kinglRecordings of all my online talks are now available on my YouTube channel. Some are freely accessible to all, while others are for channel members  in the Lapis category only – see here for more info.

Lapis members also get access to all new talks – one per month – and can join in by posting questions and comments during the live events, and get access to the recording immediately afterwards.

The following is a complete list of all the talks I have given online (excluding any hosted by other organisations), with links to the recordings and guides to further reading etc.

PEOPLE AT AMARNA. From Akhenaten and Nefertiti to John Pendlebury and Mary Chubb
Originally given online in April 2020
Freely accessible via the Egypt Exploration Society’s YouTube channel here and below:

Tell el-Amarna is the name we give to the site of Akhetaten, the city founded by the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten as the capital of his new Egypt. His story has proven to be one of the most captivating from anywhere in the ancient world and yet it was almost completely unknown until less than two hundred years ago. Various travellers, expeditions and archaeologists have helped reveal the evidence for what happened in the relatively brief period of the city’s existence, and the contribution of the various EES expeditions in this is immense. In this talk we’ll look at the site, some of its history and the work of those who have revealed Amarna to be one of the most important ancient sites in the world.

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

AFTER AKHENATEN. Nefertiti, Smenkhkare, and where were they all buried?
Originally given online in April and May 2020
Currently (14 April 2022) freely accessible via YouTube here and below:

What happened after Akhenaten’s death? Where was he buried? Who succeeded him? Could it have been Nefertiti? And who was Smenkhkare? Tantalising clues have been found at Amarna and in the Valley of Kings. But how to make sense of them?

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

EGYPT’S LOST PYRAMID
Originally given online in May 2020.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

In 2017 an Egyptian Mission discovered a previously unknown pyramid at the site of Dahshur & it seemed the burial chamber was intact… I was lucky enough to visit to make a film when the tomb was opened. This is the story.

The film was broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 in October 2019 and is available via All4 here. Do take a look a look!

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

THE KINGDOM OF KUSH
Originally given online in June 2020.
Accessible via YouTube here and below:

The Kingdom of Kush: Egypt’s mighty rival in the south. Egypt expanded into the territory to its south at various times in history, built monuments there and influenced the beliefs and practices of the people they encountered. But the influence went both ways; at times the tables turned and the Kingdom of Kush, centring on the cities of Kerma and later Napata and Meroe, became more powerful than Egypt. Kings of Kush even came to rule Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. They retreated after a century of rule but continued to thrive in the middle Nile Valley for centuries more, burying their rules under distinctively tall pyramids. This is their story.

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

SEARCHING FOR IMHOTEP
Originally given online in June and July 2020, and again in November 2020.
Accessible via YouTube here and below:

Imhotep. The name has been made famous by Hollywood mummy movies but the real-life man of this name was perhaps even more extraordinary. He is credited with designing the Step Pyramid, the very first of these iconic monuments, and long after his death he became a folk hero, and eventually a god. Despite his status, his tomb has never been found. Two thousand years after he lived, the ancients made thousands of offerings to him around a group of tombs of Imhotep’s time. Could one of them have been the final resting place of the man himself?

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. Buried three times in Egypt… But where are those tombs?
Originally given online in July and August 2020.
Accessible via YouTube here and below:

Alexander the Great conquered vast amounts of territory and came to rule a greater empire than had ever existed up that time. Along the way he chased the reviled Persians out of Egypt and was welcomed as pharaoh. He stayed in the country for just a few months and never returned, dying a few years later in Babylon. But his body was brought to Egypt for burial by his eventual successor, the general Ptolemy, no doubt in a suitably grand monument. Classical authors tell of visits by Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Hadrian and others, but the tomb (or tombs…) has never been located. Where was it, and could it yet be found?

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

EGYPTOLOGISTS’ NOTEBOOKS – a mini lecture series based on the book of the same name (more info here) which had just come out at the time. 

