podcast script

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 3: Harvesting the Past

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Like many people ever since, and even now, Abd al-Latif was fascinated by Egypt's ancient sites and structures, the pyramids and the Sphinx. He was fascinated, but also disgusted with how their stones and contents had been treated as his contemporaries looked to them less with wonder, more with greed.

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Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 2: On Egyptian Flora and Fauna

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We continue the Abd al-Latif series and dig into his observations on Egypt, its plants and animals, the hybrid banana and the terrifying sea horse.

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Abd-al-Razzaq Samarqandi 2: City of Victory

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Shah Rukh's ambassador to the Indian city of Qaliqut arrives at the heart of the Vijayanagara Empire, finding much to admire but also war, a usurper, and uncertainties about his own status. We visit Hampi, the centre of that late-medieval power, and we talk about elephants.