July 13, 2025 • 65 mins
Episode 135 - Allan Chapman - The Victorians and the Holy Land
In this episode of Still Unbelievable! Matthew chats with Allan Chapman, who teaches history of science at Oxford University, and has written extensively on history and science, including the relationship between the two. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a founder member of the Society for the History of Astronomy. He is the author of several books, including the one we will be discussing this episode. If you have any interest in the history of Christianity, then we recommend this book as an enjoyable read. As always, see the show notes to for links to the book and topics that are referenced in the book. There are items in the links that we do not specifically cover in this conversation, so please to check them out for a taste of what the book covers.
1) The Victorians and the Holy Land: Adventurers, Tourists, and Archaeologists in the Lands of the Bible
https://amzn.eu/d/j7QAYC5
2) Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley - referenced in Chapter 2
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
3) A description of the East, and some other countries ... / By Richard Pococke - referenced in Chapter 2
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/me6h66jf/items
4) Petra by John William Burgon - referenced in chapter 2
http://www.poetryatlas.com/poetry/poem/3771/petra.html
5) Johann Ludwig Burckhardt - explorer
(includes links to his published works)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Ludwig_Burckhardt
6) Lady Amytis, wife of Nebuchadnezzar
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/amytis-of-babylon/amytis-of-babylon-the-queens-hanging-gardens-of-babylon/
7) Remarkably preserved shrines recovered at Assyrian temple of Ninurta in Nimrud, Iraq
https://archaeologymag.com/2024/12/remarkably-preserved-shrines-recovered-in-nimrud/
8) Biblical Researches - by Edward Robinson & Eli Smith - referenced in chapter 7
https://archive.org/details/biblicalresearc01smitgoog
9) Sinai & Palestine - by AP Stanley - referenced in chapter 7
https://archive.org/details/sinaipalestinei00stan/page/n9/mode/2up
10) A thousand miles up the Nile by Amelia B. Edwards - referenced in chapter 13
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70565
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Episode 135 Alan Chapman, the Victorians and the Holy Land
This is Matthew, and in this episode of Still Unbelievable, I
chat with Alan Chapman, who teaches history of science at
Oxford University and has written extensively on history
and science, including the relationship between the two.
(00:22):
He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a
founder member of the Society for the History of Astronomy.
He is the author of several wellreceived books, including the
one we will be discussing in this episode.
I loved reading this book. I found myself fascinated by the
characters that Alan references and the various events that he
(00:43):
talks about. If you have any interest in the
history of Christianity, then I recommend this book as an
enjoyable read. As always, see the show notes
for links to the book and topicsthat are referenced in the book.
There are items in the links that we do not specifically
cover in this conversation, so please do check them out for a
taste of what the book. Good afternoon everybody.
(01:10):
Welcome to another episode of Still Unbelievable.
This is going to be a bit of a special episode, slightly
different from what we normally do.
It is an interview. It's an interview with a very
special guest, one that I am delighted to host here on Still
Unbelievable and one whose book I am very pleased to have read.
The reason why it's slightly different is its history rather
(01:31):
than specifically science or or religion, and I think we'll all
benefit from a little bit of that.
My guest today is Doctor Alan Chapman.
He's written a book called Victorians and the Holy Land.
It's an investigation and an exploration of the activities of
the Victorians in the Holy Land,opening it up to investigation
both by tourists and by intellectuals.
(01:53):
I really enjoyed the book. It was fascinating.
I learnt from it. It was really interesting to
read it. So Doctor Anna Chapman, you are
AI believe a professor, a teacher at Oxford University.
And I can tell from, and I can tell from your bio that you've
written multiple books, including book books on the
relationship between science andreligion, but not exclusive to
(02:16):
that, mostly on in the historical context.
So you have a long list of books, which I'm sure my readers
will be interesting. But today we're talking
specifically about the Victorians and the Holy Land.
Welcome to still unbelievable. Doctor Chapman.
I think that where I'd like to start with this, because there's
so much that I enjoyed and I appreciated about the book, is
(02:38):
to set the scene around what what inspired the book?
What prompted you to want to write this book?
What story are you trying to tell and who are you trying to
tell it to? Basically, I've been interested
in this subject since I was a Boyer.
I'm really a historian of science, specialising in the
history of medicine and historian, so I'm not claiming
(03:01):
to be just about original interest.
But I've been reading books on this subject, from being a small
boy, going to the librarian, borrowing from the local
librarian. It captured my attention and I
thought I should do a book of itbecause I own understanding,
(03:23):
interest and it's also as I always like to do, it's full of
interesting characters and interesting incidents.
It is. And I was genuinely fascinated
by it. And I think 1 little tidbit for
the British audience is the nameThomas Cook.
Because anybody who's British will know that name from boards
(03:45):
and shops on that High Street. Because although it's less
popular today, certainly in recent decades, it's been a name
that's been associated with the package travel industry.
And that name crops up about midway through your book.
And it was really fascinating toread that part of the book.
I, I guess before we get into the detail, who do you want to
(04:05):
read the book? Who is the book aimed at?
What's your audience? The general reader, Historians
and the illusions. And and as someone who's only
vaguely interested and as somebody, I'll, and I'll be
honest, I did mention this briefly before we hit record,
(04:29):
it's I don't have much of A history of reading history
books. It's not something that I've
done habitually, but I really enjoyed this.
I enjoyed this hearing about allthese characters from years gone
by. And I think what for me was most
fascinating was in the context of the stories of these
characters. They're doing it without any of
(04:51):
the modern advances that we havetoday.
They didn't have mobile phones so they could ring home.
It was letters, which would often be put on a train and then
a steamship and then another train.
You know, communication back home either to their families or
to their sponsors, could take months.
You. Don't forget to you had the
(05:11):
crucial thing about this, the electric Telegraph and then the
election telling her flying to America in 1866 and so you could
literally do something in Londonor whatever and learn about it
for the evening's papers in New York.
(05:32):
OK. So Yep, I did.
I did manage to admit that. So was that also available then
in the area of the world that you're talking about, in North
Africa, in the area around Israel and the Promised land?
I think the reason is it was themost accessible, right?
The Nile is the big river. No matter where you'd be going
(05:54):
on the Nile, you found statues, magnificent structures, temples,
pyramids, and the stories, of course, in excellence that the
children of Israel had been keptthere as slaves and that could
be what their position would turn into as things.
(06:17):
And it's just so fascinating. But we knew far, far more about
the Egypt than we knew about Syria and Babylonian, because
only in the 19th century did theSyria and Babylonian enter the
world's consciousness. A real place.
(06:41):
Yes, and I really loved the Egypt parts.
You know, the the book, the title of the book promises the
Holy Land, but you spend an awful lot of time in the book
talking about Egypt as well. Now it that's obviously.
Because the good bit of the Bible story takes place in in
Egypt. Yes, absolutely right.
(07:03):
You can't understand the Holy Land context without actually
understanding the history of thestory of Egypt and the Exodus
from Egypt and all that. So the the two parts of the
world are not just geographically close together,
but historically intertwined together.
And that really comes across in the book.
And a very man too, that really Palestine didn't have much of an
(07:29):
impact on the ancient world. A religious instance that his
accounts of travels of the in the in the Middle East in the in
the ancient Greek, James never mentions Palestina or only just
a a passing remark of Palestina,who is conceived as a dependent
(07:51):
of the kings of Syria. Right.
So was Syria a an impressive Kingdom at the time that you're
writing about? Was it a Kingdom with power and
clowns? Was it the time that the
religious was there in the 3rd century?
Right. So it it had a historical impact
(08:12):
on that area of the world. Oh yes.
Oh yeah. And you, you mentioned earlier
about the, the statues along theNile in Egypt and there's some
impressive photos in your book and descriptions of these
places. We're not talking just about the
pyramids. There are other parts of the
Nile further South which have also got these impressive
(08:34):
statues, which, and I think personally, I found those more
impressive than the pyramids personally in terms of the
majesty that they, they invoked.So these kinds of things, are
they all the way down the Nile? Is there evidence of this kind
of thing further down? Around the Nile, around the
(08:57):
pilgrims. I mean, we had genderer right up
into the top of Egypt. Lots of things there.
But there's no evidence that theJews and the children of Israel
ever had anything to do in that place, right?
I mean, Egypt's a big country, acouple of 1000 miles on the
(09:18):
twisting banks of the everywhere, Diane.
But the Jews were at the bottom end of the of which we would
call the Nile Delta. Right.
And the area around what would become the city of Cairo.
OK. So you're saying that there was
a Jewish habitation there? Was there a Jewish habitation
(09:40):
there? By according to Jewish accounts,
yes. There, there was right Exodus.
Sorry, what was that about the Exodus?
They're mentioned in the book ofExodus.
There was no. Exodus Joseph, who becomes the
physiat, a Pharaoh who effectively runs the country was
(10:03):
a Jew brilliant Clapper for Suasia, and he was invited to
bring his own people over from Palestine, which was suffering,
which seems some poverty and starvation at the time.
And they've hit the big time in Egypt.
And it's also by legend that theseven pyramids were were
(10:28):
equivalent to the seven years ofplague.
Oh right, so that the the the granaries, the storehouses, the
pharaoh, and each one according to a plague.
Right. You, you do do a very good job
of disseminating that myth aboutthe pyramids being greenhouses.
(10:50):
I remember as a young child being told when I was out, when
I was a young boy at missionary school, as in a school for
children of missionaries, that that the pyramids were one of
the reasons why the pyramids were built could have been the
greenhouses and storehouses. So we were teaching children
that as as as recently as 50 years ago.
(11:12):
Really. Yeah.
I've been in them certainly so much so you couldn't store
anything. Yes, we know that now.
Yes, it was nice to read that. And it was nice to read your
description of the pyramids and your experience of being inside
(11:34):
the pyramids. It was really quite fascinating
and we obviously know so much more about the pyramids now, but
for those early Victorian explorers who saw those pyramids
for the very first time that they must have been quite
mesmerizing, quite awe inspiring, because there was
nothing in Europe that matched that.
(11:56):
But nonetheless, they were part of European history.
Any Christian, any Christian parts of Europe would be
familiar with the pyramids. You know, from purely illiterary
sources. Right.
So they wouldn't have been shockhorror when you saw them.
Right, because they knew they existed, they just hadn't seen
(12:18):
them yet. Yeah, yeah.
