Fall of Civilizations Podcast

The kids from the Toki School of Music saying hi!

This episode, we were joined by children from the Toki School of Music and Arts on Easter Island, who were kind enough to record some traditional ancestral chants especially for the podcast. 

Since 2012, Toki has offered children & adolescents free classes in classical and traditional music, with the aim of keeping the traditions of the island alive. 10% of this episode's proceed...

One of the fortresses found on Rapa Iti

The  Morongo Uta fortress on Rapa Iti. This is mentioned in the episode as a counterpoint - that when violence occurs on a small island, it is usually easy to spot in the archaeological record.

Initially the people of Rapa lived in shelters and smaller settlements but some centuries later, in 1450 – 1550 AD some unknown events forced them to build their first mountaintop fortress â...

A digital reconstruction of how Easter Island may have looked when humans first arrived

The closest relative of the tree that once dominated Easter Island

Paschalococos disperta (Rapa Nui palm or Easter Island palm), was the native cocoid palm species of Easter Island. It disappeared from the pollen record circa AD 1650.

It's thought that this tree's closest living cousin is Jubaea Chilensis, or the Chilean Wine Palm, pictured here.  Of the more than 2,600 known species of palms, Jubaea chilensis is the second most massive, an...

Lipo and Hunt's successful experiment to "walk" a Moai

Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo began their archeological work on Easter Island in 2001 expecting to do no more than add details to the standard morality tale of the collapse of the island’s ecology and society, and to confirm that the statues were moved with wooden rollers. But the more they looked at the evidence, the more a  completely different story emerged from the archaeology.

A 5-...

A beautiful example of the Rongo-Rongo script

 This is rongorongo Tablet B, Aruku Kurenga. Two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions, some heavily weathered, burned, or otherwise damaged, were collected in the late 19th century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. None remain on Easter Island. 

The objects are mostly tablets shaped from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwo...

A closeup of the largest Moai ever carved, El Gigante

El Gigante is the largest moai ever carved, more than twice the size of the next largest, known as Paro. Experts believe that the islanders would not have been able to move and erect a statue of this size, although it's unclear whether they ever intended to actually move it. 

A map showing the principal sites mentioned in the episode

The Rano Raraku Quarry

Rano Raraku is a volcanic crater formed of consolidated volcanic ash, or tuff, and located on the lower slopes of Terevaka in the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island in Chile. It was a quarry for about 500 years until the early eighteenth century, and supplied the stone from which about 95% of the island's known monolithic sculptures (moai) were carved.

El Gigante, the largest Moai ev...

Episode 6 of Fall of Civilizations is now live!

As always, I like to give my subscribers the first news of a new episode going live, and I'm so excited to announce that Episode 6 of Fall of Civilizations is now live on SoundCloud. You can go and listen to it there right now, or wait for it to be updated across all the usual podcasting platforms,

In this episode, we take a look at one of archaeology’s most enduring puzzles: the myster...

New episode coming in the next few days!

Glad to announce that I've got a new episode coming to you by the end of the week! There's been a lot to organise for this one, involving lots of phone calls across various timezones, but I really hope it will be worth the wait. 

As always I'd like to thank all my subscribers for helping to make this project possible. I couldn't do this without you, and I'll be giving you as much exc...

Suggestions Thread

I love to hear suggestions and requests from my subscribers.

If there's any civilization large and small that you'd like to see in an episode of Fall of Civilizations, post them here!

How Angkor may have looked in its glory days

I'm absolutely blown away by Tom Chandler's 'Visualising Angkor' project, seeking to bring the ancient city back to life using digital animation based on cutting-edge LIDAR data.  

Source: https://www.virtualangkor.com/  

Exclusive Subscriber Content

Ta Prohm Temple in Angkor, Cambodia. 

Built by Jayavarman VII in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the temple's records show that it was home to more than 12,500 people. When the Khmer Empire fell in the 15th century, it was abandoned. 

24 hours in the life of ancient Angkor, brought back to life in digital animation

This animation was created by Tom Chandler of Monash University, as part of the 'Visualising Angkor' project. 

You can see more about the project here:  https://www.virtualangkor.com/ 

Khmer armies marching to war, with generals riding elephants

Carving from the Bayon Temple in Angkor, Cambodia.

(Subscribe for more extra content like this!)

Khmer armies marching to war, with generals riding elephants

Carving from the Bayon Temple in Angkor, Cambodia.

Bas relief carvings at the Bayon temple at Angkor, Cambodia

The head of a Buddha absorbed into a banyan tree in Ayutthaya, Thailand.

The head was a sculpture in the Wat Mahathat temple, which was abandoned after Ayuttahaya was sacked by the Burmese in the 18th century. 

An aerial shot to show you the scale of just Angkor Wat alone

In the distance you can see the rectangular outline of the great reservoir of the West Baray, and the dark green square just visible on the right is one corner of Angkor Thom, the Great City built by Jayavarman VII.

Houses on stilts beside the great lake Tonle Sap, Cambodia

These houses are raised on 10m stilts, since the lake Tonle Sap varies so greatly in its depth when the monsoon rains come. When the lake is full, it reaches right up to the doors.

Reading List for Episode 5

I've had a few requests to post the list of books I drew on for each episode. I thought it would be a nice benefit for my subscribers in case they wanted to go further into the subject covered. So here's my reading list for Episode 5!

 â€¢  Angkor : An Introduction / translated and edited by Emily Floyd Gardiner

 â€¢  Angkor : Art and Civilization / Be...

Carving showing Suryavarman VII leading an army against the Viet people

A low relief carving in the Bayon Temple, showing Cham sailors fighting with the Khmer

Buddhist monks in front of the ruins of Angkor Wat

A statue of Jayavarman VII in the Musée Guimet

Map showing the complexity of Angkor's water system

A map of Angkor Wat that combines data from ground-sensing radar with aerial photographs and extensive fieldwork. It shows the intricate complexity of Angkor's water management system that would be one of their enduring strengths, and ultimately their greatest weakness.

(Image: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Image of Angkor Wat from the air

An aerial photo of Angkor Wat, showing the vast scale of the construction. The rectangular reservoir in the top left is the West Baray, at a length of 8km.  The dark green square in the upper right of the photo is the outline of Angkor Thom, the vast new city built by Jayavarman VII. 

Fall of Civilizations Episode 5 is now live!

Excited to announce the release of Episode 5 of Fall of Civilizations! 

As usual, I give my subscribers on Patreon an advance link that allows you to listen to it before it reaches all other podcasting platforms. 

I want to say thank you to all of you for supporting the podcast and allowing me to spend so much time working on it. Your support already means I've been able t...

The Lewis Chessmen, carved from walrus ivory brought to Europe by Vikings

The Lewis chessmen are a group of distinctive 12th-century chess pieces, most of which are carved from walrus ivory. Discovered in 1831 on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, they may constitute some of the few complete, surviving medieval chess sets.

All the pieces are sculptures of human figures, with the exception of the pawns, which are smaller, geometric shapes. The knights are mo...