ancient history

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  5/3/2021
  

  Ancient Egypt for the Egyptians

  New books and a documentary consider the entanglement of colonialism with the rise of academic Egyptology.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/10/2021
  

  Is a Long-Dismissed Forgery Actually the Oldest Known Biblical Manuscript?

  Idan Dershowitz claims that a manuscript fragment denounced as a forgery in 1883 is authentic and is a precursor document to the book of Deuteronomy. If he's right, it would be the oldest known biblical manuscript. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/6/2021
  

  How a Disaster Relief Program Changed the Roman Empire for the Better

  The 10,000 Pompeiians who evacuated the city ahead of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD benefited from the redistribution of the property of nobles who didn't. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/25/2021
  

  Searching for Our Urban Future in the Ruins of the Past

  Annalee Newitz's book on lost cities debunks the idea of sudden, catastrophic collapse. But the death of cities does show that humanity is vulnerable to change that makes centuries-old ways of life untenable. 

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• 2/28/2021
  

  The Original Storming of the Capitol

  by Stephen Dando-Collins

  The January 6, 2021 siege of the Capitol in Washington DC has eerie parallels with a much earlier event, the AD 69 siege of the Capitoline Mount in Rome.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  

  Ancient Rome Has an Urgent Warning for Us

  by Kyle Harper

  It's simplistic to look to the classics as instructions for political or social conduct, but the study of the past should inform our awareness of the power of nature to affect social and political life. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/6/2021
  

  In Beleaguered Babylon, Doing Battle Against Time, Water and Modern Civilization

  The ancient city of Babylon is a World Heritage Site, but it faces threats old and new. As some of its walls crumble, preservationists are fighting to preserve the past.

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• SOURCE: Discover
  11/29/2020
  

  The Complicated History of Religion and Archaeology

  Modern archaeology has largely succeeded in instituting professionalization and historical rigor to the study of sites of theological significance, but the discipline has a long and continuing historical entanglement with efforts to find proof of religious doctrines.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/4/2020
  

  How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart?

  "Contemporary society has built-in vulnerabilities that could allow things to go very badly indeed — probably not right now, maybe not for a few decades still, but possibly sooner."

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• SOURCE: History.com
  10/9/2020
  

  How Hammurabi Transformed Babylon Into a Powerful City-State

  Hammurabi's governing strategies of building support through public works, pursuing information, and self-promotion are not unfamiliar to contemporary politics.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/25/2020
  

  Ancient Teeth Show History of Epidemics is Much Older than we Thought

  Scientists and archaeologists now believe that the plague bacteria, which caused the medieval Black Death, infected humans roughly 5,000 years ago in the Stone Age.

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• 6/7/2020
  

  Contagion and Recovery in the Hittite Empire

  by Eva von Dassow

  The progress of an ancient plague shows that when faith--in gods or medical research--fails, it's a long road to safety.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/11/2020
  

  The Elites Were Living High. Then Came the Fall.

  Modern cities can learn from the fate of the collapsed civilizations at Ugarit and Mycenae.

• 
• SOURCE: MPR News
  1/13/20
  

  A Beautiful World: Ancient texts reveal Aztecs’ history in their own words in Camilla Townsend's Latest Book

  Camilla Townsend’s new book, "Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs," documents the story of the Aztecs from an entirely new perspective, that of the Aztecs themselves.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/13/20
  

  Why are there seven days in a week?

  by Kristin Heineman

  The Babylonians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were astute observers and interpreters of the heavens, and it is largely thanks to them that our weeks are seven days long. 

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• SOURCE: History Today
  1/2/20
  

  Carving our names on great monuments is a millennia-old tradition, but why do we do it?

  by Laura Aitken-Burt

  The earliest graffiti of a person’s name on a monument has been identified by the historian Lionel Casson in a cave at Wadi Hammamat in Egypt – the name of Hena, an official under Menutuhotep III in 2000 BC, is chiselled into the sandstone alongside a list of his achievements.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/16/19
  

  A museum’s 3,500-year-old disposable cup shows the desire to avoid dishwashing is ancient

  One is a paper discard from the 1990s. Researchers believe the other, made from clay, may have held wine before it was thrown out after an ancient party on the island of Crete.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  12/12/19
  

  Children in the ancient Middle East were valued and vulnerable — not unlike children today

  by Shawn Flynn and Kristine Garroway

  The choices that societies make concerning the treatment of children can bring about the greatest of debates and prompt significant political action. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/27/2019
  

  A Turkish dam is about to flood one of the oldest continuously settled places on Earth

  The project has also faced years of stiff resistance from critics who said its benefits were hardly worth the cost to local communities and from historians, archaeologists and others who say the preservation of Turkey’s cultural heritage is a global concern.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  10/22/19
  

  New evidence that an extraterrestrial collision 12,800 years ago triggered an abrupt climate change for Earth

  by Christopher R. Moore

  What kicked off the Earth’s rapid cooling 12,800 years ago?