Loot: to plunder or steal—an English word itself looted from the Hindi word lūṭ. To celebrate the launch of season 7, the inimitable Scottish-born historian William Dalrymple spills on the beans on the colonial loot that made modern Britain—and which today forms an archive of violence and extraction.

Never one to shy away from the underside of history, William takes us into murky terrain: from the dust and sweat of archaeological digs, to his own family’s imperial villainy, to the deep antiquity and current genocide of the Palestinian people.

Why did an underground tunnel turn teenage William into an archive addict? How did a tiny jade bead from India end up in a Viking charnel house in Scotland—and what does that tell us about histories of trade and colonisation? And why have we forgotten that ancient Gaza was once famous for sweet wine and erotic poetry?