Award-winning historian Bettany Hughes talks about how Ancient Egypt's innovations in medicine, mathematics, engineering and governance shaped the modern world.
Bettany Hughes is coming to the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Monday 2 November, for a talk on Ancient Egypt. If you've ever had a passing interest in the pharaohs, this is one of those nights that takes it from the textbooks and puts it in front of you.
Hughes is an award-winning historian who's spent more than 25 years turning ancient history into storytelling. She's made over 50 documentaries seen by 250 million viewers worldwide, and written bestsellers like The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and Venus & Aphrodite. Stephen Fry once called her "the most perfect tour guide I know", and that's a fair way to think about this: she's the one leading the way through a world that can feel pretty distant.
The talk itself looks at how Ancient Egypt's innovations in medicine, mathematics, engineering and governance laid the foundations of the modern world. It's not just a list of dates and dynasties; she also looks at how Egyptian ideas of the afterlife, justice and leadership still shape us today. So, rather than just looking back at a dead civilisation, the evening is as much about the things we've carried forward as it is about the things we've left behind.
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It starts at 19:30 at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, 2 Wheeler Street, CB2 3QB. Tickets are £30 to £43, which includes the booking fee. The show is recommended for ages 12 and over, and latecomers may not be admitted, so it's worth getting there a bit early.
