semi-regular reminder that ICE was only created in 2003 when you are asked to imagine a world without ICE, you're basically being asked to remember where you were when Lilo & Stitch came out

Come log in for a little lecture on my current work exploring kišpu "witchcraft" and gender!

I will remind folks those images of Nazi book burnings aren't burning just any books. They're burning the library of Magnus Hirschfeld; a gay, Jewish doctor who created an institute dedicated to LGBTQ sex education and healthcare. And a man who pioneered gender affirming care surgeries.

I'm fully in dissertation mode, so as a break from looking at 7th century BCE Akkadian texts and assemblage theory, I've really gotten into learning about the illuminations of medieval Hebrew manuscripts (this is my flavor of Elul studying I guess...). Will share some of my favorites on this thread:

For today's #MosaicMonday a hilarious #Roman mosaic depicting a boisterous #dog knocking over a basket and pulling out the contents. Life without #dogs is possible but pointless! 😊 On display at the Archaeological Museum Irbid/Jordan. 🏺 📷

Don’t forget the call for papers is open for our @socstudyofthepast.bsky.social conference Beyond Methodological Nationalism: docs.google.com/document/d/1... Abstract submissions by the end of July pls! 🍉

The @socstudyofthepast.bsky.social now has a YouTube channel, and if you would like to catch up on our event on Friday, ‘Archaeology and Apartheid’, you can do so here: m.youtube.com/channel/UCVI...

OIC 22, text 12 (the price of renting a bed): "Since the first of the month of Arahsamnu, Warad-Ilabrat rented a bed belonging to Belshunu for 5.5 grains of silver." This tiny receipt was excavated at Nippur, located in southern Iraq. It is about 3,750 years old: lodging is a very old industry.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Everyone is throwing out examples of Iraq War-era mass derangement so I might as well throw in Amanda Bynes doing a peace sign on a movie poster being photoshopped out for fear of being seen as an antiwar statement

V interesting thread. Archaeologists, this also involves us. Permission to excavate & appropriate land used similar legal systems. Results of said excavations then used to 'prove' historic claims to land etc, I I.e archaeology is complicit, so we need to stop pretending we're not.

A couple of months ago, I posted a checklist of things one could do to be useful in these days of rising fascism. Here’s Part Two of that list—more focused on ways to protect you and those in your tightest circles of care. Part One is embedded and also skeeted below.

We may never know everything about the past, but we do know how to say in Akkadian 'Speak out, revolt' (tisiʾā tuqumta)! That's thanks to one of the earliest Flood myths, Atra-hasis, composed nearly four thousand years ago.

For those of you whose nerdiness is at the intersection of ancient history and Dungeons and Dragons, check out this awesome project my dear friend is working on! www.kickstarter.com/projects/115...

New long video on a letter from Marduk-šapik-zeri to the Assyrian king, which introduces us to the specializations of cuneiform scholarship in the 1st millennium BCE: kalûtu, āšipūtu, asûtu, and barûtu! youtu.be/L4kibw0tDHU

Another fun Akkadian word that lives on: sofa Akkadian ṣuppu, "thick, compacted (of textiles)" > Aramaic ṣippā/ṣuppā, "carded wool" > Arabic, Turkish "ṣuffa" > sofa

In 1748 BCE, a man feels so “discredited” by a woman named Amertum that he declares before 13 witnesses: “As long as she talks, I will not bring her into my house.” It’s a flawlessly preserved legal record of a bizarre situation.

Hot take: we can do better than "trans people have always existed!" I say, actually it's CISNESS that is the newfangled, upstart invention. It's not that trans people existed before. It's that the whole cis/trans binary is rubbish. Hear me, a pre modern historian/ Talmud scholar, out...

Folks are shocked that their institutions, after professing commitments to climate justice and DEI, are now caving to Trump and scrubbing all references. It's brutal. And it's the smallest taste of what our students felt when their universities called in the cops b/c they protested a genocide.

“Do not bend your neck for that which cuts necks.” A Sumerian proverb, as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.

I am often moved by how cuneiform tablets give glimpses into the lives of everyday people. One of my favourites is of a physician name Rabâ-sha-Marduk who lived in the 1200s BCE. This medical therapy for headaches ("seizing of the temple") is signed by him cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/28...

I also have a little video of a talk I gave four years ago. In this video, I give a more detailed description of what entrails reading (extispicy) was like for the Mesopotamian world: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJD-...

Can’t wait to read this new book making Mesopotamian history human and accessible!

