Mesopotamian astronomers probably observed or were aware of aurorae, or ‘red glows’. The word ‘akukūtu’ meaning “blaze” or “firebrand” is attested in a few tablets in which it refers to a rare meteorological phenomenon, described as ‘išātu ša ina šamê innappaḫ’, a “fire that flares up in the sky”.

Folks, does anybody know of a map showing where #cuneiform collections are in museums across the world, similar to @sarabmohr.bsky.social 's map for US colleges and unis, but for museums worldwide? #assyriology

Call for Papers for GSANES 8 (NYC, March 26-7, 2026): Come present your work at ISAW this upcoming spring semester, the topic being ‘As Below, So Above: Mapping Social Experience and the World Beyond'. Submissions are due December 15.

MA/ New England ancient historians: an international boarding school in Braintree is seeking a long term substitute teacher for high school world history, starting ASAP until mid March. Emphasis on ancient and medieval history. DM me if interested! (Sharing this on behalf of a friend)

Assyriologists make incredible faculty members:

In class today my students created a social network of (meme-famous) Ea-naṣir based on the letters in his dossier. It coincided with the most recent episode of the Thin Edge of the Wedge. An excellent roundup by great colleagues on everything we know about Ea-naṣir and his historical context...

For the Ea-nasir fans, Assyriology podcast 'Thin End of the Wedge' just released a special episode about everyone's favorite copper merchant, featuring @gvkonsta.bsky.social, @gabemoshenska.bsky.social, and Steven Garfinkle, and yours truly. Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/1338718/epis...

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Ugly cried at the season 6 finale of ER, 25 years later

She's gorgeous @rheth.bsky.social!

In the Presidential address at the 176th meeting of the American Oriental Society, I.J. Gelb (1966) spoke on the approaches one could take to study ancient society. He likened a spectrum of studies in Assyriology as the "struggle between Tammuz and onions." He regarded himself a proud onionologist.

A 3,300 year-old Egyptian-Akkadian vocabulary from Amarna, with Egyptian words written in cuneiform ši-na-aḫ=šnꜥ (unit of weight) ši-na-aḫ-wu₄=šnꜥwj (dual of šnꜥ) ḫa-am-tu₄ šu-nu-uḫ=ḫmtw šnꜥw (three šnꜥ) … na-ab-na-su=nꜣ bnšw (the doorposts) DU-as-bu=tꜣ jsbt (the chair) pa-ḫa-tu₄=pꜣ ḥꜥtj (the bed)

Today I published a new section of my website with resources for those who wish to learn, study, and/or teach ancient languages using braille. It rests on work we did over the past year to expand screen reader access to these languages through the LibLouis library. Check it out and share around!

God, Slavery, and Early Christianity is out in the real world with @universitypress.cambridge.org! I have some extra, so retweet this by the end of Oct. 19 if you’re interested in receiving a copy! Book info here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/g...

Fun to see these reddit questions shared around!

The Royal Game of Ur is the world’s oldest playable boardgame! Played by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia about 4,500 years ago! It is a two-player race game, the rules of which have been deciphered from a cuneiform tablet. Game from the Royal Cemetery of Ur. 📷 British Museum #Archaeology

I've been doing an AMA all day on r/AskHistorians if you care to jump in:

Back to wondering whether Sumerian zid-lal3 was something like خبيص (khabeeṣa), which was served in cups to gods and mentioned with morning meals: [ZID3] Flour, often emmer or semolina [LAL3] Honey, syrup

It's real and available for pre-order! A Student's Vocabulary of Akkadian in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, out this month through @psupress.bsky.social www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles...

Got my little flair for @askhistorians.bsky.social!

Oops, I saved a csv thinking it was an xlsx and lost several sheets of data!

Vibrant colour projected onto a 2,600 year-old wall panel offers a glimpse of the past lived in glorious technicolour! From the North Palace at Nineveh (present day Iraq), where the walls were decorated with brightly painted reliefs. 🎥 by me #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology

Turns out my wife is an archer!

