Episode
Moudhy Al-Rashid, "Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
- Podcast
- New Books in Archaeology
- Published
- Oct 16, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2622
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-archaeology-736373/episodes/moudhy-al-rashid-between-two-rivers-ancient-mesopotamia-and-the-birth-of-history-w-w-norton-2025/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-archaeology-736373/moudhy-al-rashid-between-two-rivers-ancient-mesopotamia-and-the-birth-of-history-w-w-norton-2025.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In 1923, archaeologist Leonard Woolley stumbled upon a room that dated back to 530BC, the time of the Babylonians. Oddly, the room was filled with artifacts that were thousands of years older. A clay drum led Woolley to speculate that he might have stumbled across the world’s first museum. Whether that was really the case is still somewhat unknown. But this room is the inspiration behind Moudhy Al-Rashid’s book Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History (W.W. Norton / Hodder, 2025) which dives into the many different aspects of life and society across the many states that governed Mesopotamia. Moudhy Al-Rashid is an honorary fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College, where she specializes in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Between Two Rivers. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/archaeology