In the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Ancient Egypt was ruled by an extraordinary ruling dynasty. This was the 25th Dynasty, also known as the Nubian Dynasty because of their Kushite routes. The Nubian Dynasty were sure to remember their southern routes. They maintained their Nubian identity, with one...

Her legend afforded her a place alongside Eve, Cleopatra and Venus, to name just a few of the famous women whose biographies were collected by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1361-2. Though not a household name as the others may be, Tomyris’ story contains all of the hallmarks of an epic. Tomyris was Queen...

It’s a paradox for the ages, breaking news about people who lived and died thousands of years ago. This discovery is no different, because Adam Brumm and his team in Sulawesi have released their discovery of the oldest known figurative art made by modern humans. And the oldest known cave art depi...

For centuries, arguably the greatest external threat the Roman Empire faced came from the East. From the Sasanian Persian Empire. With its nucleus situated in Iran, at its height the Sasanian Empire was one of antiquity’s most formidable kingdoms, controlling lands that stretched from the Hindu K...

The length of time between the rule of Cleopatra and the erection of the Pyramids is the same as that between now and the birth of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that some periods of Ancient Egypt fall beneath the radar. The Late Period of Ancient Egypt, however, is no...

It’s 218 BC, and Hannibal has made the mammoth journey across the Alps en route to Italy, accompanied by his army, their horses, and their elephants. But the real battle is yet to come, and in this fantastic second episode with Louis Rawlings, he takes us onto the battlefield with the Carthaginia...

The deep blue ocean is the subject of speculation to this day but, in this episode, we have access to the mysteries, myths and misgivings that were associated with the sea in the Second Century AD. The Halieutica was written in Hexameter by the Greek poet Oppian, and dedicated to the then Roman E...

From Northern Britain to the Near East, Roman tombstones have been uncovered on various far flung frontiers of the Roman Empire. Dedicated to those auxiliaries and legionaries that perished far from home, guarding a distant border of this ancient empire. These objects provide an extraordinary ins...

This episode is taken from Tristan's visit to the remains of Roman Corbridge, the northernmost town in the Roman Empire. English Heritage curator Dr Frances McIntosh, tours him around the site, including stops at the granary and at the Corbridge Hoard.

See the full episode here: https://tv.histo...

The four components of the Ancient Indian battlefield: infantry, cavalry, chariots … and elephants. These magnificent creatures were dominant in conflicts to the east of India, in South-East Asia, but also to the west, in Greece and Africa. For this episode, Anirudh Kanisetti and Tristan discusse...

Dramatically placed on a plateau with drops of 400m to the east and 90m to the west, Masada translates from Hebrew as fortress. It became just that when Herod the Great built a magnificent palace complex upon it between 37 and 31 BC, the remains of which are in fantastic shape today. But the site...

Rome. The Eternal City. One of the most recognisable names that many associate with the Ancient Mediterranean World. To provide a detailed run down of this ancient city, Tristan was delighted to be joined by Dr Greg Woolf, Director of the Institute of Classical Studies in London. From its humble ...

Palmyra features in headlines today as a casualty of IS destruction, but during its heyday it was a monumental city set on an oasis in the Syrian desert. First mentioned in the second millennium BC, it gained wealth from the caravan trade which moved goods across the desert. What makes it unique,...

In 73 AD, 967 Jewish rebels against the Romans committed mass suicide atop the Masada Fortress. Or did they? In this second part of Tristan’s interview with Jodi Magness from the University of North Carolina, who co-directed the 1995 excavations of the Roman siege works at Masada, we separate myt...

According to some sources, this was the greatest and bloodiest clash between two Roman armies in history. In 197 AD, the armies of Septimus Severus and Clodius Albinus met at Lugdunum, on the site of present day Lyon. In this episode Tristan speaks to Dr Jonathan Eaton about the lead up to the ba...

The assumption had once been that they were nomads until the Romans came. But more recent archaeological work in modern day Jordan is dispelling this myth about the ancient Nabataeans. In this first episode in another two part podcast, Tristan was joined by Professor David Graf from the Universit...

Cheddar Man is the oldest almost complete skeleton of a Homo sapien ever found in Britain and, for this fantastic episode, Tristan spoke to the scientist who has drilled a (very small) hole in him. Dr Selina Brace is a biologist who works with ancient and degraded DNA. At the Natural History Muse...

Popular discussions of human history are punctuated with conflict, but when did warfare begin? To discuss this massive question, Professor Nam Kim has returned to the Ancients. Taking in examples from Ancient Germany, Britain, Kenya and Vietnam, Nam uses Anthropological Archaeology to decipher wh...

Boudica as a hero of British folklore, her leadership of the Iceni in an uprising against the forces of the Roman Empire in around 60 AD is echoed around school classrooms. But what evidence do we have for her actions, appearance and eventual defeat? Caitlin Gillespie is the author of ‘Boudica: W...

Kara Cooney has been studying 6 of the remarkable female pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. In this episode she explains why many of them have been forgotten, and others regularly misrepresented. Professor of Egytian Art and Archaeology at UCLA, Kara introduces us to the lives and rules of Merneith, Nefe...

In 44 BC, the Ides of March took on a new significance. Previously observed as the first full moon of the new year, the 15 March is today remembered as the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar. In this episode, Dr Emma Southon talks Tristan through the events leading up to the Caesar...

A city of caves, temples and tombs, Petra gains its nickname from the pink sandstone from which it was carved. In this second part of his conversation with Tristan, Professor David Graf, who directed excavations in the ancient Nabataean city, describes the finer details of the architecture and ar...

The Iceni warrior who led a revolt against the Roman Empire around 60 AD often stands alone in our memory of Ancient queens in Britain, but in this episode we explore Boudica’s portrayal in comparison to her contemporaries. In this second half of Tristan’s chat with Caitlin Gillespie, author of ‘...

Without recordings, and with notation and instruments long forgotten, how can we possibly know what music soundtracked Ancient Greek life? James Lloyd from the University of Reading has been studying Ancient Greek music, in particular its role in Ancient Sparta. In this episode James tells Trista...