S8 Ep762: Professor Eric Cline recounts the 1886 discovery of the Amarna tablets, describing how Archibald Henry Sayce initially witnessed the excavation of ancient foundations that would later reveal a massive archive of Bronze Age diplomatic records. (9)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
1947 B-17f assembly
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Indeed presents. |
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| 0:29.9 | Today. I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Professor Eric Klein, the author of a new book that is a revelation, like a time machine, |
| 0:54.2 | 3,400 years ago. |
| 0:56.4 | Love, war, and diplomacy, |
| 0:58.3 | the discovery of the Amarna letters |
| 1:00.2 | and the Bronze Age world they revealed, |
| 1:02.4 | Eric Klein as the author. |
| 1:04.3 | The professor and I have spoken before |
| 1:06.1 | of his revelations for the year 1177 BCE |
| 1:10.3 | and the years after 1177 BCE when it is understood, |
| 1:17.4 | the globalization of the Eastern Mediterranean fell apart all of a sudden. |
| 1:22.2 | The competing empires no longer corresponded, trade stopped, and there was a reawakening of savagery. However, we're |
| 1:30.8 | before that. This is the 13th century BC, and from the 15th to the 12th is the pinnacle of the |
| 1:42.0 | globalization. The great powers are Egypt and the Hittites. Egypt, |
| 1:48.4 | we know, is on the banks of the Nile. The Hittites are Central Anatolia, what we call Turkey |
| 1:54.6 | today. We begin, however, in the year 1886, a distinguished professor, Archibald Henry Seiss, Oxford University, |
| 2:05.8 | an Egyptologist, and about to become an Assyriologist, is coming back down the Nile, headed |
| 2:12.7 | back to Britain, we can understand for the new term. And he hears that there's a dig turning up unusual |
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