Sources — all 189 — Lives Before Ours

Thebes, 1250 BC — The Village of the Tomb-Makers

15 listed·2:46:53

Ostracon BM EA 5634, the workmen’s absence register, year 39–40 of Ramesses II — British Museum
The Papyrus of Ani, BM EA 10470 — British Museum
Papyrus Chester Beatty I (love songs), Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
Papyrus Chester Beatty III, the Dream Book, BM EA 10683
Papyrus Lansing, and the Middle Kingdom Satire of the Trades
The Ebers Papyrus and the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus
Turin Stela 50066 — Museo Egizio
Bernard Bruyère, excavations at Deir el-Medina, 1922–1951
Jac. J. Janssen, Commodity Prices from the Ramessid Period (1975)
Anne Austin, on health care and tattooing at Deir el-Medina; with Marie-Lys Arnette, “Of Ink and Clay” (2022)
Delwen Samuel, on Egyptian baking and brewing, Science (1996)
Kathrin Gabler, Who’s Who Around Deir el-Medina (2018)
Barry Kemp, on the Ramesseum storerooms
Kent Weeks and the Theban Mapping Project, KV5
Ghalioungui, Khalil and Ammar, “On an Ancient Egyptian Method of Diagnosing Pregnancy,” Medical History (1963)

Athens, 430 BC — The Golden Age of Pericles

14 listed·2:52:04

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2
Pseudo-Xenophon (“the Old Oligarch”), Constitution of the Athenians
Aristophanes, Acharnians and Wasps
Xenophon, Poroi — on the Laurion mining leases
The Erechtheion building accounts, IG I³ 474–476 — Epigraphical Museum, Athens
The Attic Stelae, 414 BC — W. K. Pritchett, Hesperia XXII (1953)
Casualty list of the tribe Erechtheis, IG I³ 1147 — Musée du Louvre
Nikophon’s law on silver coinage, 375/4 BC
The Kerameikos mass burial, excavated 1994–95, Greek Archaeological Service
Papagrigorakis et al., International Journal of Infectious Diseases (2006); and the reply of Shapiro, Rambaut & Gilbert, same journal, same year
James Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes
Lisa Nevett, House and Society in the Ancient Greek World
Ben Akrigg, Population and Economy in Classical Athens
Excavations of the Athenian Agora, American School of Classical Studies at Athens

Pompeii, AD 79 — The Other Three Thousand Days

26 listed·2:43:57

Primary
Tacitus, Annals 14.17 (the riot of AD 59)
Seneca, Natural Questions VI (the earthquake of AD 62)
Suetonius, Vespasian 23 (the tax on urine)
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV (the Pompeian wall inscriptions)
CIL X 846 (the Temple of Isis plaque)
the wax tablets of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus
Scholarship
Mary Beard, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum
Eric Poehler, The Traffic Systems of Pompeii
Miko Flohr, The World of the Fullo
Sarah Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii
Kristina Milnor, Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii
Estelle Lazer, Resurrecting Pompeii
James L. Franklin Jr., Pompeii: The Electoral Programmata, Campaigns and Politics, A.D. 71–79
Thomas McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World
Ellis, Emmerson and Dicus, The Porta Stabia Neighborhood at Pompeii
the garden archaeology of Wilhelmina Jashemski
Nicolas Monteix on the bakeries
Robert I. Curtis on garum
Lawrence Bliquez and Ralph Jackson on the surgical instruments
Excavation and recent finds
Parco Archeologico di Pompei: the Regio V counter (2019–20), the room of the enslaved at Civita Giuliana (2021, with further finds 2025), the Regio IX excavations and the milling room (2023), the tomb of Marcus Venerius Secundio at the Porta Sarno (2021), and the evidence for the reoccupation of the town (2025)
the unfinished construction site at Domus IX 10, 1, published with MIT
ancient DNA from the plaster casts, Current Biology (November 2024)

Vindolanda, Britannia, c. AD 100 — Claudia Severa’s Invitation

8 listed·2:17:15

A.K. Bowman & J.D. Thomas, Tabulae Vindolandenses II (1994), III (2003), IV (2010–2011). British Academy / Oxford
Roman Inscriptions of Britain, online edition: romaninscriptionsofbritain.org
British Museum, collection record 1986,1001.64
J.N. Adams, on the language of Roman women’s speech and the register of “anima mea.”
A.K. Bowman, Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier (Routledge)
Vasco, Dyer, Hobbs & Cartwright (Feb 2026), Raman spectroscopy of Vindolanda inks, Journal of Analytical Methods in Chemistry
Vindolanda Trust excavation reports — R. Birley, A. Birley, A.R. Birley
G. Argetsinger, “Birthday Rituals on the Roman Calendar,” Classical Antiquity 11.2 (1992)

