{"podcast":{"title":"This Week in the Ancient Near East","slug":"this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259","podcast_index_feed_id":3467259,"rss_url":"https://feed.podbean.com/thisweekintheancientneareast/feed.xml","website_url":"https://thisweekintheancientneareast.podbean.com","image_url":"https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/10480554/logo_2a3wj6.jpg","author":"thisweekintheancientneareast","episode_count":142,"summary":"The podcast that takes archaeology precisely as seriously as it deserves. Two real professors of archaeology and one guy from a fake institution discuss cutting edge archaeological discoveries at a high professional level using technical knowledge and stuff. A scholarly podcast for the discerning listener, it’s handmade, artisanal, and bespoke! Critics say, “A cheeky and irreverent take,” and “the good kind of shenanigans.” Other critics say, “damaging to archaeology,” and “deeply discreditable.” High-level discourse informed by neo-Brechtian, Deleuzian, or post-post processual theory, or just more BS from a couple of bored, middle aged hacks? You be the judge! Why not check out this index of our back episodes? You can search by topic! https://airtable.com/app4eECJAuksSYpBP/shr7BSxqWQSYLmMnE/tblXQSGflnYHvVgcE/viwtg2OTzwxogcQ7G Who are the Panelists? JP Dessel is the Steinfeld Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is the author of Lahav I. Pottery and Politics The Halif Terrace Site 101 and Egypt in the Fourth Millennium B.C.E. (2009). Rachel Hallote is Professor of History and coordinator of the Jewish S…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-22T02:18:46.561182+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259"},"episode":{"title":"The Tales Ancient Scripts Can Tell, If We could Only Decipher Them, Like the South Arabian Script a Guy Actually Did Decipher Recently, or, Love Languages Lost (and Found)","slug":"the-tales-ancient-scripts-can-tell-if-we-could-only-decipher-them-like-the-south-arabian-script-a-guy-actually-did-decipher-recently-or-love-languages-lost-and-found","published_at":"2025-09-08T11:24:15+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259/the-tales-ancient-scripts-can-tell-if-we-could-only-decipher-them-like-the-south-arabian-script-a-guy-actually-did-decipher-recently-or-love-languages-lost-and-found","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259","url":"https://thisweekintheancientneareast.podbean.com/e/the-talesancient-scriptscantellif-we-could-only-decipher-them-like-the-south-arabianscript-aguy-actually-did-decipherrecentlyorlovelanguageslostand/","audio_url":"https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/u3bw2j89esu7s5ey/podcast_122_-_9_7_25_1235_PM6ezdc.mp3","summary":"The recent decipherment of the South Arabian Dhofari script from the first millennium BCE reminds us that we don’t know as much about ancient peoples and languages as we think. And finding a completely new language in a Hittite text shows that they knew a lot more than us, which is sobering, since they didn’t have fancy degrees or iced pecan oat milk lattes.","meta_description":"The recent decipherment of the South Arabian Dhofari script from the first millennium BCE reminds us that we don’t know as much about ancient peoples and…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2382,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259/episodes/the-tales-ancient-scripts-can-tell-if-we-could-only-decipher-them-like-the-south-arabian-script-a-guy-actually-did-decipher-recently-or-love-languages-lost-and-found/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/this-week-in-the-ancient-near-east-3467259/the-tales-ancient-scripts-can-tell-if-we-could-only-decipher-them-like-the-south-arabian-script-a-guy-actually-did-decipher-recently-or-love-languages-lost-and-found.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}