2024-07-01
Historian Michael Scott begins his journey through Sicily on the slopes of Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano. For the ancient Greeks, the island was a land of gods and monsters – a dangerous and unpredictable world. Michael discovers how 3,000 years ago, the Greeks began to settle on Sicily's east coast – planting their olives and vines and building great city-states that soon came to ri
In this episode covering the south of Britain, we find out how a lobster led archaeologists to the discovery of an 8,000-year-old neolithic underwater settlement, go to a secret location in Dorset to witness the excavation of an Iron Age crouched burial, and in London's East End, location reporter Naoise Mac Sweeney visits a modern construction site as it gives up the secrets of an Elizabethan pla
Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He shows how 20th-century attention turned from civilisation and kings to the search for the common man against a background of science and competing political ideologies.
In a world exclusive, Professor Alice Roberts follows a decade-long historical quest to reveal a hidden secret of the famous bluestones of Stonehenge. Using cutting-edge research, a dedicated team of archaeologists led by Prof Mike Parker Pearson have painstakingly compiled the evidence to fill in a 400-year gap in our knowledge of the bluestones – and to show that the original stones of Britain's
In early history, nudes were gods or heroes. Since then, the nude has often been about sex but also a powerful influence on how we view the body. Art historian Kate Bryan explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of the nude and how our attitudes have changed. As she examines the archives, Kate finds that while beauty and sexuality are never fa
In a journey across the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Sona Datta traces the development of the Hindu religion from its origins as an amalgamation of local faith traditions to its dominant position today. She uncovers this fascinating tale by looking at the buildings in which the faith evolved, moving from the caves and rock temples on the shores of the Bay of Bengal at Mahabalipurem, throug
Historian Michael Scott begins his journey through Sicily on the slopes of Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano. For the ancient Greeks, the island was a land of gods and monsters – a dangerous and unpredictable world. Michael discovers how 3,000 years ago, the Greeks began to settle on Sicily's east coast – planting their olives and vines and building great city-states that soon came to ri
Archaeologist Richard Miles presents a series charting the history of the breakthroughs and watersheds in our long quest to understand our ancient past. He shows how 20th-century attention turned from civilisation and kings to the search for the common man against a background of science and competing political ideologies.
In this episode covering the south of Britain, we find out how a lobster led archaeologists to the discovery of an 8,000-year-old neolithic underwater settlement, go to a secret location in Dorset to witness the excavation of an Iron Age crouched burial, and in London's East End, location reporter Naoise Mac Sweeney visits a modern construction site as it gives up the secrets of an Elizabethan pla