The Baghdad Battery? Archaeologist Reacts! Artifactually Speaking 2026-09-18 | The Baghdad Battery? Archaeologist Reacts!
Assyrian Stone Tablet... with an Ancient Curse! Artifactually Speaking 2025-09-10 | Today's artifact is a large stone tablet known as a kudurru. In some ways it is similar to a stele (stela) but it has much more text than those usually have and it records a royal decree. Very interestingly, it includes curses upon those who might try to break the decree. Yes, we have encountered an ancient CURSE! But luckily it doesn't apply to us really. We aren't trying to break the decree, but are trying to put the tablet back together and learn about its text.The kudurru was likely stored in an upper story of this temple, where administrative records were kept. As of filming we had found five pieces of the tablet, all reddened in the fire that burnt the building and likely caused the kudurru to shatter. Most of the pieces were found in the shrine we have been excavating, but one was found in the courtyard outside. This was simply due to the way the building collapsed.We did find the final piece of the kudurru just before we left for the season and I include some photos of it, prior to initial cleaning.Join me and my colleague Dr. John MacGinnis to find out more about this fascinating object and its quite specific curses.
Nimrud/Kalhu Shrine Excavation, Fall 2024 Part 2 Artifactually Speaking 2025-09-03 | It's Week five of our excavations at Nimrud/Kalhu and this is my update on what we've learned about the new area we are digging. We have still not completed this room, that we are now sure was a shrine, but we have begun digging the room to the north which may have been an archive room or another shrine.Learn more with me as I walk through the new excavations.
Ancient Stone Vessel with Incredible Artistry Artifactually Speaking 2025-08-27 | Today's artifact is a broken stone vessel, highly decorated and almost certainly... ritual?Sometimes an artifact really was ritual, and in this case we have good evidence of it. The decoration, find spot, and probable usage all point to it. It was a shallow dish made of stone and includes an inscription underneath, where it couldn't directly be seen. The inscription is incomplete, as the bowl itself is fragmentary, but it was likely dedicated to whatever god was represented by this new shrine we are excavating.Join me to find out what we know about this incredible object.
Nimrud/Kalhu Shrine Excavation, Fall 2024 Part 1 Artifactually Speaking 2025-08-20 | Excavations at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) continued in Fall 2024. We completed the gate chamber between the Ishtar and Ninurta courtyards and followed the Ninurta courtyard north to find a new chamber that no one had excavated before (though some tunneling may have occurred here in the 1870s).At first e thought it might be a second gate chamber and this is the first of a series of tours/discussions of our work as it is ongoing. Watch as we reveal more of the area and alter our understanding with each week of excavation.
Eye Inlay for an Ancient Statue Artifactually Speaking 2025-06-04 | Today's artifact is a broken inlay that was probably part of a wooden cult statue that stood on the dais of the previously unknown shrine we've just revealed at Nimrud/Kalhu. When the Babylonians and Medes destroyed the city around 612 BCE, they took almost everything of value, smashed the rest, and burned the buildings. In the process, they destroyed the statue in this shrine, but pieces of it remain, like blue beard fragments and this piece that is about half of a large eye inlay.It's quite round, but would have sat in an oval or eye-shaped hole in the statue's head, probably fastened with bitumen, though it shows evidence of an added securing mechanism. A wire was run through it and held it to a post or ridge inside the socket. The socket shape would prevent the final statue from looking like it had completely round eyes, though even still the pupil is rather large and might look odd to us today.We don't know what deity was represented in this shrine yet. I'll be making more videos about the find location soon.
Artifactually... Cooking? Artifactually Speaking 2025-05-28 | This time on Artifactually Speaking I'm not talking about artifacts but trying to cook an ancient meal. With the help of recipes developed by Arim Havsho (Table of Gods) and the culinary assistance of my brother Jeff Hafford, I am transported back more than 5000 years for lunch and then have dessert nearly 2000 years later.We try the Sumerian Lunch, from the late Uruk period around 3500-3200bce, and then a dessert called mersu in the Old Babylonian period around 1800-1700bce. I'm definitely not a chef and the versions Jeff and I turn out are not perfect, but they are definitely good and I would encourage anyone watching to check out Arim's work at www.tableofgods.com
Assyrian Painted Pottery #history #archaeology #assyria Artifactually Speaking 2025-04-30 | This is a fragment from a broken jar that was rather large and probably had a complete action sequence depicted on it. The piece that survives shows an astonishing scene of an Assyrian in front of a chariot wheel carrying the severed head of an enemy. It might depict the story of the battle where Assyrian king Ashurbanipal beheaded the Elamite king, Teumann some 2600 years ago.Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
Ancient Assyrian Griffin Sculpture Artifactually Speaking 2025-04-23 | Griffin, Griffon, or Gryphon; any way you spell it, it's a mythical beast that represents strength, and it was said to be a guardian of treasure.We found a stone sculpture head of a griffin in the trench that we dug along the eastern portion of the Ninurta courtyard at Nimrud/Kalhu this season. It's well sculpted, though the neck is broken and one of the eye inlays is missing. A similar griffin head was found by Austen Henry Layard way back in the 1850s and its neck was complete showing that it was originally attached to a pole rather than being part of a larger sculpture body. He speculated that it was on a chariot pole, though it may have been atop a standard or flag.Griffins are not associated directly with any particular god in ancient Assyria, but they were symbols of strength, being party bird (eagle or falcon) and part lion. They are often said to come from the mountains in the east and may be distantly connected with the legend of the anzu bird from Sumerian myth farther back in time.
