91Èȱ¬

In this first omnibus episode, anatomist Professor Alice Roberts introduces her time-travelling tour of anatomical knowledge, from the cave men to DNA. She asks how we see our bodies and examines one idea that has forever dogged our concept of the body - the soul and the need for it to somehow be meshed into our picture of the body.

What did our pre-historic ancestors think of the human body? Did they see it as the same as the animals they hunted – a collection of bones, muscle, sinews and blood vessels. Or was it somehow separate? Alice contemplates tantalising glimpses of human bodies from our deep past – a human skull used as a drinking vessel, a statue of a half-man half-lion being, tiny figurines of Ice Age women.

The first civilisation to leave us traces of medical knowledge is ancient Egypt. And among these records of ancient injuries and remedies, one set stands out – the Edwin Smith papyrus. For the first time magic spells are mixed with a rational and proto-scientific understanding of the human body.

Images of ideal bodies are everywhere we look today. We are invited to look, to enjoy, to judge, to compare to these bodies. Can anyone match up to the ideal? In ancient Greece idealised images of the human body were everywhere and an explicit connection was drawn between physical and moral beauty.

And In the city of Alexandria, in the 3rd century BCE, physicians were allowed to do something that had been completely out of bounds for centuries before and would then be outlawed for centuries afterwards - dissect human bodies.

Presenter: Professor Alice Roberts
Actor: Jonathan Kydd

A Made in Manchester production for 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4