ancient history

Preparing Feasts Helped Make Us Human

Cooking large meals represented a breakthrough in human evolution, both because cooked foods proved easier to digest and support larger brains and because the occasions supported more complex social organization. 

Drone Photos Give New Insight into Mesopotamian City Structure

Evidence of separate clusters of urbanization on islands separated by marshland suggests that ancient Lagash did not grow out from one administrative and ceremonial center but was a polycentric urban zone. 

Is There a Biblical Solution to the Modern Problem of Debt?

by Eva von Dassow

Many are inspired by Old Testament rules for debt jubilees, but, while the practice has a historical basis, that history shows debt forgiveness was part of an unequal society in which forgiving old debts simply enabled the masses to take on new ones. 

"The Dawn of Everything" Stretches its Evidence, But Makes Bold Arguments about Human Social Life

by Frank A. Palmeri

David Graeber and David Wengrow seek to pull less hierarchical and more egalitarian and sustainable forms of settlement and social organization out of the frame of utopia and into the narrative of human history. To the extent they succeed, they show humanity today has the choice to organize ourselves for survival. 

Yale, Historians Honor the Contributions of Donald Kagan

Donald Kagan is remembered as a prolific and influential scholar of Ancient Greece and an engaging teacher with a gift for narrative and storytelling. He was also a key figure in the linkage between political conservatism and classical tradition.

Mary Beard Keeps History on the Move

"I spent part of my career lamenting that there weren’t more female authors in the ancient world. Well, you can mourn the lack of those authors forever, but you’re not very likely to find more. But you can engage with how gender is defined."

Ancient Egypt for the Egyptians

New books and a documentary consider the entanglement of colonialism with the rise of academic Egyptology.

Is a Long-Dismissed Forgery Actually the Oldest Known Biblical Manuscript?

Idan Dershowitz claims that a manuscript fragment denounced as a forgery in 1883 is authentic and is a precursor document to the book of Deuteronomy. If he's right, it would be the oldest known biblical manuscript. 

How a Disaster Relief Program Changed the Roman Empire for the Better

The 10,000 Pompeiians who evacuated the city ahead of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD benefited from the redistribution of the property of nobles who didn't. 

The Original Storming of the Capitol

by Stephen Dando-Collins

The January 6, 2021 siege of the Capitol in Washington DC has eerie parallels with a much earlier event, the AD 69 siege of the Capitoline Mount in Rome.

Searching for Our Urban Future in the Ruins of the Past

Annalee Newitz's book on lost cities debunks the idea of sudden, catastrophic collapse. But the death of cities does show that humanity is vulnerable to change that makes centuries-old ways of life untenable. 

Ancient Rome Has an Urgent Warning for Us

by Kyle Harper

It's simplistic to look to the classics as instructions for political or social conduct, but the study of the past should inform our awareness of the power of nature to affect social and political life. 

In Beleaguered Babylon, Doing Battle Against Time, Water and Modern Civilization

The ancient city of Babylon is a World Heritage Site, but it faces threats old and new. As some of its walls crumble, preservationists are fighting to preserve the past.

The Complicated History of Religion and Archaeology

Modern archaeology has largely succeeded in instituting professionalization and historical rigor to the study of sites of theological significance, but the discipline has a long and continuing historical entanglement with efforts to find proof of religious doctrines.

How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart?

"Contemporary society has built-in vulnerabilities that could allow things to go very badly indeed — probably not right now, maybe not for a few decades still, but possibly sooner."

How Hammurabi Transformed Babylon Into a Powerful City-State

Hammurabi's governing strategies of building support through public works, pursuing information, and self-promotion are not unfamiliar to contemporary politics.

Ancient Teeth Show History of Epidemics is Much Older than we Thought

Scientists and archaeologists now believe that the plague bacteria, which caused the medieval Black Death, infected humans roughly 5,000 years ago in the Stone Age.

Contagion and Recovery in the Hittite Empire

by Eva von Dassow

The progress of an ancient plague shows that when faith--in gods or medical research--fails, it's a long road to safety.

The Elites Were Living High. Then Came the Fall.

Modern cities can learn from the fate of the collapsed civilizations at Ugarit and Mycenae.

A Beautiful World: Ancient texts reveal Aztecs’ history in their own words in Camilla Townsend's Latest Book

Camilla Townsend’s new book, "Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs," documents the story of the Aztecs from an entirely new perspective, that of the Aztecs themselves.