You're Dead to Me - Alexandria Radio Edit

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Greg Jenner is joined in Egypt by historian Professor Islam Issa and comedian Athena Kugblenu to learn all about the history of science and philosophy in the city of Alexandria.Founded by ancient conqueror Alexander the Great, Alexandria from its earliest days was a city at the forefront of scientific discoveries, philosophical enquiry and religious debate. At its height, the city’s famous library housed nearly one million texts, and attracted thinkers like Hypatia of Alexandria, Euclid and Heron (who invented the steam engine). This episode tells the story of this incredible site of knowledge and culture, taking in its epic founding, the rise of Christianity and its impact on the city, its fate during the Crusades, the coming of Napoleon, and its role in the rise of the Arab nationalism movement.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Emma Bentley Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are packing our travel guides and venturing back over 2,000 years as we trick all the way to Egypt to trace the cultural and intellectual history of the city of Alexandria. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two very special guests in History Corner. He's a multi-award-winning author, broadcaster, curator and academic. He's a professor of literature and history at Birmingham City University. and an expert in the cultural history of the Middle East. He's also the author of the award-winning book, Alexandria,

the city that changed the world. It's a brilliant book. I highly recommend it. It's Professor Islam Issa. Welcome, Islam. Thank you. I'm excited. And a little confused why we're not doing this recording in Alexandria.

The budget didn't quite stretch. Sorry, Athena. All the money was spent on me. That's what the problem is. And in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, writer and podcaster. You may have heard her on numerous radio four shows or on her podcasts. bust or trust, a kids' mystery podcast and keeping Athena company. She's even written a funny history book for kids, history's most epic fibs.

But you'll know her best from past appearances on this very podcast. It's Athena Kibblernu. Welcome back, Athena. Thanks for having me back. Delighted to have you back. We've had you on many times because you're very good at this. Plus, you also write history books for kids. I do, yes. Do you know much about the history of Alexandria? I know very much like Stevenage is named after Stephen.

Alexandria might be named after someone called Alexander. Yeah? That's a good start. Yeah. Is that right? Halfway there. Yeah. And I know it had a library that burnt down loads.

It did. Yeah. So, what do you know? This is where I have it go at guessing what you are. Lovely listener will know about today's subject. And I think, like Athena, you will have heard of the city of Alexandria. I think you will have heard of the library. And the famous fire that burned it down,

Alexandria pops up quite a lot in pop culture. It is in the Liz Taylor iconic movie, Cleopatra, of course. The famed Egyptian director Yusuf Shaheen set many of his films in the city, including Alexandria. Why? Clues in the name. And if gaming is more your thing, you may have roamed the streets of Ptolemaic Alexandria in Assassin's Creed origins. But how did a small fishing village become one of the greatest intellectual hubs of the world? And how exactly do you smuggle a dead saint out of a city?

Let's find out. Right, Professor Islam. Let's start with the basics, please. Where is Alexandria? I know it's in Egypt, but like, you know, where? What time period are we starting on? I know we're doing like a big old history. Why is Alexandria important?

Three big questions for you to start the show. So it's on the Mediterranean, on the Nile Delta. So that's where the Nile River spreads into the Mediterranean. So it's sort of south of Greece, but it's also in Africa, and the north-east of Africa. in terms of time period, how long do we have? Radiocarbon dating of the seashells there tells us that there was a settlement

as early as the 27th century BC. So we're talking like 2,600 BC. It's originally a series of small fishing villages and then Alexandria itself, the city, is founded in 331 BC. It's founded by Alexander the Great. Fourth century BC it's founded and it quickly develops into the capital

of Egypt, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty Ptolemy the first is Alexander's friend in general and the Ptolemy's go all the way to the famous Cleopatra, Cleopatra the Seventh. It becomes a global knowledge capital and the trade capital and it lives on today. You know, by 1950 it's still got a million people in it

and today it has about six million people in it. So it's... Wow, I'm actually amazed at the site. That's like London's like, 8 million, right? So Alexander supposedly visualises the city in front of him, right? And he plants it out with seeds? Yeah, so he's already read about it in Homer.

