The PastCast The Past

Divine kingship was as old as Egyptian civilisation itself, when the Predynastic kings of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) ruled as avatars on Earth of the falcon god Horus. Pharaoh was entitled the ‘Good God, the Son of Ra’. Egypt’s gods and goddesses were his fathers and mothers. In life he was the incarnation of Horus; in death, his identity fused with Osiris, Lord of the Underworld.

But there were limits to royal godhood. Each king inevitably aged, sickened, and died. However, this contradiction between Pharaoh’s human frailty and sublime godhood was not a problem: the divine was understood to inhabit the earthly body, but be quite separate from it. The king’s human self was a mortal vessel containing the divine essence of kingship. Most kings only truly became a god after death.

In a series of articles in Ancient Egypt magazine, Professor Peter J Brand of the University of Memphis explores the life of Pharaoh Ramesses II and reassesses the Nineteenth Dynasty. For the first of these articles, Brand explored the divinity of the early Ramesside kings. And on this episode of The PastCast, he spoke with Ancient Egypt’s deputy editor Sarah Griffiths about his findings. Sarah also discusses what readers can look forward to in the upcoming issue of the magazine, out on 8 June in the UK. It will also be available to read in full on The Past website.

The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.

In south-eastern Europe from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, across a period of some 5,500 years, communities with increasingly complex political and economic inequalities developed, and an emergent elite grew their power and influence by exerting control over four focal aspects of prehistoric life: technology, trade, rituals, and warfare.

In a new exhibition at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, visitors can wonder at a huge trove of artefacts crafted during this period from the exceptionally rich archaeological heritage of south-eastern Europe. What these artefacts reveal is the importance played by technology, trade, rituals, and warfare in the evolution of social inequality and hierarchy in the Balkans and beyond.

On this episode of The PastCast, curators Attila Gyucha and William A Parkinson discuss the exhibition – an unprecedented, inter-continental collaboration between the Field Museum and 26 other institutions in eleven south-east European countries – and some of the many amazing artefacts on display.

The exhibition is also the subject of an article in the latest issue of Minerva magazine, which is out now in the UK, and is also available to read in full on The Past website. On this episode, Attila and William spoke with regular PastCast presenter Calum Henderson.

The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.

First Kings of Europe runs at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, between 31 March and 28 January 2024. Visit their website for more information. It will then travel to the Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, Quebec, between 4 April 2024 and 19 January 2025.

In Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, a single bite of a tea-dipped madeleine is enough to transport the author back into a vivid world of recollection. Our sense of smell is even more powerful in this respect than taste, however, with a direct route between the olfactory bulbs and the parts of the brain linked to emotion and memory.

This can be harnessed to great effect when creating atmospherically immersive experiences for museum exhibitions and heritage attractions – and for the last 50 years, specialists at AromaPrime have been creating bespoke scents to help bring the past to life.

On this episode of The PastCast, Liam R Findlay – Heritage Scenting Consultant at AromaPrime – discusses the company’s fascinating work, concocting everything from the scent of the embalmed mummies of Ancient Egypt to the breath of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

The work of AromaPrime is also the subject of an article in the latest issue of Current Archaeology magazine, which is out now in the UK, and is also available to read in full on The Past website. On this episode, Liam spoke with Current Archaeology editor Carly Hilts and regular PastCast presenter Calum Henderson.

The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.

On 6 May 1682, HMS Gloucester sank off the coast of Great Yarmouth. The warship’s loss was a major disaster, claiming the lives of an estimated 130-250 people – very nearly including the Duke of York and Albany (the future King James II & VII), who was on board. The Gloucester itself was lost to the sea, and its wreck remained anonymously buried in sand for almost 350 years.

Since the ship’s rediscovery in 2007 (by brothers Lincoln and Julian Barnwell, and James Little), though, archaeological surveys of the site and analysis of artefacts eroding from the wreck mound are helping to tell the story of the Gloucester once more: a story that is currently the focus of an exhibition running at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery.

On this episode of The PastCast, one of the co-curators of the exhibition, Professor Claire Jowitt, discusses the history of the ship, its sinking, and the many fascinating artefacts – from glass wine bottles (then cutting-edge technology) to trunks stuffed with passengers’ possessions – that are helping to illuminate its final, fatal voyage.

The Gloucester exhibition is also the subject of an article in the latest issue of Current Archaeology magazine, which is out now in the UK, and is also available to read in full on The Past website. On this episode, Claire spoke with Current Archaeology editor Carly Hilts and regular PastCast presenter Calum Henderson.

The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.

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The Last Voyage of the Gloucester: Norfolk’s Royal Shipwreck, 1682 runs at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery until 10 September; see their website for more details.

The exhibition catalogue, by curators Ruth Battersby Tooke, Claire Jowitt, Benjamin Redding, and Francesca Vanke, The Last Voyage of the Gloucester: Norfolk’s Royal Shipwreck, 1682 (Aylsham: Barnwell Print, 2023) provides information about the history of the Gloucester, the finders’ story, and the artefacts displayed.

For an account of the Gloucester’s final voyage see Claire Jowitt, 'The Last Voyage of the Gloucester (1682): The Politics of a Royal Shipwreck' The English Historical Review, Volume 137, Issue 586, June 2022, Pages 728–762, available here.

And to read more about ongoing research into the wreck itself, visit this link.

An insignificant tarmac road leading off Jordan’s Desert Highway about 80km south of Amman soon becomes a dirt track across the desert. The landscape looks bare all around. No habitation can be seen, apart from a small modern farm in a side valley. The desert rolls on. And then, a speck on the horizon. A dark form, barely visible. Gradually, it becomes larger until it is a recognisable building, a square fortification with large towers at each corner. This is Qasr Bshir.



Qasr Bshir is a Roman fort that can stake a claim to being the best-preserved example anywhere in the former empire. But this relic of imperial power is in urgent need of conservation work. On this episode of The PastCast, archaeologist David Breeze discuss why Qasr Bshir is special, and the challenges that lie ahead.



This podcast accompanies an article on the fort in the latest issue of Current World Archaeology magazine, which is out now in the UK and next month in the rest of the world. It is also available to read in full on The Past website here. On this episode, David speaks with regular PastCast presenter Calum Henderson. Current World Archaeology editor Matt Symonds joins Calum to discuss what else readers can look forward to in the latest issue.



The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.

In 2019, archaeologists and military veteran volunteers from Operation Nightingale excavated part of the hut camp of 'Easy Company' – the famous D-Day paratroopers better known as the 'Band of Brothers' – in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. The remains we uncovered were illuminating, but the onset of the pandemic called a halt to further investigations – until last year, when the team returned to search for further traces of this legendary American unit.

On this episode of The PastCast, archaeologist Richard Osgood discusses the many fascinating finds made in the most recent round of excavations, which, much to his and his colleagues’ surprise, in many ways surpassed the discoveries made in 2019.

Osgood is also the author of an article on the Aldbourne excavations in the latest issue of Current Archaeology magazine, which is out now in the UK and is also available to read in full on The Past website. On this episode, he spoke with Current Archaeology editor Carly Hilts and regular PastCast presenter Calum Henderson.

Carly also discusses the success of the recent Current Archaeology Live! conference, held in London at the end of February, and what readers can look forward to in the new issue of the magazine.

The Past brings together the most exciting stories and the very best writing from the realms of history, archaeology, heritage, and the ancient world. You can subscribe to The Past today for just £7.99. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider liking it, subscribing, and sharing it around.