
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on earthly rulers and the gods.
Queens and kings may be priests of the gods, or their representatives. They may be incarnations - or even gods themselves. Or the relationship may be so close that to divide spiritual from temporal power at all would simply make no sense.
Neil examines these ideas, with the help of objects including a bronze staff belonging to the Oba of Benin, and a bronze vessel from China, whose inscription suggests that its dynastic leaders enjoyed a mandate from heaven.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh.
By BBC Radio 44.8
187187 ratings
Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on earthly rulers and the gods.
Queens and kings may be priests of the gods, or their representatives. They may be incarnations - or even gods themselves. Or the relationship may be so close that to divide spiritual from temporal power at all would simply make no sense.
Neil examines these ideas, with the help of objects including a bronze staff belonging to the Oba of Benin, and a bronze vessel from China, whose inscription suggests that its dynastic leaders enjoyed a mandate from heaven.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh.

7,709 Listeners

882 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

5,428 Listeners

1,806 Listeners

1,170 Listeners

3,196 Listeners

59 Listeners

1,797 Listeners

1,072 Listeners

1,931 Listeners

268 Listeners

2,539 Listeners

449 Listeners

4,174 Listeners

3,192 Listeners

740 Listeners

3,212 Listeners

14,495 Listeners

3,091 Listeners