Eric Cline masterfully deconstructs the Bronze Age geopolitical landscape, proving that the complexities of modern diplomacy were already perfected in clay 3,000 years ago. This is a definitive masterclass in how ancient archives can still speak volumes to our contemporary global order.
Install our extension to search inside any video instantly.
Letters from Amarna: Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians & Hittites with Eric ClineAdded:
Flint Dibble. I'm here with Dr. Eric Klene. Uh he's been on the channel before, so he doesn't need too much of an introduction, I would imagine. But uh while the internet pings people that this stream is starting, let's listen to some intro music really quickly.
What the hell?
Heat. Heat.
All right, so let's go. How are you doing, Eric? It's been a I don't know.
It's been a year or two, I guess, since I've seen you.
>> It's been too long, let's put it that way. But yes, I'm doing I'm doing fine.
How about you?
>> Yeah, I'm doing okay. I'm impressed with your gamer headphones that you brought to this.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I spend most of my time gaming. That's actually Yeah. Yeah.
That's The secret is out. I game all the time. No.
>> So, you're into like games set in ancient Egypt and the Near East. Is that it?
>> Oh, I have been a consultant for some of them. But, >> okay.
>> I I have to disabuse the internet. I'm afraid I'm not a gamer. my son is. But I have these headphones and this chair because I'm on so many podcasts and I sit in this chair writing so often that frankly gamer headsets and gamer chairs are the best on the market from my point of view. So there I am. But no, the people that think I'm spending all my time playing, you know, Civilization or Total War, all that. Yeah, I wish I had that time, but no. No. But you have plenty of time for podcast appearances thankfully.
>> Of course. Well, I I always have time for you, Flint.
>> Oh, I thank you. Uh you're always welcome as well. That's for sure. Um so the occasion is is I mean this was I guess published last year in the US and earlier this year in the UK, but the occasion is this lovely book, Love, War, and Diplomacy, The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed. Um, let me throw this in the chat, the link for people. Published by Princeton University Press. So, all right. This is this is actually kind of crazy. These these Amarna letters are really, really cool. Do you want to um what what got you to write this book first of all before we get into what they are?
>> Right. So, they are cool. They are they are very very cool. And yeah, it came out a couple of months ago here in the UK. And it's a book I'd been wanting to write for years and just never had the time and had too many other commitments.
But um when I had the chance, I leaped at it. I actually wrote it without telling anybody. Nobody was knew. I mean, not even Princeton, not even my editor, but I had been studying these letters since I was um in graduate school at Penn and had always thought it would be interesting to write something about them. So um what I did and we can go into the details of it but basically I wrote the book and then said to Princeton here you weren't expecting this but you have right of first refusal so let me know what you think and so I sent it to them and they said we like it we'll take it. I'm like okay good excellent. So, but it was uh I I wanted I mean I wanted to write something where I didn't have the pressure of having an advanced contract and having to meet deadlines. I just wanted to write it on my own because I wanted to do it and and it worked. And hopefully the I hesitate to say love, but hopefully the love that went into writing it shows through uh in in the in the text. So, but it's not for everyone. I will say that it is a deep dive. It is a deep dive into 30 years and one particular archive. So I tried to make it as interesting as possible, but there will be some people that go, "Whoa, this is boring." And others that go, "Whoa, this is interesting." So we'll see. We'll see.
>> Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's it's very different from these 1177 books that are like the big picture marching you through centuries and centuries and centuries. This is kind of one archive in a sense and the network that I guess is created from the court of Akadantan. Um yes how how we could think about it.
>> That's exactly right. What but what it does is you know those big books 1177 which covered from the 15th to the 12th centuries BC. This is a deep dive into one aspect of the 14th century BC. But that is the framework on which all the other things are built. Because this particular period, the first half middle part of the 14th century BC, this is the golden age of the late Bronze Age. I know that's a little weird to talk about the golden age of the Bronze Age, but there you have it. But so I wanted to show people what life was like when it was good before it all collapsed. And the Amarna letters were the best entryway, the best rabbit hole to go down in order to do that.
>> That makes sense. Um, quick question, Eric. Are you tapping your fingers or anything? Um, not that I know of, but the chair >> when when you talk, there's some sort of like almost static that's happening now.
That was not there when we started.
>> Okay. Well, keep let me know if it keeps going. Oh, I heard that. Let me know. I can change microphones if you want, but uh >> maybe check the connections on the cable maybe.
>> Yeah. Yeah. We're It's all >> That could be it. It's like a bit of static or something.
>> Okay. Well, tell me how is that?
>> It's still there, but it's better.
>> Yeah, I think that's doing better. Um, all right. Sorry about that. Tech issues as always. This is what happens when I invite boomers on the podcast, of course. And >> hey, hey, hey, >> hey, hey, hey. I'm supposed to be polite to my guests, >> right? Okay.
>> No, no, no. But, uh, yes. But I one of the things that I like about this is in many ways I think that this is sort of like I guess like a prequel to 1177 the first one right because it's that golden age of the bronze age and it's setting up that whole kind of the network of connections across the the the Mediterranean at that time and so is that sort of how you sort of thought about it in terms of writing it for the public?
>> Yes, you could you could think about it that way. the members of the public will be interested from that point of view.
Yeah, it's kind of a before 1177, but it's not all the way before. It's like just before. So, but yes, you you could look at it and that way. In fact, in 1177, I mentioned the Yarna letters in passing on a couple of pages, but this is now the real deep dive uh into it because and we can get into it at at your leisure, but this is an archive belonging to Ammon Hotep III and his son Akenatan.
>> So, they are the pharaohs of Egypt, father and son. Uh listeners have probably heard of Akenatan because he's supposed to be the maybe the potential inventor of monotheism. I I don't know if I would go that far, but certainly he's the one that says you can only worship at which is the dis of the sun, not the sun itself that's rather disc.
and he said uh you can't worship any other gods and goddesses just u so this is called the ama revolution but it also extends into art and other things and people have talked about the fact that maybe he was this crazy religious fanatic I I don't think so I think he was actually a brilliant diplomat and um that outlying all the other gods and goddesses meant that he could seize the treasuries ies of the priests of those others plus some of the other uh priests were becoming rivals to him and he was able to kind of ban them that way. So I think I mean he as a result of what he did in religion he was essentially the head of the government, the head of religion, the head of the army, basically the head of everything. So I think it was a really shrewd move and that he doesn't deserve the you know the blacklisting that has been given to him prior but I also think it was started in the reign of his father to a certain extent. A lot of scholars have said that Aman Hotep III really interesting diplomat in contact with all kinds of of other people including what I call the G8, the great powers, right? The Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and so on. And this archive is the letters either sent to or sent from Aman Hutep the third and Aenatan to on the one hand the other great powers but also on the other hand to the various vassel kings in Canaan that owed them allegiance. So there's about 400 letters, actually 382 in this archive, all written on clay tablets. And we can read them and reconstruct the diplomatic stuff going on back then, the commercial stuff, the marital bonds that were going on, and the, you know, the bonds of allegiance between vassel and uh and overlord. So they are a really nice window into life in the 14th century at that time but with the caveat that it's a window that looks at the royals. It looks at the kings. We don't know that much about you know the other 99% but we can tell you what was happening on the elite level.
So they're really interesting from that point of view.
>> That makes sense. Just to really quickly make sure we situate this for the audience. Um, so what what decades are we talking about that this archive is from? So we're thinking 1177 is the end of the Bronze Age. What's this golden age period? What what decades?
>> So go back 200 years earlier, two centuries. Go back the archive is probably about 1360 down to 1330 BC. In terms of pharaohs, it's from almost near the end of Aman Hotep III's reign through Akenatan's reign and maybe maybe maybe into the very early reigns of King Tut Tudan common. So um and the archive was found at the new capital city that Aenatan founded as part of his revolution.
Right. We call it today Amarna.
He called it Ackatatan. Uh I think we have a picture of it somewhere. And um >> Aatan means like the horizon of the Autton. And it is situated like halfway between Cairo and Luxor in modern terms. And Aen. There we are.
Yes. Amarna. I've got it circled in red there. Yes. So this is a brand new city that he builds. Um the British have been excavating there for almost a hundred years and there's uh even now new information coming out. But this was a brand new city that he built and which was abandoned very soon after his death.
So it's a one period site which you know archaeologists love. You start digging and you're right there. Um and the this archive was found in the ruins of Amarna Akataten. Um, it may not be the entire archive, the entire original one, because when King Tut moved the court back down to Luxor, there are some scholars that think he moved all of the correspondence that was still ongoing with him and that this Adamo that was basically left behind might have been the closed files. Okay, these are done.
We don't need to move them. Leave them here. But that's that's just a hypothesis. So we don't know for sure.
Yeah. And if you go to Amarna today, there's almost nothing to see. I went and visited it once. It was rather hard to get to. And when I got there, I was like, "This is it. This is all there is." Right? It's like nothing to see, right? But um that's in part where also it gets rather interesting and that's the the story of how these were found which um and I honestly don't believe the official version that you will read most everywhere and I join other scholars in not believing that the official story is that about what would it be 140 years ago or so in the year 1887, I guess that would be almost exactly 140 years since we're at 2026 now, that a woman that w that was digging in the ruins looking for fertilizer, which fertilizer is often at such sites because you had animals and humans there and antiquity and all of that. So, the story is that she was looking for fert uh fertilizer or maybe even firewood and came across a box full of these clay tablets. Most of them are about the size of your hand, but some of them are up to like a foot tall. Not very many of them, but some of them. And that she, so the story goes, not realizing their value, took them back to her village and sold them for, you know, pennies basically to a guy who did realize their value. And he then sold them, I think, to another guy. And that guy then sold them to various agents that acquired them either for museums or for their own personal collections. And so that's why Yeah.