EGYPTOLOGISTS’ NOTEBOOKS PART I: An Untouched Antique Land
Originally given online in October 2020.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

Imagine a time before Egyptology, when Egypt was known to Europeans for its great ancient civilisation but only through the accounts of classical authors and the Bible. The earliest western visitors went to Egypt in the hope of seeing the pyramids, great cities, and perhaps the evidence of the presence of Joseph and Moses. Their expectations were sometimes exceeded, sometimes confounded: the pyramids were the great wonder of ancient repute, but Alexandria lay in ruins, and Memphis seemed lost. Nonetheless what they and their successors saw filled them with awe and some saw things Europeans were entirely unaware existed: imagine being among the first to see the ‘hundred gated Thebes’ of Homer, or the first to set eyes on Abu Simbel or Meroe…

 

EGYPTOLOGISTS’ NOTEBOOKS PART II: Artists, Expeditions and Nationalist Competition
Originally given online in November 2020.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

In 1798 a French expedition under Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in order conquer and exploit the country and disrupt British access to India. The expedition was forced to withdraw the following year in the face of resistance from British and Ottoman troops but Napoleon had also brought with him a corps of artists and scientists – ‘savants’ – whose task was to create a grand ‘description’ of the natural environment of the country and its monuments. The record they created was the first comprehensive survey of the country’s archaeology. In the years that followed more and more Europeans settled in Egypt, and many sought to create their own accurate records of the country’s monuments, improving on the savants’ Description as more and more monuments were discovered and scholars able to read hieroglyphs demanded more inscriptions be copied with greater accuracy. These records were of enormous value in their time and all the more so since, as many of the monuments they saw have since been lost…

 

EGYPTOLOGISTS’ NOTEBOOKS PART III: Archaeology Begins
Originally given online in November 2020.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and  below.

In the early nineteenth century the European powers considered the acquisition of ancient monuments for their respective national collections to be a fine way to bring glory upon themselves. And the bigger the collection, the bigger and finer or more exotic the pieces, the better. This led to intense competition, in particular between the British Consul, Henry Salt, and his French counterpart Bernardino Drovetti, both of whom were voracious collectors. Both employed a number of agents to uncover and remove antiquities, initiating the first archaeological excavations in the country. Salt and Drovetti both amassed multiple collections which were ultimately sold to the major museum in Europe, in particular in London, Paris and Turin. Two of their agents, Belzoni and Rifaud are responsible for the discovery of many of the great masterpieces of sculpture now in European museums. Their methods didn’t quite match up to the standards of today’s archaeologists but things were going to change…

 

CLEOPATRA: TOMB, BATHS and BIRTH-HOUSE
Originally given online in December 2020 and January 2021.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below:

Cleopatra is perhaps one of most famous figures in the ancient world and yet little of what we know about her comes from archaeological evidence in Egypt. The story of her final days is well know and classical accounts tell us a little of her tomb and where it was, but it has never been found. She created a myth that she was Isis and her son, Horus – to help establish their legitimacy – and yet these crucially important scenes were lost over a century ago. Famously she bathed in milk and yet the ‘baths of Cleopatra’ which were a must-see for 19th Century travellers have now disappeared. What happened, and how can Egyptologists’ records help us to retrieve what has been lost?

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

THE MISSING TOMB OF AMENHOTEP I
Originally given online in February 2021.
Accessible via YouTube here and below:

Amenhotep I was the second king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and of the great period Egyptologists call the New Kingdom. Although all kings were semi-divine he seems to have enjoyed an unusually elevated status as a kind of ‘patron saint’ of the workmen of Deir el-Medina, who cut the royal tombs in the Valley of Kings. And yet his own tomb is one of few belonging to the kings of this period that has never been found. There are several candidate locations all of which are explored in this talk…

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

TUTANKHAMUN: In Life, Death & Eternal Afterlife
Originally given online in March 2021.
Accessible via YouTube here and below:

The discovery of the intact tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in 1922 was the greatest moment in the history of archaeology. It brought to light more than 5,000 of the most exquisite objects to have survived from the ancient world, masterpieces which speak to the vision and imagination of the Egyptian artists and craftsmen, and their ability to work with a wide range of materials – wood, stone, ceramic and precious metals especially, of course, gold. Such beautiful objects need no more explanation – they can simply be enjoyed as exquisite works of art – but in fact every item was present in the tomb for a reason: they were the equipment the king would need for his journey to an eternal afterlife. This is the story of how he got there – of an eventful life, an early death, what came next, and how the treasures in his tomb have helped us to tell that story.