OK. When it's when travels into
steamships and things of this photography came around, it was
impossible to see the pyramids and realise how fascinating they
were. Yeah, yes.
And so they, they must have been.
And I know a few people who've seen their pyramids in recent
(12:39):
years and they always say they're they are quite
inspiring, the way they dominatethe landscape.
Yes they are, and they're amazing.
Napoleon bone apartment. He invaded India, slept in the
Vectorian and left it rather frightened, right?
(13:01):
He's sort of like this spooky, though things of this sort of
come and get him. Could this be part of the
stories of the curses that are sometimes associated with some
of these places? Associated with the sources and
and curses and stuff, yeah. So.
The curses of the Pharaohs has he had far much to do with
(13:23):
journalism regarding history. Oh I see, right, because my I
was about to ask, are those curses anything to do with
dissuading people from looting them?
Or is it just a much more moderninterpretation?
No. I mean, yes, we have that modern
interpretation, which is exceptional, but there are a
(13:46):
large number of people out therewho are just simply given over
to superstitions. I mean, I've met people who
believe these things, right? So would that affect their
decisions on entering pyramids? Oh, yes, Oh, yes.
(14:07):
Wow. I mean, people out there who
really believe that there's somechaos attack.
And of course, when Howard Charter discovered you should
come home and his his patient died suddenly of an insect bite.
Oh, the present man. This is the curse of Pharaoh.
(14:29):
That's 1923. Golly, OK.
So yes, only just over 100 yearsago, you mentioned earlier about
the not very much evidence aboutthe Israelite, the the biblical
story of the Israelites not occupation the Israelites living
in in Egypt leading up to to theExodus.
(14:52):
So do we have any theories as tohow the Exodus story came about?
We have the Jewish account. Right.
But that's pretty well it. Right.
So it's difficult to unpick whatmight have been the source
source of that story. OK, when you have a document
like the Bible, which is covering itself several thousand
(15:17):
years of history, and you know, it's meant to tailor in to show
that the Jews are the winners atevery stage.
And so it's easy to get this ledby themselves.
Right. And it's interesting you say
(15:37):
that because every story where someone comes out the hero, they
always have a low point. And it seems that the slavery in
Egypt seems to be the the literary low point from which
they triumph. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah. They went into Egypt as Joseph's
(15:58):
family and Lily and his son. But then Joseph dies, and the
book of Exodus, you know, tells us about his death and Genesis.
Then you know what happens? Enslave them.
But but I do wonder what slaverymeans.
(16:18):
I don't think it's the sort of thing that you had in the
American South in the 19th century.
Slavery simply means you do yourjob or you don't eat.
OK, because we the modern world imagines that the Jewish, the
alleged Jewish slavery under theEgyptians would have been hard
(16:42):
labour under a whip, and you're saying that's probably not the
case? No more so than any Egyptians
had the same things. Right.
Yes, OK. The thing is, you don't shift
those gigantic blocks of stone, they say.
Would you please move that big stone for me?
(17:03):
Please. You get your rib out.
Yeah, Yes, you. Did in the 19th century when an
English traveller saw that the that, you know, life was cheap
and they they fund them meet people, including their own
time. We have to very well that modern
(17:28):
standards of human rights and kindness are very, very, very
recent indeed of. Course, yes, that that's right.
And and those pyramids probably took many decades, even hundreds
of years to build, I imagine. Oh yeah, but The thing is the
(17:49):
the first, the gigantic 1 was the cheops and allegedly it was
during his lifetime, so and the granny was not low.
The granny came to a further. And so they're dealing with
gigantic quarry, the enormous business of changing large rough
(18:11):
lumps of stone, then fingering and shaping them to precisely
fit individual parts of the bedroom.
It's it's amazing him and shows that the power of organization
was there. I think the thing that amazes me
most about the pyramids is when you look at the modern day cross
(18:32):
sections of the way they look. And somebody on a bit of
incomparchment must have designed how the internals of
this was going to look and then visualize how they were going to
move the stone in order to buildthis internal visualisation.
And I think for me, the architect, the internal
(18:53):
architecture of these things andhow practically they could have
done it without modern computers, without modern aided
design, without mechanical assistance, is quite amazing.
It is amazing, and perhaps Smithof course is the amazing who
thought that the the pyramids were holding places of divine
(19:14):
secrets and he was a struggling role for Scotland.
Nonetheless. These ideas sound a bit crazy to
us today, but the surveying of them is the construction and the
precision with which the stones there with each other was
phenomenal. It really was.
(19:37):
So moving on from the pyramids, because the pyramids and again,
you, you draw this out in, in your book, the pyramids gave a
real spark of intellectual curiosity.
You know, how did the things happen?
What, what are the things in thearea in, in in the region.
Can we find that are interesting?
(19:58):
It sparked off archaeology. What's the relationship then
between the archaeological digs in Egypt and then the
archaeological digs in Palestineand Israel?
And they were all saying to to him the matter of course, we
really did this in a serious wayin the 19th century, in the 19th
and 20th century was Flinders P trip suffering the speed trip
(20:25):
who pioneered archaeology in a serious sense.
And he both in Egypt and in Palestine, and he used the same
techniques and he died in 19, 48, something like that, the
great age. Right.
(20:46):
Yeah. There must have been a very
difference in technique because in Egypt, and again you've got
photos of this in your book, youknow, when they first discovered
some of these artefacts like the, the Sphinx for example, in
Egypt that was half buried in sand.
So there was a massive job to uncover all that and dig all the
sand away. And that's, and that's done with
(21:09):
big mechanical excavators. But then when you get to the to
Israel and Palestine and all that, you've, you're dealing
with much smaller artefacts, much different types of
materials. So they must have refined their
methodologies and their technologies in order to get
smaller value, smaller physically smaller artefacts.
(21:32):
But very advantageous. They had a totally different
religion, the Jews, and that wasnot about enshrining and
deifying a dead man. It was about God.
It was not about a Pharaoh. Right, OK, So what was the
(21:52):
Jewish attitude then to these sacred places at that time?
What was the Jewish attitude towards their holy sites?
I'm not sure enough. They weren't necessarily in the
the Holy Land island is usually dispersed of.
Course I. Understand.
(22:13):
And it was only really in the 19th and 20th century that you
start getting them coming together again as a nation.
And the first after 1945 was it when they they're finally given
the land of Israel as it was in their homeland, which of course
it causes all the trouble we still have today.
(22:36):
Yes, sadly that that's very trueand that in the so in the late
mid to late 1800's, the land of Israel is not the land of Israel
that we recognise today. So the people that are living I.
Think there, but they were minorities, right?
So all the, all the site, all the sites that we call the Holy
(22:58):
Land sites today, you know, the,the, the birth place of Jesus in
Bethlehem, the, you know, the, the crucifixion location of
Calvary, the, you know, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount
of Olives, all those places, were they revered at all in the
1800s by anybody? Yeah, very much so.
(23:20):
Because there is to some degree.I mean, how, how did you know
that a certain St. in Jerusalem was one that down which Jesus
carried the cross, right. Well, basically it's traditional
legend, but I've seen no reason why I won't.
(23:41):
You doubt that because if you were being sent from the Old
Temple to Calgary, you'd more orless go down that street and
it's still there to this name. Wow, that's quite fascinating to
think about. You know those streets that have
survived 2 millennia of variety variations in history.
(24:07):
So who was so at the time when the Victorians were arriving
here to explore all these sites?Who was living on the land and
who did the Victorians have to negotiate with?
Yes there is sheikhs and other individuals.
There was no full scale local occupation death because it was
(24:34):
basically the Ottoman Empire that ruled it right through this
entire later period until 1922 with the abolition of the
Ottoman Empire based in Turkey, because Palestine was just part
of that empire. And I've just grown up over the
years as the with the growth of Islam about 680 and then
(25:04):
gradually taken all before it. And of course, what you'd had
with the Holy Land sheikhs, and they've adopted what they liked
from the from the New World aspects of medicine, right?
He's of this sort. So they weren't necessarily
(25:25):
against it. But what it was, it was really
irrelevant to that wider culture.
It wasn't until the abolition ofthat empire in 1922 that things
took on the formula out of jail.And it was so that the Jews had
a right to their homeland. And of course, they still have
(25:47):
that to do. Look at Netanyahu.
It's the idea of the homeland ofthe Jews, and you kick out
anybody who they know what to win them.
And there's a lot of kicking outhappening in the ancient world.
I mean, when you look at the rules of King David, the wagon,
(26:10):
David is such an important thingin Jewish history.
He basically put to the soil or kicked out anybody who didn't
share his views. Yes, that's right.
So when when the Victorians wereexploring this new land, or
rather it wasn't a new land, it was it was a new to them when
(26:34):
they were exploring this land, the land that we now call Israel
and Palestine, who how did the the local tribes receive them?
Were they well received by the Ottoman tribes?
Depending on what you had in your pocket.
Isn't that always the way? And The thing is that the West
(26:58):
had it had money, it had technology, it had a whole new
raft of learning that that that person has never developed.
And the train for instance, or the Steamboat, nothing remotely
like it. In the ancient world, boats on
(27:18):
the river Nile had been driven by sail and by oars from the
days of well, long before crashed and they're still there
today. I've been on one and shot part
of a programme or on for TV. But once you started to have the
big ships that you have now the the big tour liners with their
(27:44):
stone boats and their panels andsome doesn't remotely like it to
the contemporaries. Likewise, trains are getting
there. Railways are already in the
advanced state of technology by the time that the Victorians in
the only the only land. So the the the indigenous
(28:06):
Ottomans, those who were living there at the time, must have
seen these visitors with this fancy technology and pockets
full of money and used every kind of scam they possibly could
in order to exchange the to get hold of the money.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, The thing is, there was
(28:26):
more money out there than they could ever make themselves,
right? You come across references to
Belzonians on the early Explorerabout the way in which the
native Egyptians or the native localists that were treated by
their masters and it was barbaric.
(28:50):
And the idea if you know, life was cheap and you've ordered
them together and I got another one.
As you know, you got your you got your working staff in the
same way that you get your coal,your large quality and the unit
barely. That's right away.
(29:11):
But of course, it was a whole new set of Western values,
Western money, Western speed travel, all of that.
It must have been quite a sight if you if a.
New kind of world? Yes, it must be.
I'm just imagining what it must be like if you've never seen a
steamship before in your life and there you are and you see
(29:34):
this thing turn up. That's it.
