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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Dec 24

@EmpirePodUK Christmas 🎄 Special:

THE EMPIRE OF FRANKINCENSE & MYRRH

"The Nabateans are a silent partner in everything that goes on in the high summer of the Ancient period” - Bettany Hughes

By the time of Jesus’ birth, a mysterious empire had built its wealth through trading two of the gifts present at the Nativity: frankincense and myrrh.

Aromatic crystals harvested from the sap of gnarled trees, frankincense and myrrh were highly desirable commodities known as the tears or the breath of the gods.

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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Dec 17

New from @EmpirePodUK

We are proud to present the first episode of our Christmas mini-series-

WHO WERE THE THREE WISE MEN?

Featured in every Nativity scene in school plays, churches, and art around the world, the Three Wise Men are key characters in the Christmas story. But they are actually only mentioned once in the Bible, appearing in Matthew’s gospel. He describes them not as Kings, not as generalised Wise Men, but specifically as Magi.

So what exactly did he mean by that?

The word ‘magi’, derives from the Old Persian ‘magus’, and specifically refers to the Zoroastrian Persian high priesthood, who were renowned throughout the Middle East for their knowledge of the stars and for their expertise in astrology.

The name title stood out in the gospel for being one of the only words in Persian. It is also the root of the English word 'magic' for which the Magi were renowned.

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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Dec 13

New from @EmpirePodUK

Akbar the Aesthete

"Early in his reign, Akbar had made it clear that he had no time for ultra-Orthodox Muslim opinion which objected the depiction of the human form: “There are many that hate painting,” he wrote, but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had a quite peculiar means of recognising God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs, one after the other, must come to feel that he cannot bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the giver of life."

As a child, Akbar was dislexic: no one was able to teach him how to read. But he still loved literature - the Indian and Persian epics and Ferdowsi poetry and were read to him by travelling picture showmen and discussed in detail. This seems to have inspired his love of visual arts: ‘one of the biggest paradoxes of art history: the prolific production of illustrated manuscripts was initiated by a man who could not read them himself’.

Akbar began the tradition by which the Mughals, perhaps more than any other Islamic dynasty, made their love of the arts and their aesthetic principles a central part of their identity as rulers.

They consciously used jewellery and jewelled objects as they used their architecture, art, poetry, historiography and the dazzling brilliance of their court ceremonial – to make visible and manifest their imperial ideal, to give it a properly imperial splendour, and even a sheen of divine legitimacy. As Abu’l Fazl put it, ‘Kings are fond of external splendour, because they consider it an image of the Divine glory.’

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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Nov 21

New from @EmpirePodUK
The Second Episode in our Mughal Series:

Panipat 1526
The Conquest of Lodhi Delhi

In 1506, Babur decided to pay a visit to his relatives in Herat. For the first time in his life, he found himself feeling like an unsophisticated, mud-booted provincial. His cousins paid little attention to the unfashionable new arrival and seemed unimpressed by his new conquests.

Babur was thoroughly dazzled by the court of Husayn Baqara and the brilliant Persianate cultural world he had created around him “His was a wonderful age,” he wrote in his diary, looking back. “In it, Khurasan and Herat was full of learned and matchless men… In Herat a man can’t stretch his leg without touching a poet’s backside.” Babur toured the sights, visiting the shrine of the Gaza Gah and relished the beauty of a pavilion decorated with murals.

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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Nov 19

New from @EmpirePodUK

To coincide with the acclaimed Mughal Exhibition: Art, Architecture and Opulence @V_and_A we are today embarking on a major new series on The Great Mughals, telling the story of the lives, courts, writings, battles, art and architecture of the first six Mughal Emperors

Our first episode, out today, is on:
Babur: Prince, Exile & Refugee

‘It passed through my mind that to wander from mountain to mountain, homeless and helpless, has little to recommend it.’

Babur was born in Ferghana, in what is now Uzbekistan. He ascended the throne in 1494 at the age of twelve, and by 14 had captured Samarkand; but by 16 he had lost the entire kingdom he inherited to the Uzbeks of the fierce Shaybani Khan. By his late teens he had become a wandering refugee...

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William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

Oct 11

New from @EmpirePodUK:
India's Empire of Numbers

Often called Arabic numerals, the modern number system we use today actually originates in India. Whilst in the west they were using Roman numerals, in India they were using numbers 1-9.

Then the great Brahmagupta in the 7th century made one of the most monumental developments in human history. He invented zero in its modern form, allowing any number up to infinity to be expressed with just ten distinct symbols: the nine Indian numbers plus zero. Rules that are still taught in classrooms around the world today. This step was a major advance that had never previously been attempted elsewhere and it was this Indian reincarnation of zero as a number, rather than just as an absence, that transformed it and gave it its power.

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