You know, it's inspired him to go and he arrives. And he realizes that the location is great because it's at the intersection of three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. And obviously his main goal is world domination. So he thinks this will be a great place to build and carry on with his It's like a place in the sun, but for like megalomaniacs. Isn't that a great view of places you can invade? It's like, yeah, great, I'll take it.

So he gets down on his knees, according to legend, and he puts with grain on the sand a map of the city as he imagines it. Yeah. It has, you know, the markets and the temples and the shrine to the muses, which will become the library. It's probably also worth mentioning, though, that when he arrives there, There's already a canal system, for example, that the ancient Egyptians had built that will make transporting the grain easier. There's access to the Nile that will make him have irrigation systems, sewage systems, and so on.

And then he leaves it to the most famous architect of the time, denocrates, to build the city. After he designs the city, he leaves straight away to Sia further south in Egypt, because there's an oracle there where he wants to find out if he's divine. and true enough he finds out that he is divine. What are the chances? Yeah, you're divine Alex, yeah. Now please let me live. And actually for that reason, he never sees a building go up in Alexandria.

He never returns. And the interesting story actually is, you know, you mentioned the Ptolemaic dynasty Islam, which obviously gives us Cleopatra much, much later on. But it's the first Ptolemy, a man called Ptolemy who founds the dynasty, who kind of puts Alexandria on the map in terms of its power and status. He then uses Alexander's death to put him.

himself on the map too. Do you want to know how? Oh, does he write a book? He sings a song like, like Candle in the Wind. Is that not it, great? I mean, that's a lovely idea. You've lived your life like a candle in the wind,

never failing to conquer Egypt and India. No, he literally stole Alexander's body. Oh, okay. And just stuck on his wall like a big antelope. A lion. Not quite. Islam. It's a heist, right?

He takes an army, he intercepts the funeral cortege, which is moving from Syria to... It's around Babylon. Right, okay. And it's heading towards sort of Macedon, you know, where Alexander is originally from. Alexander's request, apparently, was to be buried in Siwa, which is the oracle where he found out he was divine. So he claims, Ptolemy that he's taking him, you know, to Egypt, because that's where Alexander would want. to go. But he realizes actually, if I go to Alexandria, then I can really legitimize it as a capital and as Alexander's city. And so he takes the corpse to Alexandria and builds an amazing

mausoleum there that actually became like a site of pilgrimage for Roman emperors, but is now lost. Ptolemy puts Alexander on the map. He's taken the corpse of Alexander to legitimate himself. And what does he do for the city of Alexandria? What is the city become under Ptolemy the first? He tries to develop like a very unique identity for the city that's Greek-o-Egyptian. He also continues to invite people from all around the region. So we have people coming from like the Holy Land. There's a lot of Jews who come to Alexandria and have freedom of worship in the Jewish quarter. There's people from the Levant.

There's even evidence of people from as far as India in the Ptolemaic days coming to Alexandria. So there's jobs and there's freedom of worship, the idea is that they can live in relative tolerance. He also commissions important monuments. We've mentioned Alexander's tomb, there's big temples, public gardens. It becomes a very popular city. It's thought by some to be the first city that reaches a million people. But that sounds incredible, right? Isn't that the model of the kind of cities you'd like to live in now?

Yeah. It's a 15-minute city. Alexandria is now in its sort of Ptolemaic era. We get these new building projects, as well as the Garden of Elusis. We also get the Ferros Lighthouse, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. Yes, and I know this because I used to play civilization. Yeah, there we go. Another classic game for our elder millennial listeners.

And that was a big landmark when you built the lighthouse. Yeah, I used to get a little graphic come up with the lighthouse. Exactly, a little fanfare. Do you? Yeah. I mean, the Ferros Lighthouse is one of the seven wonders of the world. So it's incredibly important in the ancient world and it's still, I mean, archaeologists were digging and diving down there like last month, I think.

