Original subtitles

I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access and I 100% definitely got what I

asked. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It is just extraordinary where

I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures. Some of the most remarkable

artworks to survive from antiquity buried in ancient sites, extraordinary buildings,

and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help to explain the story of us.

Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives. I'm making my way through one of

the most epic landscapes on Earth, the Arabian Desert. Although when you say the word desert,

you imagine a kind of desolate emptiness. This northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula has been a

vital crossroads for east and west for millennia. It's only recently that a lot of the hidden

treasures around me, natural and cultural, are being explored and understood. I'm here to uncover

the history of ancient Arabia from 6,000 B.CE. to the 3rd century CE in northwest Saudi Arabia

and Jordan, enjoying privileged access to one of the most spectacular wonders of the world, Petra.

It's a rare opportunity to make new discoveries and to uncover

some of the missing links in history's big story. Welcome to the treasures of Arabia.

[Music] The northwestern Arabian Peninsula. From prehistory to antiquity,

a hub of great civilizations, only now being systematically investigated and interpreted,

stretching across different territories at different times. Ancient Arabia spanned a

vast area, including what's now modern-day Saudi Arabia and southern Jordan. My first treasure

is the staggering art of this extraordinary place, the Hisma Plateau. [Music] This remote

region in the northwest of Saudi Arabia is rarely visited. Recently, it's opened up

to researchers. But through the millennia, both travelers and locals have made their mark here,

leaving remarkable clues in the form of a rather unique message board. These are messages that

chart thousands of years of the human experience. So, right at the end there, you've got an early

Islamic prayer right from the very beginning of Islam. So, that's around 1,400 years old.

This kind of big, loopy, very confident writing was set down by the Nabotian civilizations and

the Nabotans were in charge at around the time of the Romans. Um, that odd you see this sort of

strange script here that goes up and down. That's something called Tamudik, which is from the fifth

century B.C.E., so it's 2,500 years old. And then all down here, you've got prehistoric rock

art. So, there are two men who are dancing or they might be fighting. Uh, there's somebody who looks

like he's going on a hunt with a bow and arrow. There are ibecks that are being hunted and man's

best friends. Dogs are all around. So, this is a map of time, but it's also a treasure map that

leads us to the wealth on rock faces like this and in the valleys of this incredible plateau.

The rock art here takes us right back to the beginnings of ancient Arabia before time as

we know it. It's a kind of ancient pin board, a way of communicating messages to passers by.

And there are thousands of engravings.

animals, idols, hunting scenes, travelers tales, all painting a picture of life from

the Stone Age right up to the Middle Ages. This art is always telling us something. Um,

whether it's a fact or a hope or a fear or a belief, the people who made it. Um,

now this example is between six and 8,000 years old. So, we don't know exactly what those two

figures are. We don't know whether they're humans or spirits or the beginnings of the idea

of some sort of gods, but it's definitely about people's relationship with the natural world.

The carvings were left by nomads and settlers. So, how did people make a life for themselves in such

a barren terrain? The stone age images of cattle like this are a vital clue that the landscape

around here was once completely different. Um, now cows need a lot of greenery to survive. And

images like this combined with really recent analysis of fossils and mineral deposits tell

us that Arabia used to be much much greener. Um, there would have been thousands of rivers here and

over 10,000 lakes. So the whole landscape would have been much greener, more verdant, more like a

a kind of paradise. Um it was only around 5,000 or so years ago that the conditions became much drier

and the landscape turned into the desert that it is today. All explaining why this became a perfect

place for some early inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula to settle down and become farmers. And

there are other tantalizing clues to the lives of these stone age settlers. When I've been walking

through this landscape, I keep on seeing these um really quite strange massive stone circles on the

mountain side, which I think must be something to do with ritual. But um I managed to find an

expert, Abdul Aziz. He's going to decode them for me. Salam. Hello. How lovely to meet you. Nice to

meet you. Thank you so much. What an extraordinary place this is. It's one of the biggest stone

structures in Nom. You can see this one contains two. One above the hill and one below. Yes. One

out of the circle, one inside the circle. I'm not sure if there's a meaning, but it's very

interesting. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're certainly it's such a prominent position this, isn't it? So,

you're clearly publicizing, you know, status with with something this size for real. So, what are

we standing in? What is this? This is actually one of the biggest burial here in Hisma Plateau.

So a burial for one person or for a family. It's burial for more than one person actually is round

burial and each stone heavy like around from 5 to 10 kilogram and in 1 meter you might find from 50

to 70. So we can imagine how many tons it needs to do this structure and how many time as well.

So do you think because the the circles seem to be different sizes. So is it somebody of of massive

status? He's got a massive circle. We believe that the the bigger the circles, the bigger the

position of the family or the person who was in the in this um burial. But uh but again,

a lot of mysteries there and we need to do a lot of excavation to understand more. This is

a really big circle, but it looks like to me like there are others in the landscape actually. Yes.

in each hill in the in the road. I mean, you can find those big structures. And actually,

we were amazed when we were young. I mean, we came here like doing picnics and stuff, but we

do not understand what's this. Now, it's time to understand what's the value of those structure.

As this land became more like a desert, farming slowly gave way to trade and ancient trading roads

here with the establishment of Islam became pilgrimage routes for many making the Hajj to

Mecca. The faithful etching messages and prayers on the rocks as they passed. This is a really

interesting example. So you've got somebody who's come here and has inscribed his name,

but he's done it on top of older rock art left by locals who are very proud

of the fact that they have 10 camels here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight, nine, 10 up at the top with two little dogs. Um, and this guy who would have been on

the Hajj on his way to Mecca, we know his name. He was called Musa, son of Salam. And

he's obviously so delighted to be here. He's written his name again and again and again.

Now, the people who witnessed all this across the centuries are the Bedwin. And

I've had an invitation to meet the modern-day descendants of those eyewitnesses of history.

[Music]

[Music]

The Bedwin tribes of northwest Saudi Arabia maintain customs dating back thousands of

years. So there's this really ancient tradition of hospitality here with the Bedwin and they heard I

was in the region and Abdul Aziz has told me that they've invited me for um coffee and tea. I think

bedwin literally means desert dweller. Evidence for desert nomads in the region starts 8,000

years ago. And Bedwins have both fought into offered traders and pilgrims hospitality right

back to the time when travelers were creating some of that early rock art.

So this is uh dates and with the olive. Is it like a goat cheese or something? Goat cheese.

Yes, with goat cheese. So this is the way they provide it in hospitality. Thank you. Thank you.

Those are delicious. Those are really fresh. Fantastic. Grounded. Abdul Aziz

alsi is my guide and translator. Why is it such a tradition? Is it because

this is a place in the world where lots of different people have been

traveling for many centuries? Is is that why hospitality is so important to the bedwin?

I would love to shak

songs and poetry are exchanged at family gatherings like this. Like the rock art,

they've long been a way for the Bedwin to communicate stories and information.

dances too pass on tales of the Bedwin's history.

The women's quarter is called the harim.

Okay. Yeah. So, you're giving me the recipe, aren't you? Cuz I understand the word moya

is water. So, water and flour and you mix it together. This is very traditional for

women to be making bread. but also um the Bedwin women are often traced. So you'll often see them

uh outside on the mountains taking the goats and the sheep outside uh for the whole day. Oh,

look at these. They're so beautiful. Hello. Hello. Hello, little worm.

