Thank you.
I’m always on the hunt for good archeology TV. The Netflix show ‘ Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb’ was great and good for kids too. Much of Time Team was as well.
not really, just falling into wikipedia & youtube rabbit hole, just found out that the biblical 'Cain & Abel' story could be an echo of earlier Sumerian myth of the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzid, or even earlier one of the god Enlil "choosing the Farmer", and generally goes back to the pre-historic agriculture revolution which divided the settled farmer and the wandering hunter-gatherer
most famous is flood story and creation myth which have big similarity with the bible. also Habiru/afiru people have been theorized to be ancient Hebrew. also big parallax between Baal and the bible god and many traditions that were common all over the ancient near east, as well as myths.
This comes to us via the epic of Gilgamesh[0], perhaps written around 2100 BCE.
Small extract:
“ Ea commanded Utnapishtim to demolish his house and build a boat, regardless of the cost, to keep living beings alive.
The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length and be covered over like Apsu boats.”
There is an excellent in our time episode which covers this epic, the Sumerian language and translation which I found one of the most interesting episodes they have made [1].
Dilmun[0] a ancient city contemporary to Akkadian culture in todays Bahrain was the place where that Utnapishtim was set to live forever and other similarities in mythology with Garden of Edan, although it was a great culture by itself.
Cedar Forest [1] in Lebanon was a sacred place in the ancient world and had big appearance in Gilgamesh story. the forest was famous for its premium tress to build temples in some of the cultures around and the most famous one was the legendry the temple of Solomon.
also Ugarit was a city where many interesting texts were found with huge similarity for later bible story
Nice rabbit hole. To add to this, pretty much all pre-exodus biblical stories and myths have parallels in Mesopotamian myths, likely having originated there.
on YouTube 3 channels I really recommend : history with CY - very easy to follow animated videos and great narration , Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages - have everything and good quality, also talk about mythology. World of Antiquity - most scientific vibe
Wondrium (formerly the Great Courses) has many excellent related series. Academic but very watchable. Like a 20 lecture series on the history of Jerusalem. I particularly liked their series on the Etruscans: https://www.wondrium.com/the-mysterious-etruscans
Really recommended, and does not have much of the epic/religious vibe
documentaries on the history of Israel often have. Also note that it stops at the Ottoman empire so does not get into the history of the state of Israel.
(The title is from Genesis 1:2.
It roughly translates to 'and then the earth was chaos')
Not the person you replied to, but as someone with very similar tastes, there’s a Time Team spinoff called “Extreme Archaeology” that’s pretty good, and some BBC specials with “Lost Kingdoms of [Region]” titles that I found scratched the same itch.
Recently I've been really enjoying "Unearthed" on Discovery Plus (I think originally Science channel). It's hit or miss depending on the episode, but the good episodes are really good.
