The Battle of the Tollense Valley

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More than 3,000 years ago, two armies met in a titanic Bronze Age battle along a river in northern Germany. We don’t know why they fought or who won, but thanks to stunning archaeological discoveries, we know how they died, where they come from, and what their lives were like.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to Tides of History, add free on Amazon Music.
0:04.2	Download the app today.
0:05.6	The band of men struggled through the way Steve wore, soaked to the bone and freezing cold.
0:22.8	Their chests heaved, sucking in break breaths of air, their nerves on fire with exhaustion,
0:27.3	pain and above all fear.
0:29.8	Arrows whizzed through the air and raised spouts as they struck the waters, slicing through
0:33.8	the stands of reeds choking the riverbank, slamming into tree trunks with a hefty thud.
0:39.2	Every once in a while an arrow struck home and a howl of pain rose above the chorus
0:43.4	of splashes and shouts.
0:47.3	Two men on horseback pointed their drawn bronze sores to the far edge encouraging their
0:51.2	warriors on one.
0:53.0	They could see the archers on the sloping bank above them knocking and drawing and losing
0:56.7	their strings, filling the air with the promise of death.
1:00.5	But if the band could struggle just a bit further, camber up the bank and reach them, they
1:04.7	might yet survive.
1:07.5	Climbing up onto an island in the river, the edge of the water hidden by a stand of reeds,
1:11.6	they thought they were safe.
1:13.2	But the enemy was waiting for the war band on the dry ground.
1:16.3	Dozens of them, gristling with spears, axes, swords and clubs.
1:21.4	The two groups, hundreds of men and all, came together in a solid mass, dozens of individual
1:26.4	collisions combining into a single sickening crush.
1:30.6	A bronze spearhead stabbed upward and took one of the horses in the chest.
	...

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