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

EGYPT’S SILVER PHARAOHS
Originally given online in July 2021.
Currently (July 2023) freely accessible via YouTube here and below:

The end of the Twentieth Dynasty was also the end of the great era known as the New Kingdom. By this time Egypt had relinquished its empire, and pharaoh no longer even controlled all of his own country which was now split between the king in the north and an all-powerful Chief Priest in the south. This was the beginning of the ‘Third Intermediate Period’. Such phases are generally harder to understand – the evidence is thinner on the ground and confused, but they are generally held to be times of relative decline. But in 1939 a French archaeologist Pierre Montet discovered the royal tombs of the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasty kings at Tanis in the Delta region, several of which turned out to be intact. What Montet had found might have caused a sensation to rival the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb – a solid gold death mask belonging to Psusennes I, several others like it and countless other treasures including several falcon headed coffins, one of solid silver, a material, that was much less common in Egypt than gold. But the world’s attention was elsewhere – WW2 had broken out… This is the story of his incredible discoveries but also of the tombs that are yet to be found…

The guide here was prepared following series of talks which dealt with similar themes and should, I hope, be of use for anyone looking to take their interest in the subjects covered further.

 

Egyptians, Libyans and Kushites: The Third Intermediate Period UNTANGLED!
Originally given online in July 2021.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

This talk is designed as a complement to my previous lecture on ‘Egypt’s Silver Pharaohs’ (7 and 8 July 2021). The era following the end of the New Kingdom is relatively little known and poorly understood. Scholars are still arguing, even now, about how the history of the period, and sequences of kings, should be reconstructed. Two things are clear: first, Egypt was split between two or more more rulers for much of the period, and attempts at unifying it were generally short-lived; second, this was a time when the country was subject to the influence of successive groups of foreigners hence the alternative names ‘Libyan Period’ for the 22nd and 23rd Dynasties, and ‘Kushite Period’ for the 25th. Reconciling the ‘dynasties’ of the ancient historian Manetho with the archaeological evidence remains a challenge, and provides a lesson in how scholars have used the evidence to understand what was happening at this confused and confusing period of history. The aim here is to explain what we know, and how we know it. Limber up, and come and join me!

The guide here was prepared following series of talks which dealt with similar themes and should, I hope, be of use for anyone looking to take their interest in the subjects covered further.

 

Originally given online in August 2021.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below:

On 3 April 2021 the world watched the ‘Pharaohs’ Golden Parade’ in Cairo, Egypt. The bodies of the kings of the New Kingdom – the Royal Mummies – were being transferred from the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square in Cairo to their new home at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) where they will be the star attraction. Isn’t it incredible that the bodies of these famous pharaohs including Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Sety I and Ramesses II have survived, and in such good condition…? How is it that we have the bodies of so many important people – kings, queens and others – of the 17th to 21st Dynasties, but hardly any from before or after that time? The answer is an incredible story of tombs, robbers, a country desperate for cash (in ancient times!), and two of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made…

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

HERIHOR, his tomb, and the priests who became kings
Originally given online in September 2021.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below:

The Twenty-first Dynasty was characterised by a split between the pharaoh in the north, and the Chief Priest of Amun at Karnak who came to take control of Thebes and the south. Herihor was among the first of these newly powerful Chief Priests, and was in authority during the early stages of the ‘restoration’ and caching of the royal mummies of the Valley of Kings and elsewhere. His tomb has never been found, although tantalising clues have appeared in the remote ‘western wadis’ of Thebes. Herihor and the other Chief Priests of the era were also in command of the armies and the judiciary, and they adopted some of the trappings of kingship, but were they really ‘kings’ of Thebes? And what would that mean for the kind of tomb Herihor might have had…?

