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PODCAST

Oldest Stories

History and myth of the Cradle of Civilization, bronze age Mesopotamia, beginning with the dawn of writing. The show will cover the full history of Mesopotamia, from Gilgamesh to Nabonidas, a span of some 2500 years, with myths of heroes and gods, and tales of daily life peppered throughout. Sumer, Akkad, Old Babylon, Hittites, and Israel have all been covered in depth, current episodes get deep into the Assyrian Empire. New episodes every other Wednesday. Online at oldeststories.net.

history

All Episodes

00:33:51

OS 85 - New Cities and New Villains

Oldest Stories ·

2021/06/16

This episode is a good place for new listeners to start if you are interested in the final years of the bronze age and the lead up to the bronze age collapse. Everyone is excited for the buildup to the great battle of Kadesh, but before we get to the battle itself, there is quite a lot going on in the reign of King Muwatalli that often gets overshadowed in the rush to the greatest battle of the late bronze age. Muwatalli is going to build a new capitol city, Tarhuntassa, which will be hugely

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00:39:47

OS 84 - Mursili's Plague

Oldest Stories ·

2021/06/09

While he can easily be overshadowed by the military accomplishments of his father Suppiluliuma and his son Muwatalli II, Mursili II is one of the most significant kings in Hittite History, and one of the most well documented. Unlike most kings, for whom we have pretty much just state records, we have personal details of Mursili's life and reign, telling us things like how he felt when he took the throne, and how much he loved his wife. Today we look at Mursili II's accomplishments and writings, all

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00:35:19

OS 83 - Vengeance, Mortal and Divine

Oldest Stories ·

2021/06/02

We have a bit of a hodge podge here as we finish up the reign of Suppiluliuma and move into his successors, Arnuwanda II and Mursili II. But there is a common thread of vengeance woven throughout. We will see the level of violence rise, both in terms of more combat which has been recorded and in the brutality that gets pulled out to deal with the defeated side in these wars. We will talk a little bit about military trends, particularly the balance of siegecraft and city defense, and some of the

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00:36:10

OS 82 - Suppiluliuma Irritates Egypt

Oldest Stories ·

2021/05/26

In the aftermath of one of the greatest campaigns of the bronze age, Suppiluliuma's Hittites need to consolidate control over Syria. This is complicated by matters of Egyptian and Mitanni politics, as well as the endless politicking of the tiny Syrian states, but it turns out if you have a massive army and a military genius, than many political problems have a way of simply resolving themselves. We will also see one of the strangest events in bronze age political history, and we will see how it goes

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00:37:35

OS 81 - King Tushratta Begs and Runs Away

Oldest Stories ·

2021/05/19

Today we will start the great and storied reign of Hittite Great King Suppiluliuma I and his campaigns against the Mitanni. However, because this happens to be the age of Amarna, we are in the unusual position that his opponent in Mitanni is not a faceless non-entity. There is a fair bit we can say about the Mitanni king Tushratta, and so before we start wrecking the Mitanni kingdom, we are going to learn a bit about Tushratta and his role in shifting the balance of power in the near east. Online at

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00:29:26

OS 80 - The Storm Before The Calm

Oldest Stories ·

2021/05/12

Today the Hittite Empire will fall, pretty much completely, and be replaced by the western Anatolian state of Arzawa. We have seen the Hittites beaten pretty badly before, and this is about as bad at it has ever gotten, with even the capitol Hattusa sacked and burned to the ground. But no matter how hard the Hittites get hit this episode, they have a secret weapon in their back pocket, king Tudhaliya III's son and heir Suppiluliuma. Online at oldeststories.net --- Send in a voice message:

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00:47:14

OS 79 - Magic and Medicine in Hattusa

Oldest Stories ·

2021/05/05

Magic, science, and medicine are our topic today, focusing primarily one the good number of documents on these topics which survive from the Middle Hittite period. We are going to learn how to cure diseases like impotence and argumentativeness, and we are going to learn which animals are and are not ok to have sexual relations with. The rituals we are looking at today provide one more window into the mindset of the ancients, and offer one more puzzle piece to fill in our picture of the late bronze

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00:35:41

OS 78 - Foreigners and Vassals of Hatti

Oldest Stories ·

2021/04/28

Things are tough for the Hittite Empire. The vassals who promise to be loyal keep being disloyal, the enemies who promise to attack keep attacking, and we can't even know for certain what the logistical situation looked like, though it was surely quite grim, given the number of folks who appear unwilling to show up to work when called on. That said, the Tudhaliya and Arnuwanda tag team is the rocky beginning of the uphill climb for the Hittite empire, and things are going to end up still uncertain,

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00:35:36

OS 77 - Idrimi's Adventure and Tudhaliya's Invasion

Oldest Stories ·

2021/04/21

We return to Anatolia, where our tale remains just as poorly documented and fast moving as it is in Babylon, thought there is light at the end of the tunnel this week as we finally get into the transition to the Hittite New Kingdom, with all the renewed conquest and court drama that entails. Actually, so little happens in the Hittite Middle Kingdom that much of the first half of the show is dedicated to one of the more peculiar incidents, the tale of Idrimi, a deposed prince who turns himself into a

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00:37:20

OS 76 - The Amarna Mailbag

Oldest Stories ·

2021/04/14

The Amarna letters are famous because nowhere else in bronze age history do we have a cache of documents quite like it. Thirteen letters from Kadashman-Enlil, and later his son Burna-Buriash, addressed to Pharoah Akhenaten of Egypt, give us insights into the nuts and bolts of bronze age international diplomacy that even most bronze age folks would have not understood unless they were part of the royal courts. What did ancient kings know about their neighbors, how did they think about their kingdom,

