The World's Oldest Letters

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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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Transcript

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0:00.0	Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorburg forest?
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0:07.0	Or what made Alexander truly great?
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0:17.0	You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week
0:22.5	covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe.
0:30.4	Hello, I hope you're doing well. I'm all good. I'm now back from my swift venture up to Edinburgh.
0:35.3	I'm back at my desk. And at the time that I'm doing
0:37.7	this intro, I've just finished recording this episode. And guys, it's amazing. It's all about
0:43.8	the world's oldest letters from some 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. We're going to cover
0:48.4	loads of different stories, including that of the ancient world's most memed and most derided copper merchant, a man called Aya Natsia.
0:58.3	Now, I'm sure a few of you are already getting very, very excited, and it is really, really fascinating.
1:04.0	Our guest who brings these stories to life is Dr. Amanda Paudani, Professor Emeritus of History at California State Polytechnic, and another
1:12.1	of our fan-favorant guests on the show. We had a lot of fun, and I really do hope you enjoy.
1:17.9	Let's go. Four thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, the written word became widespread for the first time.
1:37.6	People began corresponding with each other over great distances, with messages being delivered
1:42.6	on hardened clay tablets in an organized
1:45.4	manner, the Bronze Age equivalent of a postal service.
1:50.0	There were letters written by kings and nobles, but also by merchants and everyday people,
1:56.0	giving us a fascinating insight into life in this Bronze Age world.
2:00.0	Letters that varied from people worried about
2:02.2	relatives who had moved to the big city of Babylon, to angry complaints by customers about
	...

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