The Roman empire, 1st–2nd c. AD — An Afternoon at the Baths

8 listed·1:49:14

Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter 56)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book 8)
Vitruvius, On Architecture (Book 5)
The curse tablets from the sacred spring at Aquae Sulis, Bath — R. S. O. Tomlin, ed
Garrett G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (University of Michigan Press)
Current scholarship: Sürmelihindi & Passchier et al. on Pompeii’s bath water (PNAS, 2025); P. D. Mitchell on parasites in the Roman world (Parasitology, 2017)
Based on surviving primary sources and current scholarship. Where the record is silent, the silence is named
#SleepDocumentary #RomanBaths #AncientRome #HistoryForSleep #RomanHistory #Pompeii

Rome, AD 120 — The City of Hadrian

28 listed·3:10:39

Juvenal, Satires 1, 3 and 5 — Ancient
Martial, Epigrams — Ancient
Seneca, Letters 7, 56 and 70, and On Mercy — Ancient
Pliny the Younger, Letters — Ancient
Frontinus, On the Water Supply of the City of Rome — Ancient
Soranus of Ephesus, Gynaecology — Ancient
Pliny the Elder, Natural History — Ancient
Columella, On Agriculture — Ancient
Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory — Ancient
the Digest of Justinian — Ancient
the burial-club inscription from Lanuvium (CIL XIV 2112) — Objects and sites
the alimentary bronze of Veleia — Objects and sites
the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces — Objects and sites
the Insula dell’Ara Coeli — Objects and sites
the Cardo V sewer at Herculaneum — Objects and sites
Portus and the hexagonal basin — Objects and sites
Monte Testaccio — Objects and sites
Alex Scobie, “Slums, Sanitation and Mortality in the Roman World” (1986) — Scholarship
Gregory Aldrete, Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome — Scholarship
Robert Sallares, Malaria and Rome — Scholarship
Janet DeLaine, The Baths of Caracalla — Scholarship
Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy — Scholarship
William Harris, Ancient Literacy — Scholarship
Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality — Scholarship
Saller and Shaw on Roman age at marriage — Scholarship
Simon Keay and the Portus Project — Scholarship
Kathleen Coleman, “Fatal Charades” (1990) — Scholarship
Masic et al., Science Advances (2023), on self-healing Roman concrete — Scholarship

Paris, 1250s — The City of Saint Louis

16 listed·2:57:17

Primary
Guillaume de la Villeneuve, Les Crieries de Paris, c. 1265 — Paris, BnF fr. 837
Étienne Boileau, Le Livre des métiers, c. 1268
Rutebeuf, complete works — ed. Faral & Bastin
Jean de Joinville, Vie de saint Louis, 1305–09
Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. I — Denifle & Chatelain
Ordinances of Louis IX, including the Grande Ordonnance of December 1254
Gauthier Cornut, Historia susceptionis coronae spineae
Henri d’Andeli, La Bataille des vins, 1224
Jacques de Vitry on the students of Paris
Scholarship
Sharon Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris (Cornell UP, 2002); The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris (Penn Press)
Jacques Le Goff, Saint Louis
John Baldwin, Paris, 1200
Simone Roux, Paris in the Middle Ages
Caroline Bourlet and Boris Bove, on the Paris tax rolls and urban density

An English village, c. 1300 — What They Actually Ate

7 listed·2:26:56

Christopher Dyer — Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages; Everyday Life in Medieval England
C. M. Woolgar — The Culture of Food in England, 1200–1500
Julie Dunne & colleagues (University of Bristol) — lipid-residue analysis of medieval cooking pots
Judith M. Bennett — Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England
Michael Camille — Mirror in Parchment: The Luttrell Psalter
Philip Slavin — the Great Famine & the cattle panzootic, 1315–22
Excavations at Wharram Percy & West Cotton; Langland’s Piers Plowman; the chronicles of Trokelowe & Walsingham

London, 1340s — The Last Ordinary Generation

6 listed·2:23:40

Calendar of Coroners’ Rolls of the City of London, 1300–1378 — ed. R. R. Sharpe
London Assize of Nuisance, 1301–1431 — ed. H. M. Chew & W. Kellaway
Memorials of London and London Life — ed. H. T. Riley
Caroline M. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages
Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England
William FitzStephen, Description of London (c. 1173)

London, 14th–17th c. — The Gong Farmer

9 listed·2:16:54

Ernest L. Sabine, “Latrines and Cesspools of Mediaeval London,” Speculum (1934)
Calendar of Coroners’ Rolls of the City of London, 1300–1378, ed. R.R. Sharpe (1913)
Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: Letter-Book B, ed. R.R. Sharpe
Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851)
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. Latham & W. Matthews (1970–83)
Carole Rawcliffe, Urban Bodies: Communal Health in Late Medieval English Towns (Boydell, 2013)
The Common Hour is a sleep documentary channel about the ordinary past — the labourers, households, and forgotten trades that filled the hours between the famous ones
Based on surviving primary sources and current historical scholarship. Where the record is silent, the silence is named
#SleepDocumentary #MedievalLondon #History #TheCommonHour #SocialHistory #TudorEngland #HistoryForSleep