Amazing, isn't it? It is. The remains are still there. And that was on the Feros Island. So when Alexander arrived, he connected the fishing village. with Ferros Island, with a causeway, and that's where the lighthouse was built, and the lighthouse's remains are there, and now there's a citadel there in modern Alexander. That's very handy.

And, of course, also at the same time, they build the famous library, the one you mentioned on the way in Athena. How many texts do you think were held in that library? Oh, goodness. Okay, it's going to be silly. 10,000. I mean, that's a lot of books, right? Well, they had, wouldn't they be like scrolls? They would be scrolls. I think 20,000. Oh, you've gone bigger.

Yeah, go on. Hit me. We don't really know, for sure. All right. We can ruin the tension. Well, let me say this. When Ptolemy hired Demetrius to found the library, he said to him to find every book in the world, I'm quoting, from a letter that's been found.

The job description was every book in the world. There's too many. The estimate to sort of from 500,000 to a million. So basically the internet. Yeah. Over a million. Yeah. There are letters from Ptolemy to the librarian saying,

have you got all the books yet? He's checking, he's checking in. Okay, and we get incredible scholars coming to the city, don't we? I mean, maths fans will know Euclid of geometry fame. Who else is showing up and applying their intellectual trade? Aristotanese, we said that the world's not flat. Aristarchus said that the earth goes around the sun, which was a very odd thing to say at the time.

They developed fields like alchemy. Someone called Maria the Jewess was somebody who developed alchemy and her main aim was basically turning anything into gold and living forever. Two good aims. There was Heron or hero of Alexandria who invented all sorts of things like the first steam engine, also the first vending machine. Oh, what a king. Usually for holy water.

And there was a school of medicine which allowed women in. which wasn't the case in Athens, where it was only man. Different types of poetry were invented. And we also get Ptolemy the Fourth, so, you know, once you've got, Tonomy One, you get two, three and four. He built a shrine to Homer, the great poet who gave us the Odyssey. Well, he may not have existed, but, you know, the idea of him.

What? I think you're part of that. He may not be a real guy, but that's a different episode, Athena. But there are also scammers, right? There were people showing up pretending to be great intellectuals or pretending to have been taught by great intellectuals. That's right. Certainly, yeah, the library, all sorts of issues arose because, you know, getting every book in the world is not very selective. And it's borderline obsessive.

Yeah. Anyone who could write would write anything because they were guaranteed to sell it. And then even better if you could scam the librarians. There's no policy control. No. Is this what you're saying? Eventually there was. Okay.

You could then scam the librarians by pretending you heard someone famous speak and that you're writing their speeches, for example. Oh. So it's like the kind of AI slop on Amazon, where it's just like sort of dodgy knockoffs of famous books. Exactly. So the city was flourishing intellectually. And then obviously, as is the case with all libraries, was it all devastated by budget cuts?

Because that's what seems to be happening to modern libraries. It's not far off. I mean, a library is a good way of understanding the priorities of government and under later Ptolemy. So basically the Ptolemy's were all called Ptolemy or Cleopatra, pretty much. So by the time you get to Ptolemy, the eighth, Ptolemy the ninth, they'd evicted some scholars, they'd given the job of librarian to their allies, for example, to an army general rather than a scholar.

And then, of course, you have the fire in the first century BC when Julius Caesar was at war with Cleopatra's brother, and actually he writes about the fire. Yeah. His autobiographies in like the third person, Caesar did this and Caesar set a fire in Alexandria. So he confessed to it? Yeah, he thinks it was a great idea, but he set some ships on fire and it kind of spread into the city. It didn't completely destroy the library, actually. Yeah, one of the wings goes, it's kind of a partial, but there is also a book burning by the next Roman, or the first Roman Empire, Octavian, who becomes Augustus, and he orders the burning of books.

