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

Download the app today.

The man's bare feet sank into the deep dark mud at the edge of the river.

He dragged his boat through the reeds, the craft made from the same reeds that lined the banks of the Nile up onto the shore.

His chest was uncovered under the Egyptian sun, the kil't around his waist dampened by the water,

blessedly cool on this baking day.

His feet slapped on the dry, hot ground as he walked where the village, his hands full of the two large, heavy catfish he'd manage to catch.

They would be a nice addition to tonight's meal, he thought, their usual farmer's combination of bread, porridge, and beer.

The man didn't envy the workers, frying in the midday heat, as they used levers to dismantle the walls of the old stone building near the village.

The slabs were perfectly cut limestone, aged in weathered but still solid.

Some of them covered in the paintings and symbols that the priests and administrators said pulled the stories of gods and kings.

He was just a farmer and occasional fisherman, but he had always liked the pictures, even if the paint was flaking,

the carved symbols were roting away into nothingness, blasted by the unceasing wind and grit of the Nile Valley.

The farmer wondered what that building had been.

A temple belonging to Amumu, or Osiris, a palace belonging to a long dead king, or the top of some powerful officials too?

He would never know, and he doubted that anybody involved in the disassembly could make out the inscriptions and tell them.

There were many other buildings scattered nearby, some of the more less intact, but for their rotted roofs, the colors of the paintings still blazing brightly,

others worn down to the foundations by time, or the necessities of reuse.

One of the workers had told him a few days past that these old stones were being taken away to a new site nearby.

The king was building a temple, he had said.

The farmer nodded, wanting to appear knowledgeable, but he had no idea what king the worker was referring to.

It didn't much matter to him, and truth, so long as the taxes weren't too onerous, he wasn't being asked to shoulder a sphere,

...