In the age of AI and the smartphone is history a vital form of knowledge? How can the treasures of the past enrich our minds and help us to live more fully today?

For our second Ramsay Event for 2025, the Ramsay Centre is pleased to present an in-person lecture by Bettany Hughes OBE titled: Digging Up History: What the Treasures of the Past Can Teach Us Today. 

Drawing on her field research, including digs in Europe, North Africa and Central Asia, Bettany explores how archaeology in particular is a powerful tool that can make us better and wiser travellers in a modern world that is everywhere marked by the traces of the past.

Please join us for this exciting presentation about why, at a time when technology seems to offer the possibility of existing solely in a permanent and therefore impoverished present, the past has absolute value and relevance, and why it is, in fact, one of our greatest treasures.