That's right, and more of those occasions actually, Caracula in the third century, he thinks that Alexander was assassinated by Ariracola. Aristotle, who is his teacher, so he burns all the Aristotelian books. So this is something that would have happened hundreds of years ago, but he's like, time to get my vengeance. Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, Caracalla's in the third century, so he's, what, 500 years, 600 years? He thinks he's the new Alexander. Oh, okay. And then, you know, Aurelian burns the royal quarter, which has the library in it.

You know, we've got the rise of Christianity that had some book burning. In the fifth century, we have a Roman historical. and Chorosius, who talks about empty shelves. So we know it's still there in the 5th century, but there's a slow decline. That's a shame. I mean, you mentioned the rise of Christianity. So the city had already been multi-ethnic, multicultural. You talked about Jews coming and living there beforehand.

But the rise of Christianity is a really interesting and important story in the city's history. Can you tell us more? Yes, it's largely based on the fact that St. Mark, the evangelist, brought Christianity to Africa through Alexandria, that he arrived. arrived in Alexandria and founded the church there and would end up being murdered there as well. Alexandria was a kind of open-minded place traditionally. You know, the Greeks of Alexandria was seen as very liberal compared to the Greeks of Athens. The Jews of Alexandria, there's a quote about them that they're more interested in the theater than the synagogue.

They were different to the Jews of Jerusalem. So it made sense for this new faith to gravitate towards Alexandria. and be influenced by all these other faiths as well that were already there. So what was they into them? Because if you've got like Jewish people into the theatre, what was their thing? Debate, I think. Yeah. Sorry, Athena.

Bring back to theatre, guys. So obviously we talked about pagans. We've talked about polytheistic people. We've talked about Jews and Christians. And now we need to talk about the arrival of the Arab caliphate. That's in the 7th century, is it? Yeah, so that ends seven centuries of Roe. Roman rule. The Arabs are led by somebody called Ahmad bin alas, who is a commander who knew the Prophet Muhammad, and he turns Egypt into part of the caliphate. What that does for Alexandria is that about a millennium after it's founded, it's no longer the capital of Egypt. So they move the capital because Alexandria for the Arabs is too diverse. They don't know how to deal with all these different groups.

And also they don't have a navy. They're deserts people. Yeah. So it's a hard place to defend. And so they move the capital. To Cairo? To what is now Old Cairo. Oh, Cairo.

Okay, thank you. Yeah. The initial idea is there's still freedom of worship. There's still freedom of expression. But as far as buildings are concerned, you know, we do see temples become churches and churches become mosques. And even today, there are mosques that have gone through that journey. Okay.

We start to get what's called the Islamic God. golden age, the Abbasid dynasty bring that about in Baghdad. Does it spread out to Alexandria? To some extent, because of the texts and ideas that have come out of it, so even though Baghdad has become the kind of knowledge capital of the Arabs, they're still looking at texts that existed in Alexandria. So Alexandria was sort of coming back to its best. We have to do, I mean, we must mention another famous heist. So we've had one heist where they stole Alexander's body. Now we get another one, Venetian travellers stole the body of St. Mark out of Alexandria. How do you think they pulled this off? Oh, how did you steal a body? Well, what you'd do is you'd go to a fancy

dress shop and you'd kind of like, you'd get a costume for it and then you'd be like, oh, don't mind my mate, he's had too much. You know, you know when people have too much of drink and they pass that and they're just dead weight. And so, and the costume would be, or they could be like the back end of a camel. And you're the front end. Or they're the front end. Pantomime horse. Yeah, basically. So costume is now. Costume.

Pacti dress. I quite like that. That's fun. Islam, is that how they pulled it off? Is it? It's probably as eccentric or more eccentric, isn't it? They covered it in pork. And then swapped it with the body of another saint.

So they just sort of hid it under a massive ham? Yeah, in a basket. In a basket. I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we were pitching an idea and someone said,

great idea about how about pork? I'd be like, yeah, do the pork one. Yeah. I'm really humble like that. That's a better idea. Okay. Then we get the Fatimid dynasty, but then the 14th century brings some disasters.

