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How Does One Read Mesopotamian Kudurru Stones?
A kudurru can look like a small, solemn slab of stone, the sort of thing you’d walk past in a museum before heading for the enormous winged bulls. That would be a mistake. These objects are full of land, money, family status, royal power, and enough divine threats to make a modern property solicitor blink.…
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How Does One Explain Why Mesopotamians Buried Foundation Deposits?
A new temple was never only a pile of mud bricks. For a Mesopotamian king, it was a promise made to a god, a public statement of power, and a message pushed into the earth for someone not yet born. Mesopotamian foundation deposits were objects left beneath buildings in ancient Mesopotamia and across the ancient…
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How Does One Understand Zoroastrian Sagdid?
A dog is the last visitor many people expect at a funeral. Yet in ancient Zoroastrian custom, the dog’s presence was part of a serious, carefully ordered response to death. Zoroastrian Sagdid is often reduced to a strange fact for trivia nights. Look closer, though, and it opens onto a larger religious system about purity,…
