Hey Prime members, you can listen to Tides of History, add free on Amazon Music.

Download the app today. The cart's wheels clattered over the pitted ground of the street.

Every few strides, the bullock drawing the vehicle stepped on a fallen mud brick, and the cart jolted and tipped as the wheel slammed into the obstacle.

But for the sound of the cart grinding its way through the narrow lane, shadowed by the buildings on either side, the ruins of the city were silent.

The occasional coups of pigeons and the rush of the wind through open doorways and empty streets

offered an undertone of noise but no people.

No footsteps or chatter or grinding or labor broke the stillness.

It hadn't always been this way.

The man driving the cart was old, his beard completely white, his

torso stooped forward. He had grandchildren now who were fully grown. The old man remembered

those earlier times when the streets had been full of people going about their business

Ox carts jostling to get around one another in the straight but confusing lanes

water carriers holding jars full of liquid drawn from the mini wells

Builders caked with dirt from making thousands upon thousands of mud bricks

Potters with their hands stained from the clay

He recalled the mass gatherings when everybody in the city came together,

leaving their rectangular houses with their open courtyards at the middle,

passing through the narrow alleys,

and entering the massive public spaces at the city's heart.

But those days were long gone. He barely remembered them from his childhood.

The memories were fading and he was one of the last who had even those faded recollections

to recall what this place had once been.

...