Archaeology

The Nok people of Nigeria were smelters of iron but also agriculturalists. The culture they founded may have a deep effect on the ancient history of Africa.

George Woodcock outlines how, by about 515 B.C., architects, sculptors, goldsmiths and silversmiths were assembled from all quarters of the Persian Empire to build a new capital, Parsa, which the Greeks called Persepolis.

Thanks to his gift of foresight, aided by his natural intelligence and a flair for improvization, Themistocles carried through a long-term programme, aimed at making his native city a great imperial power. By Stephen Usher.

George Woodcock describes how, towards the end of the seventh century BC, the Persians first began to establish themselves as a rising power in the Middle East.

S.G.F. Brandon describes how the earliest representatives of mankind were concerned with three fundamental problems— birth, death and the supply of food—which they attempted to solve by magico-religious means.

David Francis Jones describes how, among primitive peoples encountered by the Romans, the fair-haired, blue-eyed Celts made a particularly deep impression.

S.G.F. Brandon explains how, early in the history of Egyptian religion, Osiris, the slain king, emerged as the classic prototype of the saviour-god, whose death and resurrection assures his worshippers a new life.

Possibly some innate realism prevented the Mesopotamians from seeing death other than objectively. But the Epic of Gilgamesh remains an eloquent witness to the poignancy of their interrogation of the meaning of human life and destiny. S.G.F. Brandon.

In the year AD 60, Boudicca, a woman of the royal house of the Iceni led a fierce British revolt against the Roman occupation, during which Londinium was reduced to ashes.

The importance of these much-debated scrolls is here interpreted by Cecil Rothin the light of the events that took place during the first-century Jewish Revolt against the power of Rome.