The digital version of God, Slavery, and Early Christianity is officially out! If you're interested in ancient Mediterranean slavery's effects on Christian thought and practice, this is for you. www.cambridge.org/core/books/g...

Grab your trowels, apply your sunscreen and get ready to get down and dirty as we chat with author Kate Myers about her smash-hit novel Excavations! Listen now at movieswedig.com! The original book cover art used in this promo was created by Stephen Brayda.

Folks,

Unfortunately incorrect: this had nothing to do with parking and everything to do with a type of building creep. When buildings were torn down and rebuilt, new builds often encroached and built over existing road infrastructure, narrowing the street's width. Sennacherib set up steles to stop that.

Terms for the person who blows the shofar on #RoshHashanah: pros and cons בעל תוקע con: - grammatically iffy - hard to inflect for gender and number pro: - commonly used בעל תקיעה con: - pedantic pro: - grammatically correct and straightforward biggest pro: - literally translates to 'blast master'

I'm being alerted that I have to write it? I'm not sure if that's correct and am seeking second and third opinions

The Association of Ancient Historians meeting will be in Iowa City from April 16-18, 2026. For those new to the AAH, we have preset panel themes; you pick 1 to apply to. The theme overall is Ancient Exchanges in a Global Antiquity. See CFP: abstracts are due by December 1. aah.conference.uiowa.edu

We've got a new poll up on the DRH focused on ritual, we're always recruiting more scholars to create entries (and we've got honoraria available!).

At what point does the next dissertation chapter write itself? I've been sitting and waiting for weeks

A Student's Vocabulary of Akkadian in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions –– coming to you in October through Eisenbrauns! Very stoked.

the thing about rhetoric is that it always has real world consequences. always. the whole point is to persuade people so as to manipulate material outcomes. the idea that anything is “merely” rhetorical is simply wrong

Found it. Twitter search sucks now but it helped to specify “from:@matt_boot_”

And Seth R isn't alone in using Michael Mann, I made an opaque reference to this exact discussion when ASOR published Aaron Burke's piece on The Amorites:

In fairness, I think Graeber and Wengrow's reliance on Seth R here limited their thesis: using Mann to define early state power doesn't give these small states much room to act out their own agency (which often was the case to the annoyance of various states).

Concerning lunar eclipses (there's one tomorrow!):

Telling my kids that this is just the god Nanna:

I love how we have an Assyrian document from the 7th century BC that mentions a man called "ad-di-ik-ri-tú-šú" – an Assyrian rendition of a Greek male name, most likely 'Antikritos'.

3100-1820: ye olden days 1820-540: peak cuneiform 540-740: Age of Empires II, Definitive Edition 740-2020: whatever this is

Fun fact: the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great (539 BCE) pretty much marks the halfway point of recorded history so far. Everything since—the Persian Empire, Alexander, Romans, Middle Ages of course—is closer to us than to the first invention of writing.

Do you know anything about the slang use of "lore" to denote history, background or sitz im leben of a subject? Has anyone talked about this yet?

I maintain this list and celebrate each new addition and funding improvement to allow all to access our discipline. It feels equally important to mark the rollback of past successes. Programs at UVa, Columbia, Cornell, and Rutgers, now no longer exist. RT pls. 1/ livyarrow.org/funded-mas-a...

we are around five years post-"reckoning" in classics, and there has been a flurry of extremely good books just published, or just about to come out, which address the challenges posed at that time

"Winged genius kneeling in front of the Sacred Tree From Room I of the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. Neo-Assyrian Period, reign of Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 B.C." That was what the label writes but this scene always reminds me of manual pollinating of datefruits.🫣 📌Musei Vaticani 🏺

Swift Hermes has many epithets like οἰοπόλος (“sheep-tending”), λόγιος (“eloquent”), and ἀκάκητα (“guileless”) For easy shorthand, one can call him an Α.Ο.Λ. Instant Messenger.

Similarly, both leaders were acutely aware of the power of history and sought to control those ancient narratives.