The Ramessids Rising, with Prof. Peter Brand

Around 1300 BCE, King Sety I selected a group of "beauties" for his son, to marry and produce children. One of these was Nefertari (Nefret-Iry, "She Has Become Beautiful"). A girl of unknown origins (but some tantalising possibilites) who would rise to the rank of King's Chief/Gr ...  Show more

Livestream recording about the Abu Simbel Temples, with a particular focus on Nefertari's monument (Part 1) and the political-religious context of Ramesses' Nubian monuments (Part 2). We also have a fun epilogue about some Greek mercenaries... Video versions available on the Hist ...  Show more

Peter Adamson's book Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): a Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2023) provides an introduction to the most important philosopher of the Islamic world, Ibn Sīnā, often known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna. After introducing the man and his works, with an ...  Show more

Professor Peter Hennessy is one of the UK’s leading contemporary historians. He has written acclaimed and important books about politics, the civil service, the intelligence agencies and the British constitution on which he is an expert. Peter was born in London in 1947 and read ...  Show more

Mehmed Ali is dubbed the ‘Father of Modern Egypt’, so who was he? And how did he rise through the ranks from soldier to Pasha? Mikey sits down with Professor Khaled Fahmy to discuss this enigmatic figure that shaped and formed Egypt into the nation-state we know today. In Part ...

After Napoleon occupied Egypt, Europeans became obsessed with the ancient cultures of the Nile. In Britain, the center of Egyptology research was University College London (UCL). At the heart of the UCL program was the Egyptologist, Margaret Alice Murray. During this golden age o ...  Show more