Greek Odyssey episode 4: This week Joanna meets the people and discovers places in the mountainous region of northern Greece. Here the hills are alive with ancient stories and legends. Some familiar, others long since gone untold. Where better to start than a climb up Mount Olympus, the country’s highest peak. Here, the ancient Greeks believed that the gods had …
Ancient Invisible Cities episode 2 – Athens: Michael Scott uses the latest 3D-scanning technology to reveal the historical secrets of ancient Athens and tell the story of how this remarkable city created the world’s first democracy two and a half thousand years ago. He begins his journey on the Acropolis, where, in the late 6th century BC, the people of …
Bettany Hughes Treasures of the World episode 1: The first episode focuses on Greece, including a visit to the archaeological dig at the site of Alexander the Great birthplace in Aegae. Her journey also takes her to Athens, Nafplio, Sparta and Olympia, and to a dig at Epidaurus, where an underground snake pit used for healing has been discovered and …
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Buried Secrets of Keros: An investigative journey set in the heart of the Aegean Sea. A team of archaeologists unveil what may be the world’s oldest maritime sanctuary. Keros, a small uninhabited island of the southeastern Cyclades, attracted the archaeological attention for the first time at 1884 when a tomb containing marble figurines was found. Since then, the extended illegal …
Delphi – The Bellybutton of the Ancient World: What really went on at the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi, how did it get its awesome reputation and why is it still influential today? Michael Scott of Cambridge University uncovers the secrets of the most famous oracle in the ancient world. A vital force in ancient history for a …
Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 6: Bettany travels through the Corinth Canal – a feat of engineering that required the removal of 12 million cubic metres of earth – before heading for her penultimate stop of Corfu, where Count Flamburiari reveals the island’s close connections to Britain. From there, Bettany sails to Ithaca, Odysseus’s home island, …
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Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 5: Bettany arrives in the Peloponnese, a peninsula regarded as home to some of ancient Greece’s most legendary kings and vicious warriors. To understand the violent world in which the myths and legends are set, Bettany visits the bones of a 19-year-old-warrior who died more than 3,500 years ago. Healed sword …
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Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 4: Arriving in Crete just as a storm hits, the historian is lucky to reach `the big island” before the seas become impassable and the annual Christian Epiphany festivities are hampered. She travels to the ruins of the ancient city of Knossos, synonymous with English archaeologist Arthur Evans who unearthed much …
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Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 3: In Santorini, she visits a Minoan city preserved in time by one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in history. Bettany’s next port of call is Naxos, where in an abandoned marble quarry, she finds a genuinely monumental statue of the god that has lain there for thousands of years, before heading …
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Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 2: Bettany visits the sacred isle of Delos, where it has been forbidden for anyone to permanently reside since ancient times. Wandering the ruins, Bettany discovers a dark history to this incredible site as she explores how the Romans turned Delos into a marketplace for their slave trade. She then moves …
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Greek Island Odyssey with Bettany Hughes episode 1: The historian and classicist explore Greece from the time of the Ancients up to the present day. She begins by exploring a graveyard of ancient shipwrecks in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, then enjoys the tradition of a warm welcome on the island of Chios. Next, Bettany heads to …
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The Greeks episode 3 – Chasing Greatness: They were an extraordinary people born of white rock and blue sea. They invented democracy, distilled logic and reason, wrote plays to plumb the deepest recesses of the soul, and captured the perfection of the human form in athletics and art. Quite simply, the Greeks created our world. Today, of course, …