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

Kings in Thebes
Originally given online in August 2022
Currently freely accessible via YouTube here and below:

During the First Millennium BCE (Dynasties 21-30), what it meant to be ‘king’ or ‘pharaoh’ seems to have changed. This was a time when Egypt was often split into south and north – or even more fragmented than that – and it was subject to influence from various groups of foreigners. While the kings who were recognised by Manetho were generally based in the north, Thebes, in the south, repeatedly produced powerful local individuals who claimed the kingship, or wielded equivalent authority. Some who claimed kingship barely left a trace in the records and were perhaps not so influential; others who didn’t claim kingship seem to have been far more influential and wealthy, causing us to ask what it really meant to be ‘king’ during this era. This is the story of the powerful Chief Priests of Dynasty 21, Theban kings, Libyan Chiefs, and the owners of the three largest and most spectacular tombs anywhere in the country – Harwa, Montuemhat and Padiamunope of Dynasties 25 and 26.

A guide to further reading and related resources online is available here.

 

Alexandria Found & Lost
Originally given online in August 2023.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

Alexandria was one of the great cities in the ancient world. Although Alexander the Great had died before the port he had founded could be built, his body was buried there, and it became the capital of the dynasty founded by his general Ptolemy (I), which came to an end with the death of the famous Cleopatra. Her tomb was also in Alexandria (probably!). Over the centuries Alexandria has been the scene of numerous pivotal events in ancient history. Many of its great monuments, including the lighthouse, one of the ancient wonders of the world, have been lost, but traces survived into modern times. Much that remains is now concealed beneath the modern city – Egypt’s second largest – with much more hidden under the waters of the Mediterranean.

DECODING HIEROGLYPHS: Young, Champollion and how the ancient system of writing works.
Originally given online in August 2023.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here and below.

In 2022 Egyptology celebrated 200 years since Jean Francois Champollion’s decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. What was his ‘eureka moment’? Well, in fact, the anniversary is based on an announcement Champollion made in 1822, the culmination of years of hard work, on his part but also that of others. Furthermore, Champollion continued to refine his system, and the publication of his Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens égyptiens the following year (1823) was arguably a better monument to mark the conclusion of the quest to read the ancient texts. This talk outlines the series of deductions made by Champollion, but also Thomas Young and others, that allowed us to read those ancient texts, and shows how the language actually worked.

 

SEARCHING FOR THE MISSING TOMBS OF EGYPT
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 8 May 2024.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

It’s incredible to think that so many of the tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt – who altogether ruled for over three thousand years – have survived and been discovered by archaeologists. Most of those that haven’t survived belonged to kings about whom we know very little and who perhaps ruled only for a short time, or during periods of instability. But there are conspicuous absences – tombs that belonged to great and well-known historical figures that no longer exist, or perhaps just haven’t been found yet… This is the story of the ‘missing’ tombs of Imhotep, Amenhotep I, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Herihor, the kings of the glorious Saite Period, and even Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. What would they have been like, what treasures would they have contained, where were they, and could they still await discovery?

 

AMENHOTEP and AKHENATEN: EGYPT’S PHARAOHS OF THE SUN
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 10 July 2024.
Currently freely accessible via YouTube here and below:

Akhenaten probably attracts more attention than any other pharaoh among Egyptophiles. His revolution was swift, wide-ranging and apparently sudden. But to what extent can the changes he introduced be traced to the reign of his father Amenhotep III? This talk looks at some of the key features of the Amarna period, and asks to what extent the changes were already underway when Akhenaten came to the throne, and whether his predecessor might even have continued to play a role after that point.

PYRAMID MYTHBUSTING: ancient Egypt, not ancient aliens…
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 7 August 2024.
Currently freely accessible via YouTube here and below:

No subject in Egyptology attracts more theories than the pyramids, especially those of Giza. How they were built, who by, when and what for? We don’t exactly know how they were built, and for many, Egyptology’s answers to the questions about who, when and what for aren’t good enough. The recent TV series, Mysteries of the Pyramids with Dara O’Briain, addressed this phenomenon. The aim of this lecture is to show that, contrary to popular belief, the conventional view that the Giza Pyramids were built during the Fourth Dynasty by the ancient Egyptians, as tombs for their kings, remains the best interpretation of the available evidence, and will emphasise what that evidence is. There is no conspiracy, Egyptologists have nothing to hide, and do not stand to lose anything if new evidence emerges to cause them to alter their conclusions!

I wrote a few further thoughts on this subject here, and the usual guide to further reading etc is here.

