Inventing Writing in South-west Asia
The shift from symbols to writing represents a major advancement in human cognitive technology. What role did Mesopotamian seal imagery play?
Cleopatra’s Languages
February 2024 | Vol. 12.2 By Rolf Strootman In Antiquity, Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty (ruled 51–30 BCE), was renowned for both her beauty and her intel
Gender in the Ancient Near East and Egypt
November 2023 | Vol. 11.11 By Stephanie Budin Sex and gender have become central topics of discussion and scholarship in a wide variety of fields, ever since second-wave feminism e
Who Really Invented the Alphabet?
August 2023 | Vol. 11.8 By Seth Sanders Who really invented the alphabet? Despite its vast influence, we are still uncertain about precisely where the world’s most influential co
Before and After Babel
August 2023 | Vol. 11.8 By Marc Van De Mieroop “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the sam
Cuneiform Mathematics: Outstanding Techniques in a System of Texts
February 2023 | Vol. 11.2 By Carlos Gonçalves Mathematical cuneiform documents from various sites and periods provide a wealth of information about the conceptualization and pract
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
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
The Bible in Arabic
may 2022 | Vol. 10.5 By Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala The earliest references to Arabic translations of the Bible date back to the pre-Islamic period, although at the present time we h