Fall of Civilizations Podcast

🏝️🌋 Episode 21 is now live! 🌋🏝️ This time we look at the Majapahit Empire on the island of Java. With traditional music, shadow puppet performances, and readings in Old Javanese, find out how the empire of the islands fell. YouTube: youtu.be/01CZBhZM430?... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3xZ9...

A new documentary on the archaeology of Great Zimbabwe airs tonight on PBS. I interviewed the lead archaeologist, Shadreck Chirikure, and if you click through, you can watch an exclusive clip showing the team's discovery of Longquan celadon from eastern China. 🧪🏺

Wow! Texts are super rare for the Hittites, basically there’s just one archive and it’s 95% lists of prayer sacrifices to mountain gods, so this is really, really exciting!

World Heritage rock carvings in Mongolian Altai region trace changes in human life and climate over a period of 12,000 years. Here, some exceptionally dynamic images of warrior, hunters and animals whc.unesco.org/en/list/1382/

Recent receding water levels in 2022 have also revealed submerged settlements adding even morr aquatic aspect to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and modern day Iraq. Such as the possable Mittani Empire-era metropolis remnants of Zakhiku at Mosul reservoir.

The Colossi of Memnon, Thebes https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.306

#AmphitheatreSaturday – The El Djem amphitheatre (ancient Thysdrus) in Tunisia, built in the 3rd century AD, is one of the largest Roman amphitheatres, seating up to 35,000 spectators. Its three tiers of arcades and underground passages for animals and gladiators showcase impressive engineering.

Aztec Calendar, Mexico City, mounted in the side wall of the Cathedral of Mexico City Unidentified Photographer, ca. 1839 daguerreotype

For #TombTuesday here's the Roman gravestone of a 12-year-old boy named Septentrionis ('northerner'), presumably a slave, who had danced well for two days in the theatre at Antibes (biduo saltavit et placuit). The original is in the local museum and there's a reproduction on a wall in the town.

I guilt tripped my daughter across 3,500 miles to 📸 this so I’d better post it! Afrasiyab, the ancient original site of Samarkand, occupied from 600 BCE until the Mongol invasion #HillfortsWednesday

Chameleon, from the Greek χαμαί ‘on the earth’ and λέων ‘lion’, was calqued from Akkadian nēš(u ša) qaqqari lit. ‘lion of the ground’, a figure attested in the Epic of Gilgamesh (line 314 ᴜʀ.ᴍᴀʜ šá qaq‐qa‐ri). The term is paralleled in lexical tablets from Ebla (ca. 2300 BCE) as na‐iš qar‐qá‐rí‐m.

Listen to me and others far more talented in this ep! My parents told me afterwards that I had visited the Raffles hotel in Singapore as a child, so clearly it was meant to be

The video for Episode 21 is now available for everyone!

Oh hey I have a new paper out with my amazing co-authors 😃

The newly discovered cuneiform tablet fragment contains text from a section of the Treaty of Kadesh related to the treatment of Hittite and Egyptian refugees in the Bronze Age (circa 1269 BC). 🧪🏺

Episode 21 is out now for subscribers!

Couldn't leave out this one , arrived with the mail today @fallofcivilizations.com , really enjoy his audio and video podcasts , wonder If I also enjoy mister Paul Cooper his History Books :-)

"In some places Rome does not fall at all. In others, such as Italy, there are multiple, sometimes repeated farewell parties, where the guests do not want to leave and the host does not switch the music off." How do we think about the Fall of Rome today? www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I've spent a lot of years studying a lot of collapses, and the truth of the matter is that they're always mundane: mild climatic shifts that reduce crop yields, a dumbass in power who makes some terrible decisions, neglecting things that obviously matter but the will to fix them can't be summoned.

Look what I found at the bookstore!! The @fallofcivilizations.com book! 😍

I always find @fallofcivilizations.com episodes great for story inspiration. This episode, filled with elephant generals, shadow puppets, Raffles, Chinese shipyards, doctor assassins and volcano gods, gave me two flash fiction ideas and a novel. #writing #writesky #inspiration

If you're in the US you can now get the Fall of Civilizations book in paperback! LINKS: - Bookshop (support independent bookstores): bookshop.org/p/books/fall... – HarperCollins: www.harpercollins.com/products/fal... – Amazon: a.co/0ieHcTfy – Barnes & Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fall-of-ci...

This excellent episode has inspired me to spotlight Indonesian #SFinTranslation in the November issue of Small Planet: the SF in Translation Magazine.

I highly recommend listening to @paulmmcooper.com’s @fallofcivilizations.com episode on Rapa Nui - Episode 6 Where Giants Walked This episode seriously challenges ideas and conclusions deeply rooted in colonizer and imperial mindsets that are, fundamentally, quite racist and unsupported

For decades, an influential theory blamed the Rapanui for their own downfall—a story made famous by Jared Diamond’s book "Collapse." New evidence tells a different tale.

Saw that someone on Etsy is doing fancy leatherbound editions of the Fall of Civilizations book. Very cool! www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

Saw on Reddit this guy has started doing dub remixes of Fall of Civs readings... jamesreeves.bandcamp.com/album/crocod...

Finally listened to this episode today and felt like pacing around my apartment afterwards. Every single episode of this podcast is SO GOOD and makes me once again want to quit everything else I do so I have time to read more history books.

Is it really summer if you're not listening for *hours* to @paulmmcooper.com during a long drive to a place to walk, swim or just stare at animals & plants doing their thing, cooking, pausing the podcast in ten minutes intervals to discuss what you're discovering about the world? I DON'T THINK SO.

Yet another masterpiece (I have heard it on Patreon already). But hearing it once is never enough.

HELL YEAH GANG!

Having got an advanced copy of this, I can say it is very good.

Very happy to say that I once again contributed some VO readings for this episode of Fall of Civilizations, and they had me *very* excited to listen to the full thing. This'll do perfectly for a long drive next weekend!

Episode 21 is now live for subscribers! This time we look at the Majapahit Empire which arose in the 13th century on the island of Java. With the haunting sounds of traditional gamelan music, shadow puppet performances, and readings in Old Javanese, find out how the empire of the islands fell.

Coming later today... Fall of Civilizations Episode 21, available for Patreon subscribers!

the emotional crux of the illiad is a broken old man begging the man who killed his son to let him bury the body. the odyssey is more than anything about a mans failure to really come home after war, despite the fact he won

the illiad/odyssey are great because theyre history's first piece of anti-war art twisted by idiots into an uncritical endorsement of war

Been doing some filming today for Fall of Civilizations Episode 21! Can you guess? 😬

Just finished recording for Fall of Civilizations Episode 21! Can't wait to get editing on this one.

I chatted to Tim Hartford at BBC Sounds about how civilizations die... share.google/I1xKTpBIatb4...

#AmphitheatreSaturday - The Amphitheatre of Capua, built in the late 1st century AD, was the second largest after Rome’s Colosseum. Restored under Hadrian and inaugurated by Antoninus Pius in AD 155, it had a decorated façade and a hypogeum for gladiators, animals, and machinery.

Saw a Roman aqueduct today..was quite impressed 😮😉 The astonishing C1st AD Pont du Gard in Provence, built to provide Roman Nimes with water as part of a 30 mile network. No mortar used - and still standing 1900 years later Incredible engineering 📷 My own, today

Amazing. Ancient Egyptian versus Modern Egyptian Arabic. Video is in Egyptian Arabic but you'll get the gist of it. Some words haven't changed in 5,000 years. Via www.instagram.com/reel/DYKjGpA...