It's a treat to meet Bedwin women in their own home. Thank you for

Thank you. It's such a beautiful tent. This

six months. It's beautiful.

And I have to say, I love your eyeliner.

It's beautiful though because it's very Is it the Malachi?

Perfect. If I come back, will you show me how to how to do it? [Music]

Veterans say they give their last grain of rice and morsel of meat in hospitality. Lambs on the

menu in my honor. I'm vegetarian, so I hope I don't cause offense.

A thank you. This is Thank you.

It's so sweet. So, they've got that. I'm vegetarian. So,

they've brought this special basket of bread that hasn't been touched by the meat and more

dates and goats butter to put on. That is so fantastic. Thank you, Shakran. I

suspect I might be the first veggie ever to eat in this particular tournament. Looks delicious.

So, this is serious lunchtime. And they've noticed that the guys who've helped drive us

on our kit here were outside. So, the hospitality has been extended to the

um entire crew over there as well. The lambs served with broth and rice.

There's this really um beautiful fact about ideas that if they are kept to yourself,

they're sterile and die. But if you share them, they have wings. And people think that right in

the very very beginning of human society when you had enough people sitting around sharing a meal,

sharing thoughts, that's when the modern mind developed. That's basically when we

became us. So in some ways this kind of thing of welcoming strangers across your

threshold is how we should all understand the real beginning of the human story.

And it's some of these fundamental drivers of humanity that could be traced on the fabulous

rock art around here. This is ancient rock art obviously of a lion and it's a barbar lion which

is now extinct. Underneath it are ostriches, also extinct. So, it's sad because it tells us

of the animals that were once here. But just look at this. Here is a lovely 4x4 put on by

the Bedwin of today. So, it's a tradition that carries on on the Hisma Plateau. [Music] These

are a window into the secrets of the early inhabitants of and visitors to Arabia.

I just love the rock art of the Hisma Plateau because it's the incarnation of our desire to

share experiences and information both with the people around us and for the future so that we

can learn from others ideas. It really is the start of culture as we know it.

But clues to the rich history of this region aren't just on land. They're under the water.

One of the most spectacular natural wonders of the Arabian Peninsula has to be the Red Sea.

It's an artery that connects the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and the Pacific. So,

it's a body of water that holds history right around its coast and even under

those waves. The Red Sea was a vital trading route for Arabian merchants,

ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans whose ships went as far as India and East Africa.

So you had Greeks and Romans and Nabotans and Persians and early Arabs and then the whole

Islamic world would congregate in this place to kind of trade and exchange goods and ideas. So

it's not just it's not just somewhere that is a a hub of culture, it's a cauldron of civilization.

New excavations on the northern coast of Saudi Arabia are revealing relics of this golden age

of trade. I'm walking across a dried out riverbed here. And the excavations have only just begun,

but already what they're revealing is quite remarkable because what you've got up here

is one of the busiest and most important trading hubs in the ancient medieval world.

Some archaeologists are certain this was a hub of an ancient Arabian culture, the Nabotans,

the once thriving port town of Luc K. Ports on the Red Sea here are marked on some medieval

world maps as being the most important places on Earth. Ancient sources write about this place and

the descriptions match perfectly. Um, so what you've got up there on the top of that hill

are mansions that belong to wealthy merchants and watchtowers. And then down here you've got

workshops and shops and warehouses storing all kinds of things. We know that cotton and teak was

traded across the Red Sea from India, silk from China, and from here camel caravans carried goods

on a 9-day journey to the great city of Petra and beyond. They're finding lots of pottery here,

as you'd expect, but also bronze and glass ornaments and even remnants of incense.

This port is pretty much the last safe harbor before sailing conditions on the Red Sea become

unpredictable and treacherous. This is a bit of the Red Sea where the sea gets quite difficult to

navigate. So people who would have come here would have pulled into these natural harbors

um and then carried on trading by land, you know. So, so if the boats made it up this far,

they were pretty good captains and pretty good sailors. But what about those ships

that never arrived with their precious cargo? To explore the lost treasures of the Red Sea,

I'm joining marine conservation scientist Amir Aea and underwater cameraman Sha Reggeri.

I'm right up on the north um side of the Red Sea and it's the this bit of the coastline.

It's been very very rare to get access to it. Uh even though it's got so rich in history. So,

uh, it's a it's a kind of first time for me, but it's a first time for a lot of people to to

get the chance to be here. Amazing. It's amazing. Okay. So, why the Red Sea? Well, possibly thanks

to seasonal blooms of orange red algae or an ancient mapping system or because of those amazing

red sands and mountains in land. It's certainly a place packed with stories. I've heard about

these mysterious dongs, but we think that's probably where the mermaid myth derived from

because they're kind of humanized. That's right. And the ones that you see are very unique and of

course they're highly vulnerable to to extinction. Someone's described this place for me as being one

of the seven wonders of the underwater world. Did you know does it can it claim that title? Yeah,

absolutely. The Red Sea and the coral reefs are some of the most biodiverse in the world.

And because the Red Sea closed at one point, the species in the Red Sea became trapped and

then they started differentiating and becoming different species only found in the Red Sea.

The corals in the Red Sea might be some of the most resilient corals in the world. So

this part could be one of the few places that actually survive the climate change

crisis. And if that happens, it'll be very important for these species to keep surgant

because then they can propagate um outside the Red Sea when the time comes. That is

remarkable because I know that some of the coral here itself is 7,000 years old. So

the coral has witnessed history. It's seen these passage of humans. So how amazing if

the coral here can both be a witness to the past and potentially a witness to the future.

Amir is taking me to waters by a 16th century fort built in the reign of Sullean the Magnificent when

the Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled here. They might yield some interesting underwater treasures. And

may why have we chosen this spot particularly? The area that we're really interested in is the

area in front of the castle. That's like the lagoon and that's where most of the folks would

have mored and either dropped things or you know broken pottery talked over and so the majority of

the artifacts we think are in this area. Great. So will you come up if you find something? I'll

just be above you. Absolutely. I'll scream at the top of my voice. I'll be there. [Music]

This is a real opportunity because people haven't been allowed to dive and film here before. It's

only recently that this part of the Red Sea is opening up for archaeological excavation. [Music]

So, the guys have been down here for about oh about an hour and they've just found a

uh selection of stuff. So, it's definitely historic. There's definitely pottery. It

looks like there's something maybe like a little pipe or something. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So,

have a look at this. It's a piece of uh broken potri. Obviously, it's a good size,

isn't it? Hello. Excuse me. Look at this. That is a serious bit of vampire. That's definitely

That won't be for liquid. This will be for like flour maybe. Yeah, exactly. Chickens or something.

Have a look at this. This is the pattern. I think that you see the pattern here. Yeah,

that's quite important to to tell what era it's from. Yeah, we found this also remarkably like a

maybe a pipe or maybe a oil lantern, right? Oh, that is very cool. This whole place is

just full of this stuff. You leave things where you find them basically, don't you?

Hi. Shalom. He actually's got a stingray. My god,

it's huge. You going to let it go? Okay, good luck.

Diving here is a journey through time. And these pottery fragments are a tiny fraction of what's

been lost on the Red Sea's bed. Amir and his team are painstakingly piecing together the

stories behind their finds. Have a look at this. As you can see, just littered with armpos. I mean,

so just absolutely covered. Look at that. Oh, that's a huge one. huge. And from the patterns,

we think that they are from the Roman era. And um we think that there's a shipwreck in that

area. You can just see the outline of what looks like a shipwreck. Yes. I mean, that's going to be

2,000 years old. Whatever it is that there's a massive story to tell there. Absolutely.

