Ancient Afghanistan: The Land of a Thousand C...

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 the night sky.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined, once agai ...  Show more

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 of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Henry Gee to explore the full sw ...  Show more

In the seventh century BC, the ancient Assyrian king Ashurbanipal created a gigantic library in his capital city – one that contained centuries of wisdom. And this vast wealth of ancient knowledge can reveal a lot about how the people of the Near East thought about their gods. Dr ...  Show more

This is the story of a city that laid the foundations for our modern world. Sitting at the intersection of East and West, Alexandria has been home to many of humanity's greatest architectural and cultural achievements, like the famous Lighthouse and the storied Great Library. Som ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the history and reputation of the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. Cyrus the Second of Persia as he was known then was born in the sixth century BCE in Persis which is now in Iran. He was the founder of the first Persian Empire, the largest empire at ...  Show more

In the highlands of the Iranian Plateau, a collection of enormous pillars reach up to the sky...In this episode, we tell the story of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Find out how this remarkable ancient power sprung up from the rubble of a ruined world to become the most powerful ...  Show more