Archaeology

By Lubna Omar | – I used to be a Near Eastern archaeologist working in Syria. Nowadays, I am stuck in academic purgatory, observing from a great distance as the country burns, unable to help protect its history or its present. Syria sits within what’s known as the cradle of civilization. It’s part of the […]

Archaeology

Medieval Crusaders in Levant Married, Recruited Locals, DNA shows

contributors

In the pitt, three were Europeans, four were Near Easterners, and the two had European ancestry but with less West European markers.

Archaeology

Dear Tucker Carlson: Iraqis Invented Civilization and, like, Literacy when “White Men” were Painting themselves Blue

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tucker Carlson has been playing David Duke with a northeast accent and bow tie for some years, but in radio interviews with Bubba the Love Sponge from a decade ago released by Media Matters, he gave up the dog whistle for butchering and barbecuing the dog. Mediamatters4america: “Tucker Carlson makes […]

Archaeology

For Int’l Women’s Day: An Arabian Woman of Late Antiquity Prays to Goddesses for Peace

Juan Cole

For Int’l Women’s Day, via OCIANA a Safaitic Arabic inscription [c. 1-400 AD], by a wealthy woman calling on two goddesses for peace: “By Shamat daughter of Sar is the mule [owned] and O {Shahqam} —-m—- [and] Allat, [grant] {security} [for] the people of al-Ḍaf.” This inscription from the first centuries after Christ in Arabia […]

Archaeology

How Horse-Riding in Eurasia advantaged Huns, Mongols over Farmers

Mariette Le Roux

Migrations brought Pastoralists and Plague

Archaeology

A mid-6th Century (Christian?) proto-Arabic Inscription from N. Arabia Mentioning Al-Ilah

Juan Cole

(Politically oriented readers of IC please excuse this reprint of a path-breaking but extremely technical discussion in Arabian religious and linguistic history. It is highly important for the study of the beginnings of Islam, since it discusses an inscription from al-Jawf, Saudi Arabia dated to 548 CE, i.e. some sixty years before the beginning of […]

Archaeology

Volcano-driven Climate Change Defeated Egypt’s Ptolemies

contributors

By Steven Young | ( The Watchers) | – – Around 245 BCE Ptolemy III, ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, made a decision that still puzzles many historians: After pursuing a successful military campaign against the kingdom’s nemesis, the Seleucid Empire, centered mainly in present-day Syria and Iraq, Ptolemy III suddenly decided to […]

Archaeology

Yes, White Supremacists, some Vikings were Muslims & Thor was Brown

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The archeological identification of stylized Arabic text for God (Allah) and Ali (the prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law) in burial garments of the Vikings in Sweden has thrown white supremacists into a tizzy. While the garments could just be the result of trade with the Middle […]

Archaeology

Syria’s Heritage, and the World’s, that the War Destroyed–From Palmyra to Castles

contributors

Written by Alreem Kamal | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – Syria's story is one that has been weaved through families from one millennium to the next. Subjugated as a Roman province under the command of Pompey the Great in 64 BC, and brought under Ottoman rule 16 centuries later by Sultan Selim I in 1516, […]