The Red Sea is a treasure because it's inspired so many myths and legends. It's rich with natural

beauty and it's somewhere where you can tell the story of the world from the bottom of the sea.

Next, I explore one of the most mysterious civilizations of the ancient world. [Music]

A long lost culture, the Nabotans thrived in ancient Arabia, an area that spanned

what's now Saudi Arabia and southern Jordan. The Nabotans were an enigmatic people who

started off life as goat and sheep herders and ended up controlling a vast kingdom.

At their height between the 4th century B.CE and the 2nd century CE,

they ruled northern Arabia and the southern Levant with their capital Petra in what's

now Jordan. This is a treasure that isn't on the hills. It's within them.

It's a city of the dead. [Music] Monumental in size, these tombs showcase the Navatian

people's extraordinary ability to transform rocky landscapes into architectural marvels.

Just in this one valley alone, you've got 16 tombs. So, the whole of Nabotian society is

here. Uh the humble ones are over there. This is where the kind of middle class, middle ranking

people would be buried. And then, as you might expect, the posh ones are right at the top.

Tombs were considered the dead's eternal home. Often at the entrance and edges of Nabotian

settlements, they signified that the dead maintained their presence amongst the living.

Okay. So, the first thing to say is that obviously this is not a burial place for a single person.

And it's more like a kind of family vault. And we often find so many bones in places like this

that we think that one generation after another were probably piled up on top of each other.

There's been one recent discovery very close to here um of a body wrapped in strips of linen and

leather and decorated just with a garland of dates around the body's neck. [Music]

The Nabotans are a mysterious culture partly because they never really wrote about themselves.

So we had to rely on the accounts of others of Greeks and Romans for instance. Um so we had

to jigsaw puzzle together their story and tombs like this are brilliant bits of evidence. [Music]

Mourers would regularly visit the deceased to celebrate them and leave gifts to take

to the afterlife. How people choose to bury their dead tells you a lot about them. Um,

and for the Nabotans, all of this was definitely a family affair. And one of the reasons we

know this is because there are these lovely benches that they put outside the tombs. So,

you could just come and sit here and kind of commune with your loved ones.

Architectural details carved onto the rock are a clue to the multicultural world of the Nabotans.

Now, this is really interesting. So, I am right in the middle of the Arabian deserts. Uh, but have a

look at these three shapes. So, they're called triglyphs, and you'd normally find them hanging

underneath the pediments of a Greek temple. And how about this decoration? I mean, hello. This is

a perfect Greco Roman column. And things like this just tell us that the Nabotans were were really

deeply involved in cultures and civilizations that used to pass through this peninsula.

The Nabotans worship deities associated with the earth, light and darkness. One

of the things you might expect to see here are images of gods and goddesses. But the thing is,

the Nabotans worshiped their deities in abstract form with things like faceless

square blocks of stone. And one of their premier gods was Duch, the god of the sun,

who looked after daytime and was also the god who protected the dead in their tombs.

The Nabotans didn't just create sophisticated tombs for the dead. They built towns that rivaled

contemporary Greek and Roman cities, minted their own coins, developed a written script that would

form the basis of Arabic, and boasted a strong military. All thanks to their lucrative camel

caravan trade in spice, incense, and other luxuries. I know if you're in the desert,

you expect to see camels, but there's a very particular reason why these ones are here.

Not just for hundreds of years, but for millennia, this has been where camel caravans have brought

gems and luxury spices and goods from what's now Yemen and Oman and even as far a field as India

through Arabia and out to the Mediterranean and they're still crossing the deserts today. [Music]

The Nabotans not only traded goods, but also levied taxes on other merchants who

passed through their lands, ensuring their coffers were well stocked.

Some of the most precious cargo of these camel caravans was frankincense and myrrh, which would

take about 54 days to get from southern Arabia in what's now Yemen right up to the northern

Egyptian coast to Alexandria. This was used in all kinds of ways. It was used in religious ritual. It

was used in funerals. Incense has medicinal qualities as well. You can rub it on wounds.

And it became worth its weight in gold. And as a result of that, the men who transported it became

fabulously wealthy, too. [Music] The camel was the backbone of the Nabotian merchant enterprise.

I'm being pointed out which of the um plants and which smell that you can

eat and which smell good. This is really good. This one again. Okay.

Oh, it's fantastic. That is beautiful.

I don't know what you can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it? Okay. Maybe later we can eat some. Great.

Oh, it's really lovely. That smells like um taggon or something. Fantastic. We'll have this later.

I'm told these herbs are great for coughs and bad chests. In Arabic poetry, camels are called

the ships of the desert, but the bed call them gifts of God. And you can see why because they

give everything. They give milk. They use their skins as water containers. They make their tents

out of their wool and you know, of course, they can transport huge amounts of equipment across the

desert over great distances. I got to say, they do keep on offering to give me a lift and go up

on one, but you know, I sort of feel I don't need to add to the burden of of any of these particular

camels. And it's very calming. It's really lovely just walking at this pace and traveling with them.

camels carried some of the most coveted treasures in the world. There's a brilliant story about

Alexander the Great. So Alexander the Great when he was an impetuous young teenager uh

was throwing frankincense onto an altar to worship the gods. And his tutor said,

"When you Oh, thank you, Shakran. Shakran. When you own the land that produces incense,

then you can be so liberal." Alexander remembered this and went on to conquer Gaza,

which had one of the main harbors that imported frankincense. And he sent back 500 talents,

that's about 14 tons of frankincense, to his old tutor and said, "Now, sprinkle this liberally on

the altars. You and I can afford it." [Music] The Navatian civilization flourished also because of

its mastery of the desert. The Nabatans worked out sophisticated ways of storing water supplies

in secret underground systems. They even invented a kind of waterproof cement which meant that in

a harsh environment like this, they could have control over life and death. [Music]

And just as their expertise with camel caravans catalyzed the incense trade, the Navatans were

able to monetize their knowledge of water. The Navatans didn't just develop engineering

to store water. They sold it. So this is the Magna Oasis and it stretches down to

the Red Sea. I'm standing in Asia and Africa and Egypt are just 15 miles or so across the water.

And we know that for centuries sailors would dock here to refresh their water supplies and

the Nabotans charged them for it. And and what is really cool is just over there they've discovered

a Nabotian fort was set up to protect all that customs and all that water wealth. [Music]

It's this ingenuity and ability to adapt that

helped the Nabotans become a real player of ancient civilization.

The Nabotian people are a treasure and a wonder for me because they start out in life as itinerant

goat herders and they seize the opportunity of the incense trade to become the wheeler

dealer entrepreneurs of this region. And isn't it brilliant that something as sort of useless but

also beautiful as incense, something that makes the experience of our lives richer and better and

lovelier, also generated an entire civilization that still has its descendants here today.

Next, the Nabotian's crowning achievement, a spectacular city carved into the landscape itself.

[Music]

The Napotans became so successful they built my next treasure. It's one of the most spectacular

and enigmatic wonders of antiquity, the beautiful rock cut city of Petra.

From the 4th century B.CE, Petra was a trading center for the ancient Nabotian civilization,

flourishing until the 3rd century CE. Archaeologists have been unearthing

wonders here for over a 100red years, and the site still yields treasure.

Petra was built in the north of ancient Arabia, what's now Jordan.

