About this episode
Apr 26
The Last Days of Pompeii
1h 6m
Apr 23
The First Tools
46 m
Apr 19
Athens vs Persia: The Legend of Themistocles
54m 15s
Apr 2021
The Bronze Age
2m 4s
Sep 2025
291. Ancient Gaza: The Philistines (Part 1)
48m 56s
May 2021
Episode C4 – The Great Kings
32m 20s
Jun 2025
Cuneiform (Radio Edit)
27m 59s
Apr 2025
The Etruscans: everything you wanted to know
52m 48s
Feb 2025
Why the Early Middle Ages Matter
50m 1s
Feb 2025
Tutankhamun
52m 53s
Oct 2022
Episode C14 - The House of Suhi
30m 11s
Apr 2025
The Egyptian Sphinx
56 m
Oct 2025
Building the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings
43m 55s
It’s the end of the 12th century BC, and a once remarkable Near eastern world lay in ruin. Drought, warfare, famine, earthquakes, plague - all had combined to brutally devastate ancient civilisations stretching from Mesopotamia to Egypt to mainland Greece.
It was a catastrophe unlike anything else - a Bronze Age collapse. But that’s only half the story. What happened next? Would these people adapt to this new age of chaos?
Dr Eric Cline joins Tristan Hughes to discuss the dawn of the Iron Age. They’re talking Egyptians, Hittites, Mycenaeans, Cypriots, Phoenicians and many more.
Presented by Tristan Hughes. Edited by Joseph Knight. The producer is Joseph Knight, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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In 79 AD, life in Pompeii unfolded beneath the shadow of a tremoring Mount Vesuvius. Streets bustled, businesses thrived, and merchants built fortunes, unaware disaster was hours away. But what happened when that disaster struck? How did these ordinary Roman citizens seek to surv ... Show More
What if the first technology was just a stone?Tristan Hughes and Dr. Emma Finestone, - Curator and the Robert J. and Linnet E. Fritz Endowed Chair of Humans Origins at Cleveland Museum of Natural History - travel back over 3 million years to Africa, where early hominins began sha ... Show More
A legend of the great Greek city of Athens, Themistocles rose from obscurity to save ancient Greece and helped shape one of the greatest naval powers in history. Yet his story ends in exile, condemned as a traitor and serving the very empire he once defeated: Persia.In this episo ... Show More
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Gaza is one of the oldest urban centres on Earth, and in this series we are exploring its long history. It was first referred to by Pharaoh Thutmose III in the 15th century BC when it was known as Ghazzati. In this episode we ask: Who were the Philistines? Why did Egyptian pharao ... Show More
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In November 1922, in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, a young water boy called Hussein Abdul Rasoul makes a remarkable discovery. A set of stone steps lies concealed beneath the desert sand - a staircase leading to a long-lost tomb. The mummified pharaoh within will capture the imagi ... Show More
Synopsis: The Country Lords of Carchemish adorned their city with temples and monuments. But Assyrian conquests in the Khabur River valley heralded a growing eastern threat.
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Measuring 240 feet long from paw to tail, and around the height of a six-story building, the Great Sphinx is one of Egypt’s most spectacular, and mysterious, monuments. Believed to have been built over four millennia ago, much of its story has been lost to history, and the rest i ... Show More
<p>Millions of people called ancient Egypt home, and the vast majority of them weren't kings or high priests; they were humble farmers and laborers making their living from the rich black soil surrounding the Nile. That extraordinary land produced so much surplus grain that thous ... Show More
