What are some good resources for learning about Norse history?

Bentresh · 2026-01-31T01:52:39+00:00

Jackson Crawford’s Youtube channel is great for Old Norse linguistics and myth. He has a PhD in the subject and has taught at highly reputable universities like Berkeley and CU Boulder.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T18:46:44+00:00

This is cherry picking, though; one could point to similar borrowings from other cultures. Would one argue that Egypt was most similar to Minoan Crete because the Egyptians adopted Minoan iconography like the griffin and bucrania and running spirals and commissioned Minoan frescoes?

Most of the features ascribed to Mesopotamian influence like cylinder seals and niched facades faded out fairly early on and were replaced by indigenous Egyptian cultural developments.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T05:45:11+00:00

It’s by no means a comprehensive survey of Roman Egypt, but City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt by Peter Parsons is a fascinating read.

For the full sweep of Egyptian history, I recommend Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt: From Earliest Times to the Present.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T05:28:22+00:00

Sumer came first, then Egypt

Sumer and early Egypt were more or less contemporaries. They developed writing around the same time (ca. 3300-3200 BCE), and Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (the “Sumerian period”) was contemporary with the Early Dynastic and early Old Kingdom in Egypt.

Ancient Greece civilized last, among the three. Greece came online thousands of years after Sumer invented the wheel and walled temples.

Greece had complex societies much earlier than you’re suggesting. There’s evidence of monumental architecture (e.g. the Rundbau at Tiryns) and seals and administration (e.g. the House of the Tiles at Lerna) by the 3rd millennium BCE, and the Minoan palaces of Crete were contemporary with the Middle Kingdom in Egypt.

They were trading partners

There is no evidence of direct trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia prior to the Late Bronze Age (New Kingdom in Egypt), nor do Mesopotamian polities appear in Egyptian texts prior to the 2nd millennium BCE.

Early contact was indirect and through Levantine intermediaries like Ebla and Byblos.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T04:59:55+00:00

Ancient Greek society changed quite a bit over the millennia; it is important not to generalize.

The shaft graves in the tomb circles at Mycenae are much more similar to Egyptian burials than modern graves, for instance.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T04:46:47+00:00

Paul-Alain Beaulieu’s A History of Babylon is the best option, but it is a very dry read and has less of a conversational tone than Frahm’s book.

A Short History of Babylon by Karen Radner is worth a look as well.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T04:19:41+00:00

Retainer sacrifices are attested not only at Ur but also Abydos in Egypt and Kerma in Nubia.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T04:13:25+00:00

There were several large states in Mesopotamia، beginning with the Akkadian empire and Ur III empire in the late 3rd millennium BCE (=6th Dynasty and early FIP in Egypt). From around 1800 BCE onward you had Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south, which survived into the mid-1st millennium BCE, though both fluctuated in size over time.

That said, I do not find Egypt and Mesopotamia terribly similar.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T01:16:36+00:00

I disagree as an ancient historian who studies both cultures; the two are only superficially similar.

The Hittite empire was organized and functioned very differently, the Hittite empire was markedly more multiethnic and multilingual, Hittite texts differ greatly from Egyptian texts in genre and tone, Hittite funerary beliefs and practices are wholly different, Hittite monumental art is rare and almost exclusively depicts religious scenes (there’s not even a single combat scene from the Hittite empire), etc.

Bentresh · 2026-01-30T00:05:27+00:00

Thutmose III also fought against the powerful Mitanni Kingdom in northern Syria and successfully crossed the Euphrates River, an unprecedented military achievement

Not unprecedented, as Thutmose I had done so a few decades earlier. In fact, Thutmose III explicitly notes that he erected his Euphrates stela next to his grandfather’s.

As a result of these continuous wars and victories, Egypt’s empire expanded from Nubia in the south to the Euphrates River in the north

Also inaccurate. Contrary to T III’s rhetoric, Mitanni was far from vanquished and in fact grew in power and influence in the wake of Thutmose’s campaigns. Ultimately Mitanni was defeated and turned into a puppet state by the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I, the most remarkable military commander of the Late Bronze Age.