I mean, he would have said asking for me today, for
instance, I remember the thing Ifilmed a while ago in Egypt and
they had been survived with thislovely little white donkey, the
beautiful little monkey up the road.
(29:54):
And I got off the donkey and that I and other members of the
film group started to give the donkey sugar lumps.
And the owners of the donkey were couldn't understand why on
earth you were treating a donkeylike that.
They were just donkeys treating animals with affection.
(30:19):
It's it's double fun. Yes, I imagine, I imagine so.
It really gives an indication ofthe different difference in
attitudes between the two cultures.
Absolutely used to know from thegender a a a Seeley College port
of my Lutheran college. And then he'd be the Sergeant
(30:41):
major in the Army. And he said that he once saw a
group of peasants slugging and whipping a donkey for some
reason. And he said what he did, he drew
history, Father find it in the air to get their attention.
(31:04):
You said you shoot them if they didn't teach their joking world
kindly. So that idea of a British
surgeon doing that, you know, isa big, big difference in
approach. Fascinating.
What a great story. So by the time, I can't remember
(31:27):
what the date was, but there wasby the time Thomas Cook, who
we've already mentioned, arrivedin the Promised Land then and
started creating the tours that he did.
What was his motivation for creating these tours?
Was it just to make money from atour from a holiday business?
(31:49):
Never about money. It was never about money.
It. Was a first rate businessman and
if he could get money for something, he'd get it but that
money would go not to his luxurious lifestyle, which he
never lived, but to spending knowledge spending, spreading
the Christian gospel, right. Well, that's right before I mean
(32:12):
he starts off as a young entrepreneur in Britain.
He's a, a, a minister, an itinerary minister and he
suddenly finds that there's a new railway be laid between
Loughborough and somewhere else in Dygmis Midlands.
(32:35):
And he was daunting. He, she told them he believed
that the demon drink would get him and he put on a cheap day
return for people to go and listen to the speaker.
This is about 1844, a long time ago, and he found it made a lot
(32:56):
of money and they were more wanting and he was very good at
making contacts and houses and boarding houses.
He took large. There was the people who did the
Great Exhibition in 1851 and then started taking him Aroar.
He vows to find there's demand for people who want to travel
(33:20):
and the railways have made it possible for them to travel.
Whether it's just a day out to Lofbra in the Midlands or
whether it's to Karnak depends on the technology because what
was happening at that time too was in Egypt, the big riverboats
(33:41):
were coming along, big steamers which were effectively floating
hotels. And he was very good at cashing
in these not cashing it in a a crude stamps, but catching in on
a sense that there's opportunityhere in his view to spread the
(34:01):
gospel and stop people drinking.And when he saw the Jordan, for
instance, he did something whichis amazing.
First time I've seen the Jordan,he walked into the river.
I said, let you the place where Jesus had done his baptizing and
wrote straight him and dipped his own head in the water, top
(34:28):
hat and all, ringing raccoon, because he had done the same
thing that Jesus had done. Wow.
Oh, quite something. Hopefully he dried off quickly,
but it's quite a novel idea in today's world that somebody
would make lots of money from anenterprise like that and then
(34:50):
immediately turn that money around and drive it straight
into the local community. And The thing is, you think,
too, he was checking people who normally couldn't travel.
You know, you had, let's say, come through the shopkeeper or
something like that. Yes.
Very nice about me. The pillar of their local
(35:11):
society. Yeah, and pillar of their local
church. But there were nothing in the
eyes of the wealthy. He was able to start taking
these people to the Holy Land. And so you find a lot of
comments, very angry ones. I'm sort of the better off.
(35:33):
You go and travel to Italy or toPalestine or somewhere and you
suddenly find shopkeepers and people like that.
They should be back at home doing the work, leaving these
faces for the better off and theculture.
Just him. But what he was doing was
(35:54):
breaking down social barriers aswell.
Yes, it was because it gave people the experience of an
alternative culture, of a different culture people who
lived differently had. Different.
Priorities. Actually, Democrats, he believed
in things being for everybody, and Buddy was there to improve
(36:19):
the world. What's a novel idea?
Yeah. Yes, I, I, I think there are
lessons there in his life that we could definitely learn from
today and maybe rethink it some some attitudes.
There was something else that you said in your book.
I'm changing, changing line a little bit here, but there was a
(36:42):
little thing you said in your inyour book, which really struck
me. And that is when talking about
dynasties and the the years of reign of certain dynasties.
And you make reference to rounding up dynasties, you know,
compressing dynasties into a representation of a single
(37:03):
individual. But actually it actually means
several generations. Is this a common practice at
that time to represent multiple generations with a single
individual? Yeah, because they what they
didn't use was a zero point of revenue.
(37:25):
And so there was a such a thing happened 10 years after the
death of King so and so right, or eight years after, because
you have you all your calculation.
But what you said is to find thefirst thing later on you had
your AC and BC datum and that actually then gave you absolute.
(37:47):
Those techniques are then being used by the archaeologists and
the philologists of the 19th century, but it didn't make
sense of what they were finding.And so that's what makes it
easier for many, many people. And when you know, you get
somebody like of the Layard going to Assyria and finding the
(38:11):
winged the winged lions of Babylon, you know, this was
absolutely breathtaking when they brought up the winged
Landers back to England. The crowds it was sent between
London ducks and the British Museum was so dense you could
(38:33):
having it by. So were these explorers then
treated like celebrities at the time?
Were they the modern day celebrities?
They did indeed. They were great Internet
treating them a bit like space men might be treated today.
(38:54):
Right, because they would go on a trip and then.
That time you've been in Lillivar and the lands of the
Pharaohs here. Yeah, because these explorers
would disappear and come back two or three years later,
wouldn't they? And then and then do a speaking
circuit of what they they did. Very, very bad.
(39:17):
Getting a winged lion of Babylonback to England.
It needed you first of all to get onto a raft, floated all the
way down the tankless river, through the gulf of the river,
probably lodged onto a ship there, taken all the way around
(39:41):
Africa, up Africa and finally arriving in London.
That was the only way you could do it before 1870.
Odd when you actually had the building of the Suez Canal
vastly speed up everything. But the amount of hard to work
(40:01):
even for an English labrier, andwe're going to be front of the
English labrier, a cane. I mean, we changed to work the
other way around and we will tryto actually get people to do
more work. We didn't want them.
We offered them an extra 6 pencea week.
Yes. Was there a huge thirst for
(40:23):
these kinds of artefacts? You know where there are a lot
of people back home in England wanting to see and touch these
artefacts. Half of London When the Great
Exhibition was opened in London in 1851, they built a gallery of
an Assyrian gallery. It did not contain necessarily
(40:46):
an original. These were safe in the British
Library or the British Museum, but there were authentic models.
So people can go and you gasped at them and you think of the
idea that, you know, the captivechildren of Israel in the Holy
Land been taken away by by his could actually see these things
(41:12):
that you could you could touch something now.
I mean, I know in in a college where there's such an artefact,
it's a royal decoration, accountable decoration, about 3
or 4 feet square and it's on thewall and it's the oldest thing
(41:32):
in the college at 2018. And you know it.
It is amazing to look at him andit was like as a Manipal and
he's owning his armour as a Manipal like this.
And there are things on his wrist here.
(41:53):
And these were, of course, designations of status in the
Syrian Army. And then I'm sure that always
said they were acid Baby Panel'swristwatch look just like
wristwatches. Yeah, fantastic.
I must say I do feel a little sad that these treasures from
(42:14):
these other lands were all hoarded to one nation for for
people to enjoy and the people who originally built them and
the people who grew up with themlose the pleasure of being able
to see them in their original habitat.
Yes, and if you do that it's just becoming available being
(42:38):
discovered by layout and other geologists had said it.
I mean the the Assyria was discovered in its non literary
sense by Austin Hendrileian and the French Doctor Who were
suffering to Australia but decided to go over land and see
(43:02):
some adventures over land ratherthan just a ship over earth.
And what they started to find, because they made these
journeys, they found great mounds on the in, in the plain,
in this barren plain. And lo and behold, if you hire,
let's say 50 labourers whose labour was cheap and they
(43:25):
started to dig through these things, suddenly the winged
lions of Troy would appear and all sorts of other things.
And it was just so amazing. It was in about 20 years he went
from ignorance to these things, or just biblical references to
(43:48):
them, to actually finding scoresand scores in real live
artefacts, which ended up in Paris, in Berlin, in New York
and of course in London. And I can only imagine what it
must have been like for some of these people digging up these
(44:10):
ancient statues, you know, whichcould have been buried under
dirt or sand or whatever for hundreds of years.
And they're the first people to see them for a very long time.
It must have been quite an experience.
It was tremendous. He found it, yeah, but very
judicial for him is that the labourers would go away
(44:31):
sometimes and not come back. This wasn't a Muslim country at
that time. And there was a great horror of
the working with idols and they,the Muslims, it was the view
that these were the ancient godsof the pagans going back to
life. And we couldn't do that.
(44:57):
And it took a lot of negotiatingwith tribal leaders and so
before we could continue a day. Yeah, that's really interesting
actually, because yes, if you'redoing, if you're trying to
excavate something and you have a local culture who either
reveres or fears the thing that you're trying to dig up and
(45:20):
extract you, you've got more than just a cultural conflict
going on there. You've got something that's
deeply spiritual that you've gotto resolve.
They, I mean, I've got an idea of, you know, just physical
objects that's really a 20, wellpost 17th century idea.
(45:45):
And to them everything has some kind of spiritual value.
I know Pagan gods or Christian gods or Jewish or whatever.
Wow, it's, it's just must. It's something that we can't
comprehend today because there'sprobably nothing left for us to
discover like that since, well. You never say that.
(46:07):
You never. Heard the famous last words, you
know, but we know so much more about these old religions.
You know, the superstitions there must have been much more
visceral than they would be today.
The idea that there were ancientpainted gods that they've got
buried in the sand and now thesechaps are coming along and
(46:28):
revealing them. So it's clearly an indication
that China was going to hit on the land.
As a prophet, Muhammad would protect you and would actually
tell all those who deal with thewicked horrible practice of
bringing the dead gods back to life and to then it would have
been bringing in the dead gods back to life.
(46:50):
It wasn't just simply a piece ofstatuary.
Yeah, and the other thing that I'm really intrigued by in your
book is you've you tell this story about their digging up
statues, etcetera. And then at some point the
motivation changes and people are now looking at ancient
(47:11):
cities and trying to tell the story of the ancient city.