Athena, do you know what happens in the 1340s? Black Death. Yeah. Yeah. But it reached all the way to Alexandria. Yeah. Because of the harbour. Of course.

Good stuff and bad stuff. Some real tough times happening in the 1300s, the 14th century. And then you get the city under new management again. This time is the Ottoman Turks Islam. And this is where the city does actually decline. Yeah, so the Ottomans capture Egypt in 1517. Okay. And that's probably the least exciting part of Alexandria's history.

It does dwindle. We know the population during the later Ottoman time, so 18th centuries, it's about 3rd. But there is, of course, a famously big guy. Well, he's famously not big, of course, but he shows up in the late 1700s. He's a Corsican. He's a Frenchman. Napoleon! Napoleon! He arrives in Alexandria because he's a big fanboy of Alexander Gray. And his trip to Egypt is famously violent. He goes around attacking armies and whatnot. But he also brings scholars, his famous savants, his artist, his archaeologist, right? He arrives at Feros, you know, where Alexander was, because he was. He

wants to emulate him. He does this wonderful speech to his soldiers about how they have to respect the locals and respect the faith of the locals, as Alexander did. And then he literally blows up the synagogue, which, by the way, has recently been renovated and very beautifully. He kills 700 locals as he enters the city. They are serious about Egyptian archaeology. They draw a lot of really nice pictures of Egypt at the time.

But they also take. or help themselves to lots of stuff from Egypt as well. And I don't mean like little things. I mean things like obelisks. Yeah. And of course the British are there too. I mean, famously, you know, the Battle of the Nile. You've got Lord Nelson fighting against Napoleon.

The British presence in Alexandria did not last that long. In 1817, they signed an agreement to leave Egypt. And in comes a guy called Muhammad Ali. Not that one. Not that one. That'd have been amazing, but not that one. He's ruling with Ottoman support. And the city becomes interesting and culturally again.

In 1897, the Lumiere brothers shot a film there in the city. So it's, you know, the Egyptian cinema industry is famous, like they're of great filmmakers. But it starts so early 1897. So we get something called the Nada, the Arab Enlightenment. Have I mispronounced that? Nathda, yeah. Nahad. Thank you.

Yeah. So, as you said, the Lumier brothers go to Alexandria. Everyone's excited. You know, we have E.M. Forster, among others, who writes a history of the city. We have the Egyptian cultural renaissance as well, because don't forget that Europeans are there and, you know, we said Egyptology, European Egyptology has begun. Well, you know, there's lots of stuff being plundered, reports of, you know, tomb findings being used as decor for homes.

Yeah. And they use mummy cases for cooking fuel and things like that. So Egyptians want to have some autonomy. And one way of doing that is through this, what's called this kind of Arab cultural awakening, the Nathar, which is a way of sort of creating cultural autonomy. as a way of countering the European influence at the time. Does it work? Arguably it does, because of course Britain had ruled Egypt from 1882

until the revolution of 1919. And then in 1922 there is an independence granted, a partial independence granted, but certainly it's an important date, isn't it, in Egyptian history? Absolutely, yeah. It works in the sense that people realize they have an autonomous identity, that their culture is capable of creating amazing things, just like English and French culture,

and also simply the subject matter of the things being written was calling for people to realise their independence. So, you know, to give an example, you have an operetta called Cleopatra and Anthony, where Cleopatra is the hero, and it's played by, you know, Alexandrian artists and actors, that kind of use of Egyptian instruments, all of these things that suggest autonomy and independence.

Yeah, of course. So they did Alexandra and Cleopatra, the musical before Tina the musical before Back to the Future they were like on it that's very in head of their time by the mid-20th century

so the 40s 50s 60s Alexandria is the home of anti-monarchical revolution and radicalism as well isn't it? It's a city of politics yeah and it's interesting because the king was often residing in Alexandria in the palace there and then when he's

kicked out of Egypt he's kicked out from Alexandria This is King Farouk, exactly. So he's replaced in 1952 by Nassar, the Prime Minister, who sort of becomes a president figure, doesn't he? He does. I mean, NASA doesn't become the first president. He's sort of the deputy to Nageep who becomes the first president,

but Nassar becomes the famous president from a few months later. It's a time of rising Arab nationalism. Okay, so there is a sort of sense of the city becoming an Arab cultural center. And today, Alexandria is a beautiful city and is still linked back to its history. I mean, it's extraordinary story, Athena, isn't it? It's sort of weird how it kind of goes around in circles as well. Like, it's kind of like multiculturalism, liberalism, and then something else, and then back to that, and then back to that, and back to that.

