Roundup of Archaeology and History March 15-23

Here are some posts I enjoyed:

The earliest evidence of long-distance trade networks (4,000 years ago) comes from the Bronze Age site of Kanesh in modern Turkey in the form of clay tablets with cuneiform script. The trade was organized by the Assyrians and took fine fabrics and tin on the backs of donkeys into the Anatolian heartland and came back to Assyria with gold and silver. The beginning of this back and forth precedes the rise of the Hittite Empire, after which it continues but with different primary characters. International, “global” trade gets a lot of discussion these days, but it’s hardly a new thing and for the Bronze Age of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean, the rise of wide-reaching trade signaled an extended period of well-being and its collapse from tariffs, wars, climate changes such as drought, etc. signaled the end of such well-being—although it’s a complicated story and there’s a lot more to it (read 1177 BC, Eric Cline’s book for the full tale of modern-sounding collapse). This article in Archaeology Magazine talks about the detective work being done with the tablets to determine where all the connecting cities were in the far-flung network of this early stage. You’d think clay tablets would survive well and be ready and waiting for archaeologists to find. Alas, not so. Scribes didn’t fire their tablets so when stuffed on the shelf (or tossed) they crumble, wash away, or whatever over time. Only if the building was destroyed by a wicked big fire that acted as a giant kiln do the tablets survive. So, the library at Kanesh, which suffered a dramatic, fiery demise, is one of the central spots of information for this “Assyrian Colony” period. What’s the historical “echo” of something happening today that you wish was more widely understood? Click here for Archaeology Magazine “The Mesopotamian Merchant Files”

King Tut’s tomb was excavated almost 100 years ago, but apparently no one had looked carefully at a box filled with fragments of gold decoration that would have applied to different items in the tomb such as bridles and quivers. Now careful study has revealed they are decorated with Mesopotamian motifs such as goats around a tree of life. From chemical analysis, they do not think these objects traveled to Egypt by trade, but rather that they were made in Egyptian workshops that specialized in Mesopotamian designs. Isn’t that remarkable? Design trends and borrowings in a carefully structured way. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Tut’s Mesopotamian Side”

Some U of Illinois researchers mined big data to look at gender in fiction. Some of their findings are counter intuitive and intriguing. For example, “The number of women writing works of fiction dropped dramatically from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, and the prominence of female characters in works of fiction declined as well.” So, in 1850 half of all fiction was written by women. By 1950 less than a quarter. Here’s another bit I found enlightening, but less surprising, ““Men write stories where there are not that many women. Women represent the world as it is, with equal numbers of men and women, and men just don’t,” Underwood said.” What’s your reaction to this? Click here for University of Illinois College of Arts and Sciences Newsletter “Researchers use big data to examine gender in fiction”

Egypt has undertaken to preserve and maintain the many mummies the country has in storage. This most recent batch (now there’s a concept, a batch of mummies…) from the El-Muzawaa necropolis have an intriguing commonality. They are “screaming” mummies, that is their mouths are wide open, and their hands are bound. From this evidence they are said to have been people cursed by the god or the priests during their lifetimes. I’m kind of wondering why someone mummified them if they were cursed and apparently needed restraint in the afterlife and weren’t going to be happy (what with screaming faces and all…). Wouldn’t letting them decay and go away permanently be better from this assumed point of view? This concept is very cool and very grim. The photos make me glad mummy restoration is not my job, but they certainly grabbed my attention. But then anything about cursed people grabs my attention. Curse banishing is a big deal among my Hittite writing subjects. I recently finished writing a quite fantastical banishment on a truly grand scale. But no mummies were harmed in the process. Click here for Archaeology News Network “‘Cursed’ Mummies From El-Mezawaa Necropolis Restored”