OS 165 - The Kings of Urartu
Today we witness the transformation of Urartu—called Biainilli in its own time—from a fledgling mountain kingdom into a formidable Iron Age empire that would challenge Assyria itself. Following Sardur...
16 Apr 202537min
OS 164 - The Rise of Urartu
In this episode, we explore one of the most dramatic and mysterious transformations in ancient Near Eastern history: the sudden rise of the Kingdom of Urartu—known to its own people as Biainilli—under...
2 Apr 202537min
OS 163 - The Birth of Urartu
Explore the fascinating rise of Urartu, an ancient kingdom forged in the crucible of war and environmental hardship. In just two decades during the mid-9th century BCE, this mountainous backwater tran...
19 Mar 202533min
OS 162 - The Rise of Phrygia
In the wake of the Bronze Age Collapse, a new power emerged in central Anatolia—the Phrygians. This episode examines their origins, tracing their migration from the Balkans and their settlement in the...
5 Mar 202536min
OS 161 - A Kingdom of Honey and Blood: The Suhu Rebellion
Suhu is a only modestly important region, and the independant kingdom that lived on the Middle Euphrates from perhaps 775 BCE to 744 BCE is barely more than an historical footnote. And yet, because th...
19 Feb 202549min
OS 160 - Graham Hancock and the Philosophy of Archeology
Graham Hancock is a complicated man. On one hand, he is exposing a lot of people to some of the most cutting edge archeological investigations and open questions in history, and doing it in a way that...
5 Feb 202552min
OS 159 - Slaves and Bronze in Iron Age Assyria
Reading 2800 year old slave documents, we learn a great deal about what concerned the people of Assyria on a day to day basis, at least the ones who lived in and around the major cities. From these do...
22 Jan 202547min
OS 158 - The Glorious Magnates of Assyria
Today we talk about the governors Nergal-Erish and Mannu-ki-Mat-Assur as they play their part in building the Assyrian empire in a number of often unheralded and underappreciated ways. Then we look at...
8 Jan 202534min