That's why these 382 letters, 400 tablets in all because there are some other tablets there as well. You now have to go to 14 different museums.
You've got to go to eight countries. You have to go to 10 cities. You have to go to four continents in order to see them all. Now, um I will say that would make a wonderful tour that somebody could lead. Right.
>> Yeah. The Amarna Letters tour.
>> Exactly. Right. You could I mean it'd be a lot of fun to go to all those countries and cities and museums assuming they're all open and would let you see them. So, >> but that's why out of all these, you know, almost 400 tablets, um, there's only just over 50 that are still in Egypt at the museum there. So, uh, Germany's got the most. They've got a little over 200 and so on. Now, I said that I didn't believe that official story of the woman and the fertilizer, and that's for the simple reason that as far as I can tell, nobody could ever locate that woman afterward.
>> She was, >> you know, it's a common story. I think uh I did a YouTube video on Har and that's how the original painted mummies at Hara were supposedly found by somebody digging for fertilizer. So, I think this is just the stock and trade story of 19th century looters.
>> Yes. Yes. It's a Do would you call it a trope of the time? Something like that.
>> A trope. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's either the woman looking for fertilizer or it's the sheep or goat that's gone missing and you have to go find them and they've fallen down a hole which turns out to be a tomb. Right.
Exactly. So the thinking by a couple of scholars whom I I agree with is that the excavations were it was probably illegal excavations by an antiquities dealer. He found these and then concocted the story of the woman as a cover story which okay fine everybody yay what a great story.
And in the meantime, he's the guy that was sold them by the guy that bought them from her, you know. So, he's not at fault. He didn't steal anything.
>> Exactly. He didn't actually go plunder the stuff. He just bought it on the market from somebody else, a nameless, faceless individual who plundered the stuff.
>> Bingo. Yes. And Yeah. But the upshot for us is that we don't know 100% for sure where they were found at the site, right? We think that they're found in this kind of foreign records office uh but we can't be sure. And the later British excavators that were there uh including um Petri or Matthew William Matthew Flenders Petri the man with the best name in archaeology. um he excavated there in the early 1890s just a couple years later and he did find some scraps of tablets and things like that but there's never been another huge group found there and so it's all kind of guesswork educated guesswork but so what we call the records office and the house of life is where we think it comes from but you know again not 100% sure the one thing that is for sure they're not forgeries. They were originally suspected. One French scholar in Paris thought they were forgeries and he dismissed them. But they're not forgeries. They're real.
>> Yeah.
>> And so they can really they give us an insight into life at that time. So yeah.
>> Is that because they were in cuneaoiform? So they sort of thought why the hell are these cuneaoiform tablets in Egypt? Or is it like why were they thought to be forgeries? No, that you're exactly right that you know what's Q&A form um tablets? What are they doing in Egypt? They should be in hieroglyphics and and like the French guy said, I've never seen things like this before in Egypt, so they're probably not. Um but it wasn't long before various people decided that they were uh quite accurate. In fact, we've got um fairly wonderful stories from um Wallace Budge, the Egyptologist at the British Museum, describing how he came across them to begin with and why he decided that they were real and all of that. But yeah, having been written in cuneao form, which is the, you know, it's the wedge-shaped writing system, which is actually on my tie. I have worn this tie in in honor of our talk today. Yes.
Exactly. It g it was a gift from a student. So that was very nice. Um but kunea form is the writing system. It looks it's wedge shaped. That's the Latin. The kune form is Latin for wedge shape. You can use it to write Aadian and Sumerian and Hittite and all of that. So in this case they're written in Aadian which was used mostly in Mesopotamia, Babylon and Assyria. But it was the lingra franc. was the diplomatic language of that day just like French was the diplomatic language in the time of Benjamin Franklin so Aadian was too.
So even though these are in Egypt the they are writing in Aadian because that was the common language that they could send up to the Hittites and over to Mesopotamia even to Cyprus to Canaan all of that. So yeah, but it it took a while for the Assyrianologists and the Egyptologists to accept that these were real. Uh and then they went to work. But that's also where it gets really interesting because these are found in 1887. Like I said, they the academic establishment had only decided officially that they could read Kuneaform and Aadian 30 years earlier in 1857.
Yeah. So these are we're looking at Seace on the left and a seriologist from Oxford and Budge the Egyptologist from the British Museum. They are the two Brits that are involved here. But um 30 years earlier in 1857 uh Sir Austin Henry Leard had been excavating in Mesopotamia and found he found an inscription and they circulated that inscription to four >> scholars and said, "Hey, what's it say?"
And they translated it. Each of them put their translations into a sealed envelope and sent it to the secretary of I think it was the Royal Asiatic Society and when he opened up the entries from the four they were almost identical. Uh it was it turned out to be um an inscription of I think Tiglath Pleszles I from back in the 11th century BC and they all said that was exactly what it was and so it was declared that hey we can now read Kaoform and Aadian. So that was only 30 years before these tablets were were found which is why I know I'm going on here but >> No, you're good. I was going to tell you a story really quickly about why I was reading about Leair just recently for the book I'm writing. And it's because he's the one that came up with the idea that all these really huge stones were transported on wooden log rollers >> cuz he saw some relief an Assyrian relief on it. Turns out he's completely wrong and he misinterpreted that relief.
But uh they weren't made they weren't transported on log rollers and if you want read my book which comes out next year on this. In fact, they're transported mostly on sledges and the wood is actually there as like a a track that you can therefore move the sledge over. But uh >> excellent. So So this means that I need to start a podcast and have you on as my first guest when your book comes out.
>> There you go. Yeah, exactly.
>> Come full >> You got the chair. You got the headset.
You're you're you're just about there now.
>> Yeah. Now I just need the podcast, right? Yeah, exactly. I don't think so.
It's such a crowded field. I'll leave it to you. You can interview yourself. You can >> I'll do that. I'll make a little video with me on different sides.
>> Oh, that would be hysterical.
>> I'll go on other people's podcast.
>> But you've got to do that. You've got You could feed me >> fun actually.
>> It would. Or you could feed me the questions and I will ask you.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> Anyway, right. So, yes. So we've got layered and we've got this wonderful story again that I don't believe a word of it that Budge the Egyptologist whom everybody respected but pretty much hated at the time in one of his obituaries a fellow Egyptologist said I don't think there was another Egyptologist who was more respected and more um hated or despised by his colleagues and you know I'm not sure I would want that in my obituary, but there it is. Anyway, um >> I mean, look, if you're going to be loved, you're going to be hated by some.
That sort of just goes with the territory, I think.
>> Well, this is true. This is true. But Budge, h the problem is if we take him out of his context, we would not agree with anything he did at that time. I mean, he's really colonialist. So, let me give you the example. In his autobiography, he's reminiscing about the Amarna letters.
This autobiography is like 1920. So this is a good 30 years later. Um yeah, this is safe getting there with but Budge.
>> Okay.
>> Right. But Budge um which I think we also have a couple slides later. Um he says that when he got to Cairo, he heard about the fact that the tablets had been uh discovered. In fact, he had heard about it before he left London. and he was about to go to Mesopotamia to modern-day Iraq. When he heard about the discovery, he changed his itinerary and went to Egypt first. And so he says, "When I got there, I went down to Luxor and I met with um my antiquities dealer friend and he introduced me to a guy that came down from Amarna with um six tablets or so and he was looking at them and then uh yeah, in this excerpt when he was looking at them another guy came with 76 more. So, you know, he's looking at about 82 tablets. And he says, and we don't have this in the clip right there, but he says, "I was inside the house with the curtains drawn, and I was examining the tablets by candle light, and I could see that on it were written the names of um Aman Hotepi and Akenadan." Yeah, I think if you go back to the previous one, you'll see down in the the bottom paragraph there you to yeah to uh to Nimoria and to uh to the others. So this is Aman Hotep thei and Aenatan. Now, I'm sorry, but there is no way that Budge is sitting in a darkened room by candlelight reading these straight off of the tablet in in Q&A form. I mean, if they were hierogly Yeah, >> exactly. And there were already some grammar books that have been published, but there's no way that he brought the grammar books with him to Egypt. And so I rather doubt this story. But what happened was he bought the tablets on the spot and smuggled them out of Egypt.
Right.
>> Of course.
>> And said if I hadn't, somebody else would have. So at least I knew we could.
I mean, >> yeah.
>> Jesus Christ.
>> Yeah, I know. Hello, colonialism. Yeah.
Hello. Right. And the trustees of the British Museum, far from condemning him, praised him. Oh, good job. Great. You got them for us, you know. Yeah. So, he sends him back and continues on to Mesopotamia. And he's there. This is now um 1888.
So, it's just a month or two afterward.
And um he finally makes his way back to London by about April of 88. And by June, we've got the article that he publishes about the tablets. And there I've got no problem with it because he would have been in the library of the British Museum. He would have been surrounded, you know, by books. He would have been surrounded by people who could help him translate. So I think in his biography of 30 years later, he may be Yeah. stretching the truth, >> exaggerating a little bit romant making it a little more romantic than it actually was.
>> Yes. Now, I I do not doubt though. He does say because of their size and color and shape, I realized they were a little unusual and I thought they were probably real. That I'm completely sure he would have been qualified to do, right? He he looks at these, he's like, whoa, that's unusual. So the only thing I doubt about his story is that he site read them on the spot right >> by candle light. He took him out for a nice dinner and then he's like all right this is Aenatan and the Amanoteep the third here.