And they're they're now what they're digging up is not old
statues and long deceased gods. It's human habitation and city
wars and things that so they're digging up things which are are
very different and they're not digging up something to carry
(47:33):
home to put on display. They're digging up something so
they can try to tell the story of the place that they're
digging. When did that shift change?
Yeah, in some of those countriestoday, I wouldn't like to say, I
wouldn't like to say what might happen if we do certain things
(47:56):
in the Syria or some Muslim countries.
I just, it will affect the Jews as sophisticated culture.
I don't think it will affect obviously the Christians, but
there's some other sectarian face that I'm sure still have
these these ideas lurking in theback of their collective memory.
(48:22):
Right. Oh, OK.
But in terms of the Victorian explorers, so who were
excavating these lands, when didtheir motivation change to
finding out the history? No, because they would do the
same all the way along. It's.
OK. I think, I think when you had,
we were doing that fluid, the speed trip where you actually
(48:45):
use the objects, no matter how insignificant, a tiny pot or a
handle or something like that, all of which would indicate to
you where you were actually going historically.
And it changes. And in the the things that we'd
had in the West, there's not actually a superstition.
It would be the marketing value that had Sloane in London had
(49:10):
Sloane. He has a, let's say Johnstone,
that's Sloane. He was a great collector and a
medical man and son. And he has in his basement of
his house still there because they can't remove it, built
across him a great sarcophagus of one of the Pharaohs.
(49:36):
And I've seen it and he has had not part of the house down
really to get it into his private museum.
Wow. Yes, Johnson.
That must be quite something to have in your house.
OK, Very, very, very wealthy manthat bought things like that.
(49:57):
Must have been was the income from some of these artefacts
then used to fund further exploration?
I mean Henry Salt, who was the British commissioner in Egypt in
the early 19th century and the president in Germany, Belzonian,
that they certainly sold them onand they published in the money
(50:20):
usually to buy more artefacts, right?
So an enormous market for them. So lots, lots of trading going
on. Oh yes, you know, with him.
And it was so simple. You just go out there with the
shovel up and find something in value.
Right. I'm, I'm sure if you, anyone
(50:40):
familiar with the Old Testament will know about the, the battles
of the judges, specifically Joshua, but there are obviously
others. So we've got cities like AI
Nineveh, which we've already mentioned, and others which are
destroyed in various miraculous events.
(51:01):
Was there enthusiasm to locate these old cities and to find
them? I mean, look at the news
tonight. Gaza.
Yeah, that was what happened. And so, you know, we had things
on that strip which would have been there for at least from the
(51:27):
time of Abraham, and we were a vast age.
Ditto to the the trading city ofthe North.
I mean, this desire to find these places are very, very wise
men. Oh, yeah.
But the the big cities, many of them still have the same names
(51:50):
in his name. Yeah.
Right. And what was the motivation in
finding these cities? Were they, was it literally also
to find artefacts and say here is some of the wall from the
city of AI that got knocked downor were people trying to achieve
that? Yeah, yeah.
That's it. Right.
(52:12):
OK, But then if you've brought this piece of ancient pottery
and call it called it a brick, and you brought it halfway
across the world, how do you actually know if this ancient
brick is really from the city that you say it is?
Basically, speaking from contextwhere it was found, the fact
(52:38):
that it looked like from decoration of the right period
of Jericho, but it was, it was absolutely a miss.
But it was his great desire to find these things, and it was
the ruins of things like Jericho.
(53:01):
Yes, I meant because everybody'sfamiliar with the story of
Jericho, certainly anybody who'sread the Old Testament, which
presumably most of the people who were doing this exploration
at the time. So what was the impact of these
explorations for the average Victorian sitting in the pews
back in England did it? Very nice indeed.
(53:24):
Very nice indeed. In in depending on their engine
because you see you notice that they have going there.
You also now you can buy photographs of them.
You can also, as I say in the book too.
Even the stories are based upon them.
You know the secular stories andthen hymns so many hymns in the
(53:47):
back are actually rooted in Old Testament and New Testament
event when you tell the hymn gave me Oh no, great Jehovah,
which is the Jehovah leading theJews out of Paris, out of Egypt.
And then of course the idea of crossing the lion, crossing the
(54:11):
Jordan and all that to his son. And you might have asked him,
what was this fiery cloudy pillar and things of this?
Must have been, yes. And bringing photos back must
have been quite something because again, your book covers,
(54:32):
you know, the period where photography was becoming
portable. It was a it was a new technology
and advances were being made continuously.
And people are now able to carrya camera and a dark room and
transport it and take a photo and develop it there and then
(54:53):
and bring back photos of these places.
You've got that, yeah. So you have also theatre.
You have various things, yeah, to bring this to life.
And it just shows how deeply embedded the Victorian culture
(55:13):
as. Well, wow, absolutely
fascinating. So going back again to the the
history then of the people of modern day Israel, their story
goes back to Egypt, which is where you place a lot of the
book. What about the journey from
Egypt to ancient Israel, That journey that's told in the
(55:38):
Exodus and that period? We have the official story from
from the background. Well, they're they're being
kicked out by Pharaoh on the Great Plains and so on.
One wonders how far they had just got on the nerves of the
(55:59):
ancient Egyptians. And they were more I said go.
I mean, you do wonder whether there was a lot of reluctance to
stay there because it's just it was a much easier world is get
on the roof for somewhere for your own instead of have the
Egyptians feeding him. Because of course, I love these
(56:22):
Egypt from making them mug bricks.
And so they had to keep the Jews.
That's what I mean financially. And so let them go off and do
what they want, and you keep your own money to keep your own
bricks. So in reality, what would that
journey have been like to travelfrom Egypt to modern day Israel
(56:46):
today? What would that journey have
been like for people to make that journey?
Would it be known through shepherds?
Through travellers, merchants across the recipe?
Get into the the Holy Land basin, cross it, go over to the
(57:09):
foreign distance, the the great,the great Gulf, which is the the
basis of the Jordan, the Red Seaand let me go there.
There's a well known route. So you're saying basically
traders and merchants would havebeen travelling that route for
(57:31):
decades prior anyway so it was aknown Rd.
I think the idea is, is so modern that, you know, I think
you forget how ancient it was. And like I say, the area they're
wandering in was not really speaking about the size of South
(57:53):
Wales. Now you get the impression from
the moment that they were wandering for, oh, infinite
distances. Yeah.
No, you look at the area where the Terminator that much bigger
than South Wales and you keep walking around it.
(58:16):
Yes, it's a few days walk really, isn't it?
Yeah. And I think what's interesting
about the geography of that area, and you mentioned it as
well, it's the the Bible talks about a desert.
And yes, there are some desert areas, but it's not all desert.
Is it that? I mean, how did you keep your
(58:37):
sheep and your castle if it was all desert?
Yeah, they'll die. And you know, there is a lot of
grass out there, especially around the edges of the Sangaya
Peninsula. But especially they followed the
Sangaya Peninsula to the sea, and around there they were going
(58:58):
through areas of grass. And you know, sometimes they
would stay depressed for a long time and they didn't want to
move. Other times they would have to
be moved alone. That's the idea that they were
there in sand, no? No, it doesn't work really, does
(59:19):
it? You couldn't.
You couldn't get bread out of sand.
No, no and get this. And the local geology, because
it's a lot of limestone and thatjust to have a lot of water
trapped in the structure of the limestone and the right breaks
(59:43):
at the right places in the limestone will actually produce
assembly of water. I came across one reference in
years ago to a British squadron in that part of area and they
said Palestinian area around Sanya and a Sergeant took a
(01:00:07):
harem and bashed the side of a rock and overspurted water right
well, the children totally barren.
Loves him. Oh, that's a quite fascinating
story there, isn't it? Oh.
Yeah. To recap then, about your your
(01:00:28):
your book, Doctor Allen fascinating book.
I genuinely recommend it to to my listeners, the Victorians and
how they opened up the Holy Land.
Really interesting lots of characters in that book and to
spend a lot of time in Egypt, which is a really fascinating
place. Some of the history there and to
(01:00:48):
tell a bit of the story of the Israelites and their journey and
to manage to paint a really goodpicture certainly for me anyway,
of the how exploration slowly evolved in that area and how
interest back home and in exploring and then arrival of
the camera. It's a really, really
(01:01:11):
fascinating story. So listeners, if this kind of
thing is a tool of interest to you, genuinely I recommend this
book. I really enjoyed reading this
book. It's.
I certainly enjoyed writing it because I am a historian, but
I'm also a natural storyteller when I come from a family that's
(01:01:36):
sitting around the fireplace of a even telling tales as part of
the life. So stories to be in the blood.
Excellent. And there's so much rich
material there. They're from.
So thank you so much for writingthat.
The link in the show notes. Yes, link will be in the show
(01:01:58):
notes. Listeners, there was just one
more thing that I wanted to mention to you and it's almost
an obscure reference you make inthe book, but it intrigued me
because I spent many of my formative years growing up in
Central Africa. And you mentioned this city or
land of Punt in the book and you, you hypothesize about it
(01:02:21):
may have been a trading port or,or a, a place of trade that was
S from from Egypt, etcetera. And you mentioned the wonderful
place of the Great Zimbabwe right down in in Central Africa,
a place that I have visited and I love, love it.
I really did enjoy my visit to the Great Zimbabwe.
(01:02:43):
So it very settles the land uponwas very Zimbabwe.
Oh, that, that is now settled. Is it you you think that is the
case? Well, I mean a possibility.
Yes, because that in itself musthave been a tremendous journey
from Egypt all the way down through half of Africa down.
(01:03:04):
And one of the thing I wanted tomention about the Great Zimbabwe
is there's a hillside right nextdoor to it.
And you climb that hill and you look over what would have been
the the residences of the Great Zimbabwe and you get a real
image of how huge this civilisation must have been and
(01:03:24):
the the great activity that musthave been there.
It's fantastic. And Jerry Zuni, Matthew.
So I, I loved reading about that.
I, I never thought that I'll pick up a book about the Holy
Land and read about the Great Zimbabwe in it.
It was wonderful. So thank you from me for for
that little treasure because it was great for me to to do that.
(01:03:50):
Thanks for pressing the right buttons to make these
recordings. Computer Dinosaur.
We, we all, we, we all, we can'tall be great at everything.
So oh. Yeah.
