When people think of empires, they picture Rome, China’s dynasties, or the British Raj. But history is far richer—and stranger. Across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, once-mighty powers rose, flourished, and vanished, leaving legacies that quietly shaped the modern world. These are the “forgotten” empires: not unknown to scholars, but under-taught compared to the giants, despite their immense contributions to trade, religion, statecraft, and innovation.

In this episode, we uncover how these overlooked powers left marks that still endure:

• Aksum & the Red Sea world — coinage, Christianity, and control of Afro-Eurasian trade routes.

• Great Zimbabwe & the Swahili coast — monumental stone cities and gold fueling Indian Ocean commerce.

• Srivijaya & the Chola navy — thalassocracies that turned straits and monsoons into empire.

• Nubia, Urartu, Nabataea — engineering marvels: dams, canals, and desert waterworks still traceable today.

• Sogdians & Khazars — merchant diasporas and commercial khaganates that made the Silk Roads run.

• Tiwanaku, Wari, Chimú — Andean cities, raised fields, and irrigation networks centuries before the Inca.

• Benin & restitution today — bronzes, urbanism, and the global conversation on heritage.

• The Tuʻi Tonga system — Polynesian voyaging networks proving empire need not mean armies and conquests.

We also explore:

• How these empires solved environmental constraints with lasting infrastructure.

• Why their religions—Aksumite Christianity, Himyarite Judaism, Uyghur Manichaeism—reshaped spiritual geographies.

• How their diplomacy, from the Hittite peace treaty to Swahili-Arab trade guilds, prefigured modern international law.

• Why they faded from popular memory—colonial filters, environmental collapse, and the dominance of literate “mega-empires” in world history textbooks.

From Petra’s water channels to Chan Chan’s adobe megacity, from Lake Titicaca’s raised fields to Kilwa’s gold trade, this journey reveals how forgotten empires quietly built the architecture of our global world.