Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast, interview episode on rulership and ruler

cults in Ptolemaic Egypt with Henry Bowen.

Hi everyone.

Today I have with me Henry Bohin, a PhD student at University of Wales, Trinity St. David.

Henry is an Egyptologist, primarily focusing on the reign of Ptolemy II, Philadelphia, and the development of the Ptolemaic ruler cult from the perspective of native Egyptian history, traditions, and customs.

He also is the student of a friend and previous guest of the show, Dr. Kyle Erickson, who joined

us earlier this year to discuss the Seleucan Empire. So let me say thank you for reaching out,

and coming on to the show to talk about your work.

That's no problem. Thank you for having me on.

So, Henry, normally I have ancient historians and classes as joining me on my show,

but you're the first Egyptologists I've been able to speak with.

Egyptology can cover a pretty large span of time, to put it mildly.

So could you tell us a bit about your career and how you came to study Egyptian history and the Ptolemy's in particular?

Sure. I think my interest in ancient Egypt kind of happened when I was like very, very young, probably the age of like three or four.

I don't really remember like a time when

I wasn't interested in it. And like I have very vivid memories of the sort of kind of death

mask of Tutsun Kharmun and of the pyramids and a lot of kind of little children's books on ancient

Egypt. So I was fascinated with it from a very, very young age. And then as I got older and I like

read into it more, I just knew that

the only thing for me was being an Egyptologist. That was the only career I ever really wanted to

have. So I always knew from like sort of the like school age that I would go to uni and I would

study Egyptology, basically. So my kind of first interest in the Ptolemy is probably when I was

...