First time I see an article retracted for (likely) AI hallucinations. N.B., the authors have PhD´s but don´t seem affiliated with a university.

i haven't been posting because i'm writing Gejou's biography, and what feels like a ton of articles, which is making me doubt i can ever write his or any biography, or write at all, and all i do is waver between despair and amusement at my abysmal career choices. who else writes like this?

A head, a body, and two antiquities dealers... Have you ever come across this Gudea statue? It's in the Louvre Abu Dhabi now, but until last year it had been in the Louvre Paris since 1953. HOW did get there though? Let me tell you the story 🕵️‍♀️🔎👇 www.academia.edu/144706747/Ib...

I'd like to share with y'all a project I've poured my heart and soul into over the last couple of years: a database cataloguing every single older (pre-21st century) LGBT science fiction book I've managed to track down - currently just over 200 titles 🚀 LINK: tinyurl.com/oldgaySF

Laundering looted antiquities through the use of an old collection? Forged provenance documentation? I investigate the case of Cumberland Clark, a forgotten early 20th-century collector who has become relevant again doi.org/10.1017/S094...

Congratulations on the publication of The Library of Ancient Wisdom @lswisnom.bsky.social 🥳 currently reading & loving it. Btw, I've not come across such a cover before 😍: the cuneiform signs are deeply impressed in the paper & almost all individually so - it's like stroking a tablet's surface ❤️

Anyone have the Sotheby's, New York, June 14, 2000 antiquities catalogue? I need a photo of lot 87 and its details.

Happy Publication Day to me! 🎉😱🥹🧿 Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History is officially out! It’s a history of the region through objects found in an ancient museum in Princess Ennigaldi-Nanna’s palace, and I hope you all like it 💛 lnk.to/BetweenTwoRi...

Parthian hedgehog from Nippur. Top 10 Mesopotamian artifact list. 🏺

"Like all empires, this one rested on a foundation of lies." #Oathbreakers, out from @harpercollins.bsky.social on 12/10. The story of how Charlemagne's grandsons fought a brutal civil war and shattered the Frankish Empire. SIGNED COPY GIVEAWAY. Repost to enter. First drawing 7 pm CST USA. /1

New Akkadian dictionary project at Leipzig: www.saw-leipzig.de/de/presse/pr...

It looks like an ancient Excel spreadsheet with a doodle. But ~2,500 years ago, someone made a diagram of a 7-pointed star, and a table that seems to give instructions for how to make that diagram. The seven points of the star are labeled with the names for the strings of a Mesopotamian harp.

Through December 5 at publishersforpalestine.org

Call for papers for the colloquium “’Degenerate’ art. A French/German cross-history“. Deadline for submissions is November 30, 2024: kulturgutverluste.de/termine/call... #provenanceresearch

Saurel Leonce is Haitian painter in a visionary tradition evoking the Vèvè symbols of Vodou and the playful chaos of Basquiat. Due to the disintegration of Haiti's political order his family live in danger and lack food. Help him continue his work and build a decent life! Paintings below:

Tag yourselves. I'm "Now, that's Colonialism!" #atchaeosky

Interested in doing research in Global Environmental History and the Environmental Humanities in Germany? I am scouting! Offering an up to 2 year research fellowship with the Humboldt Foundation. Deadline, December 13. www.uni-augsburg.de/de/fakultaet...

Come to a talk I'm giving on Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu in London on Sun, Dec. 15. There will be "revelations" - all the things I have learned since my book "The Prince and the Plunder" came out. Come in person www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-prince... or online www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1083157466...

Ancient Babylonians kept copious records of astronomical phenomena on clay tablets that we call Astronomical Diaries. In 164 BCE, they saw Halley’s Comet hover softly in the night sky, and recorded it in cuneiform on clay www.ebl.lmu.de/fragmentariu...

Thank you Andrew 🙏 this amusing text was purchased by the Louvre from my old friend Ibrahim in 1922 collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/5335... the Louvre hasn't preserved their correspondence w/ Gejou in 1922 (or for most years b/w 1899-1937 🤡) but i know that Gejou was in Baghdad in early 1922 🕵️‍♀️

Unfortunately, TCL 18, 111 (housed at the Louvre) is a tablet purchased from the famed antiquities dealer Elias Ibrahim Géjou. Thankfully, we have a world expert on Géjou here, @tamacahut.bsky.social. She's been interviewed by @jonjtaylor.bsky.social, here: www.buzzsprout.com/1338718/epis...