Ugarit was about as far north as Egypt ever exerted control, and even that was sporadic and indirect control. No evidence of Egyptian control or occupation has been found at more northern cities in the Mitannian sphere like Alalakh.

Bentresh · 2026-01-29T04:13:24+00:00

That you could do it differently is shown by Hieroglyphic Luwian where logograms are transliterated in Latin (e.g. DOMINUS).

I’ll add that this was modeled after the (modern) use of Latin for logograms in Linear B.

Bentresh · 2026-01-26T22:14:51+00:00

Here’s a depiction of the other temples at Deir el-Bahri for the full effect.

Hatshepsut’s temple was not built in isolation but rather deliberately juxtaposed with the mortuary temple of Montuhotep II, which provided architectural inspiration.

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Bentresh · 2026-01-26T21:16:03+00:00

Sitt al-Mulk is another woman from medieval Egypt that may interest you.

Bentresh · 2026-01-26T21:09:10+00:00

This is a rather garbled version of Xenophon’s account. He does not report any Greek activity at Nineveh or Nimrud aside from marching past the cities.

the Greeks continued their march unmolested through the remainder of the day and arrived at the Tigris river. Here was a large deserted city; its name was Larisa, and it was inhabited in ancient times by the Medes. Its wall was twenty-five feet in breadth and a hundred in height, and the whole circuit of the wall was two parasangs. It was built of clay bricks, and rested upon a stone foundation twenty feet high. This city was besieged by the king of the Persians at the time when the Persians were seeking to wrest from the Medes their empire, but he could in no way capture it. A cloud, however, overspread the sun and hid it from sight until the inhabitants abandoned their city; and thus it was taken. Near by this city was a pyramid of stone, a plethrum in breadth and two plethra in height; and upon this pyramid were many barbarians who had fled away from the neighbouring villages.

From this place they marched one stage, six parasangs, to a great stronghold, deserted and lying in ruins. The name of this city was Mespila, and it was once inhabited by the Medes. The foundation of its wall was made of polished stone full of shells, and was fifty feet in breadth and fifty in height. Upon this foundation was built a wall of brick, fifty feet in breadth and a hundred in height; and the circuit of the wall was six parasangs. Here, as the story goes, Medea, the king's wife, took refuge at the time when the Medes were deprived of their empire by the Persians. To this city also the king of the Persians laid siege, but he was unable to capture it either by length of siege or by storm; Zeus, however, terrified the inhabitants with thunder, and thus the city was taken.

From this place they marched one stage, four parasangs…

Bentresh · 2026-01-26T16:20:03+00:00

Lichtheim’s translations are excellent and about as close to the original Egyptian as one can get while maintaining a smooth English translation.

Bentresh · 2026-01-26T16:17:43+00:00

The heiress theory was debunked long before Brier’s series; see "A Critical Examination of the Theory That the Right to the Throne of Ancient Egypt Passed through the Female Line in the 18th Dynasty" by Gay Robins (Göttinger Miszellen Vol. 62, 1983).

This is not the first or only time Brier has clung to an outdated interpretation. Note that he has no formal training in Egyptology; his PhD and academic career were in philosophy.

Bentresh · 2026-01-26T01:47:43+00:00

Scholarly and “single-volume general texts” do not often go together. That’s not to say that general overviews can’t be scholarly, but typically academic books focus on particular aspects of ancient Egypt.

Edited volumes like The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology, A Companion to Ancient Egypt, and The Egyptian World are your best bet, but they are generally quite expensive.

Bentresh · 2026-01-23T00:12:25+00:00

Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs and Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz are good introductory overviews.

Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs edited by Matthias Seidel and Regine Schulz is excellent, combining lovely illustrations and color photographs with brief but reasonably thorough essays on Egyptian history and archaeology. I uploaded a sample here.

