OS 142 - The Assyrian Empire Takes Shape
King Tukulti-Ninurta II slows down the pace of conquest for a crucial decade. Conquest still happens, and at a breakneck pace, but compared to what we have seen and will see, it is much slower. More i...
24 Apr 202439min
OS 141 - The Unintended Aramization of Assyria
Today we see Adad-Nirari bring huge quantities of Arameans into the Assyrian empire. This will change the linguistic fabric of the entire near east in time, but as we will see, at the time it just see...
10 Apr 202442min
OS 140- The Dawning of a New Assyrian Empire
The king today is Adad-Nirari II, but we have a lot to discuss in the background as well. The Nairi get their spotlight right before they get destroyed, and we look at the dating system for the Neo-As...
27 Mars 202438min
OS 139 - An Iron King for an Iron Age
Today we talk about iron working, economics and climate change. Then we watch Assur-Dan II flay his enemies alive and hang their skins from the city wall. The doldrums of the Bronze Age Collapse are n...
13 Mars 202448min
OS 138 - Erra and Ishum Threaten Destruction
Most of our modern end of the world literature is set in the future, but the Babylonians, in the midst of a dark age, set their end of the world literature right in their own times, since for them it ...
28 Feb 202450min
OS 137 - The Oldest Dreams
Do dreams count as literature, are the dream records we have an accurate depiction of ancient dreams, and does reading a dream account from a man 3000 years dead give us any insight into his state of ...
14 Feb 202437min
OS 136 - The Fifty Shades of Marduk
The thrilling conclusion of the Enuma Elish is an extended hagiographical top-50 list extolling the virtues of Babylon's patron god. As we are now well into the period where Marduk is unquestionably s...
31 Jan 202450min
OS 135 - Middle Class Demons of Mesopotamia
Today we look at Pazuzu, Lamashtu, Samanu, Mushussu, and Lamassu. These are not the great gods of myth, nor are they the personal gods that would have absorbed the majority of the average Mesopotamian...
17 Jan 202450min