Ancient Bitumen Button? #history #archaeology #assyria Artifactually Speaking 2025-04-16 | This is a rather crude looking artifact from the ancient city of Kalhu (Nimrud) found in our latest excavation season. It's made of a bitumen mixture and is in a button/dome shape. It's got a piercing at the top (filled with dirt/clay now) and so it might have been something like a button, or might have hung from something. It might also have been a gaming piece or token. We don't really know what it was used for, but that's one of the reasons I like it!Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
Ancient Copper/Gold Nail #history #archaeology #assyria Artifactually Speaking 2025-04-09 | Here's a very small ancient nail, still with sharp point, found at Kalhu (Nimrud), which was the capital of the Assyrian Empire in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. It was found in an ancient shrine we're still trying to identify, but it's more evidence of the elaborate decorations in the ancient citadel, even on the fasteners that the Assyrians used to put things together in the shrine.Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
Archaeological Field Recording: Old School Methods Artifactually Speaking 2025-04-02 | Continuing my series on the process of archaeology, today I cover field recording: aspects of drawing and note-taking in the field.I'm drawing the brick paved floor in the area of the Ninurta courtyard that leads to the shrine, or cella, of Ninurta itself. I do it by measuring and marking the bricks and details by hand on graph paper. This is an old technique and some people feel is no longer necessary since computers can do it, essentially. I talk about the process of drawing to scale and why I still do it even though we do have computer methods now that can geo-rectify photos and scale them correctly to a measurable grid. We do use these methods, but there are reasons to have analog back-ups and the old-school drawing on grid paper with a pencil is still valuable even in our modern era.My primary reason for doing a relatively time-consuming drawing is that it makes me examine the evidence very carefully in person. This gives me a better understanding of the architecture or artifact while it is right in front of me, rather than trying to do that mainly from photos.Ultimately, we need to use as many methods as we can to make sure we document the site as well as possible, so combinations of methods are the best bet.
Ancient Gold (a little, anyway) Artifactually Speaking 2025-03-26 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I take a look at -- Gold! Of course, gold is not the object of our search at all, but in royal contexts like here on the citadel of Nimrud/Kalhu, it does show up. Most of it was looted long ago, especially in the destruction of the city around 612 BCE. But small pieces like this sometimes missed the hands of ancient looters and show us that the ancient kings who built these places weren't lying when they said they built their temples with all sorts of luxury goods, including gold, silver, and lapis.In this case we have only a small bit of sheet gold that must have originally covered something near the entrance to the shrine of Ninurta. It's not an overly impressive piece, but it does tell us something. For example, it has a narrow curvature that might show it originally was wrapped around a pole of some sort, possibly bearing a banner that indicated the door to Ninurta's shrine off of the courtyard. We know this opening was highly decorated. Not only do we have the decorative bricks fallen here, but Layard also found two enormous stone lion lamassu here in 1849. Those lamassu were moved to the Mosul Museum in 1973 and unfortunately, were then destroyed by ISIS/DAESH in 2015.
Ancient Assyrian Decorative Bricks Artifactually Speaking 2025-03-19 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I take a look at bricks.I've covered bricks before, and that's no surprise since they are the basic building blocks for Mesopotamian structures in general. In this case, I'm looking at decorated bricks from the Neo-Assyrian temple of Ninurta at Nimrud/Kalhu. We have found hundreds of these fallen between and in front of the entrance to the shrine of Ninurta and I believe they originally formed an arch or vaulted roof that led to the shrine itself. The design is elaborately decorated in black, white, yellow, and blue. Mostly they are geometric designs, but some floral are also noted. We will attempt to join the designs where possible to see the overall motif of this archway.I've gotten particularly interested in the designs on the brick that would not have been seen. This seems a curious addition, that there would be drawings and lines on surfaces of the brick that would be covered by other bricks. I wonder if these might be instructions for how to lay the bricks in the first place, by matching different numbers of lines. Or perhaps they are just doodles that the artists made in partial boredom or in creative moments.
Ancient Statuary: Elaborate Assyrian Beard Artifactually Speaking 2025-03-12 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, a piece of a blue frit beard (not an Assyrian pirate, but definitely a blue beard).Frit (sometimes called faience or even referred to by its colorant as Egyptian Blue) is a substance I've talked about before. Its composition is similar to what makes up glass but it isn't fired high enough to vitrify. It was a relatively common substance in Mesopotamia, especially in later periods, and was used to make a variety of decorative objects, embellishments, and inlays. In this case, it would have formed part of a composite statue, as the curls of an elaborate beard. The statue would have been around life size and may have been a cult statue of a male deity.We've found many pieces of such beards this season at Nimrud and I have wondered if the cult statue had a variety of interchangeable beards. Watch out if the deity is wearing his angry beard on the day you visit! While they probably weren't interchangeable, this beard likely was an addition to a wooden statue that was decorated with many other materials like cloth and even gold. We are revealing new shrines to various gods this season and so we're finding a lot of decorative materials.
