Ancient

Chocolate is one of the most popular food items around the world. While most of us today consume it in the form of candy, desserts, and sugary drinks, chocolate has taken many forms as it traveled from its ancient Mesoamerican roots to the 21st century. In the eight lectures of The History of Chocolate, you’ll join author and food historian Sam Bilton to trace the long and winding journey of a food that is so much more than just a sweet treat.

The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching...

In southern Iraq, a crushing silence hangs over the dunes. For nearly 5,000 years, the sands of the Iraqi desert have held the remains of the oldest known civilization: the Sumerians. When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia.

For most of human history, life offered no safety net. Environments shifted, resources vanished, and stability was always temporary. People lived on the move—carrying knowledge, forming bonds, and adapting to constant change. This audiobook examines how human life took shape long before familiar societies appeared. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and evolutionary science, it explores how early humans lived, moved, cooperated, and adapted over deep time.

The Four Heavens brings to life the cultural and visual splendor of the ancient Maya, drawing on the oldest indigenous texts of the Americas and the latest archaeological discoveries to present an entirely new history of this spectacular civilization. Renowned historian and archaeologist David Stuart, who has made groundbreaking contributions to the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics, shows how there was no single rise and fall of the Maya but a series of births and collapses over a breathtaking span of nearly three millennia.

When archaeologists uncovered the untouched tomb of Lady Fu Hao in 1976, they didn’t just find treasure, they found a story that rewrote history. She wasn’t just a queen. She was a fierce general, a high priestess, and a leader lost to time… until now.

Radical Antiquity takes you on a unique journey in search of anarchy, statelessness, and social experimentation in the Graeco-Roman world. Sweeping across the Mediterranean from the time of the first Olympic Games in 776 BCE until the emergence of Islam in 610 CE, Christopher B. Zeichmann introduces the listener to communities of escaped enslaved people, pirates, and religious sects—all of whom sought a more egalitarian way of life that avoided the coercion, hierarchy, and exploitation of the state.

What if we have been missing a whole stage of how the canonical gospels came to be? What if there were a whole raft of prior Jesus narratives, the fragmentary vestiges of which now appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This would explain why these gospels seem over-crowded with incompatible understandings of Jesus ("Christologies")?

Ancient Japan: Untold Stories of Love, Power, and Everyday Life History is about more than just emperors, samurai, and war. It’s also about how real people lived, loved, and endured. Long before dating apps, there was the mysterious moonlight visit when men slipped into women’s rooms under the cover of darkness in a ritual woven from romance, danger, and deep cultural meaning. One misstep could ignite scandal, or a confrontation with a pitchfork.

In August 1856, mine workers were excavating the Feldhofer Grotto in the western part of Germany. The cave was one of many in a narrow gorge cut by the Düssel River through limestone outcrops. Here, workers discovered what they believed were human bones. An amateur naturalist from the nearby town of Elberfeld, Johann Carl Fuhlrott, heard about the find and decided to take a look at the remains, which were said to be very old. This discovery would ultimately reshape our understanding of human evolution, though that realization would take many decades to unfold.

Con la destrucción de Cartago, Roma se quedó sin un enemigo a su altura y con el Mediterráneo convertido en una suerte de lago privado. Solo una potencia podía interponerse en su destino: la propia Roma. Los años finales de la República estuvieron marcados por las conspiraciones, las guerras civiles y la transgresión de todos los límites legales. La sangre a borbotones de las legiones y de los políticos romanos marcaron los años finales de un sistema político que colapsó antes de evolucionar hacia un imperio que dominaría medio planeta.

Egypt wasn’t just ancient, it was timeless. From its earliest days along the Black Nile to the rise of pyramid-building god-kings, from foreign invasions to golden mask tombs and global obsession, this book tells the full, sweeping story of the civilization that refused to die. Clear, sharp, and wildly listenable, EGYPT walks you through dynasties, myths, battles, and breakdowns without the textbook sludge. You’ll meet pharaohs, heretics, conquerors, and commoners.

One of ancient Rome's most significant legacies is a legal framework for hereditary slavery. Under the Roman principle that would come to be known as partus sequitur ventrem (the offspring follows the womb), enslaved women bore enslaved children regardless of the identity of the child's father. For centuries, across the globe, this legal doctrine was invoked to justify control over enslaved women's reproductive labor.

De l'Égypte, nous connaissions les pharaons, les momies, les hiéroglyphes, les temples et les pyramides. Mais quid de la vie intime des Égyptiens? Même Champollion nous a fait des cachotteries sur la vie sexuelle de cette civilisation extraordinaire! Thierry do Espirito nous entraîne dans les alcôves de l'Égypte ancienne.

He conquered kingdoms. He saved Rome itself. And history nearly forgot him. Belisarius was the greatest general the Roman Empire produced after Caesar—yet he never ruled, never rebelled, and never claimed the power he was repeatedly offered. In The Last Roman General, you will follow the astonishing rise and quiet fall of the man who restored Rome when it seemed beyond saving.

Oath of the Spartans: The Road to Thermopylae is a gripping historical epic that brings to life the legendary stand of King Leonidas and his 300 warriors. From the shadows of Persian expansion to the fiery defiance at the narrow pass of Thermopylae, this narrative plunges you into the heart of one of history’s most heroic last stands.

La lágrima de Jantipa es un estudio de la Grecia clásica a partir de la palabra de los filósofos y su concepción de lo femenino, un ensayo histórico sobre la configuración de un pensamiento que suponía que las mujeres no debían ser educadas más allá de la labor matronalis y los deberes conyugales.

In Bart Ehrman Interpreted, theologian and writer Robert M. Price evaluates Ehrman’s body of work. Taking a collegial approach and rejecting polemics, Price defends Ehrman’s writing against conservative attacks, but also suggests a number of points at which Ehrman may be insufficiently or inconsistently critical.

Is your map of reality incomplete? What if the unexplained isn’t chaos, but a system waiting to be seen? You’ve felt it - the shiver of a premonition, the pull of a forgotten place, a coincidence too sharp to be random. For too long, we’ve dismissed these flickers at the edge of perception as imagination or folklore. But what if they’re something more?

Desde las llanuras barridas por el viento de Anshan hasta los palacios escalonados de Persépolis, Fundando un Imperio relata cómo un conjunto de ambiciones reales se convirtió en el superestado más sofisticado del mundo antiguo. Comenzando con las audaces conquistas de Ciro el Grande y su política radical de legitimidad —liberación, autonomía local y clemencia mesurada—, la narrativa avanza por la campaña egipcia de Cambises II en los límites del mundo conocido y se adentra en la turbulencia sucesoria que casi fracturó el joven imperio.