On April 3rd we left Tehran for Hamadan. Of all the cities and sights that we had planned for our trip, Hamadan is probably the least well known. Today, Hamadan is little more than a medium sized mountain town. It has a relatively modern city center, few monumental buildings and almost no attractions. In Antiquity, however, the city was called Ecbatana and was universally known as the capital of the Medes. I had studied the Medes during my Research Master, so to me Hamadan was of special significance. The Medes allegedly founded the first Iranian empire and laid the basis for the later Achaemenid Empire. However, over the last few decades the idea that there had been a true Median Empire has been called into doubt. Instead, it has been proposed that the Median Empire was more like a loose tribal federation. Because of my research I am familiar with most publications and field reports on this region in pre-Achaemenid times. I was therefore very excited to finally see the region with my own eyes.

Continue reading “Through the land of the Medes (April 3-5 2016)”

On March 31th we left Isfahan for Tehran. After sleeping in until the early afternoon we caught the 2 PM bus, where we slept some more. The jet lag had really hit hard. As an evening person I already have trouble waking up early and in Iran it was two-and-a-half hours later than in the Netherlands. In addition, daylight saving time had just started the weekend before my departure. Long story short, we arrived in Tehran late in the evening where we booked a room for three nights at the prestigious Ferdowsi International Grand Hotel. This hotel, named after the famous Persian poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi (940-1020), was decorated in Neo-Achaemenid style. Fun fact: Ferdowsi hardly mentions the Achaemenids in his epic, the Shahnameh. It was good to stay in such a luxurious hotel for a while. As someone who lives in a social housing appartment and has little money to spend on anything other than the bare necessities, it was a great experience.

Continue reading “Tehran – Stolen Heritage (March 31 – April 3 2016)”

It was six in the morning when I landed at Isfahan International Airport. I was exhausted because of my lack of sleep, but I was excited to finally set foot on Iranian soil. After years of studying the history and culture of Iran, I would now finally see the country that I loved so much. Outside my good friend Ali Abroo was waiting for me, along with his cousin Mehdi. Both were eager to carry my luggage for me, even though I repeatedly told them that I could carry the luggage myself. A taxi brought us to the home Mehdi in Baharestan, a relatively wealthy suburb of Isfahan, where a bed had been prepared for me.

Continue reading “Isfahan – A warm welcome (March 29-31 2016)”

Somewhere around AD 30 Jesus, a Jewish wisdom teacher from Nazareth, was crucified by the Romans. According to Christians this Jesus was the Messiah predicted in earlier Jewish scriptures. All Jews agreed that this Messiah would come to establish the Kingdom of God on earth, but the opinions on how this would come to pass differed greatly from sect to sect. Many Jews believed that the Messiah would establish a wordly kingdom and overthrow all evil rulers, but there was also a minority that believed that the Messiah had to suffer greatly and even die to save his people. Early Christians adhered to this minority view and thus believed that Jesus’s death on the cross served a special divine purpose. For this reason, about a third of every Gospel is dedicated to the final 24 hours of Jesus’s life. These Gospels contain detailed information on Jesus’s death, but how much of it can be used for historical reconstruction?

Continue reading “What happened on Good Friday?”

Ex Oriente Lux is a society that seeks to educate people about the importance of the Ancient Near East. Despite numerous research projects in this field, little information reaches the general public. Besides, Near Eastern studies are not very well integrated with other fields of Ancient History, like Classics. Ex Oriente Lux seeks to change all that. On March 19th they organized a seminar where four Dutch scholars shared their insights. The seminar revolved around Herodotus and his descriptions of the Persian Empire. Herodotus, who in many cases is our only source on Persian history, is extremely important but also highly contested. To illustrate the problems that come with interpreting Herodotus, the four speakers each focused on one anecdote from Herodotus’s Histories.

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Semitic languages have dominated the Near East since the dawn of recorded history. As early as 2900 BC Akkadian names are attested on Sumerian clay tablets and around the same time Canaanite snake spells were written down in Saqqara, which indicates that Semitic languages had spread to both Egypt and Mesopotamia by 3000 BC. Later Semitic speakers founded the world’s first empire, which would guarantee the political dominance of Akkadian speaking groups over the Near East for millennia to come. Semitic speakers are also found throughout Arabia and as far south as Ethiopia. In this article I will attempt to identify the original homeland of the proto-Semitic speakers and reconstruct the routes by which the Semitic languages descendants spread.

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We all know the story of Caesar’s death. After increasing concerns about Caesar’s royal ambitions a large number of senators, led by Cassius and Brutus, conspired to have Caesar killed. On the Ides of March 44 BC they found the opportunity to lure Caesar to a senate meeting at the theater of Pompey, where he was stabbed to death. Among the conspirators were many friends of Caesar, including his distant cousin Decimus Junius Brutus, who fought alongside him in Gaul, and of course Caesar’s adoptive son Marcus Junius “Et tu” Brutus. The assassination of Caesar was a pivotal moment in Roman history and should therefore be seen in its historical context. The same goes for the written sources on this event, most of which were written over 100 years after the events. What do we really know about Caesar’s death? Which information from the sources may be discarded?

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Most languages of North Africa, East Africa and the Near East are descended from a common ancestor known as proto-Afro-Asiatic. According to linguists this proto-language was spoken no earlier than 9500 years before present, which makes it one of the oldest identified proto-languages. The original homeland of proto-Afro-Asiatic has not yet been identified with certainty. In order to do this we need to know how the various branches of Afro-Asiatic languages spread, which is difficult because these developments mostly took place in prehistoric times. Moreover, because the proto-language is so old the extant branches, like Cushitic, Chadic, Semitic, Berber and Egyptian, are highly divergent. This makes it difficult to group these branches into subgroups. To illustrate the problems I will give an overview of the scholarly concensus on this issue.

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Yama is one of the most enigmatic gods known to man. He is venerated in various religious traditions across the Asian continent, from Iran all the way to Japan. To Hindus he is king of the Underworld. According to Buddhists he judges the dead. The Persians know him as one of their first kings and the Nuristani people see him as the Creator of the world and mankind. Who is this mysterious Yama? In this post I will highlight the role of Yama in various religious traditions in an attempt to trace the ultimate origin of this deity.

Continue reading “Yama: The First Man”

All across southern Africa, from Mt. Cameroon to the Kilimanjaro and from the Great Lakes to the Cape, live people who refer to themselves as ‘Bantu’. These Bantu people speak closely related languages sharing a common ancestor that was spoken no longer than 4000 years ago. Obviously there must have been a series of massive migration waves that brought the Bantu people and their languages to the far southern and eastern edges of the African continent.

Continue reading “The Bantu migrations”