Harem wall painting fragments

Harem wall painting fragments

Neil MacGregor's world history as told through objects at the British Museum. This week, he is exploring life and intrigue in the great courts of the world at the same time as the European medieval period. Today he is with the women of Samarra in Iraq. This ancient city, north of Baghdad, was once home to the Abbasid court and was one of the great Muslim capitals of the world. Portraits from a mural in the palace harem offer a vivid insight into the lives of the rulers and the slave women whose job was to entertain them. What was life really like in this great court?

The historian Robert Irwin, an expert on the tales of the Arabian Nights, looks at how the reality of life in the harem matches the sensual fantasy that has become associated with the period. And Amira Bennison, of Cambridge University, explains what conditions were like for the women of the harem and the qualifications they needed just to get there.

Producer: Anthony Denselow

Jaksot(101)

Lachish Reliefs

Lachish Reliefs

Neil MacGregor's history of the world told through objects from the British Museum in London arrives at the Palace of Sennacherib in Northern Iraq. Throughout this week, Neil MacGregor explains the ke...

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Statue of Ramesses

Statue of Ramesses

A History of the World in 100 Objects has arrived in Egypt around 1250BC. At the heart of this programme is the British Museum's giant statue of the king Ramesses II, an inspiration to Shelly and a re...

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Mold Gold Cape

Mold Gold Cape

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Minoan Bull Leaper

Minoan Bull Leaper

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Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

In a week that explores man's early experiments with numbers, Neil MacGregor describes the British Museum's most famous mathematical papyrus. This shows how and why the ancient Egyptians were dealing ...

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Flood tablet

Flood tablet

A small tablet was found in modern Iraq and brought back to the British Museum. When it was translated, back in 1872, it turned out to be an account of a great flood that significantly pre-dated the f...

8 Helmi 201013min

Early Writing Tablet

Early Writing Tablet

This week's programmes in the history of the world looks at the growing sophistication of humans around the globe, between 5000 and 2000 BC. Mesopotamia had created the royal city of Ur, the Indus val...

5 Helmi 201013min

Jade Axe

Jade Axe

This week's programmes in the history of the world look at the growing sophistication of modern humans around the globe between 5000 and 2000 BC. Mesopotamia had built the royal city of Ur, the Indus ...

4 Helmi 201014min

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