The World's Oldest Letters

The World's Oldest Letters

Author: History Hit November 27, 2025 Duration: 55:10

What do the world’s first letters reveal about life in the Bronze Age?


Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Amanda Podany to uncover the remarkable written culture of ancient Mesopotamia, when clay tablets carried messages across vast distances and a proto-postal system linked cities like Ur and Babylon. From royal correspondence and diplomatic negotiations to worried family notes and furious consumer complaints -including the iconic rant against the merchant Ea-Nasir for terrible copper - these texts offer a vivid, relatable window into everyday life 4,000 years ago. Step into the earliest age of writing and discover how humanity first learned to communicate across time and space.


Translations in this episode taken from A. Leo Oppenheim, Letters from Mesopotamia (1967) & J. M. Sasson, From the Mari Archives (2015).


Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds

The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.


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Hosted by Tristan Hughes, The Ancients digs into the distant past, one specific theme at a time. This isn't a sweeping lecture but a series of focused conversations. Each episode brings you directly into dialogue with leading historians and archaeologists, who share the latest research and perspectives on the ancient world. The scope is vast, moving from the mysteries of Neolithic Britain all the way through to the complex events surrounding the Fall of Rome. You might find yourself immersed in the details of a single archaeological discovery one week and exploring the broader political currents of an empire the next. Produced by History Hit, this podcast benefits from the same depth and quality that defines their other award-winning series. With new episodes arriving every Sunday and Thursday, there's always a fresh journey into antiquity waiting. For anyone with a curiosity about where we came from, this podcast serves as a reliable and engaging guide, making the remote past feel immediate and vividly real.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Ancients
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