In a recent Ancient History Hound minisode I spoke about a number of gifts which, well, didn’t go so well. Here’s a few instances of gifts from Mesopotamia and Greece which had the sort of outcomes which weren’t expected by the recipient. Mesopotamia. We have references to gifts and the situations behind them in cuneiform […]
Ancient gifts gone wrong. Read More »
When you think about tombs and curses the popular examples most likely involve pyramids and mummies (though this is rarer than you might think). However, in this instance we have a curse on a sarcophagus with links to Egypt but also far from it. I’ll be covering curse texts and curse figurines in an episode
The cursed sarcophagus of Ahiram. Read More »
Sulak might not be an entity you’d have heard much about but it’s fair to say that he was very much in the mind of those visiting the toilet in parts of ancient Mesopotamia. Sulak and Mesopotamian mythology. The Mesopotamian view of the world included a range of what might be considered gods and demons.
Sulak – the Babylonian toilet lurker. Read More »
Warfare in Mesopotamia has been captured in Assyrian wall friezes, which detail some of the more unpleasant aspects. Along with defenders atop walls and siege engines there are prisoners led away and heads held as trophies. The wealth of detail can provide interesting asides such as that in the frieze below. It’s associated with Tiglath-Pileser
Moving gods in Mesopotamia. Read More »
I hope you enjoyed the episode and here is the extra content. I mentioned an episode all about Mad Honey at the end of it and here’s a link to it. https://ancientblogger.libsyn.com/mad-honey Images. Below is a diagram of the earliest depiction of apiculture in Egypt. Here’s a good site with a bit more about
Bees BC – episode notes Read More »
The eclipse as a dating device. The experience of studying ancient history at any level is to deal with dates as amorphous and ranging. Even where we can assign a year to an event the idea that you can whittle this down to a specific date and, shock horror, an hour makes the hairs on
Eclipses in Antiquity. Read More »
A trip to the British Museum. In May I took the day off and journeyed up to the British Museum. I had planned on doing this anyhow, but the Feminine Power exhibition was on and so I thought I’d check it out. Here are some of the artefacts with notes. For my recent trip to
Feminine Power exhibition (British Museum). Read More »
Halloween with added Mesopotamia. I hope you enjoyed the episode, it was a chance to cover a slightly different area from Greece and Rome and there’s so much to learn about in Mesopotamia. I referred to a few scholars in the episode and you can find their work in the reading list/bibliography. To start with
Witches and Demons in Mesopotamia – episode notes. Read More »
Types of camel. It was Aristotle, in his work The History of Animals, who noted that there were two types of camels. The Bactrian, who had two humps, and the dromedary who was afforded a single hump[1]. Though he may not have been the first to make this classification (as I will come to) he
The camel in Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. Read More »
The problems with giving a gift. With the recent festivities in mind the angst over gift giving could be thought of as a modern concept. However, gifts were given in antiquity and if you’ve listened to my recent podcast on the Saturnalia (or read the blog piece I have written) you will have heard of
Babylon and boots. A bad gift idea. Read More »