>> It's a great story. It's wonder it's up there with the woman and the fertilizer.
But yeah, and and as somebody who did try to learn Aadian in graduate school and did have a course one on-one with Earl Liki where we sat there and read the Amarna letters in the original with me sitting across from him at his desk. It's I mean I was having trouble reading them by fluorescent light and with all the dictionaries in front of me and and and so I think our our Mr. Wallace Budge is uh prone to a little exaggeration, but nevertheless, he did recognize them, bought them, smuggled them out, got them to the British Museum. And that's more than Seace ever did because Seace the the Assyrianologist in his memoirs and actually in a slightly later talk that he gave in about I don't know 1889 1890 he said to the audience I realized that I saw the locals at Amarna digging these out when I came down on my um on my boat two years before, but I didn't realize what they were doing or what they found. And the year that they actually came on the market, I was not yet in Egypt because I think his mother had died and he had stayed for the funeral and thereby missed his annual winter cruise. So, he got there late. He he got there like in January. Um, and by that point, Budge had already bought these and so had all the other agents for all the museums.
Like there were literally no more tablets to buy when Seace got there. So he had to contend himself with asking other people who had already bought them, hey, can I look at yours and try a translation? And so Seace was actually the first person whom I can find who tried to publish a translation of these.
And he did it in um an academic newspaper called the Academy that came out like every two weeks. And he would send back a letter from Egypt um which was called letter from Egypt. And I think the there are earlier ones than this. This is from June. Uh, I think there are ones from back in February where he said, "Hey, this has been found. This is what they say." But he completely misdated them. He was not able to read by candle light.
>> And he's like, "It's Moses."
>> He Well, not only Moses, he also thought David was in there. He also also thought Solomon was in there. Um, spoiler alert, none of them are in there. But because Leard was finding stuff in Mesopotamia that was from the first millennium, Neo Assyrians, Neoablonians, I think Seace was desperately trying to find something from the second millennium here. Um but there is something else to tell here because this is from June in 1888 earlier back in January and February in the first letters he had misdated them and rather than Aman Hotep III and Akenatan he thought they dated to the time of Nebuchadnezzar the neoablonian >> who dates to the 6th century. So he was off by I mean what's 1400 down to 600 right? He's off by like 800 years and the wrong king. And so, uh, yeah. Uh, and this is what happens, I guess, when you're not reading them by candle light inside.
>> I was going to say, kids, remember to read your Kuneao form by candle light.
You're going to make some great discoveries, right?
>> Exactly. Exactly. But there's another part to the story because um first of all, Budge was um keeping quiet during this and he says later, "I didn't agree with my esteemed colleague about his dating, but I wasn't quite sure of the date yet, so I didn't say anything." I'm like, "Okay, fine." Yeah. Um, they did both publish in the same journal in June and you had a slide of that up a little bit earlier and they're almost one after the other >> in there. There's there's Budge and there's Sace, right? And actually, if you go back, I just saw the January February ones. That was June. Keep going back back there. There's April. Go back there. There's I think that's the original from Sea 18th of February. And he says, "Since I got to Cairo, I've learned there are 200 Cao form tablets."
Um, and then the next one, let's see what he says next, 7th of April. Yes. He says, "Ah, they are dating to Nebuchadnezzar." Right? So that's April. By June, he has been corrected. But by whom has he been corrected? Not by budge, but by some German scholars. Because at the same time, we have, I think it's five German scholars that are looking at the tablets that made their way to Berlin. And there were about 200 of them, as I said previously. So that's a much bigger corpus, right? 200 versus 80 versus, you know, just a half dozen or so that that um Stace was looking at. So the Germans, they were all young. They were all from Berlin. And so obviously I called them the young Berliners.
>> Obviously. Come on.
>> Obviously. Right. But I was very careful to never have any of them say Berliner.
Right. Cuz that's >> that's like a jelly donut. I hear >> it's like a jelly donut. And I believe it was JFK that made that mistake at one point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, no Berliner, but the young Berliners, and they really all were young. They were in their 20s, early 30s at the most, and they were all in Berlin. So, you see three of them here, and they were the ones that said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. No, these are Aman Hotep III and Akenatan and Wallace and Wallace Budge and Seaace heard that.
In fact, the Germans shared some of their um their discoveries with them.
And so by June 1888, everybody was on the same page about these being from the 14th century BC. But it's because of these guys that we know it. And so in my book um what I do uh I should probably tell you how the book is laid out. I originally >> originally I wrote half the book about the discovery and the race to translate by these seven people or so. And the other half of the book was what do we learn from the tablets once they've been translated. And so originally that was, you know, first half, second half. I then decided, and readers may fault me or not, that that was boring. That it just, you know, oh my god, tell me what the tablets say. That's not till the second half. I have to trudge through the translation and the problems. And no, David and Solomon aren't in there, you know, for the whole first half. So I pulled a Mittner like James Mittner's the source where he alternates the chapters.
>> Yeah. You mix it up a little bit. Yeah.
>> Exactly. Between present day and ancient day. So what I've got in the book is a couple of chapters on the discovery and the beginning of the race to translate.
And then I switch to well what are the royal letters the G8 letters? What do they say? And then I switch back to more of the translation and the discoveries and then again switch to well what do the vassel letters say. And I do this back and forth and back and forth with the idea being that I keep the readers on the edge of their seats. So knowing full knowing full well >> they're reading your book by candle light as well. So they might be a little confused when you bring up Moses.
>> This is true. This is true. Yes. And I of course know full well that nobody is on the edge of their seats reading this book. But you know at least they they could be doing it by candle light somewhere. So um I I show how the the young Berliners make their entry and um help out budge and say and then I I trace the the decipherment and translation. And the thing is within 10 years certainly yeah by 1897 everything's published all of them and they're essentially what we would call open access. So anybody who knew Aadian and Kunea form by um 1897 could read these. And in fact, um, one of the young Berliners, the guy named Hugo Vinkler, who we saw just a moment ago, he actually published simultaneously translations in German and in English.
Came out in 1896.
>> So, you didn't even have to be able to read Aadian within 10 years. So anyway, it was really fast that they published all this, which is really interesting.
And actually, Vinkler was one of the um Yeah, there we go. That's the the German and the English versions. But what's interesting in these, he has the tablets that are in Berlin and the tablets that are in the British Museum, but not the ones that were in Cairo. and he never says why he doesn't have those which is is interesting. Um in an earlier publication which he had made open access he has the Berlin and the Cairo but not the British Museum because Budge hadn't published them yet. So but by the time the English came out um Budge had published them.
So, and you can see here, yeah, the open access, this is what Vinkler did with a guy named Ludwig Ael, where um Abel actually drew the the tablet with the Cunea form, which you can see on the left, and then they took photographs of all of them and published it. So, if you could read Kunea form, you could translate it. And so we get a bunch of people um making a stab at translating.
Some of them with rather unfortunate results, shall we say? Yeah, >> it's just filled with like dead ends.
>> Oh, it's absolutely filled with dead ends. It's filled with great stories.
Um, and you know, if you were to ask me what's the most surprising thing I found right away, it's the the guy Hugo Vinkler, whom I had always known in undergraduate and graduate school as the guy that found and excavated the Hittite capital of Hatusas in 1906 and found Yeah, there he is on the right. and found the archives at Hatu Sauce which then allowed the translation of Hittite 10 years later in 1916.
>> Um, Vinkler himself had just died a year or two earlier at the age of 50 from malaria or something that he had contracted while on an excavation. But so I had always known Vinkler as this Hittite guy. I did not realize that he had an earlier career, if you will, as the main Amarna guy. And so he basically had two things, the Amarna archive and then later the Hittites. And so that was a surprise to me. Maybe I just hadn't been paying attention, but I had never heard Vinkler mentioned uh with the Amarna letters. Um, the one guy I had heard about is the guy that brings them all to fruition, a Norwegian scholar, uh, Canudson who takes everything and in two volumes, 1907 and 1915, he puts Yeah, there he is. He puts them all together and this time he has all of them. He has Berlin, he has the British Museum and he has Cairo all in these volumes alto together and you have to be able to read German but they are all together for the first time and that's 1915 now. Um, so I had always heard of Kudson. I didn't realize what the people before him had done until I started researching and writing this book and I found there were a lot of material that was published. But the one thing about Kudson too and Vinkler when Vinkler started publishing and he's putting stuff out already 1889 1890 you know two or three years after these things were found. He had already separated them geographically and by um prestige shall we say. He had said, "Okay, we've got royal letters and we've got vassal letters."
>> And Vinkler then said, "We've got some from Yeah, that would work. You know, we could see that we have we have some from Babylonia, >> we have some from Assyria, we have sons from Matani, we have some from Artzswa."
And so Winkler said, "Here's the royal letters and then here are the vassel letters."
And he separated them geographically. So when Vinkler published he's like volume one is all the royal letters and volume two are all the vassel letters and then in between or you know within that here are all the ones grouped together from Babylonia and here are all the ones grouped together from Assyria and so on.
Well Canudson followed that and is usually given credit for having been the one to do that. Turns out it's Vinkler that actually did it and Kudson just adopted that um that methodology. But Kudson also for the first time gave them numbers.
>> Okay.
>> One and now they're now they're numbered 1 through 382 >> and um they are a minor letters 1 2 3 4.
So in German uh nowadays and in English we use EA the uh initials EA meaning elarna and then it's 1 2 3 4 5. Yeah.
