What Was Life Like in Ancient Mesopotamia?

Come check out the Penn Museum for yourself!

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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:23 The Nippur Excavation
02:39 Stratigraphy in an Ancient City
04:40 Pottery Through Time
06:57 Records of the First Dig
08:55 Incantation Bowls
10:35 "Meet the People" Ancient Inhabitants of the Near East
12:19 Trades, Payments and Ancient Scam Artists
15:03 Ancient Faith
17:32 Bulls Head Lyre
20:36 The Ram in the Thicket
23:44 The High Fashion of Queen Nin Puabi
27:35 Coming Up...
28:04 Credits and Thank Yous

[TheOnlyToblin]

Milo's epic levels of "fanboy kiddo" around Dr Hafford is glorious and I'm here for it. Such wholesome goodness!

[MikeDiEva]

I'm a lifelong Philadelphian, and the Penn Museum is one of the most underrated places in the city. Anyone reading this who gets the chance should absolutely check it out.

[kdonnally]

As a PhD student of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at Penn, (Brad is one of my advisors in fact), I am so happy that you came to our museum and got a tour from Brad. All of us who work here love it so much and those of us who specialize in the Ancient Near East have such a wonderful community here, and I am so glad you got to see part of it. Next time you come to Penn let me know, I can show you the tablet room, and the Grad Students would love to take you out for a drink!!

[lastofmygeneration]

Good to see Dr. Hafford and Milo teaming up! What a treat.

[vjara]

More than two professional archeologists, they just look like two nerds just nerding out about something they love, and I'm here for it!!! What a wonderful gift to be able to hear you both

[_-luke-_]

When I was 10 years old a friend's father came to school to talk about his work as an archaeologist. Years later I brought it up to him and he told me how he'd been overwhelmed by our genuine awe. Your videos make me feel exactly like how I did then- fascinated by the past and very hopeful for the future. Thank you!

[Decanta]

Dr. Hafford absolutely killing it with the tour! I got unreasonably excited when Ea Nassir was mentioned 😂

[af]

The man, the myth, the legend.
0:37 the excitement on your face is hilarious but amazing/relatable 😭

[paranoiarpincess]

God Milo this was SO good and well put together. I was utterly transfixed. I'd absolutrly LOVE to see a series of this kind of thing where you go to different museums who are connected to specific digs and have people who are specialists on the exhibits and/or were there when the items were dug. I was utterly captivated. MORE!

[hillbillyhistorian]

This is Nanni. I’ve been hunting that SOB Ea-Nasir for 3, 750 years. If you just point me in the right direction, I’ll finally have my revenge.

[BlackMDawn]

This is unbelievably cool. Thank you, Milo, for filming this.
And a big thanks to Dr. Hafford for giving us this tour!

[professorsaul]

I love going to museums, but can’t usually make it out of my local area to see them. I would absolutely love more museum “tours” like this with this kind of amazing context!

[KarolinaWojtczak]

Mad that the mesopotamians had the period equivalent of blue checkmarks and just carried them around 🤯. Top notch content as always, you can really feel how excited Milo was to see this museum and talk to Dr. Hafford, who might i add is an absolute star. Loved the tour!

[rezzerwrecked]

This is how schooling is supposed to be. Imagine how many more people would find and follow fulfilling passions if we made a concerted effort to return to and refine Socratic teaching.

Edit: For some reason Dr. Hafford shrugging and going "oh yeah, it's a magic bowl" got me laughing way too hard. I love how much you can see he enjoys sharing this fascinating look into ancient lives.

[ItoeKobayashi]

This was a rare and special treat, to see archaeologists discussing artifacts and history in a relaxed environment. No stuffy nose-in-the-air attitude or pressure to maintain an air of tantalizing mystery. Just two folk talking about what we do and don't know and getting excited about all of it. I loved it and can't wait for part 2!

[Ruudesi]

To imagine you started by making fun of idiots on the internet while going to college, and now you’re getting a personal tour of a museum!! I’m so proud of you, and what you have accomplished!!

[jameshodgson]

My wife’s niece was married in the Egyptian room at Penn. This is an impressive museum and I wish we could have spent more time there.

[the_DH]

Making friends through the Bagdad battery, how beautiful

[stevebrown]

I love museums, but there is no way I could visit all of them. This video makes the museum accessible to those that can't travel to see it in person. I really appreciate this type of content. Please do more!

[lordofuzkulak]

This is a great team up to see; I found Dr Hafford’s channel via his vid on Milo’s Baghdad Battery vid, so it’s nice to see you guys continuing a cordial relationship. Hopefully we’ll get more team up vids in future every now and again.


The impression of a child’s footprint is a nice find as although it falls into the ‘boring’ category of artefacts it also serves to help connect us to these ancient peoples and show how in some respects they’re not as alien and as far removed from us as we might think at first; as Milo said, it’s something we still do to this day.



Regarding the ‘queen’ that has no documentation of her existence; maybe she’s someone who was expunged from official records somehow? Don’t know if it happened in Mesopotamia but aren’t there several examples in Egypt of pharaohs deliberately trying to wipe out traces of a predecessor even going to such lengths as defacing monuments and the like to replace said predecessor with their own name/image?