So what's left for me is there'sthere's one question that I like
(01:04:12):
to ask my guests before I say goodbye to them, and that is, do
they have a favorite Bible character and who is it?
Yeah, obviously. Jesus.
It's Jesus. Yes, go into the Old Testament.
Well, there's a lot of Jamie, Lisa.
(01:04:35):
There's a There's a lot of greatcharacters in the Old Testament.
Aren't they? Thank you so much for your time,
Doctor Allen. Thank you again.
Thank you again for the book. Genuinely enjoyed your book.
Genuinely recommend it to my listeners.
And until next time, everybody be reasonable.
(01:04:56):
Thank. You.
Thank you so much Cortana. I really enjoyed the chat.
Thank you for your time again. You have been listening to a
podcast from Reason Press. Do you have any thoughts on what
you've just heard? Do you have a topic that you
(01:05:17):
would like us to cover? Please send all feedback to
reasonpress@gmail.com. You might even appear on an
episode. Our theme music was written for
us by Holly. To hear more of her music, see
the links in our show notes.
Episode 135 Alan Chapman, the Victorians and the Holy Land
This is Matthew, and in this episode of Still Unbelievable, I
chat with Alan Chapman, who teaches history of science at
Oxford University and has written extensively on history
and science, including the relationship between the two.
(00:22):
He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a
founder member of the Society for the History of Astronomy.
He is the author of several wellreceived books, including the
one we will be discussing in this episode.
I loved reading this book. I found myself fascinated by the
characters that Alan references and the various events that he
(00:43):
talks about. If you have any interest in the
history of Christianity, then I recommend this book as an
enjoyable read. As always, see the show notes
for links to the book and topicsthat are referenced in the book.
There are items in the links that we do not specifically
cover in this conversation, so please do check them out for a
taste of what the book. Good afternoon everybody.
(01:10):
Welcome to another episode of Still Unbelievable.
This is going to be a bit of a special episode, slightly
different from what we normally do.
It is an interview. It's an interview with a very
special guest, one that I am delighted to host here on Still
Unbelievable and one whose book I am very pleased to have read.
The reason why it's slightly different is its history rather
(01:31):
than specifically science or or religion, and I think we'll all
benefit from a little bit of that.
My guest today is Doctor Alan Chapman.
He's written a book called Victorians and the Holy Land.
It's an investigation and an exploration of the activities of
the Victorians in the Holy Land,opening it up to investigation
both by tourists and by intellectuals.
(01:53):
I really enjoyed the book. It was fascinating.
I learnt from it. It was really interesting to
read it. So Doctor Anna Chapman, you are
AI believe a professor, a teacher at Oxford University.
And I can tell from, and I can tell from your bio that you've
written multiple books, including book books on the
relationship between science andreligion, but not exclusive to
(02:16):
that, mostly on in the historical context.
So you have a long list of books, which I'm sure my readers
will be interesting. But today we're talking
specifically about the Victorians and the Holy Land.
Welcome to still unbelievable. Doctor Chapman.
I think that where I'd like to start with this, because there's
so much that I enjoyed and I appreciated about the book, is
(02:38):
to set the scene around what what inspired the book?
What prompted you to want to write this book?
What story are you trying to tell and who are you trying to
tell it to? Basically, I've been interested
in this subject since I was a Boyer.
I'm really a historian of science, specialising in the
history of medicine and historian, so I'm not claiming
(03:01):
to be just about original interest.
But I've been reading books on this subject, from being a small
boy, going to the librarian, borrowing from the local
librarian. It captured my attention and I
thought I should do a book of itbecause I own understanding,
(03:23):
interest and it's also as I always like to do, it's full of
interesting characters and interesting incidents.
It is. And I was genuinely fascinated
by it. And I think 1 little tidbit for
the British audience is the nameThomas Cook.
Because anybody who's British will know that name from boards
(03:45):
and shops on that High Street. Because although it's less
popular today, certainly in recent decades, it's been a name
that's been associated with the package travel industry.
And that name crops up about midway through your book.
And it was really fascinating toread that part of the book.
I, I guess before we get into the detail, who do you want to
(04:05):
read the book? Who is the book aimed at?
What's your audience? The general reader, Historians
and the illusions. And and as someone who's only
vaguely interested and as somebody, I'll, and I'll be
honest, I did mention this briefly before we hit record,
(04:29):
it's I don't have much of A history of reading history
books. It's not something that I've
done habitually, but I really enjoyed this.
I enjoyed this hearing about allthese characters from years gone
by. And I think what for me was most
fascinating was in the context of the stories of these
characters. They're doing it without any of
(04:51):
the modern advances that we havetoday.
They didn't have mobile phones so they could ring home.
It was letters, which would often be put on a train and then
a steamship and then another train.
You know, communication back home either to their families or
to their sponsors, could take months.
You. Don't forget to you had the
(05:11):
crucial thing about this, the electric Telegraph and then the
election telling her flying to America in 1866 and so you could
literally do something in Londonor whatever and learn about it
for the evening's papers in New York.
(05:32):
OK. So Yep, I did.
I did manage to admit that. So was that also available then
in the area of the world that you're talking about, in North
Africa, in the area around Israel and the Promised land?
I think the reason is it was themost accessible, right?
The Nile is the big river. No matter where you'd be going
(05:54):
on the Nile, you found statues, magnificent structures, temples,
pyramids, and the stories, of course, in excellence that the
children of Israel had been keptthere as slaves and that could
be what their position would turn into as things.
(06:17):
And it's just so fascinating. But we knew far, far more about
the Egypt than we knew about Syria and Babylonian, because
only in the 19th century did theSyria and Babylonian enter the
world's consciousness. A real place.
(06:41):
Yes, and I really loved the Egypt parts.
You know, the the book, the title of the book promises the
Holy Land, but you spend an awful lot of time in the book
talking about Egypt as well. Now it that's obviously.
Because the good bit of the Bible story takes place in in
Egypt. Yes, absolutely right.
(07:03):
You can't understand the Holy Land context without actually
understanding the history of thestory of Egypt and the Exodus
from Egypt and all that. So the the two parts of the
world are not just geographically close together,
but historically intertwined together.
And that really comes across in the book.
And a very man too, that really Palestine didn't have much of an
(07:29):
impact on the ancient world. A religious instance that his
accounts of travels of the in the in the Middle East in the in
the ancient Greek, James never mentions Palestina or only just
a a passing remark of Palestina,who is conceived as a dependent
(07:51):
of the kings of Syria. Right.
So was Syria a an impressive Kingdom at the time that you're
writing about? Was it a Kingdom with power and
clowns? Was it the time that the
religious was there in the 3rd century?
Right. So it it had a historical impact
(08:12):
on that area of the world. Oh yes.
Oh yeah. And you, you mentioned earlier
about the, the statues along theNile in Egypt and there's some
impressive photos in your book and descriptions of these
places. We're not talking just about the
pyramids. There are other parts of the
Nile further South which have also got these impressive
(08:34):
statues, which, and I think personally, I found those more
impressive than the pyramids personally in terms of the
majesty that they, they invoked.So these kinds of things, are
they all the way down the Nile? Is there evidence of this kind
of thing further down? Around the Nile, around the
(08:57):
pilgrims. I mean, we had genderer right up
into the top of Egypt. Lots of things there.
But there's no evidence that theJews and the children of Israel
ever had anything to do in that place, right?
I mean, Egypt's a big country, acouple of 1000 miles on the
(09:18):
twisting banks of the everywhere, Diane.
But the Jews were at the bottom end of the of which we would
call the Nile Delta. Right.
And the area around what would become the city of Cairo.
OK. So you're saying that there was
a Jewish habitation there? Was there a Jewish habitation
(09:40):
there? By according to Jewish accounts,
yes. There, there was right Exodus.
Sorry, what was that about the Exodus?
They're mentioned in the book ofExodus.
There was no. Exodus Joseph, who becomes the
physiat, a Pharaoh who effectively runs the country was
(10:03):
a Jew brilliant Clapper for Suasia, and he was invited to
bring his own people over from Palestine, which was suffering,
which seems some poverty and starvation at the time.
And they've hit the big time in Egypt.
And it's also by legend that theseven pyramids were were
(10:28):
equivalent to the seven years ofplague.
Oh right, so that the the the granaries, the storehouses, the
pharaoh, and each one according to a plague.
Right. You, you do do a very good job
of disseminating that myth aboutthe pyramids being greenhouses.
(10:50):
I remember as a young child being told when I was out, when
I was a young boy at missionary school, as in a school for
children of missionaries, that that the pyramids were one of
the reasons why the pyramids were built could have been the
greenhouses and storehouses. So we were teaching children
that as as as recently as 50 years ago.
(11:12):
Really. Yeah.
I've been in them certainly so much so you couldn't store
anything. Yes, we know that now.
Yes, it was nice to read that. And it was nice to read your
description of the pyramids and your experience of being inside
(11:34):
the pyramids. It was really quite fascinating
and we obviously know so much more about the pyramids now, but
for those early Victorian explorers who saw those pyramids
for the very first time that they must have been quite
mesmerizing, quite awe inspiring, because there was
nothing in Europe that matched that.
(11:56):
But nonetheless, they were part of European history.
Any Christian, any Christian parts of Europe would be
familiar with the pyramids. You know, from purely illiterary
sources. Right.
So they wouldn't have been shockhorror when you saw them.
Right, because they knew they existed, they just hadn't seen
(12:18):
them yet. Yeah, yeah.
OK. When it's when travels into
steamships and things of this photography came around, it was
impossible to see the pyramids and realise how fascinating they
were. Yeah, yes.
And so they, they must have been.
And I know a few people who've seen their pyramids in recent
(12:39):
years and they always say they're they are quite
inspiring, the way they dominatethe landscape.
Yes they are, and they're amazing.
Napoleon bone apartment. He invaded India, slept in the
Vectorian and left it rather frightened, right?
(13:01):
He's sort of like this spooky, though things of this sort of
come and get him. Could this be part of the
stories of the curses that are sometimes associated with some
of these places? Associated with the sources and
and curses and stuff, yeah. So.
The curses of the Pharaohs has he had far much to do with
(13:23):
journalism regarding history. Oh I see, right, because my I
was about to ask, are those curses anything to do with
dissuading people from looting them?
Or is it just a much more moderninterpretation?
No. I mean, yes, we have that modern
interpretation, which is exceptional, but there are a
(13:46):
large number of people out therewho are just simply given over
to superstitions. I mean, I've met people who
believe these things, right? So would that affect their
decisions on entering pyramids? Oh, yes, Oh, yes.