And he numbered them according to the groupings. Um what I have found uh and I'm now going to do a little bit of work on is Kudson didn't always get the chronology correct. So the the letters when you're trying to look at particular subsets like all the letters from Abdihabbah of Jerusalem, they're not necessarily in the right chronological order. And so that's going to be the next step that I um and a couple of associates are going to be working on. Um some people have done this in articles elsewhere, but not for the whole archive. So, you know, instead of actually going 1 2 3 4 5, it it should go 1 18 32 15 two, you know. So, and I always >> The numbers are organized geographically, just not chronologically then. Okay.
>> Correct. Right. So, geographically they're they're fine for the most part.
Yeah. So there's still work to be done, but um Kudson, this Norwegian guy, gets all the credit and he does that um 1907, 1915.
Since that time, there's been some additional work, but um that has stood the test of time. We still use that today. So yeah, now we've got um I wouldn't call spin-offs but other aspects of them where uh the Goran uh at all Goran and Finkelestein and Naan they actually went and they took the Amardo letters tour that we talked about and they sampled all of the letters the clay and um tried tried to figure out where the tablets were actually made which is really interesting. Um, and then others have done >> you can't you can't just end it like that. Where where were these made? I mean, were they So, I mean, look, they're coming from all over. They're letters to Amarna, not letters from Amarna, but are they local copies of letters that they got, or are they actually made in all these different places?
>> So, they're both um most of them are letters made elsewhere that were sent to Egypt.
>> Okay. But some seem to be copies that were written in Egypt and sent out. Now, of course, we don't have the originals.
These must be copies or maybe rough drafts that they kept. So, what they're testing, and they didn't I I don't think they Well, all right, here's the deal.
They went to the museums and tested all of these. They then went and tried to find the clay sources that matched the clay and they were able to go to Cyprus and um parts of Turkey, parts of you know what is now you know Israel, Lebanon, Syria. They went to various areas. I don't think that they went over to Iran and Iraq, but they were able, for example, um, with the vassel letters, they were able to figure out that they were written in three or four major local like Betan was one of them.
And so it almost looks like um either the scribes of the little petty vassel kings are going to a place like Beton and a scribe who could read and write Aadian and says here my guy Biridia of Megiddo needs you to write a letter to the pharaoh and so the guy from Bachan would do it or the guy from Tanak or whatever. So, it does look like, >> correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't there some compar found at Betshan like uh that that were related to these letters?
>> I Well, there weren't any letters per se? There's only been one Omar letter found um in Canaan, and that's at Tel Hessie. There's just one found there, right? But they were able to do things like go to Cyprus and try to figure out the letters from the king of Alashia, which is most likely Cyprus. But the question is, is it the whole island of Cypress or is it just one part? And they they think it's a an area called Alasa, which may make sense. So anyway, so we've got these um related studies that have have been made and I realize I may be confusing the listeners by going all over the place here, but all I can say >> we got maps up for them. Come on.
>> We got maps and you know, you could always buy the book and read it or listen to it.
>> It'll make even less sense though. You have to listen to it while listening to this.
>> Well, this is this is true. This is true. Right. But um I did see you had one of the other images up of the other translations because in 1982 or so um William Moran of Harvard I there you go Moran on the left he came out um in English in '92. uh it actually had come out in French earlier in I think 86 but the English came out in '92 and then Anson Rainey uh put out his version uh in 2015 actually it came out and was finished uh by one of his students and his widow and that's the middle one and then most recently Jake Lowinger who's at John's Hopkins and Tyler Yoder have come out with their translations Um, and those are actually open access on the web. You can buy a hard copy like you see here, but you can also find everything on the web. And they've done >> now you're giving people an excuse not to buy your book, though.
>> True, true. But you got to you got to share the wealth, right?
>> Of course.
>> As it were. As >> And by the wealth, you means get it for free online.
>> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Right. as opposed to the pennies that will dribble in. Right. So, um they are now working on the royal letters they tell me. Okay.
So, stay tuned. So, if all the listeners actually want to read uh the translations, go to one of those because I only have snippets in my book. I say, "Look, I don't need to provide them all.
They're already out there. So, they can go do this." So there is still work being done today and like um uh Alice Mandel who's also at Hopkins along with Jake uh is has a book that just came out on the actual language because this isn't straight up like middle Babylonian Aadian that you would expect to find back in Mesopotamia. This is a dialect um that they are writing in. Right. So you've got Alice Mandel's on the right.
Um, you've got Jana. Um, in English we frequently say Minorova, though I know that's not how you actually pronounce it uh in her home country, but she actually was one of the first that started working on this. And Jana and I um are good friends and she actually uh published a couple of the articles that I really leaned on heavily in writing my book. So, they're working on the language. Mhm.
>> which is now um called like I'm going to get this wrong but canananoacadian.
Uh it's not just Canaanite kuneaoiform but there are some things that are really unique especially to the vassel letters the ones from the G8 the royal letters. Okay fine that's pretty much standard um you know middle Babylonian type of writing. Um, but the local vassels, the local yokals, they're they're, you know, they're not as civilized, I guess, or maybe they're more civilized, who knows? But they've got their own dialect, which is why there are still words that are argued about in the translation.
And it also means that I should cut Seace and Budge maybe a little more slack than I do in the book just this much because yeah, not only had Aadian and Kaiform just been deciphered, but this was an unknown dialect. So of course they're going to get stuff wrong.
But on the whole, I'm really impressed with the two of them plus the five Berliners.
um the fact that they they got this archive out, published and open access within 10 years, right? It found in 1887. By 1896, anybody could read these.
Well, almost anybody. Yeah. Which is cool considering the Dead Sea Scrolls took what 40 years or more to finally be published. But anyway, and then the world that was revealed by these tablets was just a a boon to ancient historians.
Um Seace at one point said that the Amarna archive is the second most important source of information behind the Old Testament. Right? That was that was that's first the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. Um and second is the Amarna archive. And indeed, if you look at all the letters, some of the ones, especially the royal ones, they give the pedigree. They're like, "My grandfather wrote to your grandfather, and then my father wrote to your father, and now I'm writing to you." And so, yeah, this is a social network diagram that my late wife Diane Harris Klein made. And you can see these are all the connections that Aman Hotep III and Akenatan had. Uh and these are all through their letters. All right. So they're writing to Kadeshman Enlil of Babylon and Kadeshman Enlil uh is descended from Kurig Gazu and Kur Gazu sends his daughter to marry Amutepi and so on. So we can reconstruct the genealogies. We can figure out the chronology of who's ruling with whom at the time. And then as I mentioned way earlier, we get an idea of the trade and the diplomatic marriages because most of the 50 big royal letters are concerned with diplomatic marriages that are going to take place. and therefore either the dowry that's coming with or the bride price depending on you know who who's doing the writing and so we can get a a real good shot at what kinds of goods are being made and produced and sent around textiles gold silver copper tin all that stuff. So these were a real boon to writing the history. And I tell my students today, you know, I just finished, in fact, I'm about to submit the final grades for my ancient near east and Egypt course this semester. And um I'm I'm like, look, we have our textbook. Where do you think the information in the textbook came from?
It's from things like the Amarna letters. Exactly. So, um, so they're a lot of fun and you can I mean the letters are a lot of fun, but um you can also get insights into the squable.
>> Yeah. Not the grading, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Not grading not fun, right?
Um but you can get some insight into the squables at the time and the shenanigans that were going on. I mean, for example, with the vassel kings, they're like kids in daycare or, you know, or kindergarten, and they're writing to the pharaoh like it's daddy or mommy, and they're like, "So and so kicked me. So and so bit my ear." You know, Biridia Megiddo says, "Look what Labayou did to me. You've got to punish him. Give him a time out." You know, so the vassels are doing that. But as you have on the screen here, the royal letters, well, there were some problems. You are familiar undoubtedly and your listeners are with the whole meme about a Nasier and the copper merchants, right?
Exactly. Complaining about copper. We need to start a whole new set of memes based on >> gold >> the not just gold the fake gold because >> uh yeah there you go the complaint tablet to ANS here. Oh man, he didn't have anything on our guys. Now I'm not going to >> I'm not going to blame Ahmed Hotep III.
I will blame Akenatan because his dad >> I mean it sounds like you're you're blaming him just like all of his descendants did.
>> Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, but >> you started off trying to defend Akenatin and now you're like uh not when it comes to gold.
>> True. Guilty as charged. Yes. Right. But Ahmed Hotep thei is also guilty. They're both guilty. How about that? Okay.
Because I mean look at the letters here.
Marta letter three sent by Kadashan Enlil, the king of Babylon to Aman Hut III. You have sent me as my greeting gift the only thing in six years. You know, wah wah wah. You only sent me something in six years. 30 miners of gold, but it looked like silver. Well, that's probably because it probably was silver, right? Yeah. But and >> and then his successor, Bora Burash, is actually Bora Boreash II. He says, "You know what? You probably didn't check the earlier shipment that you sent to me.
When I put the 40 mas of gold into a kil, not even 10 mas appeared." Now, I have many questions. Like, first of all, who takes a gift and the first thing they do is put it into a kiln and melt it down. I mean, >> it's like, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, you know?
>> As it were. Yes. But obviously, there were trust issues here. And so, but what I love is he already gives him an out, right? Obviously, you didn't check it, right? And he says at one point in this letter, it may be um and actually it could be this this next letter, ama letter 10 sent by the same guy also to A3. Um the 20 mas of gold that were brought here were not all there. when they were put into the kiln, not even five minus appeared. And the part that did appear looks like ashes. Was the gold ever identified as gold? And he then says, I'm sure when it started out, you put gold into the shipment. Somebody along the way must have swapped it out. And so by the time it got here, >> I didn't get the gold. So, you need to go find out who swapped it out because I'm sure it wouldn't have been you, right? You would never have done that.
Wink wink.