 

HOW TO READ EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS (and the Abydos Kinglists)
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 5 September 2024.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

This lecture looks at the kinglists of Abydos. Sety I presided over one of the greatest periods in Egypt’s history but as the son of a commoner, the military general and first king of the line, Ramesses I, he clearly felt a need to assert his legitimacy. He did so in a grand temple at the sacred site of Abydos where he depicted himself and his son and successor, Ramesses II, at the head of a long list of kings’ names going back to beginning of time. This was intended to be the definitive list of the rightful rulers of Egypt, with Sety himself at the end of it. Ramesses followed his father by commissioning a very similar inscription in his own temple a short distance away. The kinglists provide both a fascinating insight into the ancient Egyptians’ sense of their own history, and some of the easiest inscriptions you could hope to read. This talk will examine the kinglists in detail and look at how useful they are in helping us to reconstruct Egyptian history and chronology, and what they tell us about the ancient historians’ own biases. And we’ll learn how to read a few of the names in the hope that anyone visiting the lists – in Abydos or in London – can have a go at reading them in person.

My usual guide to further reading is here.

 

The EGYPTIAN LABYRINTH – The Middle Kingdom and the Faiyum Region
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 3 October 2024.
Currently freely accessible via YouTube here.

The Faiyum basin is a natural depression, a little west of the northernmost part of the Nile Valley into which water and silts flowed from the river creating a richly fertile region. This oasis seems to have been particularly significant during the Middle Kingdom, when the new capital city, Ity-Tawy, was established nearby, and the Ptolemaic Period when it was extensively cultivated. Several Twelfth Dynasty kings built pyramids in the region, including Amenemhat III, whose vast mortuary complex appears to have inspired the much later legend of a ‘labyrinth’. This talk explores the rich history and monuments of the region, and asks if Amenemhat’s temple really was the labyrinth or if it perhaps still awaits us elsewhere….

A page of links and further reading to go with this talk is here.

 

MEGALITHS in ANCIENT EGYPT: The Osireion
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 6 November 2024.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

In 1903 the archaeologists Flinders Petrie and Margaret Murray made an extraordinary discovery to the east of the famous temple of Sety I at Abydos. At a level below ground they found a building constructed of huge blocks of granite, limestone and sandstone – megaliths – far larger than were usually used in Egyptian monuments. Numerous cartouches of Sety I suggest this was an extension of his monument, and the decoration resembling texts and images from tombs in the Valley of Kings in an entrance corridor have led to the conclusion that it is a funerary monument although not a tomb – perhaps a cenotaph. Its unique design has led to much debate among scholars about its age and purpose ever since its discovery.

 

The FIRST KINGS of EGYPT – Osiris, Isis, Horus and Seth
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 19 December 2024.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

Egyptian religion is fantastically complex involving literally thousands of gods, and a series of myths which have only survived in fragments and which often seem to contradict one another. The best known, and best attested is the story of Osiris, mythical king of Egypt who was slain by his jealous brother Seth, then avenged by his son Horus. Osiris resultingly became the Egyptians’ preeminent funerary deity and all kings were believed to become as one with him in death, which each new pharaoh became the living manifestation of Horus upon their accession. This is the story of the most famous of all the Egyptians’ many myths and legends.

 

THE SERAPEUM and animal cults in ancient Egypt
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 21 January 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

The stereotype of ancient Egypt often involves animals, especially cats, and mummies, and it’s true that in later periods of Egyptian history the mummification animals became a huge industry. The most important animal cult was that of the Apis bull at Memphis and the most spectacular expression of animal mummification the gigantic tombs of the mummified bulls known as the Serapeum at Saqqara. This talk takes a close look at these catacombs and their history, and the cult of Apis, and animal cults at Saqqara and elsewhere in Egypt more generally.

 

HATSHEPSUT Egypt’s female pharaoh
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 18 February 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

Hatshepsut became pharaoh during the reign of her step-son, Thutmose III, who had succeeded his father when he was just a child. She reigned for c. 20 years and left some spectacular monuments including the ‘red chapel’ and several gigantic obelisks at Karnak and her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, a masterful combination of architecture and the natural landscape. She may even have been the founder of the Valley of Kings. She didn’t have it easy however: convention required that pharaoh be male and she was sometimes depicted with male characteristics, and on her death her stepson – now an adult – resumed the throne and dated events as of he had been ruling since his coronation as a child leading to the interpretation – now challenged – that Hatshepsut had usurped the throne. Whatever the circumstances, her name was subsequently erased from the monuments and she was left out of the official king lists of later times. In any case, Hatshepsut’s story is undoubtedly one of the greatest ancient Egyptian history has to offer.

