William Dalrymple Profile picture
Scottish historian & art historian; @EmpirePodUK podcaster & Jaipur Lit Fest co-director. Visiting Fellow at All Souls, Oxford. Writes the occasional book.
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Nov 21 7 tweets 4 min read
New from @EmpirePodUK
The Second Episode in our Mughal Series:

Panipat 1526
The Conquest of Lodhi Delhi Image 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.Image
Nov 19 6 tweets 3 min read
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 EmperorsImage 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.’ Image
Oct 11 5 tweets 2 min read
New from @EmpirePodUK:
India's Empire of Numbers Image 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. Image
Sep 12 5 tweets 2 min read
🚨NEW EPISODE FROM @EmpirePodUK 🚨

👑The God Kings of Angkor Wat👑

Two years after the Holy Roman Empire was established in Western Christendom, another world-shaking empire was rising in the east, more powerful even than that of Charlemagne, and far wealthier🛕 Image 🇰🇭 Born on the Mountain of Lychees in Northern Cambodia, the mighty Khmer empire dominated most of mainland Southeast Asia, stretching as far north as southern China, and outsizing the Byzantine empire at its peak.... Image
Aug 29 7 tweets 4 min read
New @EmpirePodUK
Wu Zetian, The Dragon Empress-
China's Game of Thrones Image How did an Indian religion, Buddhism, become the court religion of China? The answer is linked to the violent rise to power of China’s only ever woman Emperor. Raised by pious Buddhist parents, Wu Zetian left a trail of bodies in her wake as she charted a path to absolute power. Image
Jul 7 6 tweets 3 min read
Whole generations grew up on a whitewashing of the tragic story of the genocide of the indigenous native nations of North America. In our latest double bill @EmpirePodUK shines a light at the dark & tragic history behind the romanticised bullshit of Hollywood westerns Image A whole genre of movies is based on a relatively short period of nineteenth-century American history. But what is the real story behind battles between Native Americans and white settlers during westward expansion? Image
Mar 28 7 tweets 3 min read
Fabulous new @EmpirePodUK episode-
This one is a complete cracker
The second in our Empress series-
Helena, Queen of the World, Mother of Empire and Finder of the One True Cross
with the wonderful @peter_sarris Image Born in poverty at a time when the Roman Empire was in danger of cracking up and disintegrating, Helena was set for a life of obscurity as a stable hand, bar maid, and, according to some, a prostitute. Yet, in the most improbable tale she rose through the social hierarchy to be proclaimed Empress, then later canonised, and declared by some as Queen of the World and Mother of Empire.Image
Mar 18 6 tweets 3 min read
Monoliths exist throughout the length and breadth of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, often in groups of three. However, the biggest collection of Megalithic stones can be found in the market village of Nartiang, which is a sort of Himalayan Callanish. These consist of both Menhirs (upright stones, believed to be male) and Dolmens (flat stones in the horizontal position, conceived as female) and known as Moo Kynthai. The elders of the village still sit on the stones on market day once a week, divide revenue due to the village and decide where to spend it.Image Villages here still give each other menhirs, though today they usually arrive by truck 🚚 rather than wooden rollers from the quarry. Image
Mar 11 6 tweets 8 min read
Is @michaelgove going to be calling in the Israeli ambassador and break off diplomatic relations?

Gove "condemned chants, including “from the river to the sea”, that have become a common feature of anti-Israel marches, suggesting that they amounted to “the legitimisation of an extremist position which intimidates and leads to hate”.

telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/0…Image It should also be pointed out that the same phrase which @michaelgove condemns as “the legitimisation of an extremist position which intimidates and leads to hate” appears as article 1 of the charter of the ruling Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Time to break off diplomatic relations and apply sanctions surely?Image
Feb 13 8 tweets 3 min read
New from @EmpirePodUK
Iran & Saudi Arabia: The Rivalry that Split the Islamic World
with the wonderful @KimGhattas Image 1979 was the year that changed everything in the Middle East, setting it on the path to today. In Iran, the Islamic Revolution established the nation as a theocracy that sought to defend Shi'ism across the world. Image
Feb 5 8 tweets 3 min read
Exactly what Israel did to 530 Palestinian villages in 1948 "so that they would have nothing to come back to." Everything the IDF do every day in Gaza is a reminder that Israel is a state built on the ethnic cleansing of its Palestinian inhabitants. Here are the villages they destroyed:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t…
Feb 5 4 tweets 2 min read
The amazing @amiasrinivasan, Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at @UniofOxford, talks to @PragyaTiwari about free speech on campus. In Cancelled- Can I Speak Freely she discusses attempts by government and wealthy donors to control debate among scholars, while also taking on the Left for muzzling obnoxious views.Image The session revolves around her celebrated @LRB essay
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/…
Dec 22, 2023 6 tweets 3 min read
The Veheragala Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva- arguably the most confident, badass and downright sexy Prince of Compassion ever sculpted.