(14:07):
Wow. I mean, people out there who
really believe that there's somechaos attack.
And of course, when Howard Charter discovered you should
come home and his his patient died suddenly of an insect bite.
Oh, the present man. This is the curse of Pharaoh.
(14:29):
That's 1923. Golly, OK.
So yes, only just over 100 yearsago, you mentioned earlier about
the not very much evidence aboutthe Israelite, the the biblical
story of the Israelites not occupation the Israelites living
in in Egypt leading up to to theExodus.
(14:52):
So do we have any theories as tohow the Exodus story came about?
We have the Jewish account. Right.
But that's pretty well it. Right.
So it's difficult to unpick whatmight have been the source
source of that story. OK, when you have a document
like the Bible, which is covering itself several thousand
(15:17):
years of history, and you know, it's meant to tailor in to show
that the Jews are the winners atevery stage.
And so it's easy to get this ledby themselves.
Right. And it's interesting you say
(15:37):
that because every story where someone comes out the hero, they
always have a low point. And it seems that the slavery in
Egypt seems to be the the literary low point from which
they triumph. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah. They went into Egypt as Joseph's
(15:58):
family and Lily and his son. But then Joseph dies, and the
book of Exodus, you know, tells us about his death and Genesis.
Then you know what happens? Enslave them.
But but I do wonder what slaverymeans.
(16:18):
I don't think it's the sort of thing that you had in the
American South in the 19th century.
Slavery simply means you do yourjob or you don't eat.
OK, because we the modern world imagines that the Jewish, the
alleged Jewish slavery under theEgyptians would have been hard
(16:42):
labour under a whip, and you're saying that's probably not the
case? No more so than any Egyptians
had the same things. Right.
Yes, OK. The thing is, you don't shift
those gigantic blocks of stone, they say.
Would you please move that big stone for me?
(17:03):
Please. You get your rib out.
Yeah, Yes, you. Did in the 19th century when an
English traveller saw that the that, you know, life was cheap
and they they fund them meet people, including their own
time. We have to very well that modern
(17:28):
standards of human rights and kindness are very, very, very
recent indeed of. Course, yes, that that's right.
And and those pyramids probably took many decades, even hundreds
of years to build, I imagine. Oh yeah, but The thing is the
(17:49):
the first, the gigantic 1 was the cheops and allegedly it was
during his lifetime, so and the granny was not low.
The granny came to a further. And so they're dealing with
gigantic quarry, the enormous business of changing large rough
(18:11):
lumps of stone, then fingering and shaping them to precisely
fit individual parts of the bedroom.
It's it's amazing him and shows that the power of organization
was there. I think the thing that amazes me
most about the pyramids is when you look at the modern day cross
(18:32):
sections of the way they look. And somebody on a bit of
incomparchment must have designed how the internals of
this was going to look and then visualize how they were going to
move the stone in order to buildthis internal visualisation.
And I think for me, the architect, the internal
(18:53):
architecture of these things andhow practically they could have
done it without modern computers, without modern aided
design, without mechanical assistance, is quite amazing.
It is amazing, and perhaps Smithof course is the amazing who
thought that the the pyramids were holding places of divine
(19:14):
secrets and he was a struggling role for Scotland.
Nonetheless. These ideas sound a bit crazy to
us today, but the surveying of them is the construction and the
precision with which the stones there with each other was
phenomenal. It really was.
(19:37):
So moving on from the pyramids, because the pyramids and again,
you, you draw this out in, in your book, the pyramids gave a
real spark of intellectual curiosity.
You know, how did the things happen?
What, what are the things in thearea in, in in the region.
Can we find that are interesting?
(19:58):
It sparked off archaeology. What's the relationship then
between the archaeological digs in Egypt and then the
archaeological digs in Palestineand Israel?
And they were all saying to to him the matter of course, we
really did this in a serious wayin the 19th century, in the 19th
and 20th century was Flinders P trip suffering the speed trip
(20:25):
who pioneered archaeology in a serious sense.
And he both in Egypt and in Palestine, and he used the same
techniques and he died in 19, 48, something like that, the
great age. Right.
(20:46):
Yeah. There must have been a very
difference in technique because in Egypt, and again you've got
photos of this in your book, youknow, when they first discovered
some of these artefacts like the, the Sphinx for example, in
Egypt that was half buried in sand.
So there was a massive job to uncover all that and dig all the
sand away. And that's, and that's done with
(21:09):
big mechanical excavators. But then when you get to the to
Israel and Palestine and all that, you've, you're dealing
with much smaller artefacts, much different types of
materials. So they must have refined their
methodologies and their technologies in order to get
smaller value, smaller physically smaller artefacts.
(21:32):
But very advantageous. They had a totally different
religion, the Jews, and that wasnot about enshrining and
deifying a dead man. It was about God.
It was not about a Pharaoh. Right, OK, So what was the
(21:52):
Jewish attitude then to these sacred places at that time?
What was the Jewish attitude towards their holy sites?
I'm not sure enough. They weren't necessarily in the
the Holy Land island is usually dispersed of.
Course I. Understand.
(22:13):
And it was only really in the 19th and 20th century that you
start getting them coming together again as a nation.
And the first after 1945 was it when they they're finally given
the land of Israel as it was in their homeland, which of course
it causes all the trouble we still have today.
(22:36):
Yes, sadly that that's very trueand that in the so in the late
mid to late 1800's, the land of Israel is not the land of Israel
that we recognise today. So the people that are living I.
Think there, but they were minorities, right?
So all the, all the site, all the sites that we call the Holy
(22:58):
Land sites today, you know, the,the, the birth place of Jesus in
Bethlehem, the, you know, the, the crucifixion location of
Calvary, the, you know, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount
of Olives, all those places, were they revered at all in the
1800s by anybody? Yeah, very much so.
(23:20):
Because there is to some degree.I mean, how, how did you know
that a certain St. in Jerusalem was one that down which Jesus
carried the cross, right. Well, basically it's traditional
legend, but I've seen no reason why I won't.
(23:41):
You doubt that because if you were being sent from the Old
Temple to Calgary, you'd more orless go down that street and
it's still there to this name. Wow, that's quite fascinating to
think about. You know those streets that have
survived 2 millennia of variety variations in history.
(24:07):
So who was so at the time when the Victorians were arriving
here to explore all these sites?Who was living on the land and
who did the Victorians have to negotiate with?
Yes there is sheikhs and other individuals.
There was no full scale local occupation death because it was
(24:34):
basically the Ottoman Empire that ruled it right through this
entire later period until 1922 with the abolition of the
Ottoman Empire based in Turkey, because Palestine was just part
of that empire. And I've just grown up over the
years as the with the growth of Islam about 680 and then
(25:04):
gradually taken all before it. And of course, what you'd had
with the Holy Land sheikhs, and they've adopted what they liked
from the from the New World aspects of medicine, right?
He's of this sort. So they weren't necessarily
(25:25):
against it. But what it was, it was really
irrelevant to that wider culture.
It wasn't until the abolition ofthat empire in 1922 that things
took on the formula out of jail.And it was so that the Jews had
a right to their homeland. And of course, they still have
(25:47):
that to do. Look at Netanyahu.
It's the idea of the homeland ofthe Jews, and you kick out
anybody who they know what to win them.
And there's a lot of kicking outhappening in the ancient world.
I mean, when you look at the rules of King David, the wagon,
(26:10):
David is such an important thingin Jewish history.
He basically put to the soil or kicked out anybody who didn't
share his views. Yes, that's right.
So when when the Victorians wereexploring this new land, or
rather it wasn't a new land, it was it was a new to them when
(26:34):
they were exploring this land, the land that we now call Israel
and Palestine, who how did the the local tribes receive them?
Were they well received by the Ottoman tribes?
Depending on what you had in your pocket.
Isn't that always the way? And The thing is that the West
(26:58):
had it had money, it had technology, it had a whole new
raft of learning that that that person has never developed.
And the train for instance, or the Steamboat, nothing remotely
like it. In the ancient world, boats on
(27:18):
the river Nile had been driven by sail and by oars from the
days of well, long before crashed and they're still there
today. I've been on one and shot part
of a programme or on for TV. But once you started to have the
big ships that you have now the the big tour liners with their
(27:44):
stone boats and their panels andsome doesn't remotely like it to
the contemporaries. Likewise, trains are getting
there. Railways are already in the
advanced state of technology by the time that the Victorians in
the only the only land. So the the the indigenous
(28:06):
Ottomans, those who were living there at the time, must have
seen these visitors with this fancy technology and pockets
full of money and used every kind of scam they possibly could
in order to exchange the to get hold of the money.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, The thing is, there was
(28:26):
more money out there than they could ever make themselves,
right? You come across references to
Belzonians on the early Explorerabout the way in which the
native Egyptians or the native localists that were treated by
their masters and it was barbaric.
(28:50):
And the idea if you know, life was cheap and you've ordered
them together and I got another one.
As you know, you got your you got your working staff in the
same way that you get your coal,your large quality and the unit
barely. That's right away.
(29:11):
But of course, it was a whole new set of Western values,
Western money, Western speed travel, all of that.
It must have been quite a sight if you if a.
New kind of world? Yes, it must be.
I'm just imagining what it must be like if you've never seen a
steamship before in your life and there you are and you see
(29:34):
this thing turn up. That's it.
I mean, he would have said asking for me today, for
instance, I remember the thing Ifilmed a while ago in Egypt and
they had been survived with thislovely little white donkey, the
beautiful little monkey up the road.
(29:54):
And I got off the donkey and that I and other members of the
film group started to give the donkey sugar lumps.
And the owners of the donkey were couldn't understand why on
earth you were treating a donkeylike that.
They were just donkeys treating animals with affection.
(30:19):
It's it's double fun. Yes, I imagine, I imagine so.
It really gives an indication ofthe different difference in
attitudes between the two cultures.
Absolutely used to know from thegender a a a Seeley College port
of my Lutheran college. And then he'd be the Sergeant
(30:41):
major in the Army. And he said that he once saw a
group of peasants slugging and whipping a donkey for some
reason. And he said what he did, he drew
history, Father find it in the air to get their attention.
(31:04):
You said you shoot them if they didn't teach their joking world
kindly. So that idea of a British
surgeon doing that, you know, isa big, big difference in
approach. Fascinating.
