Children in the Ancient (and Present-day) Near East
The archaeological record and the cuneiform literature provide us with compelling information to assess how children lived 3000 years ago. This should open our eyes to current real
The Amorites: Rethinking Approaches to Corporate Identity in Antiquity
Most of our approaches to identity in antiquity fixate upon a binary, constructed in modern scholarship. But individuals embrace multiple collective identities, whether social, ide
Jewish Experiences in the Roman Bathhouses of Judaea/Syria Palaestina
February 2024 | Vol. 12.2 By Yaron Z. Eliav A Typical Roman Public Bathhouse. Drawn by Yannis Nakas for the Author. In the first few centuries of the common era, hundreds of thousa
Beyond the Fertile Crescent: Life in the Black Desert
October 2023 | Vol. 11.10 By Yorke M. Rowan The forbidding landscape known as the Black Desert is created by lava flows stretching from southern Syria to northern Saudi Arabia that
Portraits of People and Society From Palmyra
june 2022 | Vol. 10.6 By Maura Heyn The funerary portraiture from the city of Palmyra, in the eastern Roman Empire, is a rich and heterogenous display of identity dating to the fir
The Social Context of Writing in Ancient Ugarit
April 2022 | Vol. 10.4 By Philip Boyes We often ask, what is writing? A better question is, who is writing? It is very easy to approach ancient writing as something rather abstract
The (Historical) Origin of God
March 2021 | Vol. 9.3 By Theodore J. Lewis When a historian of Israelite religion talks of the origin of God, she certainly doesn’t mean ontology. Proofs for the existence of God
A Cosmic Impact and the Beginning of Farming at Abu Hureyra in Syria
March 2021 | Vol. 9.3 By Andrew M.T. Moore Towards the end of the last Ice Age a group of hunter-gatherers settled at Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates Valley in what is now Syria. The
Max von Oppenheim and His Tell Halaf
Born into a prominent banking family, Max von Oppenheim seemed destined to study law. But his real contribution was to uncover an Iron Age city in north Syria.
What Actually Happened in Syria at the end of the Late Bronze Age?
The Sea Peoples have been accused of destroying sites across Syria at the end of Late Bronze Age. But what if the sites weren’t destroyed and the Sea Peoples weren’t even aroun