Coinages in the Achaemenid Empire Rutter, Keith. 2026. Coinages in the Achaemenid Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Brings together the evidence for coin production and use over the whole Achaemenid Empire Demonstrates how the actual production of coins was a phenomenon mostly…

Holm, Tawny L. 2026. Aramaic literature from Egypt and the Levant (Writings from the Ancient World 30). Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Bremer-McCollum, Adam. 2025. The Pearlsong (Texts & Translations of Transcendence and Transformation). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. This book, by @acbm.bsky.social, is available open-access.

Coming soon

Land Tenure and Fiscal Practices in the Aramaic Corpus of Idumea Shahryari, Mitchka L.M.J. 2026. Land Tenure and Fiscal Practices in the Aramaic Corpus of Idumea: Bow-Fields and Horse Estates. BASOR 395: 179-194. The Idumean corpus of Aramaic ostraca sheds light on the structured administrative…

Two priest-brothers Colditz, Iris. 2026. Two priest-brothers: Theological argumentation, linguistic expressions and style in the second Epistle of Manuščihr. Bulletin of SOAS, FirstView. 1–14. The Middle Persian Nāmagīhā ī Manuščihr “Epistles of Manuščihr”, the Zoroastrian high priest of Pārs and…

The Parthians at War Overtoom, Nikolaus Leo. 2025. The Parthians at War: Combat, Logistics, Reputation, and the First War with Rome. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Nikolaus Leo Overtoom provides a comprehensive study to evaluate and understand the military capabilities and accomplishments of the…

Ancient Persian van Bladel, Kevin. 2026. Ancient Persian: A linguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. When ancient Persian conquerors created a vast empire from the Mediterranean to the Indus, encompassing many peoples speaking many different languages, they triggered demographic…

The Zoroastrian World Rose, Jenny, Albert De Jong & Sarah Stewart. 2026. The Zoroastrian World. New York: Routledge. Although Zoroastrians in the contemporary world are numerically few – estimated recently at less than 150,000 across the globe – their ancient Iranian ancestors ruled vast areas of…

Congratulations to @puerachaemenius.bsky.social, our colleague at @biblioiranica.info, on this outstanding achievement: Safaee, Yazdan. 2026. Women of the empire: Life and labor in the Achaemenid Persepolis Archives (Ancient Iran Series 20). Leiden: Brill. www.biblioiranica.info/women-of-the...

PUB. DAY! Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia is officially out today. Available Open Access: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501... #legalhistory Outfit: red for bloodstain testing+flowered shirt for botanical poisons+poisoner's ring (for show only)

Gender & History Vol. 38, No. 1 (2026) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424... @genderandhistory.bsky.social

Paula Fredriksen has been one of the most influential scholars on my career, both in her writing and the numerous ways she has supported me over the years. It was an honour to contribute this piece to her Festschrift.

Starting next Moday (13 April), I'll be offering a Biblia Arabica reading group/seminar, which I plan to be a continuous thing each semester accompanying our work on the new Biblia Arabica project. If you're interested, you or your students are welcome to join! For more deatils 👀👇

You can also read this blog post, where I talk about the story behind the article salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2026/03/16/s...

Then @medivalist.bsky.social and @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social on the Caliph and the Falcons, tracing connections from Iceland to Iraq from a bird's eye perspective (open access) 6/9 doi.org/10.1111/emed...

1 I met Averil a couple of times in Oxford, where we continued discussions that had started on Twitter. She told me about de Ste Croix and some of her regrets. Her scholarship speaks for itself, but I admired her directness, and what I felt was a strong moral compass. She also took an interest in my

If the present, with its conflicts and uncertainties, is impossible to know, asks #ItaloCalvino, how can we hope to understand the past? 🔓 The new Portrait of an Author is free for 7 days www.historytoday.com/archive/port...

Voters in the UK should remember Keir Starmer and Labour's silence when they vote in May! Starmer said and did nothing about someone's intention to wipe out an entire civilisation.

Philipp Felsch über Habermas und die deutsche Erinnerungskultur. @blnreview.bsky.social blnreview.de/ausgaben/202...