What a great story. So by the time, I can't remember
(31:27):
what the date was, but there wasby the time Thomas Cook, who
we've already mentioned, arrivedin the Promised Land then and
started creating the tours that he did.
What was his motivation for creating these tours?
Was it just to make money from atour from a holiday business?
(31:49):
Never about money. It was never about money.
It. Was a first rate businessman and
if he could get money for something, he'd get it but that
money would go not to his luxurious lifestyle, which he
never lived, but to spending knowledge spending, spreading
the Christian gospel, right. Well, that's right before I mean
(32:12):
he starts off as a young entrepreneur in Britain.
He's a, a, a minister, an itinerary minister and he
suddenly finds that there's a new railway be laid between
Loughborough and somewhere else in Dygmis Midlands.
(32:35):
And he was daunting. He, she told them he believed
that the demon drink would get him and he put on a cheap day
return for people to go and listen to the speaker.
This is about 1844, a long time ago, and he found it made a lot
(32:56):
of money and they were more wanting and he was very good at
making contacts and houses and boarding houses.
He took large. There was the people who did the
Great Exhibition in 1851 and then started taking him Aroar.
He vows to find there's demand for people who want to travel
(33:20):
and the railways have made it possible for them to travel.
Whether it's just a day out to Lofbra in the Midlands or
whether it's to Karnak depends on the technology because what
was happening at that time too was in Egypt, the big riverboats
(33:41):
were coming along, big steamers which were effectively floating
hotels. And he was very good at cashing
in these not cashing it in a a crude stamps, but catching in on
a sense that there's opportunityhere in his view to spread the
(34:01):
gospel and stop people drinking.And when he saw the Jordan, for
instance, he did something whichis amazing.
First time I've seen the Jordan,he walked into the river.
I said, let you the place where Jesus had done his baptizing and
wrote straight him and dipped his own head in the water, top
(34:28):
hat and all, ringing raccoon, because he had done the same
thing that Jesus had done. Wow.
Oh, quite something. Hopefully he dried off quickly,
but it's quite a novel idea in today's world that somebody
would make lots of money from anenterprise like that and then
(34:50):
immediately turn that money around and drive it straight
into the local community. And The thing is, you think,
too, he was checking people who normally couldn't travel.
You know, you had, let's say, come through the shopkeeper or
something like that. Yes.
Very nice about me. The pillar of their local
(35:11):
society. Yeah, and pillar of their local
church. But there were nothing in the
eyes of the wealthy. He was able to start taking
these people to the Holy Land. And so you find a lot of
comments, very angry ones. I'm sort of the better off.
(35:33):
You go and travel to Italy or toPalestine or somewhere and you
suddenly find shopkeepers and people like that.
They should be back at home doing the work, leaving these
faces for the better off and theculture.
Just him. But what he was doing was
(35:54):
breaking down social barriers aswell.
Yes, it was because it gave people the experience of an
alternative culture, of a different culture people who
lived differently had. Different.
Priorities. Actually, Democrats, he believed
in things being for everybody, and Buddy was there to improve
(36:19):
the world. What's a novel idea?
Yeah. Yes, I, I, I think there are
lessons there in his life that we could definitely learn from
today and maybe rethink it some some attitudes.
There was something else that you said in your book.
I'm changing, changing line a little bit here, but there was a
(36:42):
little thing you said in your inyour book, which really struck
me. And that is when talking about
dynasties and the the years of reign of certain dynasties.
And you make reference to rounding up dynasties, you know,
compressing dynasties into a representation of a single
(37:03):
individual. But actually it actually means
several generations. Is this a common practice at
that time to represent multiple generations with a single
individual? Yeah, because they what they
didn't use was a zero point of revenue.
(37:25):
And so there was a such a thing happened 10 years after the
death of King so and so right, or eight years after, because
you have you all your calculation.
But what you said is to find thefirst thing later on you had
your AC and BC datum and that actually then gave you absolute.
(37:47):
Those techniques are then being used by the archaeologists and
the philologists of the 19th century, but it didn't make
sense of what they were finding.And so that's what makes it
easier for many, many people. And when you know, you get
somebody like of the Layard going to Assyria and finding the
(38:11):
winged the winged lions of Babylon, you know, this was
absolutely breathtaking when they brought up the winged
Landers back to England. The crowds it was sent between
London ducks and the British Museum was so dense you could
(38:33):
having it by. So were these explorers then
treated like celebrities at the time?
Were they the modern day celebrities?
They did indeed. They were great Internet
treating them a bit like space men might be treated today.
(38:54):
Right, because they would go on a trip and then.
That time you've been in Lillivar and the lands of the
Pharaohs here. Yeah, because these explorers
would disappear and come back two or three years later,
wouldn't they? And then and then do a speaking
circuit of what they they did. Very, very bad.
(39:17):
Getting a winged lion of Babylonback to England.
It needed you first of all to get onto a raft, floated all the
way down the tankless river, through the gulf of the river,
probably lodged onto a ship there, taken all the way around
(39:41):
Africa, up Africa and finally arriving in London.
That was the only way you could do it before 1870.
Odd when you actually had the building of the Suez Canal
vastly speed up everything. But the amount of hard to work
(40:01):
even for an English labrier, andwe're going to be front of the
English labrier, a cane. I mean, we changed to work the
other way around and we will tryto actually get people to do
more work. We didn't want them.
We offered them an extra 6 pencea week.
Yes. Was there a huge thirst for
(40:23):
these kinds of artefacts? You know where there are a lot
of people back home in England wanting to see and touch these
artefacts. Half of London When the Great
Exhibition was opened in London in 1851, they built a gallery of
an Assyrian gallery. It did not contain necessarily
(40:46):
an original. These were safe in the British
Library or the British Museum, but there were authentic models.
So people can go and you gasped at them and you think of the
idea that, you know, the captivechildren of Israel in the Holy
Land been taken away by by his could actually see these things
(41:12):
that you could you could touch something now.
I mean, I know in in a college where there's such an artefact,
it's a royal decoration, accountable decoration, about 3
or 4 feet square and it's on thewall and it's the oldest thing
(41:32):
in the college at 2018. And you know it.
It is amazing to look at him andit was like as a Manipal and
he's owning his armour as a Manipal like this.
And there are things on his wrist here.
(41:53):
And these were, of course, designations of status in the
Syrian Army. And then I'm sure that always
said they were acid Baby Panel'swristwatch look just like
wristwatches. Yeah, fantastic.
I must say I do feel a little sad that these treasures from
(42:14):
these other lands were all hoarded to one nation for for
people to enjoy and the people who originally built them and
the people who grew up with themlose the pleasure of being able
to see them in their original habitat.
Yes, and if you do that it's just becoming available being
(42:38):
discovered by layout and other geologists had said it.
I mean the the Assyria was discovered in its non literary
sense by Austin Hendrileian and the French Doctor Who were
suffering to Australia but decided to go over land and see
(43:02):
some adventures over land ratherthan just a ship over earth.
And what they started to find, because they made these
journeys, they found great mounds on the in, in the plain,
in this barren plain. And lo and behold, if you hire,
let's say 50 labourers whose labour was cheap and they
(43:25):
started to dig through these things, suddenly the winged
lions of Troy would appear and all sorts of other things.
And it was just so amazing. It was in about 20 years he went
from ignorance to these things, or just biblical references to
(43:48):
them, to actually finding scoresand scores in real live
artefacts, which ended up in Paris, in Berlin, in New York
and of course in London. And I can only imagine what it
must have been like for some of these people digging up these
(44:10):
ancient statues, you know, whichcould have been buried under
dirt or sand or whatever for hundreds of years.
And they're the first people to see them for a very long time.
It must have been quite an experience.
It was tremendous. He found it, yeah, but very
judicial for him is that the labourers would go away
(44:31):
sometimes and not come back. This wasn't a Muslim country at
that time. And there was a great horror of
the working with idols and they,the Muslims, it was the view
that these were the ancient godsof the pagans going back to
life. And we couldn't do that.
(44:57):
And it took a lot of negotiatingwith tribal leaders and so
before we could continue a day. Yeah, that's really interesting
actually, because yes, if you'redoing, if you're trying to
excavate something and you have a local culture who either
reveres or fears the thing that you're trying to dig up and
(45:20):
extract you, you've got more than just a cultural conflict
going on there. You've got something that's
deeply spiritual that you've gotto resolve.
They, I mean, I've got an idea of, you know, just physical
objects that's really a 20, wellpost 17th century idea.
(45:45):
And to them everything has some kind of spiritual value.
I know Pagan gods or Christian gods or Jewish or whatever.
Wow, it's, it's just must. It's something that we can't
comprehend today because there'sprobably nothing left for us to
discover like that since, well. You never say that.
(46:07):
You never. Heard the famous last words, you
know, but we know so much more about these old religions.
You know, the superstitions there must have been much more
visceral than they would be today.
The idea that there were ancientpainted gods that they've got
buried in the sand and now thesechaps are coming along and
(46:28):
revealing them. So it's clearly an indication
that China was going to hit on the land.
As a prophet, Muhammad would protect you and would actually
tell all those who deal with thewicked horrible practice of
bringing the dead gods back to life and to then it would have
been bringing in the dead gods back to life.
(46:50):
It wasn't just simply a piece ofstatuary.
Yeah, and the other thing that I'm really intrigued by in your
book is you've you tell this story about their digging up
statues, etcetera. And then at some point the
motivation changes and people are now looking at ancient
(47:11):
cities and trying to tell the story of the ancient city.
And they're they're now what they're digging up is not old
statues and long deceased gods. It's human habitation and city
wars and things that so they're digging up things which are are
very different and they're not digging up something to carry
(47:33):
home to put on display. They're digging up something so
they can try to tell the story of the place that they're
digging. When did that shift change?
Yeah, in some of those countriestoday, I wouldn't like to say, I
wouldn't like to say what might happen if we do certain things
(47:56):
in the Syria or some Muslim countries.
I just, it will affect the Jews as sophisticated culture.
I don't think it will affect obviously the Christians, but
there's some other sectarian face that I'm sure still have
these these ideas lurking in theback of their collective memory.
(48:22):
Right. Oh, OK.
But in terms of the Victorian explorers, so who were
excavating these lands, when didtheir motivation change to
finding out the history? No, because they would do the
same all the way along. It's.