It's always exciting visiting the sites of antiquity. But this is just beyond,

isn't it? Uh this is a natural geological faults known as the seek. And this was

the ancient entrance to the hidden city. [Music] This canyon would once have been

teeming with camel caravans and merchants bringing cloth from Syria, spice from India,

frankincense and myrr from southern Arabia. This was a a practical entrance point to the

city and it was very ceremonial, but it also had a kind of spiritual aspect. So all along

here you'll see these niches that held images of the Nabotian gods. So this was actually a sacred

way. [Music] Whether in its heyday or for the modern visitor, the reveal at the end of this

winding pass has never failed to impress. This is the most famous building in the whole of Petra,

and it is impossible not to marvel at it. The treasury [Music] engineering skills that defy

belief enabled the Nabotans to build into the rock and to carve jaw-dropping detail.

This is unbelievably exciting. So, I've just had a call that I'm allowed access

into the treasury itself. Um, this is really rare, I've got to say. And although I've

been here lots of times before, never been allowed in. So you got to forgive me because

um my heart's actually beating quite fast to get this opportunity. Oh my goodness.

That's so beautiful. That's amazing. Just listen. Can you hear the echo in here? That is super cool.

Named the Treasury because it was believed to hide gold and jewels. This is in fact a

moraleum. And then another unexpected delight. I'm on the verge of being granted a rare glimpse

underground. What we're doing is just checking to see whether we can open up the grill to have

a look at the tombs that were discovered under here. I think he's going to open it.

It's happening. What's happening? These burials were only discovered in 2003 and are hardly ever

opened. This is just incredible. I never ever thought in my life I would get this close. So

these are the burials of the the great kings and queens, the most powerful women and men here at

Petra. And when the bodies were discovered, so there were 11 bodies in here, the frankincense

that had been burnt on the altar to help their their journey into the world of death was still

there. Dr. Thank you for letting me in. This is unbelievable. This is just so beautiful.

The angles of the carving here seem planned to catch the sun's moving rays in a kind of

natural light show. I've made it up here to give you a napan eye view of the treasury and

it is just extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, these engineers are making that just with pickaxes and

chisels and we know they started at the top and worked their way down. It's not completely clear

what method they used. I mean it might have been ropes with a kind of pulley system or scaffolding

or ledges. Uh but whatever their method, they only had one chance to get that right.

By the first century CE, a whole rock cut city of tombs, theaters, temples, council chambers,

homes was chiseled out of the sandstone. The fame of the Nabotans and their bustling wealthy

metropolis reached as far as China. The Nabotans clearly delighted in their internationalism.

The architecture here is a living example that when you trade across borders um you

get a really healthy cross fertilization of cultures and influences. So over there you've

got something which is brilliantly Arabian. It's a Nabotian capital. These are much more Hellenistic,

so they show Greek influence. And then next door you have the ideal Assyrian stairway to

heaven. So this city is cosmopolitan in the true sense of the word. It's a city of the world.

But perhaps the Nabotian's greatest achievement was furnishing the city

with an incredibly sophisticated water supply.

The Napian's super smart control of water has its ultimate expression here at Petra. So they channel

in drinking water from a spring that's over four miles away. Uh there are systems in all of those

hills. And we think that almost every home had its own water tank. But it wasn't just practical.

There were also ornamental gardens here. and where I'm walking now, although I I know it's

pretty hard to believe, but uh this was once a kind of sacred pool. And so really what they're

doing is creating a a a fever dream version of those desert oases right in the heart of the city.

By the way, we shouldn't really be calling this place Petra at all. Um Petra is the name

the Greeks gave it, and it's an ancient Greek word that means rock or stone. The nebatans

themselves called this Rakmu. [Music] And we should never forget the lifeblood of this place

were the people who called Rakmu home. Real people with real hopes, beliefs, and fears.

Now, it can be so easy to be dazzled by all this beauty and amazing architecture

and forget that this place wasn't actually built as one of the wonders of the world. Um,

this was people's home. And at its height, there were around 30,000 women and men who

lived here. You'd have found a lot of them right here because this was Petra's ancient high street.

Papyrus scrolls. Some only recently discovered document legal cases often heard in this very

courtroom. A fantastic window onto everyday life. There are some really tragic records.

There's this particular one that involves a woman called Babatha. And Babatha's husband

dies unexpectedly and her child is taken into care. And Babatha petitions desperately to

get him back. That doesn't work. work. The child is looked after by guardians,

but Babatha will not give up. And now she says, "At least give him enough money so

that he can live a good life." And we have 30 years worth of Babatha's records. So it

is an extraordinary insight into the life of a woman. And these records just tell us that day

in day out here there were hundreds of human dramas being played out. [Music] The Nabotans

were eventually subjugated by the Romans. And with the rise of new trading passages,

Petra began to decline. By the sixth century, this once great civilization had fallen.

Petra is a treasure because it is astounding and because it's a reminder that the very strongest

civilizations take their influences from all over and a kind of melting pot of cultures. But more

than that, as well as this place having some of the most staggering architecture

and monuments ever created in history, there's also evidence here of ordinary everyday lives.

So the wonders here are both epic and very human. Ah, thank you. Thank you,

Shakran. How fantastic. That's Oh, it smells great.

Ancient Arabia was an extraordinary place and an extraordinary time.

The treasures here speak of thousands of years of experimentation and communication,

of struggles to survive and struggles to secure the most luxurious objects known to mankind,

of individual journeys that shaped the direction of history.

[Music] Betin back same time next week exploring the ruins of a Roman city in Jordan. No need

to wait though. All of Treasures of the World is already on four. Next,

they swap the rainy UK for snowy Lapland and haven't looked back. Feel the festive magic

all year round with Living Wild. How to change your life. [Music]

I'm traveling across the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track and I have 100%

definitely got what I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It

is just extraordinary where I've been given special access to significant and surprising

treasures. Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity. Buried in ancient sites,

extraordinary buildings and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help

to explain the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives. I'm here

to uncover the rich history of the ancient kingdom of Jordan. A vital crossroads between east and

west and a cultural hub for millennia. Enjoying privileged access to the secrets of one of the

world's most spectacular wonders, Petra. Exploring an ancient city dubbed the Pompei of the East.

the mountaintop palace where John the Baptist was beheaded and fearsome fortresses of the crusader

knights and discovering how Jordan is a mosaic of civilizations. Welcome to the treasures of Jordan.

Jordan and its capital, Aman, has long been a melting pot of culture,

a place where ideas have met and mixed and flourished. [Music] Jordan's been described

as a cradle of civilization. [Music] Its capital, Aman, is one of the oldest

continually inhabited settlements in the world. whose history stretches back over 4,000 years

[Music]

offers an immediate taste of Georgian's rich and varied past. My first treasure is hidden in the

desert over 150 miles south of Aman. Voted one of the new seven wonders of the world,

the archaeological park of Petra is up there with the most iconic ancient sites on Earth.

I've been here before, but now I'm back to explore areas most visitors don't get to see.

[Music]

I'm approaching Petra on a major ancient trunk road that connected

Arabia and the Middle East and the Levant and Egypt. And in antiquity,

this is how thousands and thousands of people would have arrived here. And I'm

coming this way because now I want to share with you some of Petra's secret treasures.

