Samsi, “Queen of the Arabs”, and Her Fight Against Assyria
Was peppermint actually found in ancient Egyptian pyramids? Retailers of peppermint products like to say so. What’s the truth, and where did this factoid come from?
Resilience and Rebirth: Lessons Learned from the Aftermath of the Late Bronze Age Collapse
April 2024 | Vol. 12.4 By Eric H. Cline Some thirty years ago, the respected sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt said bluntly that “ancient states and civilizations do not collapse a
Death as a Stage for Performing Identity in the Assyrian Empire
january 2024 | Vol. 12.1 By Petra M. Creamer How can burial practices tell us about the power of an empire over its subjects? If this seems like a broad question – it is. When st
The Harsh Life of Diplomatic Messengers in Egypt in the Late Bronze Age
September 2023 | Vol. 11.9 By Mohy-Eldin E. Abo-Eleaz International relations in Egypt during the Late Bronze Age (~1500 BCE – 1200 BCE) depended mainly on diplomatic envoys; the
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
The Remarkable Rise of Assyria: A Reassessment
July 2023 | Vol. 11.7 By Bleda S. Düring Assyria is one of the most remarkable imperial states in global history, often celebrated as the first “world empire”. At its peak, du
The Başbük Rock Wall Panel: Serving Empire, Honoring Syro-Anatolian Gods
april 2023 | Vol. 11.4 By Mehmet Önal , Celal Uludağ, Yusuf Koyuncu and Selim Ferruh Adalı Authors’ note: A catastrophic earthquake, the epicentre of which was Türkiye’s so
“The Egyptian,” King of Moab
March 2023 | Vol. 11.3 By Mattias Karlsson The royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) and Ashurbanipal (668–631 BCE) mention a king of Moab named
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
The Neo-Assyrian Empire and Egypt
August 2022 | Vol. 10.8 By Mattias Karlsson The Neo-Assyrian empire, with its center along the river Tigris in northern Mesopotamia, controlled large parts of the ancient Near East