In our days, the interpretation of Plato’s Atlantis story as an invention of Plato is prevailing in academic scholarship. Atlantis scepticism is the choice of the bright side of life, so to say. Closely connected to the good feeling of being on the bright side is the depiction of Atlantis belief as dark and dangerous. Atlantis believers are c…[Read more]

This article reads Genesis 18-19 in the light of the principal of exchange at work in ancient religious belief concerning divine justice. Genesis 18.1-15 and 19.1-29, as examples of the well-worn tale of the divine visitor, are narrative expressions of confidence in a divine justice that rewards the kind and punishes the inhospitable. In the…[Read more]

This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book of Qoheleth, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind” (NRSV) and reads it as a disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh and jwr denote mortality and the divine spirit, respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, “All is mortal, but strives for immortality”. Using R…[Read more]

This paper publishes a ceramic bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicting a Parthian shot. Although it lacks archaeological provenance, the bowl can be dated to the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, and probably comes from northwestern Iran. It is, therefore, one of the few possible instances of a Parthian shot from the Arsacid Empire.

This paper publishes a ceramic bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicting a Parthian shot. Although it lacks archaeological provenance, the bowl can be dated to the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, and probably comes from northwestern Iran. It is, therefore, one of the few possible instances of a Parthian shot from the Arsacid Empire.

Text to a presentation on the misrepresentation of ancient Egyptian psychoactive consumption in academic publications and public media that was given by me at the Alternative Egyptology Symposium, hosted by the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, 14-04-2021. There is an academic paper in preparation.

Demons and monsters are inherently moveable creatures: from the late second millennium BCE onwards a number of demons and monsters migrate from their native Mesopotamian contexts, moving westward. Of course, these figures do not remain static throughout their journey, instead acquiring the characteristics of the different cultural contexts wherein…[Read more]

The Phaistos Disk is the missing link connecting Mesopotamian cuneiform Akkadian with its Mediterranean alphabetic forms. As such it is a hybrid phonetic and alphabetic text dating to about 1800 BCE. It is a philosophical/religious debate about the cause of a recent drought, the first written debate in history. The key to its translation was its…[Read more]

This article discusses major issues of interdisciplinary research. In the introduction, the concepts of ›disciplinarity‹, ›multidisciplinarity‹, ›interdisciplinarity‹ and ›transdisciplinarity‹ are being explicated. This is followed by a comparative treatment of experiences with designing and practicing interdisciplinarity in various fields…[Read more]

In this paper I outline some of empirical and theoretical problems associated with the dividing Mycenaean Greece into a core and a periphery. The periphery has traditionally been defined in contrast to a homogeneous palatial core, but recent research has shown that this homogeneity is illusory. I suggest, following Knappett’s discussion of M…[Read more]

A recent genetic study has revealed that the adult male buried in the most elaborate recess of the Neolithic passage-tomb at Newgrange was the child of a first-degree incestuous union, suggesting that the complex was built as a burial monument for an endogamous family elite who may have been regarded as “god-kings.” The present paper shows how clo…[Read more]

A short essay on the different forms of money used in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Translated into German by Julia Linke.

A short essay on the different forms of money used in the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Translated into German by Julia Linke.

An overview of taxation in ancient states.

This chapter surveys the means by which the Late Bronze Age polities of Mycenaean Greece acquired goods and services, with a focus on regular extractive transactions.

The neolithic figurines of North – and North-East Europe, belonging to Pitted Ware culture and Pit-Comb Ware culture, are a desideratum to research. These pretty creations, often sculptures of human and animals such as bears, moose, seals, wild-horse, domestic animals and fantastic four-limped beings are spatially distributed over the Baltic R…[Read more]

The paper proposes that the Egyptian-style design on a 5-6th century CE magical amulet discovered at Nea Paphos in Cyprus (Inv. no. PAP/FR 44/2011) draws upon an apotropaic design against the Evil Eye known as the “All-Suffering Eye,” which dates back to the time of the early Roman Empire and is common on Byzantine “Holy Rider” medallions. [No…[Read more]

The paper proposes that the Egyptian-style design on a 5-6th century CE magical amulet discovered at Nea Paphos in Cyprus (Inv. no. PAP/FR 44/2011) draws upon an apotropaic design against the Evil Eye known as the “All-Suffering Eye,” which dates back to the time of the early Roman Empire and is common on Byzantine “Holy Rider” medallions. [No…[Read more]

This fragmentary text is a debate about the cause of a drought between a Phoenician magic crafter devoted to the motion power class of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm and an Israelite life priest devoted to the life-growth powers. Each side blames the drought on the ineffectiveness of the other. Because the stele fragments were used as fill for or in a…[Read more]

This fragmentary text is a debate about the cause of a drought between a Phoenician magic crafter devoted to the motion power class of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm and an Israelite life priest devoted to the life-growth powers. Each side blames the drought on the ineffectiveness of the other. Because the stele fragments were used as fill for or in a…[Read more]