Hampton Court, 1543 — The King’s Laundress

9 listed·3:39:29

Eltham Ordinances (1526), household papers of Henry VIII
National Archives, Kew (household accounts, 1543)
Historic Royal Palaces (Tudor World exhibition, 2024)
Gervase Markham, The English Housewife (1615)
Eleanor Hubbard, City Women (Oxford University Press, 2012)
David Cressy, Saltpeter (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Ruth Goodman, How to Be a Tudor (experimental archaeology)
Royal proclamation of Charles I (1625), on the collection of urine
William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597)

London, 1665 — One Monday in the Plague Summer

6 listed·2:02:44

St. Margaret’s Westminster Churchwarden’s Accounts, 1665 — Westminster City Archives
Bills of Mortality, 1665 — Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, Guildhall Library
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1665 — Latham & Matthews critical edition
William Boghurst, Loimographia (1665) — Sloane MS. 349, British Museum
John Allin, Letters to Philip Frith, 1665 — East Sussex Record Office (FRE 5421-5634)
Lara Thorpe, “At the mercy of a strange woman: Plague Nurses, Marginality, and Fear during the Great Plague of 1665” — in Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam University Press, 2019)

Edo (Tokyo), 1700 — The Largest City on Earth

14 listed·2:28:58

Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan (1727) — in the edition by Beatrice Bodart-Bailey, Kaempfer’s Japan: Tokugawa Culture Observed (University of Hawai’i Press, 1999)
Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey, The Dog Shogun: The Personality and Policies of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (Hawai’i, 2006)
Constantine N. Vaporis, Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo, and the Culture of Early Modern Japan (Hawai’i, 2008)
Susan B. Hanley, Everyday Things in Premodern Japan
Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (California, 2012)
Nam-lin Hur, Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-Christianity, and the Danka System (Harvard, 2007)
Fabian Drixler, Mabiki: Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660–1950 (California, 2013)
Gerald Groemer, “The Creation of the Edo Outcaste Order,” Journal of Japanese Studies
Timothy D. Amos, Caste in Early Modern Japan: Danzaemon and the Edo Outcaste Order
David L. Howell, on status and identity in early modern Japan
Ronald P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan
Ihara Saikaku, This Scheming World (1692)
Tokyo Metropolitan Library, Edo Tokyo Digital Museum; Tokyo Metropolitan Government Waterworks
A note on dates: 1700 falls inside the Genroku era, under the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. Anything belonging to a later century — the food stalls, the townsmen’s fire brigades, the geisha — has been deliberately kept out

Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, 1841 — Phillip Phillips, Witness No. 43

10 listed·2:32:22

Children’s Employment Commission, First Report (Mines), 1842 — testimony of Phillip Phillips, witness no. 43, collected by Robert Hugh Franks, Esq
Parliamentary Papers 1842, vols. XV–XVII (UK Parliament archive)
Hansard, House of Commons debate on the Mines and Collieries Bill, June 1842
1841 and 1851 Census of England and Wales (Glamorganshire returns)
Ceri Thompson, From the Cradle to the Coalmine: The Story of Children in Welsh Mines (University of Wales Press, 2014)
Gwyn A. Williams, The Merthyr Rising (Croom Helm, 1978; updated edition)
Angela V. John, By the Sweat of Their Brow: Women Workers at Victorian Coal Mines (Croom Helm, 1980)
National Museum Wales / Big Pit National Coal Museum, “Children of the Revolution” archive
Dictionary of Welsh Biography — Hill family of the Plymouth Iron Works
Northern Mine Research Society, Plymouth Colliery records

London, 1850s — The City of the Great Exhibition

13 listed·2:53:27

Henry Mayhew — London Labour and the London Poor (1851)
Dr John Snow — On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 2nd ed. (1855)
Rev. Henry Whitehead — Special Report to the Cholera Inquiry Committee, St James’s, Westminster (1855)
Arthur Hill Hassall — Food and its Adulterations (Longman, 1855)
Thomas Beames — The Rookeries of London (1850; 2nd ed. 1852)
The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, ed. Liz Stanley — Munby Collection, Trinity College, Cambridge
Barbara Leigh Smith — A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women (1854)
Caroline Norton — A Letter to the Queen (1855)
Charles Dickens — “A Nightly Scene in London”, Household Words, 26 January 1856
Census of Great Britain, 1851; Census of Religious Worship, compiled by Horace Mann (1854)
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1850–1859
Lee Jackson — Dirty Old London (Yale University Press, 2014)
And let us know in the comments where you are listening from tonight: your city, your time zone. It is good to know how far a quiet hour has carried

189 sources, 15 films