Episode

Does Anybody at Iron Age Arad Really Know What Time It Is? Or, If You Can Write the Weekly Invoices, Can You Write the Bible?

Podcast
This Week in the Ancient Near East
Published
Dec 1, 2025
Duration seconds
2496
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not_requested
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https://thisweekintheancientneareast.podbean.com/e/does-anybody-at-iron-age-arad-really-know-what-time-it-is-or-if-you-can-write-the-weekly-invoices-can-you-write-the-bible/
Audio
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/kusb54b5kdbbqqca/podcast_128_-_11_30_25_1157_AM8f555.mp3
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Summary

At the 6th century BCE Arad fortress Judean soldiers waited patiently for resupply every week. But new research shows that a week was really six days, which added up to a 360 day year. This may not have been a problem for military logistics but it certainly made sending birthday cards harder.