Mycenaean Greece was one of the glittering jewels of the late Bronze Age world, but it fell to pieces in dramatic fashion: burned palaces, abandoned settlements, and the end of a centuries-old political tradition. Nor was Greece the only place in the Aegean to suffer: On the Asian side of the sea, a city we know as Troy was among those destroyed at this time. Was this the context that, centuries later, gave rise to Homer's famous tale of the Trojan War?

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We're often told that trade was central to the interconnected world of the late Bronze Age, but what were people really trading? Why did trade matter so much? And what happened when that trade disappeared? Professor Sarah Murray is an archaeologist and an expert on the economy of Mycenaean Greece - and how and why it fell apart.

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The term "Bronze Age Collapse" is by now common, but what do we actually mean when we talk about "collapse?" Is it a matter of political reorganization or something rather more drastic? In the case of the Bronze Age, we have a copious material and written record to help us understand what actually happened around 1200 BC, and how it affected the people who lived through it - and didn't.

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The late Bronze Age was a time of powerful empires and intense competition between them. Never before had true states covered such a large area, or had such resources to devote to politicking and fighting with one another. The result was war on a scale never before seen in human history.

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What was it like to be a regular person in ancient Egypt? What did people do when they got sick or injured? Professor Anne Austin is an Egyptologist and bioarchaeologist who studies health and disease using both texts and human remains, allowing us to answer questions about the bodily experience of ancient life in ways we never thought possible. 

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We know the late Bronze Age world eventually collapsed, but what made it a world in the first place? The answer lies in the intense connections - trade, politics, and culture - that tied together a vast area of the ancient world, from Mycenaean Greece to Elamite Iran and the Caucasus Mountains to the Upper Nile in Nubia.

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When we think about ancient Egypt, the vast majority of our attention goes to its elite: pharaohs, queens, priests, and nobles. But the elite made up only the tiniest portion of the population. What about the people who built the pyramids, royal tombs, great temples, and palaces? What can we know about them? A great deal, as it turns out.

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If we know one thing about the Bronze Age world, we know that it collapsed. But what made it a world? And why did it fall apart? There's nobody better to ask than Professor Eric Cline, who literally wrote the book - 1177 BC - on the end of the Bronze Age.

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Kings are one of the constants of ancient Egypt's long history. But what, exactly, were kings supposed to do, and how did ancient Egyptians understand the role of their king? Professor Laurel Bestock is one of the world's leading experts on the institution of kingship in ancient Egypt, as well as an experienced archaeologist, and she brings several fascinating viewpoints to help us understand the central role of the pharaoh.

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Egypt's New Kingdom lasted for more than 400 years. In that time, Egypt changed dramatically, weathering ups, downs, and turmoil of all kinds. Much of that turmoil centered around a religious visionary who also happened to be pharaoh: Akhenaten, father of the famous Tutankhamun, whose incredible tomb and less-than-impressive reign was a reflection of those unsettled times.

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