Silver plate showing Shapur II

Silver plate showing Shapur II

Throughout this week Neil MacGregor is describing how people across the globe around 1700 years ago found new images to express their religious beliefs. Today's object is a dramatic visualisation of power and faith in 4th Century Iran. It is a silver plate that shows King Shapur II out hunting deer. Neil describes how this apparently secular image reveals the beliefs of the day, when the king was seen as the agent of god and the upholder of the state religion - Zoroastrianism. How might we read this hunting scene as a religious image? And why did the belief system of such a powerful dynasty fail to become a dominant world religion? With contributions from the historian Tom Holland and the Iranian art historian Guitty Azarpay.

Producer: Anthony Denselow

Episoder(101)

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Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

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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...

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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...

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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 Feb 201014min

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