A curious list from the Mishnah lists seven labors that a woman does for her husband. The juxtaposition of these seven tasks in a list creates a hierarchy among them, which dictates the order in which the performance of a task is transferred to an enslaved woman as the size of the woman’s dowry increases. Scholars read this text to understand how wealth shapes a woman’s labor obligations, but they have taken the form and contents of the list as a given. This article argues that the list establishes the category of wives’ work in rabbinic literature and defines it as work that is performed interchangeably by the wife or enslaved women. The form of the list can be compared to other lists within the Mishnah as well as lists of housework in contemporary traditions. These comparisons allow for a more critical stance toward the interplay of slavery and status in the Mishnah. The Mishnah’s framing of a wife’s work as interchangeable belies how the individual tasks were embedded in broader social, economic, and technological transformations.

The aim of this study was to determine if the protozoa that cause dysentery might have been present in Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, during the Iron Age. Sediments from 2 latrines pertaining to this time period were obtained, 1 dating from the 7th century BCE and another from the 7th to early 6th century BCE. Microscopic investigations have previously shown that the users were infected by whipworm (Trichuris trichiura), roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), Taenia sp. tapeworm and pinworm (Enterobius vermicularis). However, the protozoa that cause dysentery are fragile and do not survive well in ancient samples in a form recognizable using light microscopy. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits designed to detect the antigens of Entamoeba histolytica, Cryptosporidium sp. and Giardia duodenalis were used. Results for Entamoeba and Cryptosporidium were negative, while Giardia was positive for both latrine sediments when the analysis was repeated three times. This provides our first microbiological evidence for infective diarrhoeal illnesses that would have affected the populations of the ancient near east. When we integrate descriptions from 2nd and 1st millennium BCE Mesopotamian medical texts, it seems likely that outbreaks of dysentery due to giardiasis may have caused ill health throughout early towns across the region.

How hunter-gatherers manipulated and utilised their natural surroundings is a widely studied topic among anthropologists and archaeologists alike. This focuses on the Natufian culture of the Late Epipalaeolithic period (c. 15–11.7 kyr), the last Levantine hunter-gatherer population, and specifically on the earliest composite tools designed for harvesting. These tools are widely referred to as sickles. They consisted of a haft into which a groove was cut and flint inserts affixed. This revolutionised harvesting and established it on new grounds. While the plants manipulated by these tools are yet to be identified with certainty, it is evident that these implements were rapidly integrated and dispersed throughout the Natufian interaction sphere, suggesting that they provided a significant advantage, which probably constituted a critical step toward agriculture. At the same time, the Natufian haft assemblage demonstrates high morphometric variability. We review the available data concerning Natufian hafts and offer three possible models to explain the noted variability. We conclude that while these models are not mutually exclusive, this varied technological pattern is best understood as deriving from a protracted formative phase of technological development, progressing through incremental processes of trial and error.

This article reconsiders the similarities between Aphrodite's ascent to Olympus and Ishtar's ascent to heaven in Iliad Book 5 and the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Tablet VI respectively. The widely accepted hypothesis of an Iliadic reception of the Mesopotamian poem is questioned, and the consonance explained as part of a vast stream of tradition encompassing ancient Near Eastern and early Greek narrative poetry. Compositional and conceptual patterns common to the two scenes are first analyzed in a broader early Greek context, and then across further Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic and Hurro-Hittite sources. The shared compositional techniques at work in Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean can be seen as a function of the largely performative nature of narrative poetry. This contributes to explaining literary transmission within the Near East and onto Greece.

Combining global perspectives with localized case studies and integrating scientific and material evidence of environmental change in historical narratives are amongst the main challenges for the field of global history in addressing the dawn of the Anthropocene. In this article, we trace the relationship of the city of Gerasa (Jerash, Jordan) with its riverine hinterland, from the first millennium BCE until the nineteenth century CE. We argue that the study of long-term historical trajectories of microregions not only depends on context from regional and global history timelines, but also has the potential to provide insights relevant to those scales in return. Zooming in and scaling up must go hand in hand in order for global history perspectives to be properly informed, and archaeology and natural sciences have crucial insights to offer – although importantly only when evidence comes from well-contextualized frameworks.

An updated and comprehensive compilation and review of the historical breeding sites of the Northern Bald Ibis in Syria and south-eastern Turkey is presented accompanied by all available details. The original sources, dating from the first half of the 19th century to 2010, were thoroughly assessed and reviewed. A detailed distribution map of confirmed and unconfirmed historical Northern Bald Ibis colonies was developed, showing a cluster of colonies located in the central steppe of Syria, between the villages of Qaryatayn and Sukhna, while several other colonies were scattered along the Euphrates river from southern Turkey to Iraq, passing through Syria.

The EVOSHEEP project combines archaeozoology, geometric morphometrics and genetics to study archaeological sheep assemblages dating from the sixth to the first millennia BC in eastern Africa, the Levant, the Anatolian South Caucasus, the Iranian Plateau and Mesopotamia. The project aims to understand changes in the physical appearance and phenotypic characteristics of sheep and how these related to the appearance of new breeds and the demand for secondary products to supply the textile industry.