Ancient Armor and Arrows #assyria #archaeology Artifactually Speaking 2025-03-07 | The ancient city of Kalhu, now known as Nimrud, was destroyed around 612BCE. We are excavating in the destruction levels and find a lot of burning and building collapse, but not many weapons. We do find armor scales and arrowheads, including stone arrowheads. Are they just accidental inclusions in the soil from a long time before, or were the Iron Age Assyrians still sometimes using much older stone weapon technology? I'm not really sure but it might be hard to get enough iron for lots of arrows, but stone was easier to come by in northern Mesopotamia.I'm completing edits on many videos from this season, so new videos will drop soon.Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
Ancient Copper Buttons = Armor? #history #archaeology Artifactually Speaking 2025-03-03 | These are a few of the buttons found at Nimrud/Kalhu in 2024. At first I thought they were nail heads, but cleaning the dirt showed that the back was not a broken nail shaft, but a loop. Some may have been bosses or studs used on leather armor.I'm completing edits on many videos from this season, so new videos will drop soon.Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
Ancient Figurine Face #history #archaeology Artifactually Speaking 2025-02-26 | The face of an Assyrian figurine found at Nimrud/Kalhu in 2024.I'm completing edits on many videos from this season, so new videos will drop soon.Join @artifactuallyspeaking for more fascinating artifacts like this one!
The Hand of a Goddess? Artifactually Speaking 2024-11-27 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I take a look at an artifact I had never seen before, but that was found here at Nimrud (Kalhu) in the Ishtar courtyard area. Some of the courtyard had been excavated before, but it is a very large space and much of it was left unexcavated. It was a large, open space, with no roof, and yet the 'Hand of Ishtar' as this artifact is typically called, is thought to help support roof beams.It also has an inscription that localizes it to the Ninurta temple. So maybe it has shifted in its location, but Ishtar's temple here is attached to Ninurta's, so maybe that didn't matter. It's also coated with bitumen, which sometimes indicates use with water, so some say it might have held a rain gutter, though bitumen is also sometimes used as a mortar or fixative.Artifacts like this one have been found at other Assyrian sites and we don't know precisely how they were used, but they almost certainly were imbedded in walls to help support some kind of roof fixture. Join me, and Assyriologist Dr. John MacGinnis, as we look at this intriguing artifact!
Excavation: How the Archaeological Sausage is Made Artifactually Speaking 2024-11-13 | Excavations at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) continued in Spring 2024. While digging in one of our contexts in the south portion of the gate chamber between the Ishtar and Ninurta temples (we excavated the north portion in Spring 2023) I filmed a bit of the actual process of excavation. Most of my filming to this point has been done when we aren't working directly at the site, since noise levels can be quite high when we have so many people working. In this case, those noises are definitely heard, so the audio isn't as good as might be hoped. I have enhanced it somewhat so I'm easier heard, so I hope it works, and I hope this shows some of the day-to-day.In the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes many years ago, Calvin tried his hand at archaeology and decided it was 'the most mind-numbingly boring job on the planet.' This was largely because of the slow pace of careful digging, but I find it fascinating and therapeutic. Here you only have to endure about 6 minutes of it. Hopefully you'll see some of the fascination I do, despite the fact that in this sequence I uncover nothing more than brick, stone, and charcoal.
Ancient Demon: Queen of the Night? Artifactually Speaking 2024-10-30 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, a spooky Halloween demon? or is it an angelic being full of good? I talk about a frit plaque whose interpretation could be either of these. We excavated it in the gateway between the Ishtar and Ninurta temples at the ancient city of Nimrud (Kalhu) in the spring 2024 season. It was in many pieces and we put those back together, but we're still missing about half of the original object. It represents a figure that has been variously interpreted as a goddess (an aspect of Ishtar herself) or a demon (Lilith). I go over the possibilities but (spoiler alert) as usual come to no true conclusion, only that it could be either. Then again, why would they depict a baby-eating demon in Ishtar's temple?Other parts of similar plaques were found in the temple complex long ago (1850s) and not so long ago (~2001) so it was a popular depiction here. This makes me lean towards the plaque being a representation of some aspect of Ishtar (possibly connected with the netherworld?).
Ancient Clay Ball? Artifactually Speaking 2024-10-16 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I talk about a ball of clay? No, really. It's a fired ball of clay that has a hole running through it and decorated bands on the outside. At least it's decorative.We find many fragments of these in and around the temple complex of Ishtar and Ninurta at Nimrud, and so did Layard and Mallowan (archaeologists who worked at Nimrud long ago). But what were they used for?The ones Layard brought back to London in the 1850s are typically catalogued as 'ceremonial mace heads', but I'm not convinced of that. I present a few ideas here, but ultimately we don't really know what these decorative clay balls were used for.
