Ancient Civilizations Podcasts

Ramesses II left more than one version of the battle of Kadesh, a bulletin and a so-called poem among them. The best ancient-history podcasts treat a document like that as both obstacle and prize. In Kadesh: What Was It Good For? with Prof. Peter Brand, The History of Egypt Podcast argues that royal ideology "isn't merely an obstacle to figuring out what really happened." It also shows how Egyptians imagined kingship. These shows set themselves apart by reading what a source claims and what that claim reveals.

Oldest Stories works its way through Mesopotamia and is now deep in Assyria, and it makes bureaucracy vivid. Neo-Assyrian Imperial Administration likens Sargon II's letters to a strategy game in which the governor can say no. It then follows a theft case against five men whose names, the episode suggests, point to different homelands. Sennacherib's Inheritance reads around the broken lines of a text called The Sin of Sargon. One aside in the administration episode frames a point through the narrator's Christian faith.

The Layman's Historian tells the wars between Carthage and Rome as a serial and keeps its sources in view. Episode 50 - End of an Era reads Livy's story of Scipio and Hannibal ranking generals at Ephesus. Episode 51 - Carthago Delenda Est notes that Diodorus wrote with hindsight. Episode 52 - The Fall of Carthage recounts the torture of Roman prisoners plainly, so be ready for it. The Ancient Rome page covers the other side.

Breadth answers the complaint about Greece and Rome. Fan of History moves decade by decade from 1000 BC, with Dan Horning and Bernie Maopolski in conversation. 234. 500s BC Final Episode reaches Tibet, Vietnam and Saba. What’s New in History: The War Trumpet of Boudicca the Warrior Queen? plays recreations of a carnyx and tests them against Diodorus Siculus's description. In Episode 12: One more on Cyrus and the Origins of His Empire, Iranologie: the History of Iran Podcast stresses that no primary sources survive for Cyrus's birth. Echoes Of India: A History Podcast, hosted by Anirudh Kanisetti, pairs a dramatized cart ride to market with the verse of a nun known only as Sumangala's mother in Nun of Your Business: Women, Society, and the Sangha in Early Buddhism.

The Past Macabre, from Egyptologist Stephanie Rice, reaches the living through their burials. Tombs of the Tomb Builders Part 2: Deir el-Medina - Ep 32 spends its time on three villagers. Among them is the scribe Ramosa, whose monuments include appeals to fertility deities about his lack of biological heirs. In The Tomb of Fu Hao, Ancient China's Warrior Queen - Ep 34, Rice admits she could not confirm a widely quoted age at death because she does not read Chinese. That kind of small honesty is worth more than confidence.

Pre History - the archaeology of the ancient Near East works where texts run out. Episode 25: The Neolithic Comes to Transcaucasia sets out both sides of an argument over whether round mudbrick houses carried domes or timber roofs.

What's So Great About the Great Pyramid? and Megalithic Marvels set themselves against mainstream Egyptology. Forbidden Egyptian Mysteries with Dr. Charles Kos floats an "Egyptian new Orion connection hypothesis." Mega Structures Buried Beneath Khafre Pyramid? Breaking down the Giza SARS Discovery calls its subject an alleged discovery. Near the end, it speaks of "a hidden history they do not want us to know about." Hear both shows as advocacy.

Some feeds read old books aloud. A reading of Antiquities of the Jews, Volume 2, The by Flavius Josephus (37 - c. 100) gives you Josephus himself. In 10 - Painting and Sculpture - Drawing and Composition, from Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by Gaston Maspero (1846 - 1916), Maspero calls Egyptian figures monsters from the anatomist's view, yet admires the draughtsman's bold line. For the wider field, turn to the Ancient History guide and the History category guide.