General ancient history

With its huge bell and five-storey pagoda, Sensoji Temple is one of Tokyo's most popular –and venerable – landmarks. (Photo by Mike Hewitt - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

My favourite place: Tokyo, Japan

Spies through the ages podcast

General ancient history

Spies through the ages

Sarah Dunant. (Alamy)

The history of today

Husband and wife Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang), pictured at their wedding in 1928. The pair “dominated Chinese politics for two decades [and] were among the most prominent non-westerners on the planet throughout the 1930s and 1940s”, says Rana Mitter. (Photo by Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

The Library Six lives that shaped China

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

General ancient history

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)

General ancient history

A spell-binding history of witches

Chinese terracotta soldiers

General ancient history

Terracotta Army: secrets from the grave

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

General ancient history

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

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&A How long have people used prosthetic limbs?

Clay soldier statues of the Chinese Qin dynasty. (Photo by Getty Images)

General ancient history

The six ages of China

White horse of Uffington

General ancient history

Who were the Celts?

19th-century men in traditional dress, Marken Island, Netherlands.

General ancient history

Q&A When were trousers first worn?

Lion Capital of the Pillars of Ashoka from Sarnath. (iStock / Getty Images Plus)

The many lives of India

The stretch of the Great Wall at Mutianyu, China

General ancient history

My favourite place: The Great Wall of China

Neil MacGregor.

General ancient history

Neil MacGregor