Nimrud: Ishtar/Ninurta Temple, Spring 2024 Artifactually Speaking 2024-10-02 | Excavations at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) continued in Spring 2024. Nearing the end of our short season, I filmed this walk-through of our excavations in the connected temples of Ishtar and Ninurta near the base of the ziggurat. We completed excavation of the gate chamber between the two temples, damaged by ISIS in 2015, and expanded to begin connecting this ancient chamber with maps of the ancient walls in the surrounding area made by archaeologists long ago.The maps from the late 19th century are particularly unreliable, but we expected that those of the 1950s would be better. But we were hindered by the fact that those maps are not linked to modern coordinate systems and that the landmarks they referenced (like the ziggurat) had been badly disturbed by ISIS and thus no longer functioned as good measuring points.We will continue to unveil areas of this important temple complex, that of the most important deities to the Assyrians, in future seasons, but part of the adventure is the current work and the hurdles we have to overcome, the mysteries we have to solve, along the way. That's why I like making these in the moment videos for all of you.
More Ancient Volume Measurement Artifactually Speaking 2024-09-18 | Excavations at Nimrud continued in April/May 2024. My colleagues told me of a vessel they had found in 2022 that had markings that might indicate its intended volume and I was naturally intrigued. We retrieved it from storage and I went about testing that volume, and filmed it of course.It held its surprises, but at least I have a theory on how it fits in with ancient capacity measures and the shift in mathematical analysis from sexagesimal (base 60) to decimal (base 10) that seems to have been occurring in Northern Mesopotamia, possibly with influence from Egyptian calculations through contact, conquest, and trade in the Levant.Assyrians often used 'double units' compared to the those in the south. For example, they calculated weight in double minas and they had a unit (often called the 'homer') that was essentially a double bariga. But after they doubled the unit, they divided not be 120 (double the sexagesimal unit of 60), but by 100, a clearly decimal unit. This apparently led to a difference of 5/6 between many northern and southern units.
Ancient Mesopotamian Mystery Object Artifactually Speaking 2024-09-09 | In this video I sit down with my Summer intern, Nathaniel Erb, to look at an interesting object from Sir Leonard Woolley's excavations at the ancient city of Ur. This one was excavated around 1931, but other items like it have been found, often in graves. The name we give it may not actually be indicative of its use and I've long been curious about this type of copper artifact.So, I called it up from storage to talk about it and give Nate some more experience at investigating ancient artifacts. He does a great job of thinking about the possibilities and we come to a few possible conclusions, but I won't spoil it.The Summer internship program ran from Jun-Aug 2024 and my assigned intern, Nathaniel Erb from The Catholic University in Washington DC, organized data from Square 6, made maps of the levels, and investigated the time period and possible activities represented in the structure we found there the paid internship program is open to college students (typically advanced undergrad years and early grad years) from all over, so I encourage those interested to find out more and apply.
Ancient Mesopotamian Figurines Artifactually Speaking 2024-08-28 | In the 2022 season of excavations at the ancient city of Ur, we excavated four trenches. Processing this data for publication is a lengthy task, and in order to help, I took on an intern in the Penn Museum summer intern program for 2024.The program ran from Jun-Aug 2024 and my assigned intern, Nathaniel Erb from The Catholic University in Washington DC, organized data from Square 6, made maps of the levels, and investigated the time period and possible activities represented in the structure we found there. In order to better understand the artifacts he was seeing in photos and type numbers (all of those artifacts remain in Iraq), I brought a few similar objects from Woolley's excavations up from storage to the study room so that we could get a feel for them, so to speak.This video covers our discussion about ancient figurines, since two broken examples were found in the trench that Nate was working on. I had him research the types to come to conclusions about time period, manufacture, and how these objects might have been used in the space where we found them.There is a wide variety of ancient figurines and many theories about their use. We cover some of those, but (spoiler alert?) ultimately admit that there had to be many different uses for these objects in the ancient world.More objects like these can be seen in the Penn Museum Middle East Galleries, and the paid summer internship program is open to college students from all over, so I encourage those interested to find out more about it and apply.
Ancient Grain Measure? Artifactually Speaking 2024-06-05 | Here I show my preliminary work on a theory that what is currently classified as a 4,000-year-old drainpipe is actually a 4,000-year-old grain measuring tool.We don't really know what the metric equivalent of ancient Mesopotamian volume measures are, but we have a general idea. And I can certainly show that this object was not a drainpipe, even though it was found beneath a temple floor. Mathematically calculating the volume of the cylinder can be done, but it isn't an exact cylinder. The interior diameter fluctuates, making the calculation difficult. So, I'm going to fill the pipe with barley and measure it that way.I run into various troubles along the way and my experiment is definitely not without its inaccuracies, but I come up with a result that is interesting nonetheless.I'm currently working on a scholarly article with more research into this idea and I hope to have that published sometime in the next year, but I thought I'd show part of the work in progress now.You can see this clay cylinder on display in the Penn Museum Middle East Galleries.
