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> This year’s excavation unearthed 131 cuneiform tablets and fragments which record an epidemic of fever, military logistics, religious practices and events of royal daily life 3,400 years ago.

Nice time machine you've got there. Not just vases and bones, but thoughts and societal complexities.

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My Hittite language class went online during COVID and switched from studying royal annals to the Plague Prayers of Muršili II. One of the most enlightening parts of studying the ancient world is seeing that even in very alien cultures separated by millennia, we're all just people.

In the case of the Assyrian rulers, really terrible people.

Well yeah, they were kings.

They come across as evil even compared to other kings.

Why, in particular?

Skinning defeated enemies alive, for example, and celebrating that in pictures on victory stellae/carvings.

They made a lot of enemies who finally, when the empire was weakened by internal troubles, ganged together to destroy it.

My favorite piece of this will always be the Pompeii bathroom graffiti, with all the usual suspects. Guys really are dudes and it’s a beautiful thing.

https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-bawdy-graffiti-of-p...

FOR A GOOD TIME CALL CORNELIA L. VIA APPIA 5258

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