[Music]

This beautiful city from the 4th century B.C.E. was at the heart of the ancient kingdom of the

Nabotans. Masters of the lucrative trade routes that pass through this dramatic landscape. They

were the key power players in the region. [Music] And up here at the end of a punishing mountain

climb, over 700 ft above the main site below, hides a spectacular clue to Petra's story. [Music]

I've never made it up here before and it is just extraordinary. So,

you can see that this building which is called the monastery has been hacked out of the raw

rock and this whole courtyard has been cleared by hand. Um, it's 47 m high and 48 m across and we

don't know what it was used for. We don't know whether it was a tomb or whether it was a host

for kind of cultic activity. But what effort and what beauty right on the top of the mountain here

dubbed the monastery because locals discovered crosses inscribed on one of the back walls. The

Napotans probably built this around the middle of the 1st century CE. It's a real mosaic of

architectural influences with ancient Greek columns and a large Mesopotamian style single

entrance. Tafi, a local Bedwin tribesman is going to help me climb inside. So,

this could be interesting. Um, I remember this guy. This Ti. Hi. Hi. Hi. How are you? Yeah,

good. Nice to see you. So, he was uh here last time I came. How great to see you.

How are you? I'm fine. Good. Good. God knows how I'm going to get in there.

Okay. Mhm. Okay. Okay.

Wow. Listen to it. Oh my goodness. Listen to Can you hear the sound? Whoa. Oh, it's beautiful in

here. The colors are incredible, aren't they? The colors are beautiful. It's so frustrating because

we don't really know what they what they use this for. It would have been like a church because you

get this amazing booming acoustic. Yeah. They'd have used this for some kind of ritual with music

or Yeah. Because for the voice it's got more like Yeah. Just think of the people who came in here

for centuries and centuries. Nepatian. Natian. I feel very happy to be here where I born. Yeah.

Yeah, here where I I like you know even if I if I go somewhere outside for 2 days 3 days you know I

feel I am not right you know I have to come back again you know this really is your home yeah yeah

it's an amazing privilege to come here we're very lucky we're very lucky thank you I hope to see you

again here I'll come again you will come again here I'll come again definitely if you can get

me into these places again definitely I'll come again. Definitely. Shakran.

After years of coming to Petra, this time I'm heading to some of the more

remote sites that people don't usually get to see.

You know, it's really beautiful because I can just see kind of

L starting across the roads and there are goats around. Oh, hello. And a donkey. Um,

it's kind of fantastic. It's a bit like traveling in time coming back to this part of the uh pelt.

Petrol lies on the slopes of the Shara mountain range which provided the Nabotans with spring

water, fertile land for agriculture and raw materials needed to fuel their growing empire.

This is genuinely mind-blowingly amazing because everywhere you look, you can see these tombs

carved into the rock. I mean, we're, you know, at least 4 miles outside the center of the signs. Um,

they're just everywhere in all of the rocks and you still got people living in front of them.

[Music]

So, I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track.

And I have 100% definitely got what I asked for.

[Music] [Music]

Oh my gosh, look at that.

That is a view of Petra.

[Music]

As your eyes get used to the landscape here, you start to pick out these

astonishing features. I don't know if you if you can see it. So, there's a kind of

rectangular block and then that's a curling snake's body with a snake's head on the top.

The truth is we don't know exactly what this was used for. It's been called the snakes pyramid and

it's really enigmatic but but we think because for the Nabotans snakes were thought to protect tombs

or to be the guardians of altars and sometimes they were thought to be vehicles to the afterlife

because when a snake sheds its skin it's almost as though it's reborn. Um, so it's it's holding

on to its secrets, but whatever it is, it's telling us something about the Navatian world

view and how central this landscape itself was to their beliefs. [Applause] [Music]

But Petra wasn't just about spectacular temples and morale. It was also a city where people lived.

You could make a statement about just how wealthy you were by building a

really swanky villa like this that dominated the valley. This private

home from the first century CE lies off the beaten track from the main site.

So I have just got to show you what's in here.

So this place even had its own sauna and steam room like a kind

of Turkish ham decorated in the very latest fashions.

Even some of the gold paint they used has been preserved. With lavish decoration and its own

private bath, hot water and underwater heating, the family here had their every need catered for.

This is great. So this is the kind of industrious business end of the villa because we know that

the people who lived here made their money from trade but also from local produce because vines

were grown all around here and olive trees. So so this was probably somewhere where they producing

either wine or rich olive oil. [Music] For those who could afford it, even death could feel

luxurious. [Music] The Nabotans often place their rich tombs in prominent showoff places. [Music]

I'm being allowed into a tomb that's closed off to the public because the

wall paintings inside are so fragile. [Music]

The funeral would have taken place just outside the tomb

with the family burning incense, making offerings and sharing food.

We know that Nabotian women often commissioned and paid for tombs and they had real standing

in society which of course is unusual for the ancient world. It seems as though the Nabotans

were a much more democratic society. All of these things are reasons why it's really worth winkling

out their secrets and their stories because the Nabotans are a civilization worth caring about.

And there's one final secret corner of Petra I want to explore. Two miles from the city

center lies the seldom visited suburb of seek Albared. This is the a part of the

site that people don't normally get to. Uh it's affectionately known as Little Petra and it was

like a kind of um prosperous suburb and hub for the businessmen of the ancient world.

[Music]

This was a a kind of official meeting point. um almost the equivalent of an ancient visitors

center. So you would register up there and then come down to sleep in in these chambers which

are which sort of like a motel a place like dormitories where the traders could bunk down.

[Music] And further into the gorge there's something really special.

This may look like another tomb, but in fact it was something else entirely.

[Music]

Up here in the rock face itself, people carved out what are basically kind of exclusive

breakout rooms. And this is a thing called a biclinium. It's a very special dining room.

You can see that men would have stayed on on two sides here and talk business and look out

at the stars. I mean, talk about a room with a view. But there's something extra special

about this place. And it is so unique. It's so fragile. It's gated off and even I can't

get access inside. Just look at that. So underneath soots and grease and grime,

these amazingly delicate frescos. Uh so you've got desert flowers there and vines and grapes. So

that's an association with Dianisis or Bakus, the Greek god of ecstasy and excess and drinking. Um,

they're a little cupid playing flutes and they're connected to Aphroditi or Venus,

the goddess of love and sex. So, the message that's being sent out by this is that this is

a place that you come to eat and drink and be merry and basically have a fantastic time. But,

but the quality of it is extraordinary. So they've used Egyptian blue and white lead oxide as even

gilding and glaze on some of the foliage. I mean this really really is the best that money can buy.

It is fascinating isn't it? Because the Nabotans are surrounded by a landscape

that is literally a pallet and yet they choose to take the effort to

plaster and paint and glaze and gild their tombs and their dining rooms

and their halls. And I think that is a mark of the verve and vividness of the culture.

[Music]

What I love about Petra is how it encapsulates both the ancient Greek and Arabian worlds. Petra

is a dynamic wonder that's evolved through time. And because there's still 85% of the

site left to excavate, it hides histories that we can learn from in the future.

This treasure has been called the Pompei of the East. It's in a verdent

river valley in the north of Jordan. It's the beautiful Gerash. [Music]

I've traveled just over a 100 miles north of Petra to Gerash,

one of the best preserved Greco Roman cities in the world. [Music]

This city is a treasure, but it's also a reminder that

civilizations have a life story, that they rise and fall. [Music]

Enticed by the valley's fertility and abundance, people settled here over 9,000 years ago.

It was the Romans who left the greatest mark on the city from the 1st century

CE when Gash had a population of 20,000, more than matching Pompei.

