Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover
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The Abstract<br>Brand Hype Has Existed Since the Bronze Age, Scientists Discover
Becky Ferreira
Aug 22, 2026<br>at 6:00 AM
The Qurayyah Painted Ware of Bronze Age Arabia had distinct visual identity, material consistency, technological continuity, and cultural reputation—all features of a commodified brand, scientists say.
Ancient "brand" Qurayyah Painted Ware QPW 4, formerly known as ‘Midianite Pottery.’ Image: Marta Luciani @ Qurayyah Joint Archaeological Project
Welcome back to the Abstract! These are the studies this week that pottered around, ate well, shone bright, and went long in the tooth.<br>First, scientists identified a Bronze Age tradition of pottery as one of the earliest “brands,” revealing that humanity’s love for reliable commodities has deep roots. Then: a meal fit for a galaxy, a multi-camera view of the Sun, and a dizzying deep dive into a narwhal tusk.<br>As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens, or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.<br>Brands are not brand new<br>Luciani, Marta et al. “Creating a brand. Genesis, transformation and diffusion of Qurayyah Painted Ware.” PLOS One.<br>Brands have completely taken over the modern world, from established corporate trademarks to the proliferation of online influencers. But the allure of brands is nothing new, according to a study about an ancient style of pottery called Qurayyah Painted Ware that was a progenitor of branding some 3,200 years ago.<br>This brand of pottery was popular in what is now Saudi Arabia during the Bronze Age. The tradition is distinguished by distinctive black-and-red geometric designs and stylized animal and human figures. These unique visual properties, along with a consistent production technique and quality, suggest that it was an early branded commodity that was made to be recognizable to the wider community.<br>“It is now understood that brands and proto-brands existed well before modern economies,” said researchers led by Marta Luciani of the University of Vienna. “In this contribution we analyze the process by which the commodity itself—decorated pottery vessels—was developed into a brand not by added symbols but on the virtue of its visual identity, material consistency, technological continuity, centralized production, export circulation, local imitation, intentional commercial scope, and cultural reputation.”<br>As such, the study “offers the first investigation of the dynamics leading to the genesis of a brand,” the team concluded.<br>Now, that’s a vintage brand. Who wants to do the sponsored endorsement on socials?<br>A low-energy snack for the Milky Way<br>Massari, Davide et al. “Evidence of a massive accretion event 1.8 billion years before the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger.” Nature Astronomy.<br>Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, extends across 100,000 light years and contains hundreds of billions of stars. How did it get so swole? The answer is a healthy diet made up of smaller galaxies that the Milky Way has swallowed over time, adding to its starry heft.<br>Now, scientists have identified the digested remains of a galaxy that served as cosmic baby food for the Milky Way during its infancy some 12 billion years ago. By studying stars at the center of the galaxy using the Hubble Space Telescope, the team was able to reconstruct this ancient merger between the Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy that has been gifted with the amazing name “Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles” (LKH) after its constituent parts.<br>Concept art of Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles merging with the Milky Way 12 billion years ago. Image: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)“Our conclusions are strongly supported by cosmological simulations, which typically predict between one and four substantial mergers in the history of a Milky Way-like galaxy,” said researchers led by Davide Massari of the Observatory of Bologna. “The identification of a third merger event in the inner Galaxy puts to rest earlier debates and, honouring previous works, we name the progenitor system Low-energy-Kraken-Heracles, or LKH for short.”<br>The study explains the origins of a group of metal-poor stars in the galactic center suggesting that they are leftovers from the LKH galaxy, which was about as massive as 500 million Suns. This merger occurred before the engulfment of another fantastically-named galaxy, Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus, which occurred about 10 billion years ago and significantly influenced the Milky Way’s evolution.<br>It goes to show that you are what you eat (in this case, yummy primordial galaxies).<br>The Sun goes ka-blowie<br>Luspay-Kuti, Adrienn et al. “The structure of a complex, asymmetric coronal mass ejection revealed by 17...