OK. I think, I think when you had,
we were doing that fluid, the speed trip where you actually
(48:45):
use the objects, no matter how insignificant, a tiny pot or a
handle or something like that, all of which would indicate to
you where you were actually going historically.
And it changes. And in the the things that we'd
had in the West, there's not actually a superstition.
It would be the marketing value that had Sloane in London had
(49:10):
Sloane. He has a, let's say Johnstone,
that's Sloane. He was a great collector and a
medical man and son. And he has in his basement of
his house still there because they can't remove it, built
across him a great sarcophagus of one of the Pharaohs.
(49:36):
And I've seen it and he has had not part of the house down
really to get it into his private museum.
Wow. Yes, Johnson.
That must be quite something to have in your house.
OK, Very, very, very wealthy manthat bought things like that.
(49:57):
Must have been was the income from some of these artefacts
then used to fund further exploration?
I mean Henry Salt, who was the British commissioner in Egypt in
the early 19th century and the president in Germany, Belzonian,
that they certainly sold them onand they published in the money
(50:20):
usually to buy more artefacts, right?
So an enormous market for them. So lots, lots of trading going
on. Oh yes, you know, with him.
And it was so simple. You just go out there with the
shovel up and find something in value.
Right. I'm, I'm sure if you, anyone
(50:40):
familiar with the Old Testament will know about the, the battles
of the judges, specifically Joshua, but there are obviously
others. So we've got cities like AI
Nineveh, which we've already mentioned, and others which are
destroyed in various miraculous events.
(51:01):
Was there enthusiasm to locate these old cities and to find
them? I mean, look at the news
tonight. Gaza.
Yeah, that was what happened. And so, you know, we had things
on that strip which would have been there for at least from the
(51:27):
time of Abraham, and we were a vast age.
Ditto to the the trading city ofthe North.
I mean, this desire to find these places are very, very wise
men. Oh, yeah.
But the the big cities, many of them still have the same names
(51:50):
in his name. Yeah.
Right. And what was the motivation in
finding these cities? Were they, was it literally also
to find artefacts and say here is some of the wall from the
city of AI that got knocked downor were people trying to achieve
that? Yeah, yeah.
That's it. Right.
(52:12):
OK, But then if you've brought this piece of ancient pottery
and call it called it a brick, and you brought it halfway
across the world, how do you actually know if this ancient
brick is really from the city that you say it is?
Basically, speaking from contextwhere it was found, the fact
(52:38):
that it looked like from decoration of the right period
of Jericho, but it was, it was absolutely a miss.
But it was his great desire to find these things, and it was
the ruins of things like Jericho.
(53:01):
Yes, I meant because everybody'sfamiliar with the story of
Jericho, certainly anybody who'sread the Old Testament, which
presumably most of the people who were doing this exploration
at the time. So what was the impact of these
explorations for the average Victorian sitting in the pews
back in England did it? Very nice indeed.
(53:24):
Very nice indeed. In in depending on their engine
because you see you notice that they have going there.
You also now you can buy photographs of them.
You can also, as I say in the book too.
Even the stories are based upon them.
You know the secular stories andthen hymns so many hymns in the
(53:47):
back are actually rooted in Old Testament and New Testament
event when you tell the hymn gave me Oh no, great Jehovah,
which is the Jehovah leading theJews out of Paris, out of Egypt.
And then of course the idea of crossing the lion, crossing the
(54:11):
Jordan and all that to his son. And you might have asked him,
what was this fiery cloudy pillar and things of this?
Must have been, yes. And bringing photos back must
have been quite something because again, your book covers,
(54:32):
you know, the period where photography was becoming
portable. It was a it was a new technology
and advances were being made continuously.
And people are now able to carrya camera and a dark room and
transport it and take a photo and develop it there and then
(54:53):
and bring back photos of these places.
You've got that, yeah. So you have also theatre.
You have various things, yeah, to bring this to life.
And it just shows how deeply embedded the Victorian culture
(55:13):
as. Well, wow, absolutely
fascinating. So going back again to the the
history then of the people of modern day Israel, their story
goes back to Egypt, which is where you place a lot of the
book. What about the journey from
Egypt to ancient Israel, That journey that's told in the
(55:38):
Exodus and that period? We have the official story from
from the background. Well, they're they're being
kicked out by Pharaoh on the Great Plains and so on.
One wonders how far they had just got on the nerves of the
(55:59):
ancient Egyptians. And they were more I said go.
I mean, you do wonder whether there was a lot of reluctance to
stay there because it's just it was a much easier world is get
on the roof for somewhere for your own instead of have the
Egyptians feeding him. Because of course, I love these
(56:22):
Egypt from making them mug bricks.
And so they had to keep the Jews.
That's what I mean financially. And so let them go off and do
what they want, and you keep your own money to keep your own
bricks. So in reality, what would that
journey have been like to travelfrom Egypt to modern day Israel
(56:46):
today? What would that journey have
been like for people to make that journey?
Would it be known through shepherds?
Through travellers, merchants across the recipe?
Get into the the Holy Land basin, cross it, go over to the
(57:09):
foreign distance, the the great,the great Gulf, which is the the
basis of the Jordan, the Red Seaand let me go there.
There's a well known route. So you're saying basically
traders and merchants would havebeen travelling that route for
(57:31):
decades prior anyway so it was aknown Rd.
I think the idea is, is so modern that, you know, I think
you forget how ancient it was. And like I say, the area they're
wandering in was not really speaking about the size of South
(57:53):
Wales. Now you get the impression from
the moment that they were wandering for, oh, infinite
distances. Yeah.
No, you look at the area where the Terminator that much bigger
than South Wales and you keep walking around it.
(58:16):
Yes, it's a few days walk really, isn't it?
Yeah. And I think what's interesting
about the geography of that area, and you mentioned it as
well, it's the the Bible talks about a desert.
And yes, there are some desert areas, but it's not all desert.
Is it that? I mean, how did you keep your
(58:37):
sheep and your castle if it was all desert?
Yeah, they'll die. And you know, there is a lot of
grass out there, especially around the edges of the Sangaya
Peninsula. But especially they followed the
Sangaya Peninsula to the sea, and around there they were going
(58:58):
through areas of grass. And you know, sometimes they
would stay depressed for a long time and they didn't want to
move. Other times they would have to
be moved alone. That's the idea that they were
there in sand, no? No, it doesn't work really, does
(59:19):
it? You couldn't.
You couldn't get bread out of sand.
No, no and get this. And the local geology, because
it's a lot of limestone and thatjust to have a lot of water
trapped in the structure of the limestone and the right breaks
(59:43):
at the right places in the limestone will actually produce
assembly of water. I came across one reference in
years ago to a British squadron in that part of area and they
said Palestinian area around Sanya and a Sergeant took a
(01:00:07):
harem and bashed the side of a rock and overspurted water right
well, the children totally barren.
Loves him. Oh, that's a quite fascinating
story there, isn't it? Oh.
Yeah. To recap then, about your your
(01:00:28):
your book, Doctor Allen fascinating book.
I genuinely recommend it to to my listeners, the Victorians and
how they opened up the Holy Land.
Really interesting lots of characters in that book and to
spend a lot of time in Egypt, which is a really fascinating
place. Some of the history there and to
(01:00:48):
tell a bit of the story of the Israelites and their journey and
to manage to paint a really goodpicture certainly for me anyway,
of the how exploration slowly evolved in that area and how
interest back home and in exploring and then arrival of
the camera. It's a really, really
(01:01:11):
fascinating story. So listeners, if this kind of
thing is a tool of interest to you, genuinely I recommend this
book. I really enjoyed reading this
book. It's.
I certainly enjoyed writing it because I am a historian, but
I'm also a natural storyteller when I come from a family that's
(01:01:36):
sitting around the fireplace of a even telling tales as part of
the life. So stories to be in the blood.
Excellent. And there's so much rich
material there. They're from.
So thank you so much for writingthat.
The link in the show notes. Yes, link will be in the show
(01:01:58):
notes. Listeners, there was just one
more thing that I wanted to mention to you and it's almost
an obscure reference you make inthe book, but it intrigued me
because I spent many of my formative years growing up in
Central Africa. And you mentioned this city or
land of Punt in the book and you, you hypothesize about it
(01:02:21):
may have been a trading port or,or a, a place of trade that was
S from from Egypt, etcetera. And you mentioned the wonderful
place of the Great Zimbabwe right down in in Central Africa,
a place that I have visited and I love, love it.
I really did enjoy my visit to the Great Zimbabwe.
(01:02:43):
So it very settles the land uponwas very Zimbabwe.
Oh, that, that is now settled. Is it you you think that is the
case? Well, I mean a possibility.
Yes, because that in itself musthave been a tremendous journey
from Egypt all the way down through half of Africa down.
(01:03:04):
And one of the thing I wanted tomention about the Great Zimbabwe
is there's a hillside right nextdoor to it.
And you climb that hill and you look over what would have been
the the residences of the Great Zimbabwe and you get a real
image of how huge this civilisation must have been and
(01:03:24):
the the great activity that musthave been there.
It's fantastic. And Jerry Zuni, Matthew.
So I, I loved reading about that.
I, I never thought that I'll pick up a book about the Holy
Land and read about the Great Zimbabwe in it.
It was wonderful. So thank you from me for for
that little treasure because it was great for me to to do that.
(01:03:50):
Thanks for pressing the right buttons to make these
recordings. Computer Dinosaur.
We, we all, we, we all, we can'tall be great at everything.
So oh. Yeah.
So what's left for me is there'sthere's one question that I like
(01:04:12):
to ask my guests before I say goodbye to them, and that is, do
they have a favorite Bible character and who is it?
Yeah, obviously. Jesus.
It's Jesus. Yes, go into the Old Testament.
Well, there's a lot of Jamie, Lisa.
(01:04:35):
There's a There's a lot of greatcharacters in the Old Testament.
Aren't they? Thank you so much for your time,
Doctor Allen. Thank you again.
Thank you again for the book. Genuinely enjoyed your book.
Genuinely recommend it to my listeners.
And until next time, everybody be reasonable.
(01:04:56):
Thank. You.
Thank you so much Cortana. I really enjoyed the chat.
Thank you for your time again. You have been listening to a
podcast from Reason Press. Do you have any thoughts on what
you've just heard? Do you have a topic that you
(01:05:17):
would like us to cover? Please send all feedback to
reasonpress@gmail.com. You might even appear on an
episode. Our theme music was written for
us by Holly. To hear more of her music, see
the links in our show notes.
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