As the Romans dynamodeed their way to becoming one of the most potent

imperial powers the world has ever known, their general Pompy made his move east,

taking ancient Syria and one of its greatest cities, Gerash.

The city prospered, becoming a key outpost for the Romans in ancient Arabia.

Gerash has everything you'd expect of a Roman period town. So there's a handsome theater,

a magnificent temple to Zeus, there are bars, a very impressive forum,

and then because the Romans loved their money, a huge area devoted to trade and shopping.

Gerash was a vital hub for the Romans with connections to all corners of their massive

empire which came to reach a fifth of the globe. This is Gash's main street or Cardo. Literally,

it means its center or beating heart. And it would have been crammed with traffic. You can

still just about make out the ruts in the road here. You'd have heard around five languages

spoken because this connected directly to a road network that linked Petra to Damascus

deep into what's now Iraq, the ports of Ty and Jaffa, and right across to the Western

Mediterranean. [Music] The vast oval-shaped forum amongst the best preserved Roman architecture

outside of Italy feeds directly into the cardo and the city boasted not one but two theaters.

The citizens of Gerash really enjoyed their wealth and they did not keep quiet about the

fact that they splashed their cash around. And we can see that here from this lovely

inscription that tells us that men here helped to pay for the building of this fantastic theater.

And the clue is this word here, dramas, which is the ancient Greek for for drama,

which was the currency that was used at the time. It was all fantastically well organized

because every single seat has a mark. Uh so there you can see it's alpha which is like R

a beta like RB gamma which um is the equivalent of RG delta and then epsilon which equates to

re and these markings carry on right the way across the theater on all of the 3,000 seats

enjoying some of the most fertile land in the region and with fresh water all year

round. The city's patron deity was a goddess synonymous with natural abundance. Artemis,

the goddess of hunting and wild nature, was the patron goddess of Dash. And her sanctuary

here was planned to be the biggest in the Roman world. And it does actually stretch

a third of a mile from one end to the other. But it was never finished. And we know that

because there is no evidence at all that a roof was ever put on the top of that temple.

Elsewhere, roads stop halfway. It seems the Romans ran out of the time or cash to fulfill

their ambitions. This is a place where you can physically visibly chart the passage of time.

The earlier hellenistic foundation gives way to a premier Roman city. Rome evolves into

the Christian Byzantine Empire which swiftly gives way to the new superpower of the region,

Islam. All these civilizations still speak to us through the treasures they left behind.

Gerish had survived war and plague and regime change, but in the end it would be a natural

disaster that delivered the killer blow. At 10:00 a.m. on the 18th of January, 749 CE.

The city was hit by a devastating earthquake. This was one of the biggest seismic events of

the Middle Ages. So violent, it triggered tsunamis all over the Mediterranean. And recent archaeology

is revealing poignant new clues about the catastrophe. Professor Akim Likenberger has

been running the excavations here. But this is an extraordinary part of the site. I'm finding it a

bit hard to to read. So So I mean what's where are we? What's happening here? What we see here in the

collapse is all the walls of private houses that were damaged during the earthquake. From the look

of it, it feels like it was a huge event. Yeah, it was a very huge event. After the earthquake, the

city was more or less dead. There was no recovery of the city and the city was abandoned mostly and

urban life came to an end. So, this is really the end of the city of Gerash. It's a terrible irony,

isn't it? Because one of the reasons that Gerash is so wealthy is because of the gifts of the

earth, because of, you know, it benefiting from the spice and the incense trade and access to to

the seas and this incredible fertile valley. But then it's it's the the power of the earth that

that destroys it. Yeah. And what did you discover when you started to excavate? Right where we are

standing, we found a skeleton of a child and a child that was obviously trying to escape from

the house. So is this the is this the child you found? Right. These are the bones of the child

and you can see parts of the skull are preserved parts of the long bones but the bones and the the

skull is very much fragmented due to the collapse. The child was nearly out of the house and then the

walls collapsed and killed the child and again nobody came back to bury it. So it was really

it shows the devastation of this earthquake. How old is this child? Well, it's it's it's about 10

years, but the time the age difference between the teeth and the bones is about two years,

indicating that it had malnutrition or illnesses, periods of stress. So, it was a a small child too

too awful to to think about. Yeah. And and the the really the tragic thing is that we

have so many wellpreserved objects up here. So the earthquake really conserved everything

and we have glasses, glass bottles. They are fully preserved. Not a crack in them. Well,

that's awful. So the glass has survived, but but the the the girl has been crushed by the

force of the quake. Yeah, it's a thing, as you say, it it it preserves for us, but it destroys

for them. Akim and his team have only excavated a small fraction of the site so far. The ongoing

archaeology is revealing a unique picture of the life story of this city and its tragedy.

[Music]

Jordan has deep rooted connections with three great religions, Judaism, Christianity,

and Islam. My next treasure is an exquisite survivor that maps out Jordan's place in the

heart of this biblical environment and provides a vital clue for exploring Jordan's landscapes.

This is the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Georgees in the town of Madaba just south of Aman. Built in

the late 19th century on the foundations of a much older Byzantine church dating

to the 6th century. But it's not the church in Madur I've come to see. Rather something

more exciting. What was discovered is the oldest ever map of the Holy Land. And it's under here.

The mosaic had miraculously survived demolition, fires, and neglect over hundreds of years.

The map isn't orientated as we'd expect it to be, north to south, but it faces east. So over

here you've got the tributaries of the Nile Delta. And then right here is the Dead Sea.

Some 157 surviving quotations written in Greek map out the names of places and stories from the

Bible. They're surrounded by depictions of the natural world and scenes of daily life. So the

fishermen here in the Dead Sea have had their faces and bodies mosaicked out uh from a time

when images of the living form weren't allowed. But the detail is still just incredible. So this

big city is Jerusalem and this is the church of Theotocos. Uh the church of Mary the mother of

God and we know that that was finished in 543 CE. And there aren't any images of buildings here from

after 570 CE. So that gives us a really precise date for the creation of this incredible thing.

This vast stone carpet was made up of a staggering 2 and a half million tiny mosaic pieces. So,

this is the River Jordan, uh, full of fish to show it's full of life and and love because down here,

I don't know if you can see that it says Bethabara. And that's what we know as

Bethany. And Bethany beyond the Jordan is where none other than Jesus was baptized.

Following the route of the river from the map, an hour's drive west of Madaba on the border

of Israel is a place where the Bible story comes to life. [Music] This is the famed River Jordan,

which has been so beautifully depicted on the Madaba map for over 1,400 years.

It was here that John the Baptist practiced his mission and where a 30-year-old Jesus began his

ministry after being baptized in the sacred waters. Not long after Christianity became the

official religion of the Roman Empire, this site known as Bethany beyond the

Jordan became a place of pilgrimage and many churches sprang up to cater for the faithful.

