Best of Ancient/Now 2023
Some of our favorite and most popular podcast episodes and featured posts from the past year
Best of Ancient/Now 2023
This week we want to share some of our favorite and most popular podcast episodes and Substack posts from 2023. We covered hot topics like repatriation of the Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra and race, and white feminist claims of Nefertiti. We also got into the Egyptological weeds, in a good way (!), with discussions on statuary reuse and the religious mysteries behind the mummy of Herakleides, and even shared our most brilliant, and ever practical, advice about traveling to Egypt with a few friends or on your own. Whether your interest in the ancient world is casual or an irresistible compulsion to travel back any way that you can, we hope you found something here in 2023 to get you thinking about history in a way that you haven’t before.
If you had a favorite episode or featured post from this year, share it with us in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.
What else were we reading this week?
Exploring the Book of the Dead through the Getty Collection
In Photos: Soft opening of Grand Egyptian Museum's Grand Staircase held Thursday
7 scientific breakthroughs that resulted from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt
Peopling the Past: The Libyans with Matthew McCarty
Discovery from space shows that the pyramids were built using water
Lloyds of London archives show how important the city was to the transatlantic slave trade
The strange tale of Scotland’s buried Egyptian treasures
Meet the Archaeologist Leading the Museum’s Repatriation Efforts
Wall paintings from Old Dongola in Top 10 archaeological discoveries of 2023
Best of SAPIENS 2023
The Swirling Charybdis of Motherhood
One more thing…
Looking for a great read about a woman in power in the ancient world? Then you should check out Cleopatra’s Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen, Jane Draycott’s biography of Antony and Cleopatra VII’s daughter Cleopatra Selene.
I (Jordan) just read this book two weeks ago, and I highly recommend it. It’s enlightening to hear the Cleopatra/Marc Anthony story from a new perspective and see the legacy of Cleopatra through her children. It’s a really accessible read and shows just how interconnected the Mediterranean was at that time.
From the publisher:
Despite the disrepute of her family, Cleopatra Selene in time endeared herself to her captors through her remarkable intellect and political acumen. Rather than put her to death, Augustus wed her to the Numidian prince Juba, son of the deposed regent Juba I, and installed them both as client rulers of Mauretania in Africa. There, Cleopatra Selene ruled successfully for nearly twenty years, promoting trade, fostering the arts, and reclaiming her mother’s legacy—all at a time, Draycott reminds us, when kingship was an inherently male activity.
Hard to say ….I loved something from every episode. I love how you three just run with things based on very to little no evidence. For example the episode with the pet(sky) and the iron. When y’all got to talk about it and dogged deeper into it it was very expiring!! I tried to get into other podcast about ancient Egypt and to be honest I get bored with it. I love how you compare modern with the ancient times. I love the touch of personal input and laughed a lot of times because i can relate to it. For future episodes maybe it would be interesting especially coming from you to dissect the lives of Nefertiti,Nefertari,Hatshepsut,Shepenupet2,Tawosret. I read your book when woman ruled the world and would love to know if your view changed or if you would like to add something to it. Also i would love a 2 or 3 pet episodes just on coffins. Your theory that woman get reborn first as a osirian male form to recreate themselves into their true self like in life was just such a wow episode. You three can make everything interesting so far i never got bored on any topic.
I’d love y’all’s thoughts on Michelle Moran’s Cleopatra’s Daughter. It’s historical fiction, but she supposedly does years of research before writing each book. I’ve read multiple books by her, including this one, and loved them all. Wonderful storytelling while painting an amazing picture of the ancient world, at least from this non-academic’s POV. 😁