Ancient Ration Bowl? The Enigmatic BRB Artifactually Speaking 2024-05-22 | Today I'm back in the Near East Study Room at the Penn Museum looking at Mesopotamian artifacts. The focus of this episode is a rather crude looking bowl that we call the Beveled Rim Bowl, or BRB for short.It was very popular in the Late Uruk period more than 5,000 years ago, but we don't really know what it was used for. An Uruk period site can have tens of thousands of these bowls, so many that excavators have been known to suggest they are more common than the dirt itself!But why? It's not a simple soup bowl, since it isn't good at holding liquids. Some say it's for baking, or for cheese-making, or even salt drying. I like the idea that it might be a ration bowl, filled with grain for a day's work, or half a day, or something like that. So in this video I measure this one while talking about the importance of measurement and the difficulty of knowing the ancient standards.Join me, and, be sure to visit the Penn Museum whenever you can. We've got one of these bowls on display and a replica of one you can touch.https://www.penn.museum/visit/plan-your-visit
Ancient Mesopotamian Projectile Weapons #ancient #history Artifactually Speaking 2024-04-10 | We are still going through the records and data from the 2022 season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq for publication. In the process I'm making more videos from field footage and from recent footage using photos of some of the artifacts.I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Ancient Mesopotamian Figurine: King? #ancient #history #artifacts Artifactually Speaking 2024-04-03 | An ancient clay figurine, about 4000 years old, possibly of a king or other important individual. It was found at Ur in southern Iraq, one of the first cities in the world, in the 2022 Penn Museum excavation season.I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Archaeology Tour Ur: Cuneiform Tablet find! Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-27 | In October and November of 2022, the Penn Museum conducted the first post-pandemic excavation season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq. Our main goal was to more completely understand habitation at the edges of the city and just beyond its technical limits. The edge of the mound is still marked by what had been the rampart or revetment on which stood the city wall in the Ur III period, about 4000 years agoArea 5 at Ur is near the southern edge of the mound and here, Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian houses appear to have more space in them and between them than those in the city center. This season we completed the excavation of one of these houses and looked at parts of an early house beneath it.In this video, we tour the revealed parts of the earlier, Ur III building, and we get to see the excavation of a very interesting cuneiform tablet that was discovered while we were touring!00:00 intro00:41 square 5, Ur III building01:44 Old Babylonian above Ur III02:43 tour continues03:20 a bowl full of tablets04:31 tour continues 04:51 a new tablet revealed!07:00 what is the tablet?08:09 relationship of the tablets09:37 outro
Archaeology Tour Ur: Area 5 has the Nicest Toilet? Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-20 | In October and November of 2022, the Penn Museum conducted the first post-pandemic excavation season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq. Our main goal was to more completely understand habitation at the edges of the city and just beyond its technical limits. The edge of the mound is still marked by what had been the rampart or revetment on which stood the city wall in the Ur III period, about 4000 years agoHouses on the interior edge of the city are not well understood. Woolley assumed that all were densely packed just as the more central ones were, but magnetometry is showing us that might not be the case. In 2017 and 2019, Archaeologists from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich began excavating a large house near the wall in the south of the city. It was more spacious than most that Woolley had dug, and there was more room between it and the next. In 2022, they completed the excavation of the house, and in this video we will follow the head of that team, Prof. Adelheid Otto, as she shows us some amazing features of this house, including a 'beautiful' toilet!More importantly, we've learned a lot about the original owners of the house, around 1850 BCE, from the cuneiform tablets they left behind. Prof. Otto will be publishing the house in full soon, and this is just a peak at the many things this building can tell us.00:00 intro00:35 square 5 background02:50 tour north side04:24 tour inside05:18 ancient owners 06:14 kitchen07:25 overview of house08:17 second phase shops09:22 ancient toilet10:38 later owners and outro
Ancient Mesopotamian Mask Figure: Humbaba #ancient #history Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-14 | A small clay mask, about 4000 years. It probably hung on a wall (though we call it a mask, it is too small to be worn). The face is 'grotesque' in art historical terms, meaning that it is intentionally monstrous in its form, and it probably represented Humbaba (also written Huwawa). This was a creature that appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh and in some accounts, had entrails as part of his face. Clay masks like this were used to scare away other evils, similar to the way the image of Medusa was used in later Greek myth.This mask was found in the Penn Museum excavations at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq in 2022. I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Ancient Mesopotamian Needle #ancient #archaeology Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-12 | This is a tiny needle found by sifting the soil in archaeological contexts. It is so small that we probably couldn't have found it without the soil sieve.We are still going through the records and data from the 2022 season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq for publication. In the process I'm making more videos from field footage and from recent footage using photos of some of the artifacts.I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Ancient Babylonian Iron Knife #ancient #history Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-07 | We're still going through the records and data from the 2022 season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq, preparing for publication. In the process I'm making more videos from field footage and from recent footage using photos of some of the artifacts.I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Ancient Mesopotamian Sherd Tool #ancient #history Artifactually Speaking 2024-03-05 | We are still processing the records and data from the 2022 season at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq for publication. In the process I'm making more videos from field footage and from recent footage using photos of some of the artifacts.I can't say a lot in a short, so be sure to check out my longer videos on the channel!http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Nimrud: Ishtar Temple, 2023, part 2 Artifactually Speaking 2023-11-29 | I worked primarily in the Ishtar Temple at Nimrud this past season (Spring 2023) and filmed a walkthrough at the end of each week. I combined weeks 2 and 3 into this intro tour and saved the final week for part 2.This is part two, end of week four of our rather short season. We typically dig for 6-8 weeks, but in this season we were still establishing our base camp and there were only four of us supervising. We are planning a much bigger season in October where we will have many more specialists, including conservators and artists to help care for and document the artifacts and buildings.We have done much of the initial clean-up work and begun to learn a great deal about previously unexcavated areas. These areas will tie our maps together and help us understand the overall layout of the citadel mound. A team is currently working on cleaning the major debris from the Northwest Palace and that work will continue. It was the most completely reconstructed building prior to the ISIS takeover, and the one that was most heavily targeted by ISIS.In this video, I give a final walkthrough of the double gateway we've cleared this season and talk a bit more about its placement between the Ishtar and Ninurta temples. We've still got much work to do, but we've learned a lot already and we'll learn still more in the next season.00:00 intro00:56 temples overview02:43 gateway from Ninurta04:40 gate chamber06:16 Isthar courtyard06:39 wrap-up and outro
Ancient Gate, part 2: Iron Brackets Artifactually Speaking 2023-11-22 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I talk again about a door that's no longer there. But it was a big double door and we know (largely) what it looked like from the evidence left behind when it burned 2600 years ago. Not only are there nails and remains of copper or bronze plates that fastened the wooden planks, but also iron brackets that supported the planks and held them to the large rotating posts.The iron is in pretty good shape despite the corrosion and burning it has been subjected to.. The city was sacked and burned in 612 BCE and the evidence is quite clear here in the remains of the burned door post and its iron and copper fittings.Similar Assyrian double door gates have been found elsewhere, particularly at Balawat. This site, known as Imgur-Enlil in ancient times, is not far from Nimrud and the door bands and nails found there allowed the British Museum to reconstruct the gate to a great degree. The reconstruction is on display in London. Our doors were very similar, about 4 meters (around 13 feet) tall and 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) wide.