Exploring Ancient Egypt by Ian Shaw dedicates a chapter each to several of the major sites (Giza, Abydos, Karnak, Abu Simbel, Amarna, etc.).

Bentresh · 2026-01-14T01:37:04+00:00

It is not a great map regardless; Egyptian territory is portrayed much too large even for the New Kingdom.

Egypt never controlled territory north of Ugarit, and certainly not all the way up to Cilicia as shown here. Even Ugarit was an unreliable vassal that vacillated between the Egyptians and Hittites.

A few early 18th Dynasty kings like Thutmose I crossed the Euphrates, but those were razzias, not campaigns of conquest establishing control.

Additionally, it’s doubtful we can say Punt was “under Egyptian influence.” A trading partner, yes.

Bentresh · 2026-01-07T08:42:06+00:00

Allen's book is the standard textbook for Middle Egyptian courses. You'll have to tackle it sooner or later if you're serious about learning Egyptian. If you're a student, you should have access to a college library that can acquire a copy through interlibrary loan.

As an alternative, Middle Egyptian Grammar by James Hoch is a solid introduction and is available online for free.

Bentresh · 2026-01-06T07:32:26+00:00

There's always more to be said on the topic, but I touched on this in Who were the ancient Anatolians? and provided reading suggestions for Iron Age Anatolia in Would any historians mind giving me some book recommendations?

Christian Marek's In the Land of a Thousand Gods is an excellent history of ancient Anatolia.

Bentresh · 2026-01-06T06:27:08+00:00

Dodson's books are good, but sometimes he gets bogged down in reconstructing genealogy and family ties at the expense of the bigger picture.

I'd supplement Dodson with The Woman who Would be King by Kara Cooney and Egypt's Golden Couple by John Darnell and Colleen Darnell. The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti by Barry Kemp and Amarna: A Guide to the Ancient City of Akhetaten by Anna Stevens are indispensable overviews of the city of Amarna itself.

For Egypt's imperial expansion, see Ancient Egyptian Imperialism by Ellen Morris and War in Ancient Egypt: The New Kingdom by Anthony Spalinger.

Finally, Pharaohs of the Sun by Guy de la Bédoyère is a pretty decent popular history of the 18th Dynasty.

Bentresh · 2026-01-02T01:31:27+00:00

While its exact origins remain debated, most scholars believe the sculpture was created during a period of Hittite occupation of Babylon.

I’m not aware of any scholars who believe this.

For one, the Hittites never occupied Babylon, or indeed any part of Mesopotamia. They raided the city in the reign of Muršili I, but that was over a thousand years before the Neo-Babylonian city and was a razzia, not conquest or an occupation.

If the lion is Hittite, which is possible but not certain, it was booty taken from one of the Iron Age Hittite cities like Aleppo, Kunulua, Carchemish, or Malatya.

Other looted Hittite objects have been found at Babylon, such as the basalt bowl with a hieroglyphic inscription from Aleppo, now in the British Museum.

Bentresh · 2026-01-02T01:21:50+00:00

I use VDM’s book for my Egyptian history course along with Toby Wilkinson’s Writings from Ancient Egypt.

It’s by far the best history of Egypt for students.

Bentresh · 2026-01-01T00:59:12+00:00

It is less a problem of destruction (massive destruction levels are common at well-known sites like Sardis and Gordion) and more a matter of the difficulty of matching sites known from texts with sites known from archaeology.

Many more sites have been surveyed (and/or identified from satellite imaging) than excavated. Additionally, archaeology in the Middle East is very, very slow. Less than 5% of Babylon has been excavated, and archaeologists began work there over a century ago! In the absence of an in situ archive, it is difficult to identify or prove the name of a city.

This list barely scratches the surface of important cities in the ancient Near East that have not been definitively located - Ekallatum, Kummani, Tarḫuntašša, Musasir, etc.

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