>> Yeah. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Yeah. So, I think the Egyptian pharaohs were pulling a fast one upon occasion. And we do have the same thing with Aenatan.
He's supposed to send at one point five statues of solid gold. And when he sends them, they turn out to be made of wood with gold on top, probably like guilt, >> you know, gold foil.
>> And we get complaints about that as well. So, I don't know. Um, I think we need to enlist you and your followers to start a new meme. Yeah. You all know the one about ANS here in copper. Have you heard the one about the Egyptian pharaohs and gold? Wow. And it seems like a I just uh Oh, here they were. Um it seems like it's the same ratio though. Um where it's, you know, 40 becomes 10 and then 20 becomes five. So they're clearly doing something at a 4:1 sort of a ratio here. And uh yeah, we need the the gold complaint tablets.
>> The gold complaint tablets and the Egyptian pharaohs. I mean ANS here is just some Mesopotamian, you know, merchant, blow life, if you will. These guys, they're on I mean, you know, >> you know what's really interesting is this makes an look pretty good because he's just copying the pharaohs, >> right?
Not exactly copying. He's setting a precedent for >> Yeah. Because he's right. Exactly.
>> Or rather, the pharaohs are copying him.
That's even better, I suppose. Yeah. You know, that's how that's how much of a big shot a and the seir is is that the pharaohs thought they could pull the same game.
>> Right. Right. But imagine if this were being done today and you know, one of one of our >> Yeah. I won't go there, but yeah, if this were being done today, we'd have problems. Yeah. Right.
>> Yeah. Well, it might be being done, I guess. I suppose.
>> Right. Anyway, so you can see why I find the Amarna letters fascinating. I mean, we've only barely touched on them. Um, and I think I've probably only even answered your first question. So, did you have a second question?
>> Yeah, I I got one based off of one of your uh slides here. What's up with this gaslighting that's going on?
>> Oh, man. Yeah. You know, okay. Okay.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Everything that we do today has already been done in antiquity and labayou in particular gaslights Aman Hotep III.
All right. So Labayou he's from uh Sheckchham and he is causing problems especially with my favorite guy Biridia of Megiddo. Um we've got six letters from Biridia to the Pharaoh. Um, there must be responses from the pharaoh at Megiddo, but that archive hasn't been found yet. I I think I know where it is, but it hasn't yet been found. So, hopefully we'll find it eventually. It's underneath 30 feet >> of dig through. Yeah, that's a lot to dig through. It's >> It's that damn mud flood that's filling up everything with mud, isn't it?
>> Well, no. It's actually It's actually the Neo Assyrians in this case. They built a palace.
>> They built a palace in stratum 3 and Biridia's palace of stratum 7 is immediately below the the neoasyrian palace. So we'd have to move that. But anyway, so Biridia complains that Labayou is causing problems for him and for a number of the other vassal kings. And Labayou writes to the pharaoh himself going, "Nah, it's not me. I I don't know what they're saying. I don't do it. Whatever the king commands, I will obey. I have no other intention apart from serving the king." Um, it's like, "Yeah, right. Take a look at all the other letters." Uhhuh. But he's like, "It's not me. He's not the only one. There are other people that are causing problems." Um, and they too gaslight the pharaoh. So and so is coming and is spreading ill ill, you know, ill words about me, evil words.
Don't believe them. I'm as innocent. I'm as what's the saying? I'm as pure as driven snow. You're like, but we can see the whole picture because we can see the other letters and we're like, no, no.
Guilty as charged. And yeah, it's kind of like uh yeah, thou dost protest too much. So um Lay >> as honest as politicians today.
>> You said it, not me. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
But Labayou gets what's coming to him.
He is actually uh he's captured by the other vassels. He is sent to Ako and is going to be shipped back to Egypt like stand trial. But he bribes the uh the king of Ako who lets him go and so the other vassel kings meet up with him and accidentally assassinate him. So >> that's another nudge nudge wink wink.
Sorry bro, I just shanked you. You know >> exactly. But this is where it's wonderful. This is one of the letters from Biridia of Megiddo reporting to the pharaoh that Labayou has been killed.
That's how we know it's happened. But he says, "Look, I'm just reporting this. I wasn't actually there. I was on my way there, but my horse was shot out from under me." So, I had to get a a new horse. So, I wasn't actually one of the ones that killed him. Don't blame me, but here is what happened. But, you know, the excuses here, it's like, you know, my car ran out of gas. Uh, my the dog ate my homework. I just and I don't know I heard this and anyway we know that Labayou was killed um and his sons promptly take over and keep going. So some of the letters are complaining about the sons of Labaiu in the next generation.
And so we can actually see there's at least two if not three generations mentioned in these letters. That's why I say we know not only because of the kings that they're addressed to and some of the queens, but we can see that they cover a 30-year period where we've got father, son, and in some cases grandson either sending the letters or being mentioned in them. But um yeah, I I would say the the fake gold and the gaslighting were two of my takeaways that I hadn't really known about in depth and detail until writing these up.
And I am just I hate to say it, but I'm vastly amused by both of them, right?
And I'm just >> amused by this assassination because the assassins are also gaslighting the pharaoh. They're just like, "Yeah, my horse broke down and I when I got there, it was already dead." And it's just like, "Yeah, non-stop lies, right?"
>> Yeah, exactly. He probably ran into his own arrow, you know. Yeah, he he tripped and fell on his own arrow. Yeah, I I know. So, anyway, but there are still a lot, you know, a fair number of more minor mysteries about what's going on.
And in fact, the other thing that I found um there is another guy, not Leay is not the only one causing problems.
There's another fatherson um pairing of Adiasa and his son Azeru who are way up north.
They're in the area called Amuru, which is um almost all the way up to modern day Turkey, almost all the way up to the Hittites. Amuru, it on a map, it's just south of Ugarit. And this fatherson pair the the father Abdashir is causing problems for everybody. He too mysteriously winds up dead, killed by some of the locals and then his son Zeroot takes over and he causes just as much problems and we have it reported by a lot of other kings, the king of Beirut, of Biblas, of Tyer and so on.
And um what it turns out uh yeah, Rihada of Biblo in particular has problems with this Aziru. And you can see Amuru is kind of sideways on the map but is circled uh there uh up top.
>> Yeah, >> that's where they were. Yeah, exactly.
Um and they're like just below the area that the Hittites are controlling.
And so in fact, Azeru uh he's called to Egypt and you know and uh Akenatan most likely uh calls him out on the carpet says what are you doing? What are you doing? and he eventually goes back home and very soon thereafter goes over to the Hittite side. And we actually have >> in one of the archives at Hatusas, there is a treaty that Shupi Luduma signs with the Zeru when a Zeru becomes his vassel, he defects from the Egyptians to the Hittites and is then on the Hittite side um forever after. And in fact, we've got treaties then with the subsequent kings of the Hittites and the subsequent kings of Amuru such that we've got a very well-known one uh signed by Tutia IVth and Shashu Gamuru and that's the one that mentions the king of Akiyawa which uh is then crossed out and that's probably the Mian.
>> That's how they got Agamenon, right?
>> That's they crossed him out.
>> They just crossed them out. Right. So what happened and going back to what um I was I was going for before I got sidetracked here. Um but because these guys are fascinating, Azeru and his daddy Abdashir, they are fighting proxy wars on behalf of the Hittites.
>> Okay?
>> And they are attacking all of the other Egyptian vassels.
Once we realize that Shupe and Azeru signed a peace treaty and Azeru becomes his vassel, it then puts all the previous letters in perspective and we realize that just like today where you've got, you know, Hezbollah fighting as a proxy on behalf of Iran and all of that. So too, I think Abdihera and then Azeru are fighting proxy wars on behalf of the Egyptians to try and undermine uh I'm sorry, they're fighting on behalf of the Hittites.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> To to undermine Egyptian control. So >> we basically have Hittites versus Egyptians in this area, but being fought by their vassels, their proxies.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And of course matters come to a head about what 70 75 years later because all of this is back at you know call it 1350 1340 in 1274 I think it is is the battle of Kadesh which is actually Hittites versus Egyptians. And so that's when you've got the war coming out into the open. And so that was another takeaway where I'm like, "Oo, the vassel kings. Yeah, it's proxy war on behalf of two of the G8, the Hittites and the Egyptians who are probably the biggest of the two of the G8. So the conclusion in the book when I get to it as I start I start citing some of the the modern scholars the modern political scientists that have studied this and there was a book that came out called Amarna diplomacy. It came out in the I don't know late 90s or early 2000s I think. I think it was um in the '9s.
John's Hopkins and it was um a combination of the a seriologist and Egyptologist paired with modern political scientists and what they were saying is nothing's really changed. Right? So, Professor Steven David at Hopkins, chariots, infantry, archers may have been replaced by modern armies and nuclear weapons, but the threat they posed to neighboring states was as intense as exists today. And indeed, look at the ones that I circled here.
These were some of the main city states that were interacting and fighting with each other back then. They're still all in the news today, right? Biblas and Beirut and Siden and Tire and Damascus and Ako and Jerusalem and Escalon and especially Gaza, right? They are all still in the news today. They were in the news back then. So these guys, I mean, I've said elsewhere in some of my previous books on Megiddo and Jerusalem that fighting has been taking place in this region for 4,000 straight years, right? the weapons change and the people change, but there's something about this area that causes people to fight.
>> And so that's where at the end of the book, I say, you know, this might be ancient history, but just like 1177 and after 1177, my other books, it's still relevant to today. It really is. The same things that are going on today were happening back then. and somebody else could probably do a onetoone comparison just like this back then. This is what we've got today. Just like this back then, this is what we've got today. But, you know, again, my conclusion is there's nothing new under the sun.
