When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful rivals burned Ashurbanipal’s library to the ... Show More
Aug 11
Kirin Narayan, "Cave of My Ancestors: Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
On the podcast today I am joined by Kirin Narayan, emerita professor at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Kirin is joining me to talk about her new book, Cave of my Ancestors: Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora published by Chicago Uni ... Show More
1h 17m
Aug 4
Lizzie Wade, "Apocalypse: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures" (Harper, 2025)
A richly imagined new view on the great human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, that defies conventional wisdom and long-held stories about our deep past to reveal how cataclysmic events are not irrevocable endings, ... Show More
1h 29m
Jun 26
J. P. Mallory, "The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution Is Rewriting Their Story" (Thames & Hudson, 2025)
Today the number of native speakers of Indo-European languages across the world is approximated to be over 2.6 billion—about 45 percent of the Earth’s population. Yet the idea that an ancient, prehistoric population in one time and place gave rise to a wide variety of peoples and ... Show More
45m 4s
Feb 2021
Bonus Episode: In Conversation: Reframing Black History and Culture
For the past year, Overheard has explored the journeys of photographers and scientists who are focusing a new lens on history. National Geographic presents In Conversation, a special podcast episode featuring explorer Tara Roberts, computer scientist Gloria Washington, and photog ... Show More
42m 25s
Apr 2024
Interview: God's Wives, King's Daughters - The Princesses of Amarna with Courtney Marx and ARCE
The daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti were not just "ornaments" for their parents. Like many princesses, they also participated in the religious rituals and royal pageantry of the Egyptian government. In this interview, Courtney Marx (MA, George Mason University) joins us on b ... Show More
1h 14m
Feb 2019
Love, Hate, and Sex from the History of Science
This Valentine’s Day we could have just brought you some sappy love stories from science’s past. But instead we offer you three tales of lust, loneliness, betrayal, pettiness, and not one, but two beheadings. Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer ... Show More
38m 34s
Apr 2021
Michael Wheeler, "The Athenaeum: More Than Just Another London Club" (Yale UP, 2020)
When it was founded in 1824, the Athenæum broke the mold. Unlike in other preeminent clubs, its members were chosen on the basis of their achievements rather than on their background or political affiliation. Public rather than private life dominated the agenda. The club, with it ... Show More
53m 37s
Apr 2023
Mysteries of Ancient Egypt with Dr. Kara Cooney
🌅🇪🇬🌅Stephen Asma and Paul Giamatti get to the bottom of all your burning questions on Ancient Egypt with UCLA Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney. They go deep into mysteries surrounding pyramids, death cults, aliens, mummies and cats from that time period, as well as unexpected top ... Show More
1h 2m
Aug 2023
Travis Holloway, "How to Live at the End of the World: Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene" (Stanford UP, 2022)
the near universal disappearance of shared social enterprise: the ruling class builds walls and lunar shuttles, while the rest of us contend with the atrophy of institutional integrity and the utter abdication of providing even minimal shelter from looming disaster.The irony of t ... Show More
51m 14s
Mar 2021
Jason Thompson, "Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology" (AU of Cairo, 2018)
When asked what he saw after reverently peering into the freshly opened tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, Egyptologist Howard Carter could only find the words the say “Wonderful Things.” These words have become legend in Egyptology; whether they were actually spoken by Carter or were ... Show More
50m 48s