Ancient Gate, part 1: Bronze Door Nails Artifactually Speaking 2023-11-15 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I talk about a door that's no longer there. But it was a big double door and we know (largely) what it looked like from the evidence left behind when it burned 2600 years ago. Not only are there remains of mudbrick walls and stone threshold blocks, but also pieces of copper or bronze plates that fastened the wooden planks, and many, many nails.We found around a hundred of these nails, all relatively similar, though some are bent from hammering and all are relatively warped with age, corrosion, and the heat of the fire that destroyed the door. The city was sacked and burned in 612 BCE and the evidence is quite clear here.Similar Assyrian double door gates have been found elsewhere, particularly at Balawat. This site, known as Imgur-Enlil in ancient times, is not far from Nimrud and the door bands and nails found there allowed the British Museum to reconstruct the gate to a great degree. The reconstruction is on display in London. Our doors were very similar, about 4 meters (around 13 feet) tall and 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) wide.
Ancient Artifact: Ivory Inlay Artifactually Speaking 2023-11-08 | This time on Artifactually Speaking, I talk about a material that's banned for use today but that was often used in the ancient world to make high-end objects--ivory.Trade in ivory grew so large in the modern era of the 19th and 20th centuries that it led to wholesale slaughter of elephants and the international community rightly banned it. Unfortunately, poaching of elephants for the illegal trade in ivory is still a problem, as is the looting of archaeological sites for the illegal trade in ancient artifacts.In the ancient world, elephant (and hippopotamus) ivory was traded along major trade routes, and a great many ivory inlays were found at Nimrud in excavations over the past 200 years. It's no surprise that we've already uncovered several pieces, though none yet as highly detailed as some found many decades ago.This particular piece is broken and relatively plain, but interesting for the evidence of how it was worked. It was probably set into a piece of furniture and it, in turn, originally had pieces of colored glass or frit imbedded in it. The slots to receive those inlays are intact and were drilled out with a hollow bit.
Agatha Christie and Nimrud Artifactually Speaking 2023-11-01 | Working at Nimrud in Northern Iraq, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the ancient site's tie to perhaps the greatest mystery writer the world has ever known -- Dame Agatha Christie.Agatha married archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930 and worked closely with him on archaeological sites after that. The couple began working at Nimrud in 1949 and built a dig house there in 1950. It was expanded twice, and in the later expansion, Agatha had a special room built for her to write in.She wrote much of her autobiography in that room and no doubt worked there on many of her mystery books that came out in the decade of the 1950s.But she was also working on archaeology. She became a good photographer and took most of the photos of the excavated artifacts, and she cleaned and cared for many of the objects as they came out of the ground.She truly enjoyed the archaeological world, setting several of her mystery stories within it, and she is attributed as having said that an archaeologist is the best person to marry, because the older you get, the more interested they are in you.
Nimrud: Northwest Palace of Assurnasirpal II Artifactually Speaking 2023-10-25 | The Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program and Penn Museum began work at Nimrud in 2022. There were several main goals, chief among them to help the Iraqis rebuild after the ISIS destructions of 2015/2016. Of course, another goal was to learn more about the Neo Assyrian people who originally built the site and lived in it.I joined early in 2023 and worked mainly in the Ishtar Temple. But I took a lot of video footage around the site, especially in association with making the initial maps of the citadel and especially the areas where we were working. In this video, I visit the Northwest Palace and talk about its history.This large palace was excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries by many different archaeologists, then reconstructed in the 1950s-1970s as a tourist site. In 2015, however, ISIS planted barrel bombs and destroyed it. For an interesting virtual version of the reconstructed palace, see this Metropolitan Museum video: youtube.com/watch?v=5VCldg1TdHcThe Smithsonian Institute has been locating the fragments of the original relief sculptures that were still in the palace when it was destroyed (both originals and copies were present in the reconstruction). They have covered them in place and mapped their locations, with the eventual plan of reconstructing as many of the destroyed reliefs as possible.In mid-2023 the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage began intense cleanup of the NW Palace in preparation for rebuilding, but when I made this video it was largely in the same state it was after the explosion. After cleanup is completed, we will help them with plans for rebuilding the palace as a place to visit once more.
