The Ancients

What drove Herodotus to write the first great story of history? Tristan Hughes speaks with Dr. Roel Konijnendijk to uncover the world of Herodotus of Halicarnassus - the traveler, investigator, and st...

Three thousand years ago, Phoenician ships sailed west across the Mediterranean, their holds packed with pottery, wine and enslaved people to trade. Passing beyond the fabled Pillars of Heracles, they...

In 1999, a mysterious bronze disc buried for millennia in central Europe transformed how we see the prehistoric world. The Nebra Sky Disk - forged 3,600 years ago - is the oldest known depiction of th...

Before Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, Earth was rebuilding from catastrophe. Out of the ashes of the Great Dying rose a new prehistoric world and with it came the age of the dinosaurs. In this episode...

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Ramesses II reigned as Egypt's unchallenged champion for more than sixty years. But within decades the dynasty of Egypt’s greatest pharaoh had fallen apart....

As friendships fracture and old alliances break, Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy chronicle the epic downfall of Alexander the Great. Alexander’s relentless campaigns from Bactria to Babylon ...

The name of Ramesses the Great is etched deeper into Egypt than almost any other ruler. Colossal statues moulded in his image tower over the Nile. Reliefs of his victories are carved into countless te...

Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy continue the special series on Alexander the Great, delving into the epic sieges of Tyre and Gaza in 332 BC, and Alexander's triumphant campaign through Egypt....

In the depths of ancient Jericho, beneath layers of earth dating back 10,000 years, archaeologists uncovered something extraordinary: human skulls cast in plaster, their faces carefully reconstructed ...

In spring 334 BC, a young Macedonian king sets out to conquer the Persian Empire. Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy explore Alexander the Great’s early campaigns, from the daring crossing into ...