À propos of nothing: Here is an open-access primer on ancient & medieval Palestine feat. @moudhy.bsky.social @gmandreou.bsky.social @chancebonar.bsky.social @alexianafry.bsky.social @archaeologuest.bsky.social @stephenniem.bsky.social @nabalkattu.bsky.social @luxmea.bsky.social tinyurl.com/3h52peyh

the fascists are looking to rigidly define gender not just to punish trans people like they claim but to lay the groundwork for the oppression of all women. when gender is legally mutable, it is harder to use it to restrict people’s rights. they want to build a cage around you, made from our bones

Ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia causes all kinds of medical issues. Vertigo, depression, and more. This therapy to treat someone seized by a ghost prescribed fumigation with pig, wolf, dog, fox, and gazelle poop, and other stuff that smelled awful. Seems a good way to get rid of a ghost was to stink

several institutions are rightly understanding the "anti-dei" orders as orders to implement white supremacist policies and then, bafflingly, saying, "ok, we'll write those up for you"

A fun aspect of teaching at a STEM-oriented University: free 3D printing. Very excited to print out some fun tablets, cylinder seals, and other antiquities to show my classes! Today, they met Humbaba himself. #assyriology

Have you ever wanted to learn how to write your name in cuneiform? Or are you an educator and want to incorporate a fun hands-on lesson into your class? This new video might be of interest! youtu.be/4XkRyL_hfnk

Archaeologist Salah Al-Houdalieh from Palestine is urgently working to assess archaeological sites in the West Bank devastated by destruction and looting amid Israel’s ongoing war in the region. 🏺🧪 #archaeology #anthropology

'Glam Slam Ulysses': Prince's strange take on Homer's poem faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-prince-...

The TikTok ban isn't just a platform reconfiguration, it will reshape the political leaning of the creator economy and permanently alter whose voices get heard online. Please read my story www.usermag.co/p/the-great-...

They used to burn books, but now they ban apps. It wasn't just photos and videos, it was a million little communities that connected more than half of Americans in ways the ruling class couldn't stand. The building is on fire, and instead of sending water, they cut the telephone lines. #tiktokban

Now that it seems like TikTok's fate is sealed, it's time to move to YouTube! I was planning on starting to make long-form content anyway, and I just posted my first video on there, on ancient Mesopotamian information security practices... www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RkZ...

“Anger, they say, anger goes like a wild bull. It constantly leaps forth like a dog, like a lion” From a spell to expel anger, impressed with a reed stylus into clay almost 4,000 years ago in a beautiful Babylonian dialect of the Akkadian language cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts/27...

So Enlil kept from languishing. He poured holy water and lentil pottage on the ground and cried, ‘strike a wall for Enlil!'

I love the hybrid creatures from ancient Mesopotamia. They hint at what scared people, what protected them, and more. This is a “lion man” (urmahlilu), a magical creature that once flanked the entrance to King Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh to protect against harm.

Even before you came from the land where the camel speaks, Enkidu in Adab had dreams about you. Are there no plants in a city of plants?

immediately ordered!

My latest looks at the horrors of war described in the Bible from a different historical perspective— and asks what it can illuminate about occupation, invasion, and the price of imperialism today.

The first published Old Babylonian archival text was BM 33191. Though published in 1882, 25 years after Akkadian was deemed to be a deciphered language, the tablet had been excavated in 1854. It took 100 years for someone to figure out where this tablet came from. Lo and behold, it came from Ur.

Actually “per my last email” was not unheard of in millennia-old cuneiform letters. A woman named Datâ in the 8th century BCE wrote to her brother, “Why have I not seen your messenger until this very day? Now, if you are alive, let me forgive the shortcomings of your character…”

Just a few of the GWU faculty, students, and alumni at ASOR! #ASOR24 #GWU

Hello all: It is with a heavy heart that I remove my Starter Pack of "Trustworthy Mesopotamian Copper Ingot Merchants Within the City-State of Ur." I have been informed about some pretty unfortunate oversights on my part and ultimately platformed some creators who should not have been platformed.

I've made one of these for Assyriologists ! Please reach out if you want to be added. -- J'ai fait un starter pack d'assyriologues, faites signe pour y être ajouté•es ! go.bsky.app/DrZS5R7

sophus helle is out here TAKING NAMES

Since we all really FELT that ancient pooch who wouldn’t drop the ball, I figured I may as well tell you a bit about dogs in ancient Mesopotamia. They leave traces everywhere, from bricks to burials to proverbs. Here’s a 4,000-year-old paw print of a pooch on a brick from ancient Ur