Ancient Inscribed Brick: King of the Universe? Artifactually Speaking 2023-10-18 | I worked at the ancient city of Nimrud, capital of the Assyrian Empire in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, in late March to early May of 2023. The excavation was directed by Dr. Michael Danti and supported by the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation and the Penn Museum. We worked in conjunction with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage throughout.While there I filmed several of our finds and excavation units. A frequent find were inscribed bricks and in this video I talk with Dr. John MacGinnis, who specializes in cuneiform writing. He tells us what the brick says and goes into some fascinating detail about some of the words and phrases.Nimrud was sacked and burned in 612 BCE. It has been excavated off and on for the past 200 years and partly reconstructed in the 1970s and 80s. Then ISIS sacked it again in 2015/16. We're now cleaning up the ISIS destruction, learning more about the Neo-Assyrian people, and helping to rebuild.00:00 intro00:35 background on bricks01:35 reading a brick03:40 finding bricks05:38 king of the universe?06:53 scribal practice?07:33 farewell and outro
Nimrud: Ishtar Temple, 2023, part 1 Artifactually Speaking 2023-10-11 | I worked primarily in the Ishtar Temple at Nimrud this past excavation season (Spring 2023) and filmed a walkthrough at the end of each week. I combined weeks 2 and 3 into this intro tour and saved the final week for part 2.There were two temples dedicated to Ishtar at Nimrud. One was to Ishtar Kidmuri, the other to Ishtar Sharrat Niphi. The Kidmuri temple has gone almost completely unexcavated but is not easily accessed at the moment. The Sharrat Niphi temple, however, had been partially excavated in the 1850s and in 2001/2002. ISIS also dug into it in 2016, leaving a large pit. We needed to assess that damage and then find out what we could learn by expanding the pit in a scientific way.In fact, this area was a key connection point between the Ishtar and Ninurta temples. It looks like ISIS attacked this very spot because they had heard about the find of a potential gateway here in 2001/2002 by Iraqi archaeologist Muzahim Hussein. He revealed part of the gateway but didn't complete the excavation of it. ISIS probably thought there would be valuable material in the gate since it was protected by stone bulls. They dug in with machinery and badly damaged the stone paving. Who knows if they found any portable antiquities, but they did miss the second gate. We were able to document their damage and learn much about the original Assyrian building.00:00 intro00:21 Isthar court east02:07 Ishtar cella03:01 reconstructed walls04:24 importance of history05:14 gate chamber ISIS pit06:12 monumental gate06:38 digging the gate07:48 wrap-up and outro
Nimrud: Palace of Adad Nirari III, 2023 Artifactually Speaking 2023-10-04 | I filmed a lot of raw footage during our relatively short field season in the Spring of 2023 and it has taken me a long time to edit it. I then had to decide the order to release videos in. I think it best to give background and overview of excavations before going into individual artifacts. So, I'll start with a video taken rather late in the season when we had largely understood the areas we were digging and revealed many walls and floors, etc.I worked mostly in the Temple of Ishtar, but our team was working another area as well, the 'Upper Chambers,' more correctly known as the Palace of Adad Nirari III. I asked the dig director, Dr. Michael Danti, to give us a tour of that building since he understands it better than any of us. It has long been a confusing area, though, dug by Layard and Loftus in the 1840s/50s and the old maps were incorrect or misleading.The first Penn season began to get to grips with the confusion in the first season, Fall of 2022, and more of the building has been revealed in the second season, Spring 2023, under the immediate supervision of Dr. John MacGinnis. There's still a lot to learn, but this video shows what we know at the moment.00:00 intro and background01:11 tour outside palace05:12 tour inside palace07:59 Layard's upper chambers10:19 legend of Semiramis
Ancient Monument: What is a Stele? Artifactually Speaking 2023-09-27 | I worked at the ancient city of Nimrud, capital of the Assyrian Empire in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE, in late March to early May of 2023. The excavation was directed by Dr. Michael Danti and supported by the Penn Museum and University Research Foundation. We worked in conjunction with the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage throughout.While there I filmed several of our finds and excavation units. Here I talk about a stele we uncovered in the Temple of Ishtar. A stele is a stone monument, often with a curved top and relief decoration. Some are inscribed, but this one is not. It's also rather broken but we are finding other pieces of it in the surrounding soil.This stele had been exposed before; it was at the edge of a pit dug by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in 2016. They cut into the temple with machines in search of antiquities to sell. They may have damaged the stele in the process, but there is also evidence that it might have been defaced in the ancient past.Nimrud was destroyed in 612 BCE and the temple was sacked and burned at that time. We're now cleaning up the ISIS destruction and investigating the temple in a scientific manner to learn more about it and the Neo-Assyrian people.00:00 intro00:21 what is a stele01:25 condition of the stele02:01 Ishtar fragment03:28 finding the stele04:19 detailed carving05:31 purpose and meaning?06:12 wrap-up and outro
