Alexander the Great: Hunting for a New Past By Professor Paul Cartledge Historical debate veers between admiring and denigrating Alexander the Great, but Professor Paul Cartledge puts him in his proper historical context. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) Many-sided hero It seems there have been many Alexander the Greats – as many...
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    Lord Elgin – Saviour or Vandal? By Mary Beard Much of the sculpture that once enhanced the Parthenon in Athens was brought to London by Lord Elgin 200 years ago. Was this the act of a saviour or a vandal? Mary Beard looks at both sides of a fierce argument. A marble...
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These structures are so familiar, and yet are still stunning when you actually go inside them and walk through their claustrophobic passages – which can suddenly open out into a great gallery as much as 150 feet long and 30 feet high. When they were first built, the pyramids were covered with a gleaming...
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  Luxor is an attractive Egyptian town – with a wonderful view across the Nile to the pink cliffs of the Theban desert. Luxor Temple, with its 4,000 years of history, is right in the middle of town, and was built by two of the most famous Egyptian pharaohs – Amenhopis III, a magnificent...
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  The enormous Temple of Horus at Edfu is the best preserved ancient monument in the world. Dedicated to the hawk god Horus, it was built in the Greek period for pharaohs descended from Alexander the Great’s general, Ptolemy. In the darkened inner sanctum the polished stone shrine still survives, decorated with carvings of...
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Home of Amun Ra, king of the gods, Karnak is like a theme park of ancient Egyptian religion – in which every god and goddess of that civilisation was represented over a period of about 2,000 years, with Amun at their head. It is a vast collection of shrines, added to by pharaohs right...
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  A hidden gem. This is the village of the people who worked to build the pyramids. It lies over on the West Bank of the Nile, tucked away in a little valley under the Western Cliffs, and the people who lived here built and decorated the royal and noble tombs. Texts recorded on...
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  A Coptic Christian village in the Middle Ages, this giant mortuary complex of Ramesses III was originally built and decorated by the people of Deir el-Medina. It is surrounded by a huge mud-brick enclosure wall and set in emerald green fields in the lee of the Western cliffs. On the huge entrance pylons...
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The most famous necropolis on earth, this area is where the later pharaohs were buried, in the hope of avoiding the attentions of tomb robbers. It was here that, back in 1922, the unplundered tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun was discovered by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. The tomb was a treasure trove,...
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Two of the most fascinating figures in history are the beautiful Nefertiti and her husband the ‘heretic’ pharaoh Akhenaten. He broke with the old gods and built a new capital, where he could worship in a new way, at a place known now as Tell-el-Amarna, between Luxor and the Delta. The great creator god,...
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