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00:35:35

OS 75 - Building Babylonia

Oldest Stories ·

2021/04/07

The growth of Kassite Babylonia, also called Karduniash, continues apace. Just like last week, Kassite Babylonia is very poorly documented, and thus we are going to cover all the way from Pharaoh Thutmose III to Pharaoh Akhenaten. That's right, Kassite Babylonia has so little history that we make our bookmarks against Egyptian history instead of Babylonian, but this does mean that we will start looking at the famous Amarna letters, the diplomatic correspondence between Kadashman-Enlil and the

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00:36:52

OS 74 - A New Dawn for Babylon

Oldest Stories ·

2021/03/31

Babylon is reborn! Following the decline and sack of Babylon, the entire region was devastated for decades. However, even in these ashes lay the seeds of a new growth, the Kassite Dynasty, which will emerge to rebuild not just Babylon but the whole region. This is a relatively poorly documented century, but a significant one, meaning that our story is going to be jumping around quite a bit, but this will give us a good view of many different parts of the rising dynasty. --- Send in a voice

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00:42:50

OS 73 - Corruption in Nuzi

Oldest Stories ·

2021/03/24

True crime! Corruption in city hall! A gang of thugs terrorizing a town! One of the most interesting finds in the town of Nuzi is a series of court documents which contain testimony about a large number of criminal activities by a gang of thugs, including men who have positions in city hall. Today we get an on the ground look at what sort of crime went on in Nuzi, and what was done about it. Plus, we will start to get a sense of how many sheep the Hurrians actually had. --- Send in a voice

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00:37:52

Bonus 4 - Akitu New Year Special

Oldest Stories ·

2021/03/17

Happy Mesopotamian New Year! Akitu was celebrated at the start of the year from Sumerian times until the end of Babylonian civilization, and naturally the details changed significantly over the course of thousands of years. However, this is something of a reconstructed outline of what went on, with attention particularly paid both to the cultural context of many of the events, as well as to how some of those might be adjusted for modern neo-pagans attempting to reconstruct the holiday. --- Send

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00:33:41

OS72 - Lawyers of Nuzi

Oldest Stories ·

2021/03/10

Today we have a very real discussion about some very real people, hearing from the Hurrians in their own words by looking at the goings on in a town called Nuzi. When two groups disagree about who is the rightful owner of some land, the matter gets resolved in a peaceful and civilized fashion, with a well ordered and reasonable lawsuit. This may be the bronze age, but it turns out that we can, in fact, resolve our problems using words instead of violence. Today we are using actual court documents

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00:34:33

OS 71 - Hurrian Wisdom

Oldest Stories ·

2021/03/03

The Hurrian Song of Release is an odd text. Part wisdom, part legend, the best we can guess is that it was a set of rituals, cultural memories, and advice to accompany what may have been a monumental life event, when a debtor or perhaps slave was released from bondage. Or perhaps when a whole city's worth of slaves are released. Or perhaps it is actually just a number of unrelated texts recorded on the same clay tablet because they were individually too small and there was still plenty of space on

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00:35:16

OS 70 - Mighty Monsters of Mitanni

Oldest Stories ·

2021/02/24

Finishing up the Kumarbi Cycle with the biggest of monsters, the Song of Hedammu and the Song of Ullikummi are the two tales that see some actual character development, as Ea, god of wisdom, slowly moves out of Kumarbi's camp and is finally convinced to begin supporting Tessub as rightful king of heaven. A massive sea monster and a huge stone are our opponents today, and even the gods will have trouble defeating them in direct battles. Online at oldeststories.net --- Send in a voice message:

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00:35:55

OS 69 - Kumarbi Strikes Back

Oldest Stories ·

2021/02/17

The Song of Lamma and the song of Silver, two further adventures in the Kumarbi cycle. Tessub may be the Hurrian king in heaven, but Kumarbi still wants to pull him down, and hatches scheme after scheme to defeat his usurper. Lamma is an obscure god, possibly a Lamassu, possibly the god Karhuhi, but he will be turned to Kumarbi's side and sent to battle Tessub. Silver is a demi-god, a champion of mortal mother and divine father, who will even overcome his father on his way to the throne. Online at

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00:38:21

OS 68 - The Song of Kumarbi

Oldest Stories ·

2021/02/10

Today we begin the great epic of the Hurrians, the Kumarbi cycle, which in multiple fragmentary episodes discusses the multiple conflicts over kingship that the Hurrian gods have with each other. Focusing particularly on the battle between Tessub and Kumarbi, it draws in a number of gods from both native Hurrian as well as southern Mesopotamian and Anatolian tradition. The end result is a work about the cosmic order that finds many parallels, and may well have influenced, later Greek myth,

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00:34:35

OS 67 - Late Bronze Age Warfare

Oldest Stories ·

2021/02/03

This may be the late bronze age, but it is the golden age of chariot warfare. To a great degree, the power of the great kingdoms is all built upon chariot warfare, from the Maryannu elites of Mitanni to the heavy chariots of the Hittites, to the personal valor of the Egyptian pharoahs, to the flat plains of Kassite Babylon. What did war look like in a time dominated by the the great chariots? We will look at how thoroughly a chariot army could dominate and raid into places that had no chariots for

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