archaeology
Sunken Cities: Egypt's lost worlds rediscoveredTuesday, 24 May 2016![]() In a gallery darkened to evoke the seabed that was its resting place for over a thousand years, the colossal figure of Hapy, the Egyptian god of the Nile flood, greets visitors just as it met sailors entering the busy trading port of Thonis-... Read more... |
China: Treasures of the Jade Empire, Channel 4Monday, 19 October 2015![]() Here comes the President, and with him a timely reminder about what the Chinese have been digging up over the past 40 years or so to further demonstrate their exceptional imperial history over the past two millennia. Treasures of the Jade Empire... Read more... |
The Celts: Blood, Iron, and Sacrifice, BBC TwoTuesday, 06 October 2015![]() Not a ray of sunshine illuminated the landscapes that were explored in this stormy programme, the first of a three-part history of the Celts. It aimed not only to show the latest investigations into the Bronze and Iron Age tribes who inhabited... Read more... |
Building the Ancient City: Athens, BBC TwoFriday, 21 August 2015![]() Heaven, or a lot of pagan gods at least, may know what was in the air 2500 years ago. Bettany Hughes has just finished her trilogy of philosophers from that millennium, and now we have Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill taking us genially around... Read more... |
This World: World’s Richest Terror Army, BBC TwoWednesday, 22 April 2015![]() You haven’t had to actually watch the brutal executions staged by Islamic State (IS, or ISIS or ISIL, as it’s also known) to register them: just a single image registered has been more than enough to horrify. Managing to penetrate the world’s... Read more... |
Saints and Sinners: Britain's Millennium of Monasteries, BBC FourFriday, 20 February 2015![]() When in Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies Thomas Cromwell exclaims in exasperation, “to each monk, one bed; to each bed, one monk. Is that so hard for them?” he sums up the state of moral decay into which the monasteries had apparently... Read more... |
Jungle Atlantis, BBC TwoThursday, 25 September 2014![]() Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the biggest religious complex ever built. It is also one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring structures ever created, even now still a working temple with both Buddhist and Hindu connections. It was at the heart not... Read more... |
Art of China, BBC FourThursday, 31 July 2014![]() If, like me, you switched this on feeling sheepish about your sketchy knowledge of Chinese art, you would have welcomed as a ready-made excuse the news that some monuments synonymous with Chinese culture are relatively recent discoveries. It seems... Read more... |
Archaeology: A Secret History, BBC FourWednesday, 01 May 2013![]() “A bunch of beardies rooting around with trowels. On the lookout for shinbones and such. It’ll be knockout.” There will have been naysayers at the meeting when they first pitched the idea for a series about archaeology and yet nearly 20 years on... Read more... |
Heritage! The Battle to Save Britain's Past, BBC FourFriday, 08 March 2013![]() He may have been lampooned in his lifetime as the man who kept a pet wasp, but Britain owes much to John Lubbock, the Victorian MP whose legislation gave the country its first bank holiday. His Ancient Monuments bill of 1882 (nicknamed the “... Read more... |
Digging the Great Escape, Channel 4Tuesday, 29 November 2011![]() The archaeological documentary is becoming the obligatory format for tackling legendary tales of the British at war. Someone seems to recreate the Dam Busters raid every six months, the wrecks of battleships HMS Hood and the Bismarck have been... Read more... |
Art Gallery: Egyptian and Nubian Galleries, Ashmolean MuseumFriday, 25 November 2011![]() The Ashmolean Museum opens the doors to its Egyptian and Nubian galleries tomorrow and in these six refurbished rooms you’ll be able to see one of the greatest collections (among some 40,000 antiquities) outside Cairo. Designed by the architect Rick... Read more... |