Discount Alert! For Pre-order 🥳 www.hive.co.uk/Product/Jami...

No words...

Beautiful music, civilization against barbarism, and wow, the blasts in the distance at the end. We can all be so much more than this violence

Voters in the UK should remember Keir Starmer and Labour's silence when they vote in May! Starmer said and did nothing about someone's intention to wipe out an entire civilisation.

The story of Hamid-Reza Afarideh's music school breaks your heart!

Well haven’t cried at a random online video in years but this one did it

Heartbreaking

the bravery and humanity of the Iranian people is absolutely awe inspiring

I know that feeling all too well. In the face of such dark times, when we feel powerless, perhaps one of the few sources of comfort we have is knowing that we all share this same sense of injustice.

I was asked to talk ab. 'the broader Persian civilizations', the Achaemenids, and the Sasanians in an interview. I declined as I was too emotional to be able to talk. But also, while historical context is useful to have, I believe USA & Israel need soul searching in light of these threats. Iran. 1/2

Shades of Vedran Smailovic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedran_... History repeating the chorus.

This is why you can't kill a civilisation by bombing it.

Before playing Kamancheh, he says: 'Hello, I'm Mohammad-Reza Afarideh, the director of the ed. institute that has now been destroyed. I wanted the last sound coming from my institute not to be of missiles and war; (I want the) final sound to be of the instrument that I played in it. Thank you'.

Ali Ghamsari, a musician, on Monday in front of the Damavand power plant!

*takes big breath and belts in Jean Valjean* 🎶 ONE DAY MOOOOOOOOOOORE! 🎶

I don't know if we can stop the terrible things that are happening. But I do know that we can commit ourselves as individuals and communities and societies to seek justice for as long as it takes.

Trump says ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’ if Iran does not make a deal – Middle East crisis live

He doesn't have that power. It has been granted to him by those who are complicit in this. And those are politicians everywhere, and large sections of our societies. Go through life as a non-white person and you have a chance to understand better and more. *Not addressing Hamilton, whom I don't know

I'm glad I read this 2nd post in the thread. Still, I'm really sorry for my bluntness: Yes, your 'trauma' is secondary when compared to what we are dealing with. And mine secondary to that of those enduring this violence first hand, in their homes, losing all hope, living w pain, cultivating hate!

What have two Dukes, Julia Roberts, a roast potato, Dame Joan Collins and the former Duchess of York all have in common? They are all part of the Bluemoose journey Hebden To Hollywood - Pub: Oct '26. 20 yrs of a small Indy publishing books the corporates thought too risky. @thebookseller.com

The silence of Europe in the face of this!!! Complete intellectual collapse and moral bankruptcy. Shame!

I wrote about Akshi Singh's wonderful debut and the science of rest for @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/science-tech...

Finished A Silence Shared by Lalla Romano, tr Brian Robert Moore. Set towards the end of WWII in a small village near Turin, a woman lives with her friend and the friend's sick husband. The slow unwinding of the occupation and the austerity of war is a backdrop to a subtle, beautifully drawn novel.

My next book, a practical guide for how to write for mass media, publishes four weeks from today. I hope you'll consider ordering it now, inviting me to speak, and to tell others. Here's what @tressiemcphd.bsky.social said about my work. Pre-order here: www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

Ich arbeite gerade daran, dass es zu allen Todesopfern rechter Gewalt in Deutschland eine eigene Wikipedia-Seite gibt und würde mich sehr über Unterstützung freuen! Hier ist die Liste: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todesop... Hier einer der daraus entstandenen Artikel: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Ze...

I've really enjoyed this series on Philosophy of Biology from @closertotruth.bsky.social: closertotruth.com/project/phil... Videos are 25min each, consist mainly of interviews with experts, and cover topics ranging from units of selection to biological information to evolution of cognition

New pod! Mike talks with Jake Nabel about The Arsacids of Rome podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/j... open.spotify.com/show/6uGXkAl...

Join Madeline Vosch and me for this discussion about our books. “The Uneasy Lives of Saints: A Conversation on After Transformation and Undead.” April 29th at Harvard’s CSWR and by zoom. Register here for zoom: cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news-events/...