The art of shadow puppetry, or shadow play, is an ancient form of storytelling which utilizes flat translucent screen. It has a long history in China, India, Nepal, and Southeast Asia, as well as in Turkey and Greece, surviving everything from war and famine to cultural revolutions. Shadow puppetry is so embraced by many different cultures that each culture seems to have their own history and legend of the first shadow play performance— therefore claiming it, or at least different versions of it, as their own.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2021/09/09/javanese-wayang-and-the-history-of-shadow-puppetry/