Ai Khanum: A Greek City in Afghanistan?

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A theatre, a gymnasium and houses with colonnaded courtyards: these are the hallmarks of an Ancient Greek city. So what are they doing in the city of Ai Khanum, far east of their origins in present day Afghanistan? In this first part of Tristan’s chat with Milinda Hoo, she takes us through the structures found in this ancient city, and what they tell us about the infrastructure and origins of Ai Khanum. Milinda is a global and ancient historian at the University of Freiberg, specialized in globalization and Hellenism across Central and West Asia.

Listen out for part two, where Milinda challenges whether this can really be seen as a Greek city.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's the ancient, on history hit.
0:05.8	I'm Tristan Hughes, your host.
0:08.1	And in today's podcast where we are going back to Central Asia, we're going back to
0:12.4	Afghanistan to ancient eastern Bacteria to talk all about assessments that in my opinion
0:18.5	sits among the most remarkable assessments from anywhere in the ancient world.
0:23.6	Up there with the likes of Nan Madole, Pompeii, Tikal and others.
0:28.7	This is the ancient city of Ihanum or Ihanum.
0:34.0	The city reached its heights during the Hellenistic period when the Greco-Bacterian Kingdom ruled
0:39.1	over this part of Central Asia.
0:41.4	Now, to talk through what we know about Ihanum, looking at its history, the archaeology that
0:46.4	has been done at the site, as well as looking at Ihanum through the lens of globalization
0:52.3	in the ancient world.
0:53.4	And whether we can label this settlement a Greek city in Afghanistan, I was delighted to
0:59.8	be joined by Melinda Hu from the University of Freiburg.
1:04.9	Now Melinda and I were chatting for well over an hour, so we're going to divide this episode
1:09.4	into two, and the second part will be released in due course.
1:13.7	But without further ado, here's Melinda.
1:17.4	Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
1:26.4	Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
1:28.4	You are very welcome indeed.
1:30.0	I have been racing a long time through podcasting this topic.
1:32.8	I am super, super, super excited.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.