A Bodhisattva is a being on the threshold of Enlightenment who chooses to delay crossing over to Nirvana in order to help others who are struggling on the same path. Avalokitesvara, ‘The Lord of Compassionate Glance’, is the Bodhisattva of Compassion who has struggled through numerous rebirths yet chosen to postpone nirvana in order to help others escape the cycle of rebirth.Image Unlike Buddha Sakyamuni who has achieved Enlightenment and left this troubled world "like a flame blown out by the wind," Avalokitesvara is available in a time of danger, especially while travelling, if a devotee calls on him for help. Avalokitesvara is especially popular around coastal sites, as he was renowned as the patron of sailors, the Saviour from Perils, and for saving his devotees from shipwreck.Image
Dec 11, 2023 15 tweets 5 min read
Masterpieces of early Buddhist art @ngma_delhi

Yesterday, while giving a lecture @ngma_delhi I stumbled across an extraordinary exhibition there called Routes & Roots, originally put up to entertain G20 delegates. Its only up for ten more days and is full of masterworks from public collections across India, but hasn't been advertised at all. Don't miss it!

1. Elephants, from the Amaravati Stupa. 3rdC CE.
Image 2. Nag nobleman stepping gingerly into the jaws of a makara. Mathura, 100CE Image
Dec 7, 2023 13 tweets 7 min read
New @EmpirePodUK drop:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra-
How Persian Religion Changed the World
linktr.ee/empirepoduk
Image Three great religions have come out of Persia: Zoroastrianism, Mithraism and Manichaeism. All of them have hugely influenced world history. Image
Nov 19, 2023 10 tweets 3 min read
Windows of the Soul:
Another stroll through the Met

1. Portrait of a Girl from the Ruling Family (late Republican Rome, 1stC BCE) Image 2. One of the 24 Priests of Heaven (gondar, Ethiopia, 17thC) Image
Nov 17, 2023 5 tweets 3 min read
I stayed in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem for several weeks in 1994, while writing From the Holy Mountain. I regularly used to hear armed Settlers shouting "Death to the Arab," as they passed along the outer walls, smashing windows and breaking into shops. Now the Settlers have seized a chunk of the Patriachate that has been Armenian land since the 4th century. The Patriach writes that the Christian presence is under "existential threat."
I wrote about the gradual extinction of the Palestinian Christians here. Now it's much, much worse and the very last Christians are being driven out or leaving while they still have some property to sell.


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Nov 14, 2023 8 tweets 5 min read
New @EmpirePodUK drop:
The opening episode of our new series
Empires of Iran-
Cyrus the Great:
Building the World's First Great Superpower Image Born the son of a tribal chieftain, Cyrus would go on to become a titanic figure in world history. He took Persia from being a minor regional force to the first superpower the world had ever seen. Image
Nov 6, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
Even the centrists in Israel now talking about emptying Gaza of Palestinian and "distributing them around the world." There is a long history to the idea of "transfer" in Zionist political thought: forcing the indigenous Palestinians to leave and taking their land. It used to be mainly an idea discussed in Likud political circles, but is now much more widely canvassed. Image
Nov 1, 2023 14 tweets 6 min read
Worth remembering this telling 1969 quote from Moshe Dayan this week as leaks indicate that Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and their extreme far right wing government are drawing up plans to expel the shattered refugees of Gaza into Egypt Image Here are some links about the plan:

An Israeli news report by Ynet claims that the Netanyahu government has offered a raft of proposals to entice Egypt to open its doors to two million displaced Palestinians, despite Cairo's rejection

Oct 29, 2023 14 tweets 6 min read
Today is the birthday of the great king buried in this tomb. He founded a mighty empire, then the greatest the world had seen, which will be the subject of our next series @EmpirePodUK...

Any guesses? Image Most of you guessed correctly: that was the magnificent tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargardae, and the next series @EmpirePodUK will be on Empires of Iran: From the Rise of Cyrus to the Fall of the Shah. Image