Everything that we're doing and saying today was done and said by them back then. But for me, that's what makes it incredibly interesting. It still shows.
I hesitate to use the word humanity because it doesn't seem like they were being very inhumane back then.
>> Yeah. Uh inhumane humanity. There we go.
That has been a a constant in this area, right? Not to mention trying to swap out fake gold.
>> That's still going on today with gold covered toilets, I guess. Gold cover or something.
>> Yes. Yes. Yes. So anyway, I'm still f I'm as I'm more fascinated by the letters now than before I started writing them about them because now I know so much more. And like I say, it's not going to be a book for everyone.
It's way down in the weeds. But for those who like ancient history and all that, it really is an I think an interesting deep dive into not only that world back then, but also showing what happens when you find an archive today or a 100 years ago and you have to race to translate it, especially when it's in a language that you're only just figuring out how to read it. So >> yeah. So anyway, so >> an impressive story in that sense, like a a 19th century and a ancient story, if you see what I mean. Yeah.
>> Yes.
>> Which it's it's it's funny how I mean this is so much in the weeds, but a lot of I'm writing a book on fake archaeology. Um and I I have to finish my final draft of it this uh this summer. And uh it's funny how so much of it is a historioggraphy of the 19th century juxtaposed with what's going on in the past. And it really makes it for a compelling story to be able to juxtapose, you know, modern scholars and the ancient subjects that they're studying in a sense.
>> Yeah, I think it's I think it's what brings it to life, >> right? And in 1177, I tried to do that where I was like, here's the discovery of the Manowans. Here's the discovery of the Mason. Here's the discovery of the Hittites. Right? But you know in this case with the Samarta letters book I I was thinking look there have been books published on the race to translate hieroglyphics. There have been books published on the race to translate linear B. There have been books um even to translate kuneaoiform but there hasn't been something written on the race to translate this archive. And I thought, okay, this is only going to appeal to a certain number of people.
But I wanted to put it out there because especially the early publications, 1888, 1890, they're in pretty obscure journals, especially German periodicals.
And I'm like, let me pull all this together. Um, and uh, what's the saying that some people say? I read this so you don't have to. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Right. So >> you're pulling it together so we don't have to do all that that leg work. Yeah.
>> All you have to do is trust me that I'm correct in reporting on it. Right.
>> I don't I I don't trust you any further than Aman Hotep thei third in his gold.
>> Exactly. But you know there's there's no gold involved or copper. So you know Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Anyway, >> so all right, let's take a few questions I suppose. So uh people put in questions in the chat. I've earmarked a few. And for those that don't know, my uh patrons and my members, they always get first crack based on who I have coming on to ask questions in advance. So, we have a few tough ones for you, uh, Eric. Um, let's see. Here we go.
>> I'm ready.
>> You better be ready. Um, so first one, are there any references to diseases known or unknown in the letters?
>> Oh, I'm very glad you asked. Yes, there is one one one really famous one from the king of um Alashia Cyprus in which he says the hand of Nurgal has struck my workers. That's that's you know Nurgal is one of the gods that is euphemism. It's it's an illness. They have been struck down by the plague essentially. and he says, "Um, I'm unable to mine as much copper as I would usually, and so I'm only sending like something like 200 talents to you with this shipment." Now, 200 talents is actually a lot. We think, we're not quite sure what a talent is at that time. It's been suggested that, you know, these oxide ingots that have been found on the Oolaroon shipwreck that you see in paintings that weigh about 60 pounds that are pure copper, that might be a talent, in which case you're looking at about 200 of those oxide ingots. The Ula Brun shipwreck has 300 on board. So anyway, 200 is not a measly amount of copper and it was really high-grade. It was not from a nasier. He had nothing to do with it. So it was good copper. Very good copper.
>> That's what they tell us. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So the king of of Cyprus is is um apologizing that the hand of Nurgal has struck down his workmen. So yes, we do have that. Um and I think there might be at least one other um mention of a plague uh in that. We also know though uh outside the letters that Shupi Lululeuma of the Hittites eventually is going to die of the plague that is brought back to the Hittite Empire um via Egyptian prisoners of war that he is captured when he is fighting Egypt in the region of Canaan. So, there are plagues at this time for sure. And we've got at least one blamed for why there isn't more copper being mined on Cyprus.
Yeah. A >> lot of excuses in these letters. It's a lot of excuses and whining. Wow.
>> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Which ranging from my horse was shot out so I ran out of gas, right? My workers have been killed and Yeah. Yeah. Right.
>> Which I suppose sort of relates to the next two questions which are somewhat similar. Uh, what deep in the weeds matters are there in the letters that illuminate the mental architecture of the society at the time? I guess they're a bunch of whiny cryb babies. Is is there anything else you want to add on that?
>> Yeah. Well, we have we do have some interesting things by the by the big kings where they're like um usually they're following a set routine. The the opening of the letters are always the same. you know say to my brother thus says your brother >> my palace is fine my wife is fine my daughters are fine my horses are fine my chariots are fine I hope your palace is fine your wife is fine your daughters are fine and and by that point they've filled up most of the tablet right so then then they start saying okay now what about that gold and all that yeah right we we are brothers why should we they're not actually brothers >> yeah some some of them might be brothersin-law Huh? Some of them might be fathers-in-law and sons-in-law because of the dynastic marriages, but what they're doing and yes, and not everybody was pleased with this. This is something that is well known in anthropology. It's like kinship, right?
Where two groups that are not related but want to trade with each other will frequently make up false kinship ties.
And so that's what these guys are doing here. And I still remember way back in my early teaching career, I was adjuncting at a community college and I was teaching intro to anthropology and we were talking about kinship relationships and I suddenly went this is the Amarna letters. Oh my god, this is the Amarna letters and bingo there was an article right there. So um but some of the kings when they're saying yes to my brother this da they were saying things like I sent my messenger to you and you have not returned him.
Can you please do so? And you're like okay fine whatever. And then you realize that he said I sent my messenger to you six years ago. Could you possibly send him back? You're like wait >> wandering in the desert.
>> Yeah. Okay. And then there's another one where the the king, I forget if king of Assyria, maybe king of Babylonia, um says to the Egyptian Pharaoh, "When my messengers arrived, you kept them standing in the sun for hours before you agreed to see them. Were you trying to kill them?" Right? Because they would get sunstroke being out in the sun. So, we've got that. Um others, one guy says, "You want me to send my daughter there to become one of your wives to be part of your herum? But my father already sent my sister there. Has anybody seen her? Is she still alive? Can you tell me before I send you my daughter? Is my sister there?" And the pharaoh writes back, "Well, if you want to know the answer to that, you should send one of your men who knows what she looks like and can recognize her."
And my thought is, look, the Pharaoh could have just said, "Yes, she's here."
Or, "No, I'm afraid she died." Instead, he gets all defensive. Well, it's your fault for not sending somebody that can recognize her. So honestly, I don't think he knew what she looked like. I don't even know that he knew she was in the harum. So >> yeah, even though it's like the the daughter of someone royal, it's still just Yeah.
>> Yeah. Exactly. So we get we get some insight into the mental state. We also have some kings that are writing saying, "I'm afraid for my life and I need a defensive treaty with you." So we do get some insight to them. But again, they also gaslight just like the the vassels do. We've also got gaslighting at the royal level.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um All right. Next question is similar. It's about the kind of uh matters of the psyche, but it specifically mentions that this person went down a rabbit hole trying to find analoges to confirmation bias in Cuneaform texts and most of the examples were theological or moral in nature. Do we have any sense of this in Mesopotamia or in these letters?
>> Well, we don't have any in these letters, that's for sure. Um, and for ancient Mesopotamia, for sure. I don't know off the top of my head. This is nothing I've ever studied, but I'm sure we could easily find answers looking at um things that Mark Vanirup has written or other people as well. But yeah, I've never dived, dove, gone down that rabbit hole. Let's put it that way. Mesopotamia because I frankly I concentrate more on the history, who's ruling with whom, who's uh trading with whom, who's fighting with whom. Uh, and I haven't gone down into matters of the psyche. I admit it would be interesting, but I'm not the right expert to talk to.
We each have our own little, you know, cubicles that we work in. Yeah. Yeah.
>> You're into these social networks and these connections.
>> Exactly. Right. And not so much into the matters of the mind or or am I? Yeah.
Right. Anyway, good question, but not for me, but there's another guest for you. Go find somebody.
>> Yeah, exactly. Um, all right. The next one is a really long one. I apologize.
Um, but it's from another archaeologist.
So, uh, Dr. Klein, may I have your autograph? I have a copy of Digging Deeper that I truly cherish as it was foundational for my own fieldwork in the American Southwest.
>> So, right there. Yes. Sure. Sure. Yes.
Right. Okay.
>> Jokes aside, may I provide a suggestion?
You covered many of the common questions of archaeology at the time uh in the in the digging deeper, but I feel like the questions people ask have changed in a short amount of time, and I believe they need to be addressed. questions such as how does one with no archaeological experience get involved in archaeology?
Why is archaeology important for the lay person? Why should one care about archaeology? How can we speak for culturally important sites if there's no one else who can? And is the destruction of archaeological sites for the advancement of infrastructure development justified? So, these are questions that this person's dealt with personally um within both a public office and private enterprise setting and was wondering what our thoughts are on these kind of questions. Should we tackle them one at a time? Um how does one with no archaeological experience get involved with archaeology?