Just a few miles away, you'll find the Dead Sea, another place featured in the Madaba map and the

Bible. John the Baptist preached radical ideas to people along the shores of the Dead Sea and

in land, encouraging them to ritually cleanse themselves, body and soul. Technically a lake,

the Dead Sea is an extraordinary natural wonder. Its surface is over 430 m below sea level,

making the Dead Sea shores the lowest dry land anywhere on Earth. With salt levels almost 10

times higher than ordinary seaater, life hardly survives here. But surprisingly, this barren lake

boasts many secret riches and is one of the oldest health spars in the world. You often find that

narratives and myths and legends swirl up from places that have real historical or practical

significance and the Dead Sea is no exception. Um, apart from being ecologically unique,

this is the source of a weird thing called bumen. Now, bitammen is this kind of black oily substance

that bubbles up in islands and in the ancient world was as precious as gold. Bitchmen was

traded across continents by the Nabotans and the original ancient word for bitchmen was mum. Now

mama was thought to be used in mummification which is why we call Egyptian mummies mummies. [Music]

The thermal springs of Cali nearby are also known for their health benefits and are also

represented on the Madaba map. According to the ancient historian, Josephus, Herod the Great,

no less, came here to treat his ailments. Josephus tells us that although Herod struggled

with numerous disorders, yet he still had a desire to live and he hoped for recovery. So,

he came to Jordan and made use of those hot baths at Keller, which are sweet enough to be drunk.

But it wasn't just the thermal springs that attracted Herod to this part of

Jordan. [Music] You cannot argue with that, can you? As a strategic location. And this place,

Macareas, is where Herod the Great built his fortress.

Located on a high rocky vantage point, 1100 m above the Dead Sea,

this was the perfect place for Herod the Great to build his palace called Macareas,

deriving probably from the Greek Maca for sword. Ravines protect the fortress from all sides,

ensuring the site was secure and incredibly hard to access.

In the center of the mountain, Herod built a palace, glorious in its size and beauty.

The Romans described this place as the strongest fortification in Judea and

a stronghold of treasure. And we know that if Herod felt he was under attack,

he could send smoke signals out right the way across to Jerusalem in what is now Israel,

down to the south to Msada, and way out to his other fortresses in the east. [Music]

Archaeologists working here have identified all kinds of things that Herod built. um a garden,

a Roman style bath, a very posh tinium, a dining room, and just recently over here they

identified this as where the king had his throne. [Music] But although it was Herod

the Great who built Macareas, it was his son, Herod Antipass, who'd make this place notorious.

John the Baptist was deeply disapproving of King Herod Antipass's marriage to his sister-in-law

Herodias. So Herod imprisoned him in Macareas. But Herodias's thirst for revenge was far from

satisfied. Herod was celebrating his birthday up here with a grand dinner party. and Herodias's

teenage daughter Salame danced for the crowd. Herod was so delighted he promised to give the

girl whatever she wanted on oath. Salame prompted by her mother said, "Give me on a platter the head

of John the Baptist." Herod was horrified. He was appalled. This is not what he wanted to do.

But nor did he want to lose face in front of the assembled company. So he sent executioners down

to the prison where they beheaded John and brought his bleeding head on a plate for the young girl.

[Music]

Isn't it extraordinary to think that one of those stories that so many of us have heard from

childhood took place right here? Tales like these are threaded through this dramatic landscape.

Biblical Jordan is the site of remarkable monuments and events

and morality tales that have endured for centuries and that are cherished

by multiple faiths. This is the home of some of the greatest stories on earth.

Stories that are written both in man-made wonders and in the landscape itself.

But my next treasure stands as a monument to a terrible time when

the great faiths of Christianity and Islam were united in their hatred.

[Music]

My next treasure is a reminder of what happens when external forces

tangle with territories that are not their own.

It stood for a thousand years bearing terrible testimony to

a time when Islam and Christianity went to war.

This is Showback Castle built by Bulwin I, the king of Jerusalem in 11:15 and the first

of many crusader castles in the region. It comes from a time when the Christian

West was forcing a collision with Islam for control of what was called the Holy Lands

in a religious game of cat and mouse that still has implications for all of us today.

An ideal vantage point. Showback is located in the desert hills 19 mi north of Petra. [Music] This

became an arena where two of the most notorious warriors of the age faced off.

Reo Shation was a crusader knight who controlled this castle with a ferocity that was only matched

by his cruelty. It was said that when one man owed him money, he stripped him naked,

covered him in honey, and forced him to spend a day out in the sun before he imprisoned him.

The ruthless adventurer, always short of cash,

Reald was known as the thief knight, even by crusaders. He seemed not to

care about the honor or the principles of knighthood, only about gold. [Music]

From here, crusaders could launch military campaigns in the Holy Land.

They could tax and loot camel caravans that came along these ancient roads connecting Arabia and

the Silk Roots and they could attack pilgrims on their way to Mecca. Show was also a rich

agricultural hub in the region. Although it's hard to imagine now, this spot was once fertile with

abundant vines and olive groves. Reo's abuse of this land infuriated the Muslim warlord Saladin.

Saladin, the legendary fighter and governor of Egypt, was determined to take showback. He was

sick of the constant attacks on the camel caravans with their precious goods and he wanted to

oust crusaders from this land. So he tried again and again and again without success.

In 1187 Saladin mounted an allout invasion, laying siege to Showback. The crusaders held out for

over 18 months thanks to a combination of water from a hidden spring and a staggering arsenal.

I mean just look at the ammunition that's still left here. If you see that firepower,

you get the true raw brutal sense of why these castles were built.

Frustrated by Crusader Reo's forces at Showback, Saladin turned his attention to another of his

strongholds in the region, Karak Castle, about 90 mi north of Showback. This is Karak. There's been

a fortress here since biblical times and this is one of the largest castles in the Levant. Coming

here, you understand, don't you, why Arabic sources said that this place was impregnable.

[Music]

and Crusader Reo's strangle hold in the area was physically built on foundations left by the

region's previous rulers. [Music] One of the things I love about this place is that if you

look at the masonry, they're reusing stone from those massive Nabotian structures. So, it's just

another reminder of how there is continuity in cultures in this place right across time.

The seeming impregnability of his castles emboldened Reo to strike

back at Saladin. [Music] This vast hall had multiple uses, possibly a living area

for Reo's men and their horses and a shelter from the missiles of Saladin's siege engines.

Reo continued his nefarious deeds here. He made a move on the holy cities of Mecca and

Medina via the Red Sea. And it was said that he would put men's heads into wooden boxes and

then throw them off these battlements so they could feel every bone break as they made their

way down. Arabic sources of the time said that deeds like these polluted their land. [Music]

In contrast to Crusader Reo's atrocities, Saladin earned a reputation for chivalry and honor,

even in the heat of battle. We're told that when Reo's stepson and heir was getting married here,

Saladin hatched a cunning plan. He encamped a huge army out on these planes along with

seven siege catapults. But Reo's wife sent out tempting delicacies begging him not to disturb

the festivities. Then, and I'm sure that this bit is dramatic license, we hear that Saladin agreed

to let the love birds alone in their room, moved the army round so they would attack a different

bit of the castle. Although Carak withtood the siege, elsewhere, Saladin's army was driving the

crusaders out. Reo was forced to agree a truce. But once again, unscrupulous Reo broke his word,

attacking a camel caravan, seizing its booty, and imprisoning its merchants.

Reo's luck couldn't hold forever. In 1187, Saladin routed crusader forces in the Battle

of Hittin. The crusaders surrendered the region and Reo was captured. Saladin had Reo brought

to his tent. And when the Christian refused to convert to Islam, Saladin beheaded him.

Shortly after, Kerak and Showach castles finally fell to Saladin's forces.

The Crusades carried on here for centuries and for those in power there were opportunities

uh new demand for supplies and arms and luxuries. The west benefited from the

import of new architectural styles, new technologies, new mathematical methods.

But for the majority of people here, the Crusades brought a catalog of suffering.

