Two Murders at the Dawn of History (Lost Worlds Audiobook Preview)

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Patrick's new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World, launches May 5th, 2026! Check out this audiobook preview chapter on two murders around 5,300 years ago, hear about everything we can learn from Otzi the Iceman in the Alps and Gebelein Man in Egypt, and be sure to preorder the book in your medium of choice through the link here: https://bit.ly/PWLostWorlds.

Patrick launched a brand-new history show on December 3rd! It’s called Past Lives, and every episode explores the life of a real person who lived in the past. Subscribe now: https://bit.ly/PWPLA

And don't forget, you can still Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWverge.

Listen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now.
0:04.6	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:13.8	Hi, everybody. From Wondery, welcome to another episode of Tides of History. I'm Patrick Wyman. Thanks so much for joining me. We've got something really exciting here today. As many of you know, I've been working on a book for the past four years that covers prehistory. It's called Lost Worlds, How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeed, and Built Our World.
0:39.0	And it comes out May 5th, 2026 from Harper Collins.
0:43.2	You can pre-order it now on your platform a choice.
0:45.5	And if you prefer to listen rather than read, which I'm guessing you might, considering this is a podcast, rest assured that I am reading the audiobook.
0:57.2	On that note, today's episode is a preview of the audiobook. I'll be doing the entire recording between now and May, but I wanted
1:02.6	to do one chapter beforehand so that you all could hear it here on the Tides Feet. The chapter I
1:07.9	chose is entitled Two Murders at the Dawn of History, and it's one of my favorites in the book.
1:13.2	I talk about Utti the Iceman and Gebeline Man, two mummies dating back to the late 4th millennium BC, who were almost contemporaries.
1:21.3	Both died violent deaths, and the bodies of both men were mummified through natural processes,
1:26.5	Gebeline Man in the Egyptian Desert, and Erzzi in an alpine glacier.
1:31.6	So what does the 4th millennium BC, a time so distant from us, it's almost unrecognizable,
1:37.8	look like when we have the physical remains of two people who were actually there?
1:42.4	What can we learn when we treat those remains as a source
1:45.6	to be read, containing information about everything from diet to the effects of weaponry on a
1:50.0	human body? That lost world, so long gone, snaps into sharp, colorful focus for us to see.
1:58.2	I am really proud of lost worlds. It's the best thing I've ever written and
2:02.7	a labor of love about a topic I really truly care about, prehistory and the deep past of
2:08.0	humanity. If you enjoyed the prehistory season of tides, which it seems like a lot of people
2:12.5	did, I think you'll really like this book as well. So take a listen now, and if it appeals to you,
2:18.1	follow the link in the description to pre-order the book from your retailer of choice.
	...

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