>> Okay, that's probably the easiest of all of these questions, right? Um you basically uh volunteer for a dig wherever you are. There there will be a dig somewhere nearby and you can answer this as well as I can. We've got the archaeological fieldwork opportunities bulletin that the Archaeological Institute of America puts out. That's on the web and you just call it up. Go to I think their website's archaeological.org and from there you click on excavations.
They have a map of the world with dots where all the excavations for this coming summer are being run. There's also a search bar. You put the country that you want to work in. Click the search. It will come up with all the digs that are there with all the details. Um who's running it, the dates, how much it costs, and usually a link to write to that dig and volunteer. And that that's the easiest way to do it.
>> There's also I would suggest uh getting in touch with like a local museum or local anthropology department. see what's local because it might be expensive to say go to Greece or something and do >> but there's usually excavations or studies maybe in the museum you can volunteer in a local museum or historical society and uh there's usually things you can do to help out >> absolutely especially like in the American Southwest right if if you're anywhere down there Texas New Mexico anything like that yes contact the local the anthropology department at the local university the museums and all that.
Yeah, absolutely. So, it can be expensive to go overseas. So, if you want to do something locally, you can do that as well. But I would say that is the easiest way is go on a dig and that's how you you get your foot in the door.
>> Yeah, that or a museum if you're more into doing something inside with artifacts or whatnot. Um, okay. So, the next two are very related. Why is archaeology important for the lay person and why should one care about archaeology?
Well, I would say for one thing because archaeology is the >> pretty much the only way that we can get at the material culture that is remaining to us, right? You can look at text and inscription all and all that, but if you want to look at what they ate, what they wore, what they, you know, what they dug, what they built, you've got to do archaeology to get to the material culture. So that's why it's important. But why you should care? you should care because those are our predecessors. That's our history. That's where it comes from. Uh and if you don't do archaeology, you can't find that stuff. And if you don't if you can't find that stuff, you can't then recreate the history. And I personally think it's really important to know where we came from so that we can know why we're doing what we're doing now and figure out how best to go into the future. So I think there's some sayings about how the past informs the present and the future be something like that. But I think archaeology is incredibly important and that one should care. But I'm sure you've got your own feelings about this.
>> Yeah. I mean I would say that also a lot of what we think about history and archaeology are kind of myths. They are myths that are used to justify actions today. And so being able to try to poke holes in those myths and recognize that we actually share common humanity in a sense and that we should not always be basing what we do based on uh a myth of what history is can hopefully make us empathize better with other people is something that I think is important. And archaeology is really great at that because so much of what archaeologists do, especially in the historical period, is we can sort of fact check some of these historical documents that we have, we can see these myths in the past. And that's kind of, I guess, a safe space, if you will, to then be able to think through how we can poke holes in these myths for today.
>> Yeah, absolutely. One thing I would suggest that that maybe you might think about um I know you have experience with debates about archaeology.
Maybe a future program here you could have four or five archaeologists all on at the same time >> debating these questions. Uh have a round table. I think that'd be really interesting. And I think your viewers would probably tune in for three hours or so. And if you picked people that worked in say the American Southwest and in Greece and in Egypt and in Southeastern Asia and in Australia, you might get some really interesting points of view. I do think they would all agree on some major points like yes, it's important and why should we care? But um you could I think it could be a really interesting debate especially with the next couple of questions.
>> Yeah, exactly. So, uh, the next question would be, how can we speak for culturally important sites if there's no one else who can, which is a weird way to phrase that, but let let's see your answer and then I'll try to do what I can.
>> Yeah, I I I would rephrase it such that we need to speak for culturally important sites because there is no one else who can, right? If not us, then who? So, yeah. So I would rephrase it like we need to do this because we're the almost the only ones in a position to do it.
>> Yeah. No, I agree. And I think that what you just brought up about the Amarna letters and the amount of weeds that you have to get into to be an expert on a specific context, a specific site, a specific corpus, whatever. It's it's it it's so rare. I mean, when you finish your PhD, you are the world expert in whatever the heck you're studying, and there's nobody out there that knows more than you. And so I mean it's just there's so much material there that really what gets done is what we have the interest and capability of doing sometimes and so uh so except for the stuff that's legally mandated and uh so in that sense yeah we have to speak up and do what we can. Yeah. And some sometimes it just takes one person who's an expert on one site that is able to go before a local, I don't know, cultural a city council and argue that that particular area should not be bulldozed or have a dam put there or whatever. So, you know, one person's voice can sometimes make a huge difference, but that's where we need to do this. So, I think this is a very important question.
I would rephrase it slightly that um but it it also does >> put the burden on the archaeologist to not just keep this stuff in an ivory tower and just publish in esoteric remote journals but actually to bring the information out um and make it matter. Absolutely.
>> Yeah. No, I agree. All right. Last question. Oh, I guess there's one more as well. But is the destruction of archaeological sites for the advancements of infrastructure development justified?
>> Destruction of archaeological sites for the advancement of infra Oh, the destruction of archaeological sites is never justified no matter what you're doing, right? I mean, sometimes you have to make compromises and such, but no, I would I would say no, it's not, right? Um there are any any number of ways you can do this. I mean frequently when we do CRM and we send the the archaeologist in before the bulldozers cuz you got to make the highway clover leaf or whatever then you know you dig as much as you can and then go on. But a lot of times um and I'm not even sure quite what they mean by the advancement of the information things is building the new data centers and all that. No, I think they mean like building highways and like uh buildings and stuff like that and how that's going to uh do sometimes be where an archaeological site is, if you see what I mean.
>> Yeah. So, one of the things that I've seen which I really like is where they have excavated it and then preserved it despite then building the infrastructure. So, an excellent example is in Athens when they were digging, building the metro uh before the 2004 Olympics. And of course, they went through all kinds of strata there and they made that the walls of the subway metro stop.
>> Very cool to have like a museum in your metro stop. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, you get out of the metro train and you're looking at a wall of ancient Athens. I thought that was so cool.
There are other places, >> well, also in Athens, when you're walking into the new, not even so new anymore, but the new Acropolis museum.
You walk over, if I remember correctly, there is a slab in place that's not concrete, but is glass or plexiglass.
And you >> you can actually go down there now.
>> Okay. All right.
>> At least you could, I don't know, when I was last living in Athens 5 years ago.
But yeah.
>> Okay. But you can certainly look down there and that's what I I've seen other places in the states and elsewhere where they have preserved the stuff under glass or whatever at the and and had it in the basement of the building that they had been putting up. So you can go down in the basement and see the archaeology and that is one solution.
You do have to get creative, but I would say the total destruction is never justified. You've got to make some end run around it to try and and preserve it cuz like we say, archaeology is the science of destruction. If you go in and dig it completely and it's gone, it's destroyed. So, >> yeah. Okay. So, we have a few really short questions from the chat and then I'll let you go. Um, one of them is, "Why aren't these tablets, let's get you up top here, perfectly square? Is it just wear over time?" So, I pulled up this one, which is obviously not perfectly square. Why is Yeah. Why is it off a little?
>> So, it's a good question. Um, and there's a couple of answers. One, they're handmade. They're I mean, I Well, at least I assume they're handmade. I don't think I can imagine almost a framework where you poured the the clay in and you made them all identical, but they're not. Each one is individual. So, I would suspect, and I think this is what most people think, is that as the scribe is making uh a tablet to respond that each one is handmade.
Um, and in part because some of the letters are much longer than others, they would make them and and shape them based on how much text they knew they were going to have to inscribe on it.
So, I think that's that's the immediate answer is that they're handmade. But, and you can't kind of see it, but maybe up top there, a lot of these are now broken or worn. Uh, and this particular one, it looks to me like that top right edge is broken off because you can see the cuneaoform signs continue into the break. Right. So, right there there there's been a it's been chipped at some point. Now, we know Yeah, there you go.
You can tell that's that is a broken edge, right? And not much has been lost, but some. Now we know because Seace and Budge both talk about the fact that uh and in fact Petri also mentions it when these were first discovered and the uh antiquities dealers were trying to sell them to the museums.
They had them in donkey bags and were trotting these up and down between Amarna and Cairo and Luxor and they didn't package them well. So they were slamming against each other and um one of them or maybe all three they say we may have lost as much as a third of the tablets that shattered and otherwise broke and were destroyed while these antiquities dealers were putting them in donkey bags and trying to sell them. So um a lot of them got broken in transport if you will. Um there are two other things though. One we have a story um I don't know if it's apocryphal but it's been repeated and I repeated it in the book. There was one antiquity stealer that had a very large tablet concealed in his jacket in a in a pocket and he was um stepping either onto or off of a train and the tablet fell out of the jacket pocket, landed on the platform and shattered.
That is what brought all of these to the attention of the antiquities department and they promptly put out a call, everybody bring them in or we're going to arrest you and this and that. So that was described as a really large tablet.
There are only two really large ones.
Um, and so I tried to figure out which one it was that might have been the one that shattered. Um, because it should be, you know, in pieces uh that have been glued back together, not whole. So, I'm not sure which one it is. But um the other thing and I think we actually are lucky here. Um the antiquities dealers could have taken like a hammer to these and deliberately broken them up into smaller pieces and sold them >> and it was mommy parts and stuff like that. Yeah, >> like mommy parts and dead sea scroll remains and all that. I think we got lucky here. Most of the brakes do look like they are breaks that were um either in antiquity or during transport. I don't think we've got any nefarious antiquity dealers breaking them up for more profit, but we can't rule that out either. There may have been some like that. Um it is interesting that some of the tablets which were broken wound up in different museums. So for instance, there's one letter um I think it's written actually to Queen Toteep the third's wife um and the larger part of that tablet is in the British Museum and um a smaller portion is at the University of Chicago >> and they did not realize the two went together until there was a traveling exhibition and the one from London came over and I think it was um Brinkman.