During the Early Neolithic in the Near East, particularly from the mid ninth millennium cal BC onwards, human iconography became more widespread. Explanations for this development, however, remain elusive. This article presents a unique assemblage of flint artefacts from the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (eighth millennium BC) site of Kharaysin in Jordan. Contextual, morphological, statistical and use-wear analyses of these artefacts suggest that they are not tools but rather human figurines. Their close association with burial contexts suggests that they were manufactured and discarded during mortuary rituals and remembrance ceremonies that included the extraction, manipulation and redeposition of human remains.

Hafting is an important part of lithic technology that can increase our understanding of socioeconomic behavior in the past. In this article, we develop a holistic approach to studying hafting by using the concept of curation within a broader assessment of lithic technological organization in early villages. Early villages were loci of socioeconomic transformation as part of the shift from mobile foraging to more sedentary cultivation lifeways. We suggest that an examination of hafting can provide new insights into how early villagers negotiated technological requirements, economic decision making, and social interactions in these novel contexts. As a case study, we develop a curation index and apply it to an archaeological context of hafted and unhafted pointed tools from the early Neolithic village of Dhra’, Jordan. This curation index allows for a discussion of the technological, economic, and social dimensions of hafting strategies at Dhra’. The presence of multiple hafting traditions within early Neolithic villages of Southwest Asia is evidence of persistent social segmentation despite food storage and ritual practices that emphasized communal integration. Through the lens of lithic technological organization, we demonstrate that hafting and curation patterns can increase our understanding of technological, economic, and social strategies in early villages.

Wetlands are a key archive for paleoclimatic and archeological work, particularly in arid regions, as they provide a focus for human occupation and preserve environmental information. The sedimentary record from 'Ayn Qasiyya, a spring site on the edge of the Azraq Qa, provides a well-dated sequence through the last glacial–interglacial transition (LGIT) allowing environmental changes in the present-day Jordanian desert to be investigated robustly through this time period for the first time. Results show that the wettest period at the site preceded the last glacial maximum, which itself was characterised by marsh formation and a significant Early Epipaleolithic occupation. A sedimentary hiatus between 16 and 10.5 ka suggests a period of drought in the region although seasonal rains and surface waters still allowed seasonal occupation of the Azraq region. Archeological evidence suggests that conditions had improved by the Late Epipaleolithic, about the time of the North Atlantic Younger Dryas. The changes between wet and dry conditions at the site show similarities to patterns in the eastern Mediterranean and in Arabia suggesting the Jordan interior was influenced by changes in both these regions through the LGIT climatic transition.

A comprehensive record of lake level changes in the Dead Sea has been reconstructed using multiple, well dated sediment cores recovered from the Dead Sea shore. Interpreting the lake level changes as monitors of precipitation in the Dead Sea drainage area and the regional eastern Mediterranean palaeoclimate, we document the presence of two major wet phases (∼ 10–8.6 and ∼ 5.6–3.5 cal kyr BP) and multiple abrupt arid events during the Holocene. The arid events in the Holocene Dead Sea appear to coincide with major breaks in the Near East cultural evolution (at ∼ 8.6, 8.2, 4.2, 3.5 cal kyr BP). Wetter periods are marked by the enlargement of smaller settlements and growth of farming communities in desert regions, suggesting a parallelism between climate and Near East cultural development.

A sediment core 7.2 m long from Lake Mirabad, Iran, was examined for loss-on-ignition, mineralogy, oxygen-isotopic composition of authigenic calcite, and trace-element composition of ostracodes to complement earlier pollen and ostracode-assemblage studies. Pollen, ostracode-inferred lake level, and high Sr/Ca ratios indicate that the early Holocene (10000 to 6500 cal yr BP) was drier than the late Holocene. Low δ18O values during this interval are interpreted as resulting from winter-dominated precipitation, characteristic of a Mediterranean climate. Increasing δ18O values after 6500 cal yr BP signal a gradual increase in spring rains, which are present today. A severe 600-yr drought occurred at ca. 5500 cal yr BP, shortly after the transition from pistachio-almond to oak forest. During the late Holocene, two milder droughts occurred at about 1500 and 500 cal yr BP. Within the resolution of the record, no drought is evident during the collapse of the Akkadian empire (4200–3900 cal yr BP). Rather, a decrease in δ18O values to early-Holocene levels may indicate the return to a Mediterranean precipitation regime.

A palynological study based on two 100-m long cores from Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran provides a vegetation record spanning 200 ka, the longest pollen record for the continental interior of the Near East. During both penultimate and last glaciations, a steppe ofArtemisiaand Poaceae dominated the upland vegetation with a high proportion of Chenopodiaceae in both upland and lowland saline ecosystems. WhileJuniperusand deciduousQuercustrees were extremely rare and restricted to some refugia,Hippophaë rhamnoidesconstituted an important phanerophyte, particularly during the late last glacial period. A pronounced expansion inEphedrashrub-steppe occurred at the end of the penultimate late-glacial period but was followed by extreme aridity that favoured anArtemisiasteppe. Very high lake levels, registered by both pollen and sedimentary markers, occurred during the middle of the last glaciation and late part of the penultimate glaciation. The late-glacial to early Holocene transition is represented by a succession ofHippophaë, Ephedra, Betula, Pistaciaand finallyJuniperusandQuercus. The last interglacial period (Eemian), slightly warmer and moister than the Holocene, was followed by two interstadial phases similar in pattern to those recorded in the marine isotope record and southern European pollen sequences.