Ancient Greek pottery

Ancient Greece

Charlton Hetson races a chariot in Ben-Hur

Wacky races: 10 weird and wonderful contests through history

Women in ancient Athens

Love, magic and murder: the strange death of Philoneos in 430BC

A brief history of marathons

The food served at the wedding of Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell may be inspired by accounts of ancient Roman excess, says Ayelet Haimson Lushkov. (© Home Box Office, Inc/Sky Atlantic)

Power plays and scheming queens: the ancient history behind Game of Thrones

The ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus, which boasts superb acoustics and aesthetics. (Photo by Alamy)

My favourite place: the Peloponnese, Greece

Thessaloniki's Rotunda of Galerius, Greece, built in the fourth-century by Roman occupiers

ExploreThessaloniki, Greece: Greece's cultural melting pot

Beard presents an episode of the BBC's 2018 headline arts series, 'Civilisations'. (Image credit: BBC/Nutopia)

Mary Beard: “I couldn’t give a toss what Roman emperor Donald Trump was most like” plus 3 other things we learned about her

Mary Beard on the HistoryExtra podcast

Mary Beard’s life in Classics

Composite image of famous women: Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame CJ Walker, Jane Austen, Emmeline Pankhurst, Ethel Smyth, the Virgin Mary, Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Diana, Princess of Wales, Amelia Earhart.

100 women who changed the world

The history of birthday presents dates back to the Roman period. (Photo by Lambert/Fototrove/Getty Images Plus)

Q&AWhen did people start giving birthday presents?

Crowds of women from ancient Greece gather round a man holding a vase

Q&AWhat was life like for Spartan women?

The history of today

The Sultanahmet district in Istanbul, Turkey, which is classified as World Heritage by UNESCO. (Photo by DOZIER Marc via Getty Images)

A new civilisation rises

An engraving from Ulrich Molitor’s ‘On witches and female soothsayers’, depicting witches bringing down the rain. Germany, 15th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

A spell-binding history of witches

Schama on 'Civilisations'

In ‘Venus Uncovered’ on BBC Four, Wednesday 15 November at 9pm, Bettany Hughes investigates the mythological figure of Venus. (© Sandstone Global/Image by Tim Knight)

Bettany Hughes on the symbol of Venus

The ‘Father of History’ and India in the British empire

A history of Istanbul

Bettany Hughes on the history of Istanbul

Acropolis Museum Athens, combines modern and ancient

ExploreAthens: a city of ancient sites and modern visions

Yangguan Museum and a statue of Zhang Qian. (Getty Images)

Global encounters of the ancient kind

The Cold War and the history of philosophy

Jacobites and the Ancient World

Bust of Homer c850 BC. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“We are all Trojans...”: Homer’s poetic legacy

A combo picture of two images taken 13 August 2002 at Cairo Museum shows a foot of a mummy missing its big toe and beside it a prosthetic toe of leather and wood to replace the amputated real one. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&AHow long have people used prosthetic limbs?

Democracy and an age of genius

A global view of history

7 phases of the history of Artificial intelligence

A section of the Seikilos epitaph, the oldest surviving complete musical composition in the world

Q&AWhat is the oldest-known song?

An undated portrait of Hypatia

My history hero: Hypatia (cAD 370–415)