 

REKHMIRA: anatomy of an ancient Egyptian tomb
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 18 March 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

The decoration in Egyptian tombs provides a vast wealth of information about various aspects life in the ancient past. No two are the same; certain themes are common but many tombs contain scenes that are unique and speak to a great desire for personal expression. One of the finest is that of Rekhmira, vizier under Thutmose III and Amenhotep III. The tomb is of a shape (’T’) typical at the time, but with a long corridor with an unusual ceiling that slopes upwards to a great height. Some the most eye-catching scenes include a hunt, the construction of a temple, the sculpting of statues and an idyllic garden with a pond. Perhaps the most important part of the decoration will be missed by many visitors, however: an inscription describing the ‘duties of the vizier’, perhaps the best evidence we have what this crucially important role at the royal court involved.

 

SENENMUT – Hatshepsut’s Right-Hand Man
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 29 April 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

Senemut is one of the best-known officials from ancient Egypt. Although from a lowly background he rose to prominence as tutor to princess Neferure, daughter of Thutmose II and his wife Hatshepsut, and eventually became Chief Steward of Amun when Hatshepsut herself became pharaoh. As such he was responsible for her construction projects and was perhaps the architect of her great mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. Senenmut is an indispensable part of Hatshepsut’s story and there has been much speculation about the nature of their relationship. This talk explores his career and monuments, and his part in the story of one of Egypt’s greatest rulers, Hatshepsut.

 

THE GOD’S WIFE of AMUN – Egypt’s Foremost Priestess
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 29 May 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

The role of God’s Wife of Amun appeared at the beginning of the New Kingdom and was held by some of the most prominent and important women in Egyptian history. As the wife of Amun himself, the woman who held this title was an intermediary between humankind and the gods, a role otherwise only undertaken by the king. In additional to their spiritual importance, the God’s Wives were also economically and politically important, and their appearance and disappearance at various points in history was undoubtedly related to the politics of the time. This talk reviews the evidence for these most important women and what we can learn of the often very interesting times in which they lived.

 

THE BATTLE of QADESH – Ramesses the Great vs The Hittites
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 19 June 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

Ramesses II is not known as ‘the great’ for no reason: his life and reign were exceptionally long, he had an enormous number of wives and children, he built on a grand scale up and down the country and beyond his borders. And he was renowned as a great warrior – all great pharaohs were, to some extent, but at Qadesh we are led to believe that Ramesses was personally responsible for quite some heroics against his enemy, the Hittites. The Egyptians’ battle against them at Qadesh is one of the best attested in ancient history and is depicted in the great detail on the walls of several of Ramesses’ great temples. The peace treaty that eventually ended hostilities is documented in both Egyptian and Hittite sources. This is the story of one of the great battles, between two of the great powers of the ancient world.

 

THE HYKSOS, Ancient Egypt and the Bible
Originally broadcast live via YouTube on 24 July 2025.
Currently available to YouTube channel members here.

At some point following the collapse of the central authority of the kings of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties, a new line of kings came to rule the north of Egypt. They were foreigners, of uncertain origin but probably from somewhere in the southern Levant, and they were based at Avaris in the north-eastern Delta. Later historians of Egypt writing in Greek referred to them as ‘Hyksos’ a word that derives from the ancient Egyptian heqa khasutmeaning ‘ruler of foreign lands’. At least one of the historian Manetho’s ‘dynasties’ of Egypt, the Fifteenth, was a line of Hyksos pharaohs. They were eventually defeated by the Theban Egyptians of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Dynasty lines who, following their eventual triumph, reunified the country, and soon began taking control of people and territories to the north and south, in part to ensure that no such trauma as the Hyksos period could ever return. Who were they? What evidence did they leave behind? How were they remembered (and how has this influenced our perceptions of them). And what relation might they have to the Biblical story of the Exodus?