So it's a city that's always fighting to be a certain place. Time now for the nuance window. This is where Athena and I sit in the quiet section of the library for two minutes, while Professor Islam tells us something we need to know about Alexandria. So take it away, Professor Issa. I want to say something obvious. that there's much to gain when Egypt is studied by an Egyptian, or in this case, an Alexandrian.

Like me, Alexandrians today are the 100th generation to carry that name. Even as a child darting across the promenade, Cleopatra embossed pocket money clinking in my pocket, I felt the city's magnitude, its history in the air. To capture this tapestry, scholarship alone isn't enough. I discovered and translated 9th century Islamic poetry about Alexander and 11th century letters from Alexandria and Jews. I took in folk tales and oral histories.

I drank tea with family elders and friendly strangers. I chatted with librarians and eccentric vagabonds. Coffee reached Alexandria before Italy and a century before England, so cafes fittingly became central to my experience. In one, the barista wrote my name on the car. up in beautiful Arabic and I almost wept, overwhelmed by its sheer normality. In another

I paused at a portrait of Alexander blowing a big pink bubble. In cafes I heard a dozen theories about his tomb's location. It confirmed, impossible to a non-native speaker or cultural outsider, that Alexander lives on in the

city's collective consciousness. Armed with linguistic and colloquial fluency, with cultural knowledge and memory, I roamed Alexandria's streets, unravelling the threads woven into its soul. With its universal appeal, Egypt continues to be explored,

even claimed, by scholars whose narratives at best miss the nuances of its culture and history, and at worst, undermine or erase the people for whom that history isn't a mere curiosity or day job, but a defining, enduring identity. People often ask what Alexandria means to me, expecting facts and figures about an ancient city. But for me, it's people watching from the balcony.

It's cats weaving around my feet. It's the sound of a classical Egyptian melody echoing in a moonlit cafe. Thank you so much. That's beautiful. I've done a few your detemies, which is a real honour. This is probably the one that makes me want to go and book a holiday, like right now. What a lovely way to contextualise history as something that it's here today. it's inherited by the people who are present there and the diversity of it. And I think that's a wonderful advertisement rather than in 1066.

It's more like, come and have a coffee. We'll write your name and I'm a graphic on it. It's lovely. Thank you so much, Athena. And listen, if you want more from Athena, check out our past episodes on Haitian Revolution. We did Madam C.J. Walker. We did Injinga River, Dongo and Matamba.

If it's you a thing, have a listen to our episode on Istanbul in the Ottoman Golden Age with Sue Perkins and Professor Ebrou Boyar. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the wonderful Professor Islam Issa from Birmingham City University. Thank you, Islam. Thank you, Greg. And in Comedy Corner, we had the awesome Athena Kblanu. Thank you, Athena. Thank you for having me. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we explore another historical hotspot. But for now, I'm off to go and smuggle out my favourite library books, hiding them inside a ham sandwich. Bye!

Your debt to me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. I'm Shari Vile. I've been investigating fraud for more than 20 years. years. It is not them being gullible or stupid. These are criminals and it's often very organised. I'm Dr Elizabeth Carter. I'm a criminologist and a forensic linguist. Liz, your red flag's gone up. This is this gap in contact. It's an incredibly powerful mechanism. I'm Alex Wood. I used to be a prolific fraudster, but now I help the police to catch people like me. And that's very clever because he's mirroring the bank and the police's own security messaging. Listen now to Scam Secrets on BBC Sounds.