The AskHistorians Podcast is a project that highlights the users and answers that have helped make/r/AskHistorians one of the largest history discussion forum on the internet. You can subscribe to us via iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS. If there is another index you'd like the cast listed on, let me know!
This Episode:
/u/Daeres speaks to /u/400-Rabbits about a collection of cuneiform documents known as the Assyrian State Archives. The interview delves into texts relating to everything from high level political arrangements to land purchases to hectoring bureaucratic memos to one poor official who was simply not very good at spelling. Insights into Assyrian life and historiography occur amidst this textual conversation.
You can browse the Assyrian State Archives translations at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/corpus.
The specific documents discussed were:
SAA 01 001 Midas Of Phrygia Seeks Detente
SAA 06 037, 042, 046, 50 (Various doings of Šumma-ilani)
SAA 13 034 Features of a Royal Statue Disputed
SAA 13 040 (No title, but this is the "negligent" one)
SAA 15 017 I have no Scribe
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Thanks all!
Coming up next fortnight: /u/Ambarenya speaks at length with /u/400-Rabbits about the Byzantines at the height of their power under the Macedonian and Komnenian dynasties.
8 Answers 2014-09-12
1 Answers 2014-09-12
Mathematicians tell stories about dealing with mathematical "cranks" who try to do things like trisect an angle, prove Fermat's last theorem is true, or that 0.9999 ... is not equal to 1.
Do historians have the same problem, i.e. being contacted by amateur historians who are promoting some crazy pet theory? Are there common "crank" topics that pop up?
10 Answers 2014-09-12
1 Answers 2014-09-12
2 Answers 2014-09-12
For that matter, how did the Philippines?
1 Answers 2014-09-12
1 Answers 2014-09-12
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2 Answers 2014-09-12
I've heard conflicting stories on the actual extent of Ludwig's hearing troubles. How much of this is historically accurate, and how much of this is one of the best legends of all time?
1 Answers 2014-09-12
I have a friend who claims that only 3 German Zeppelins were ever shot down by allied aircraft (excluding flak kills and Zeppelins rendered non-flyable while docked.)
This sounds wrong, but I don't know enough about history to dispute it, and I didn't see anything proving (or really disproving) him on wikipedia.
1 Answers 2014-09-12
1 Answers 2014-09-12
Suppose you dig a hole and find ancient Roman weapons, that's a historic discovery. However, if you dig a hole and find the switch blade from the last homeowner, that is clearly not historic. So, where does "historic-ness" start?
Is it out of interest? Is the ancient arrowhead historic because it's cool?
Or is it because we know much less about the arrowhead and it's origins than the switchblade? Or something else?
1 Answers 2014-09-12
I assume the best answer would have the relic's worth in comparison to other prized items of the time... but I don't really know.
2 Answers 2014-09-12
How did people know the sound of a note before tuning machines and something to tune from?
2 Answers 2014-09-12
I know his charter was real, but my history teacher told me that no one knows who he truly was. He said their is no 100% valid evidence that he was one man or that was his real name.
1 Answers 2014-09-12
I once heard that there was a risk when German POWs were shipped to the US of being sunk by U-Boats. How common was this?
2 Answers 2014-09-12
"History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history"Khalil Gibran. So according to the quote if you dont know history then history WILL repeat itself, how would you know that an event repeated itself if you didnt even know of the event in the first place?
3 Answers 2014-09-12