A short review for @hyperallergic.com of one of the most powerful and inspiring books I’ve ever read - on repatriation, on collaboration, on memory and creation. Find it among other standout art books of the year at hyperallergic.com/968703/the-3...

"Archaeology has always been about people. We’ve become so specialized that there is a tendency sometimes to forget the people. Archaeology helps explain why we are similar and why we are different." (B. Fagan, A Little History of #Archaeology 🏺, New Haven/London 2018.)

Nicolas Revire, my colleague on the Art Institute of Chicago's provenance research team, has written a fascinating article about his research into a 12th-century Khmer pilaster, which led to the museum's decision to return this ancient and sacred artifact to Thailand: www.artic.edu/articles/115...

Buy all banned books as presents

I’ve been putting it off because I’m awkward, but it’s probably time to introduce myself. Hi everyone 👋🏽 I’m an Assyriologist at Wolfson College, Oxford where I get to research the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. Okay but what exactly is that?

Ea-nāṣir is the recipient of the world’s oldest complaint letter. He’s reportedly the worst businessman of the 18th century, a mediocre conman whose actions should have him put out of business. Is this fair? Here’s a thread on the most up-to-date research on this captivating figure.

hey, folks, do you know who works on Umma tablets and history? asking for a snake-dragon friend... #assyriology #cuneiform #iraq

Leeds has a fully funded scholarship program for undergraduate and Masters study for Gaza students. **Tell Everyone** www.leeds.ac.uk/masters-scho...

Edward Said wrote about the racist function of the label "terrorist" back in 1986 in this book review: www.thenation.com/article/arch... The book he was critiquing was "Terrorism: How the West Can Win", by Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The idea of the museum as “a prison cell, where objects go to die” is now itself a historical relic." Bravo @profdanhicks.bsky.social 🙌🏼 See: The restitution of cultural heritage will race ahead in 2025 www.economist.com/the-world-ah...

Job Posting! The Division of Arts and Humanities at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) invites applications for an open rank (tenure-track / tenured) faculty position in Early Modern European Art History. See here: apply.interfolio.com/156889

If you want a digital tour of At-Turaif district in Riyadh’s old town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — then I am here to oblige you. Entering the district via a bridge with a sweeping view that I did zero justice to

At some point in my misspent 20s I acquired two International Women’s Day posters from the Palestinian Human Rights Centre. I’m now auctioning them on EBay, all proceeds will go to a group running food distribution in Gaza. One dated 2002, one undated. All details here www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15653032...

Great conversation just now about Radwa Ashour's GRANADA trilogy. If you couldn't make it but would like to listen in, @aucpress.bsky.social has made it available on their YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLf4...

I've begun a starter pack for people working in and/or talking about ancient epigraphy/inscriptions. Let me know if I've missed you! go.bsky.app/PmuQYDH

sophus helle is out here TAKING NAMES

Deadlines approaching Applications for 2025 graduate and postdoctoral fellowships from the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI) are now open. The deadline graduate student fellowships is December 6, 2024; post-doctoral fellowships is January 6, 2025. orcfellowships.smapply.org

Work in progress. Let me know if you, or someone you know, would like to be added/removed: go.bsky.app/NmTavNC

Q: Why are the pyramids in Egypt? A: Because they were too heavy to carry to the British Museum.

Finished Stolen Fragments by Roberta Mazza a few weeks ago, one of my fav books of the year. So many mad-hatters in this case who reminded me of the curators & dealers I research who illicitly traded #cuneiform tablets in 19th & 20th centuries. Also loved Mazza's writing style & fierce honesty ❤️

I poured my heart and soul into this book. Written and rewritten many times until I felt I got it somewhat right. I wanted to share with you all a world I love so much, and the many moving stories left behind by those who lived and died between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers millennia ago.

Lucky you 😍 Can't wait for publication day @moudhy.bsky.social

Inaugurating #SensesSunday with this beautiful orthostat relief showing a seated figure holding a lotus flower to his nose 🪷 👃. Before him stand two bullmen supporting a winged sun disk. Tell Halaf (ancient Guzana), Syria, Neo-Hittite (10th–9th century BCE). MMA 43.135.1. Rogers Funds, 1943.

Working on antiquities trafficking, provenance research, collecting ethics, repatriation issues? I’m building a list here. Ping me if I missed you. go.bsky.app/MHUgHyF

Grande Poste, Alger.

There is one for Assyriology go.bsky.app/DrZS5R7

This publication, for READ PALESTINE WEEK (Nov 29 - December 5) is now available in digital format, free, at our Gumroad storefront: arablit.gumroad.com

I continue to update! go.bsky.app/SNvMPk3