The Babylonian Akītu Festival and the Ritual Humiliation of the King
September 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By Sam Mirelman Many Mesopotamian festivals are known, but only one involved a priest striking the king. The akītu was one of the most importa
The Biblical Scale of Gustave Doré
September 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By Sarah C. Schaefer The publication of Gustave Doré’s (1832-1883) Bible illustrations in 1865-1866 represents a watershed moment in the history of bi
Camels in the Biblical World of the Ancient Near East
September 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By Martin Heide and Joris Peters The question ‘what is a camel’ is more complicated than it seems. Domesticated Old World camels comprise two forms,
Medieval Sugar Production in the Southern Levant: A Sweet Story
September 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By Richard Jones The arrival of sugar into the Near East is well known in outline: the technical ability to make a crude crystalline sweet from sugar can
Breaking the Code: Ancient Iran’s Linear Elamite Script Deciphered
september 2022 | Vol. 10.9 By François Desset, Kambiz Tabibzadeh, Matthieu Kervran, Gian Pietro Basello, and Gianni Marchesi Research in the humanities achieves definitive results
What is Karaism and Are There Still Karaites?
august 2024 | Vol. 12.8 By Daniel J. Lasker Anyone familiar with a typical synagogue would be surprised by this photograph. Men are wearing skullcaps and prayer shawls. The ark is