>> They came together.
>> Exactly. Right. And and then whoop they went apart again and the one went back to the British Museum and the other one stayed at Chicago but we can now publish them at least on paper as together. So one of the things I wish and I can guarantee it'll never happen. I wish we could unify this archive again. That somebody, preferably the gem, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo that just opened, that everybody sends their Amarna tablets there and we have them in one place so that scholars can go to one place and study them. And you don't even have to have all of them on display, but you know, a rotating exhibit, whatever.
But uh that slide that we just had with again them being in all those museums in all those countries, this is one of the worst examples of looting that I can think of where the original archive which was found together whether it was by the woman looking for fertilizer or the nefarious antiquities dealer. These were originally all together and now they're in 14 different museums. I mean that is inexcusable. It really is. And yes, it was a different era, a different time period. This was colonialism as at extreme. I mean, all the people said, "We're buying them so we can take care of them." Well, you know, Egypt can take care of them. Egypt's got a brand new big museum, right? Just like the Elgen marble should be sent back to Greece, so all of these should be sent back to Egypt. Now again, >> I rather doubt the Elgen museums are ever um sculptures are ever going back to Greece. I also doubt we'll ever get all of these back to Egypt, but you know, they should be. So there you have it. Yeah, >> I agree. I agree. I actually, you know, something about that last question brought up a question that I have. Um, so you had this slide here about how notations were added after the arrival.
>> So these were baked and then sent and then this is painted on.
>> Am I reading this right?
>> Yeah, basically it's an ink. I mean it's not painted. It's an ink.
>> Okay. But incri So it's they were sent after being baked and then any additional notations were sort so it was they weren't accidentally fired is what I'm getting at. No, they were not accidentally fired like happens so often elsewhere like at my C9 and pyos with any B. No, these are baked before they're sent in part because that way you can guarantee they won't fall apart, but also nobody can change and root what you've written. Like, yeah, they might be able to swap out gold for fake gold, but they can't change what you've written on your tablet if you've baked it. So what these are the ink is a notation um written when it got to Egypt. And this is the notation that said ah this was received in year 36 of Aman Hutep III in the fourth month of the winter day one and the king was in the southern villa of the house of Jerusalem. So, it's a scribe annotating when it was received, which is pretty cool. But we also have other things that I think are really fun. They're notations added after arrival. They are notations added before baking and sending, but they are a note.
They're a note from one scribe to another.
So you've got the official Yeah, there you go. There's one. You've got the official letter which is being written by the scribe. Um, thus says Tarhun Dadu of Artsa to Ammon Hotep III, yada yada yada. In particular, they're trying to arrange for the daughter of Tarhun Dadu to be married to Aman Hotep the third.
We don't actually know if that marriage ever took place because we don't have the next tablet in the series. But at the end underneath a line that is drawn, the scribe in Artsa writes a note to the scribe down in Egypt. And he says to the scribe who reads this out, "May Naboo, king of wisdom and the son god of the gate house duly protect him. May they duly hold their hands around you. You scribe duly write to me. You also put your own name after it. And and here's the important part. This is his message. The tablets that are brought here always write in Hittite. Now, that is unusual because I've been talking this whole time about the fact that these are written in Aadian. Well, here's the kicker. There are two that are not in Aadian.
Actually, there are three that are not in Aadian. Two of them are written in Hittite and these are the ones that are to and from the um king of Artzswa.
>> Huh?
>> They're writing in Hittite. Why?
I guess he doesn't know Aadian. Except he does. Except he doesn't. He must, but he must not. Anyway, so he says always write in Hittite. And we have two letters uh EA31 and 32 that are written in Hittite and they are uh to and from this pair. The third one is an odd one.
It's written in Huran which is a language used in Matani this kingdom in Syria. uh and the king Tushrada writes a lot of letters to Aman Hutep III and then to Akenatan.
Almost all of them are in Aadian but one of them for some reason is written in Huran. Um I believe it has an opening in Aadian the first paragraph and then it switches to Huran and this caused all kinds of confusion for the early translators.
They recognized it wasn't Aadian.
They thought at first it was Hittite. Um and then they realized it wasn't and it was in this otherwise unknown language.
And so we actually get kind of amateurs like um uh Lieutenant Condor who made a a habit of doing this and he thought that he could interpret huran. you think it was a Mongol or Turk language, which it's not. Um, and so this caused a lot of confusion, but that's where somebody like Seace comes in because Se even though I've denigrated him, and even though he made a lot of mistakes with the Amarna letters, looking for David and Solomon and all that, he did find Jerusalem, but that's cuz the German scholars had found it first. But Seace as a linguist, yes, he's an Assyriologist, but he's also at the forefront of Hittite and Huran and everything else. And so he was a real polyglot, if you will. Uh, and very quickly they realize that this is neither Aadian nor Huran. But so that is that's a little far field from your question originally. Um, so the notations in ink are to record when it got there and there aren't that many of them. But then there are only like two or three notes from one scribe to another. And obviously the scribe is reading these letters out loud to the king because the king is probably illiterate. He probably can't read or write. And so the scribe gets to that line that's drawn and realizes underneath it's basically a PS. It's a postcript, but it's to him. So he's not going to read it out loud to the king.
Right. Okay. So I frequently >> when I'm talking about the Amarna letters to my students in a class like the ancient near east class that I just did where I've only got 10 minutes to talk about the Amarna letters I will condense it and kind of I'm like you know at the end he says PS how are the wife and kids might m are doing well um by the way you know can you write in Hittite next time and that's essentially what it is so and for me again that brings out the the humanness in these you know you've got these official diplomatic letters they're written by one human to another and upon occasion we meet that human which is I think kind of cool >> yeah no I agree I agree um all right one last question if you're okay with that um thank you get right to the the twoour mark >> yeah so this person's a CR CR RM. So, a commercial archaeology shovel bum here.
Um, can Professor Klein talk about the impact that the US involvement in the Middle East has had on archaeology and his research?
>> Well, on my research in particular and US involvement, I would expand that and just um say US involvement in the Middle East has had on archaeology and everyone's research, >> right? because every time um I would say the obvious every time a war starts up there then we've got problems and especially with the destruction of archaeological sites um and this can be honestly with or without US involvement.
I mean the the a number of sites that have been destroyed because of civil wars um everywhere from Syria down to the Sudan and all of that. Um but when the US gets involved it gets I would say even kind of worse. Um one of the things I think that comes to mind is uh that let's see if I can um there was an air base that the US built uh in the Middle East um during the the Gulf War uh and it was actually at at war if I'm not mistaken. And there are pictures of US soldiers going up the stairs of the ziggurat of war. And it was actually called I think Til Air Force Base. And it was smack dab on top of the ruins.
And so Scuttlebutt I heard was as they were digging and putting sand in, you know, sandbags and such, they were actually accidentally excavating. So, >> you know, that's that.
>> Yeah, that's just one example, but just the destruction of sites and all of that. Um, yeah, archaeology and war zones do not mix, I would say. But also, I mean, uh, because of wars and such, uh, I know there are some people that go, I've never gone to Iran. I've never gone to Iraq. I've never gone to Lebanon. I have traveled in Syria and Jordan and Cyprus and Turkey and all that, but you know there are sometimes it's just you can't get there because of what's going on with the wars and you know the minute that whole area is peaceful which I'm not sure will ever happen but you know we can start going back and digging again uh in in those areas. Now to be fair, there's already digging going on with local archaeologists and other non-American archaeologists. Yeah.
Right. So I mean there's great archaeology being done. Uh um and some Americans are going back. I mean there are American excavations now digging at Nippore in Iraq, but every time another war breaks out, you get evacuated.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been evacuated from war zones three different times, I think, right? It's it's a hazard of the profession. They're like, "Why why do you dig in areas that are war zones?" I'm like, "I'm not sure I would phrase it like that, but it does.
It does kind of seem like it sometimes."
So anyway, it's a very good question, but I would expand it out to not just the US, but >> yeah, >> how does how does war affect cultural heritage and the cities? And that is um a real big problem that I know there are some groups that are actively trying to help uh as we go, you know, Blue Shield and others as well. Yeah.
>> Yeah. No, no, no. And I expect to do more live streams on this topic uh this summer, actually.
>> Um >> Great. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time, uh, Professor Klein.
It was a real treat. I think everybody enjoyed it. Uh, thank everybody for coming by. We got some outro music now to dance to. And, uh, I'll catch you all on our next live stream.
>> All right. Thank you, >> Flint.
Riddles. Tickle tickle giggles.
to the dance. Never ever ever Love and archaeology to y'all.
Related Videos
They Said Flight Was Impossible—Then Two Bicycle Mechanics Changed Everything#wrightbrothers
umars997
526 views•2026-05-30
#SeamansAct1915 #MaritimeHistory #LifeAtSea #BoatShitCrazyX #SaferWorkEnvironment
BoatShitCrazyX
859 views•2026-06-01
Black Women Were Banned From White Suffrage Groups
Peoplediduknow
782 views•2026-05-31
A Volcano Created Frankenstein — And Killed Summer for a Year
TheDarkSideOfSmth
389 views•2026-05-29
Born into slavery in Beaufort
RoadsanRoots
613 views•2026-05-31
50.32 Judah And Israel Split / Jeroboam's False Religion - 2 Chronicles ch. 10-11
smyrnachristianchurchkokomo
107 views•2026-05-29
Iran's Secret Society Wrote the Constitution — Then Got Hanged for It
TheShadowLecture
502 views•2026-05-29
How the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Harem System Actually Worked
HiddenTime360
580 views•2026-05-28