Nimrud in the British Museum Artifactually Speaking 2023-09-20 | On my way to excavate at Nimrud in the Spring of 2023 I stopped in the British Museum. Many British archaeologists have worked at Nimrud over the past 200 years, including Austen Henry Layard (1840s), William Kennett Loftus (1850s), and Max Mallowan (1950s). Some of the objects they excavated are stored in the British Museum and there's an entire gallery of stone reliefs from the site on display.I wanted to refresh my memory on Neo-Assyrian representational styles and see some of these large monuments. And as I went, I recorded a bit of my observations and ramblings. I was not there on official business and this video is not sponsored or endorsed by the British Museum. Any mistakes I make or opinions I give are my own.Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that the Assyrians had some sort of alien guidance in making such impressive objects. Did they have anti-gravity technology, military tanks, and diving gear? I'll show a few images that have been (rarely and with no evidence) interpreted that way. The obvious answer, however, is no. As science fiction ideas, however, they're fun and I'd like to write a short story that has the Neo-Assyrians utilizing some of these technologies. If you haven't read any of my sci-fi stories (most not related to the ancient world in any way) you could do worse than start with a futuristic one I wrote ten years ago that was turned into an audio version and recapped in 2020 on Escape Pod:escapepod.org/2020/06/12/escape-pod-736-techno-rat-summer-flashbackEnjoy!timestamps for video chapters:00:00 intro00:39 stelae (monuments)01:17 apkallu reliefs03:32 warfare reliefs05:08 river crossing05:47 lion statues06:53 outro
Mysteries with Milo! Part 3: Carving Stone Artifactually Speaking 2023-06-21 | I'm looking at two more mystery objects with Milo Rossi! We finally got a chance to work together in person, and this is part of the series of videos we filmed together. You'll see other versions of some of the same stuff on his channel, and some exclusive stuff from our visit there too.For our session in the study room, I called up several unusual artifacts from Penn museum storage but didn't tell Milo what they were. We'll see what he thinks they are and if he can start a conspiracy theories by guessing with little initial evidence. Then we'll discuss what these objects probably really were and what they might have meant to the ancient people who made and used them. Aliens? No, but you can decide for yourself.Special thanks to Milo Rossi! Be sure to follow him on YouTube, @miniminuteman773 and look for him on various social media.Finally, be sure to visit the Penn Museum whenever you can. It's a great day out, learning about cultures around the world.https://www.penn.museum/visit/plan-your-visit
Mysteries with Milo! Part 2: Ritual? Artifactually Speaking 2023-06-14 | I'm finally back to posting videos. First I'll catch up on a few vids backlogged before my trip to Nimrud, then into the new field season material.This time (actually from way back in February), I'm looking at two more mystery objects with one of my favorite YouTubers, Milo Rossi! We finally got a chance to work together in person, and this is part of the series of videos we filmed together. You'll see other versions of some of the same stuff on his channel, and some exclusive stuff from our visit there too.For our session in the study room, I called up several unusual artifacts from Penn museum storage but didn't tell Milo what they were. We'll see what he thinks they are and if he can start a conspiracy theories by guessing with little initial evidence. Then we'll discuss what these objects probably really were and what they might have meant to the ancient people who made and used them. Aliens? No, but you can decide for yourself.Special thanks to Milo Rossi! Be sure to follow him on YouTube, @miniminuteman773 and look for him on various social media.Finally, be sure to visit the Penn Museum whenever you can. It's a great day out, learning about cultures around the world.https://www.penn.museum/visit/plan-your-visit
Worlds Oldest 6-Sided Dice Artifactually Speaking 2023-05-10 | Found at Tepe Gawra in Northern Iraq in the 1930s, this six-sided die (d6 to gamers) dates back 4500 years ago. Yet, it looks rather modern (despite it not being a perfect cube). It's made of baked clay, so might not take the abuse that modern dice are put through, but it's amazing that it looks so modern despite its age.Be sure to join me and Milo Rossi (@miniminuteman773) as we look at this object and several others in the Penn Museum Near East Study Room.http://youtube.com/@artifactuallyspeaking
Casting Ancient Lots with a Special Guest! Artifactually Speaking 2023-05-03 | I'm still in the field, but I'm releasing a collaboration with a great YouTuber that we filmed back in February:This time on Artifactually Speaking, I'm looking at two mystery objects called up from storage at the Penn Museum, and I'm looking at them with a mystery guest. Oh, there's no fooling any of you. We all know who it is -- my favorite and yours, Milo Rossi! We finally got a chance to work together in person, and this is part of the series of videos we filmed together. You'll see other versions of some of the same stuff on his channel, and some exclusive stuff there too.Milo doesn't know what I've brought to the study room for him to see. I'll get his reaction and maybe we'll start some conspiracy theories by guessing what they might be on little initial evidence. Actually, he ends up correcting me on at least one point. Watch as we both learn about these fascinating ancient artifacts!Special thanks to Milo. Be sure to follow him on YouTube and his socials, @miniminuteman773 And be sure to visit the Penn Museum whenever you can. It's a great day out, learning about cultures around the world.https://www.penn.museum/visit/plan-your-visit
