176: The Ancient Egyptian Book of Gates (Part...

Siptah, Tausret, Setnakht. Between 1205--1202 BCE, the royal house of Ramesses II crumbled into illegitimacy. After Siptah, the queen Tausret declared herself pharaoh. Her reign leaves tantalising traces. But shortly after, a man named Set-Nakht ("Seth is Victorious") seized the ...  Show more

Siptah & Chancellor Bay. The last years of Dynasty 19 are murky, with hints of disorder and violence. At the centre of affairs, the courtier Bay directed policy and controlled access to King Siptah. Pharaoh himself was sickly, possibly disabled. The power-shift culminated in a ra ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld. They flourished under the New Kingdom ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld. They flourished under the New Kingdom ...  Show more

Of all the Egyptian Gods it is Ra, the God of the Sun, who is perhaps most well known in the popular imagination. He is said to have voyaged across the sky on his solar barge and then come nightfall descended into the underworld to battle all sorts of monstrous creatures. But ...

<span style= "font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;">Let's kick off 2024 with another sleepy stroll across the sands of time to ancient Egypt. This time, we unravel the labyrinth of Saqqara, see how pyramids changed, and head to the vaunted Valley of the ...