The repercussions of the Crusades teach us lessons which are just as valid today as they were then.

The Crusader Castles of Jordan are a tenacious and in some ways terrifying treasure because

these aren't romantic citadels. What these represent are medieval chains of control. [Music]

Jordan is a wonder in part because so much history, so many shared stories

and beliefs originated or were nourished here. From biblical Jordan to Roman gash,

from the secrets and glories of Nabati and Petra to the horrors of the Crusades,

the treasures here remind us how connected we all are across time. And that although we

should never live in the past, we're fools if we don't admit that we live with it.

[Music] And Betty Hughes can show you more amazing treasures of the

world over on all four where you can stream all episodes from the series. Intoxicating,

adrenaline pumping action as Mark Wahberg and director Peter Berg reunite for a

treacherous ride to Mile 22 here on Channel 4 tonight at 9. Before that,

doing more of the things you love. Living wild, how to change your life next.

I'm traveling across the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So, I asked my

friends here if they could uh get me access off the meat track and I 100% definitely got what

I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It is just extraordinary.

where I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures. Some

of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity. Buried in ancient sites,

extraordinary buildings, and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help

to explain the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today.

I'm exploring one of the largest and most intriguing islands in the Mediterranean,

seeking out clues of its rich, diverse culture all across time. This place has

been at the front line of world events for over 4,000 years. History has made

its mark coast to coast, and it's a hot spot of human experience, the island of Cyprus.

I've been traveling to Cyprus for years and each time I come I learn something new. Both

about what makes this island so special and how all our histories are intimately connected.

Cyprus sits at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. For centuries, host to

overseas powers and influences. And in myth, the birthplace of the Greek goddess of love,

Aphroditi, for the Romans, Venus. Aphroditi was famed for her beauty and was the goddess

worshiped because she fostered desire. And we think we know her in the modern world, but to

reveal her secrets and her true story, you have to come here to Cyprus. Aphrodite was worshiped

across the island. And according to legend, she was born right here on Cypress's southern coast.

So the story goes that Gia, the great goddess of the earth, was sick of her eternal love making

with Uranus, the god of the sky. So she persuaded her son, Kronos, to cut off his father's rotting

penis and testicles with a flint sickle. The bloody castrate was thrown into the sea and from

this gory spewing mass arose an awful and lovely maiden Aphroditi. Understanding Aphrodite is to

understand something vital, human desire. Why her worship on Cyprus is my first treasure. A great

place to look for evidence is her nearby sanctuary of Palo Pathos. a massive precinct devoted to the

goddess. Ancient authors write about this place in incredibly heady terms. Um they talk first

of all of Aphroditi herself coming here bathing in ambrosial oil until her skin gleams. They describe

Arabian incense curling up from a hundred altars and the air being sweetened by wreaths of flowers.

The ancients believed that Aphroditi was in charge of nature, birth and death. So in its heyday,

this sanctuary thronged with pilgrims coming here to seek her help in matters of love and life.

You just have to try to imagine how sensuous it would have been here because we know that

Aphroditi was honored with offerings of honey and wine and rose petals that roses were famously her

flower and the whole place was protected by gates of gold. Hundreds of figurines found

here and right across the island symbolize those who came to adore Aphroditi, bringing

offerings of cakes and other homemade gifts for the goddess. Mainstream depictions of Aphroditi

symbolize her as a classic beauty. But on Cyprus, she had some rather surprising manifestations.

The cult statue of Aphrodite here wasn't the beautiful image of a woman that you might expect,

but this frankly rather odd thing, a lump of black ignous stone, which sources say was originally

painted white and drenched in perfumed oil. It is strange, isn't it? But it does have this kind

of primal primordial energy. Early cults in the east often worshiped abstract objects like this,

but its meaning was lost to later antiquity. There was one Roman author who said,

"The origins of the cult of the goddess in this form are obscure. [Music] This stone is a symbolic

reminder that Aphrodite was a creature of prehistory as well as of classical myth.

So, I'm on the hunt to trace the real origins of Cypress's elusive goddess via tantalizing

new archaeology. First stop, Lanica District Archaeological Museum. Last time I was here,

um, I visited some very exciting finds at a place that's called Hela Sultan Teke. And that

site itself is just remarkable because it's an entire Bronze Age city. And those finds in and

of themselves are are amazing. But they also really helped me jigsaw puzzle together the

story of Aphroditi. And now some of those finds are being scientifically analyzed

in here. Collaborating with the University of Goththingberg, a team from the Cypress Institute

are using 3D scanners to explore incredible objects found in a communal grave. personal

belongings of inhabitants of this three and a half thousand-year-old city. This scanning can

reveal details unseen to the naked eye, helping to unlock secrets of these objects origin, ownership,

and meaning. Particularly intriguing because some seem to show connections to Aphroditi. a lotus

pendant and a pomegranate shaped bead on a child's necklace. Both representations of fertility and

rebirth. [Music] And these aren't the only early glimmers of the goddess in this rich burial site.

You've got this beautiful, strange birdheaded figurine. Do you think there's any chance that

she represents a kind of eastern influence, the kind of beginning of an idea of a of a goddess or

a female deity or spirit of some kind? They are very similar uh to others from Syria. And when

you see two of them next to each other, it's the the similarities are really striking. And those

figures are related to Aarte. [Music] Estarte, also known as Inana or Ishtar, was a goddess

with origins in the Near East and Mesopotamia. A kind of many times great grandmother of Aphrodite,

she wasn't only the deity of sexual love, but of the desire for war. Cyprus already had its own

fertility symbols, striking statuettes with both male and female genitalia.

So what we're seeing with the life story of Aphrodite on Cyprus could be a mixing

of international and local culture to create a passionate divinity of life and death that was new

and distinctly criate. Even if the names of the gods and the goddesses and their shapes change,

the combination of desire of all kinds, you wonder if you're seeing the origins of those ideas in

some of these early objects. I mean definitely the female figure and its depiction is an amazing

uh story from around 9,000 BC in Cyprus up to today. The typology is quite specific with each

period but the female body is given a special place. I love the fact the female bodies woripped

on Cyprus I have to say. I know I shouldn't but I just you know it's it's really interesting.

One key trigger for this influx of ideas can be found across the island deep within the earth.

Now, what you're looking at here is slag that was produced during bronze production

over 3,000 years ago in an industry that made Cyprus very rich. Bronze is made from tin and

copper. And since prehistory, Cyprus was famous for its rich copper seams. In fact,

copper itself is named after an ancient word for the island, kros. Copper coming out of

the earth here was one of the key raw materials of the entire Bronze Age civilization, putting

Cyprus at the center of a trading web stretching from Italy to Mesopotamia, Anatolia to Egypt.

Copper and bronze were used to make lethal weapons, but also beautiful things like dinner

plates and jewelry and mirrors. I'm sure that's one of the reasons why Aphroditi is

often shown staring at her own reflection in the mirror. And I reckon too, it's probably why she

appears with this kind of coppery blonde hair. Over time, her cult would infuse the island,

making Cyprus a key destination for religious tourism. And one of the places people flooded

was here, the cosmopolitan city of Na Pathos, my final stop on the journey to discover Aphroditi.

Archaeologists have just identified what looks like a new temple to the goddess on this hill

and possible ritual banqueting where ancient criates could do what Aphrodite loved best,

mix and mingle. There's also an intriguing series of underground chambers with some surprising

secrets. [Music] A new discovery, a bit tricky to explore, suggesting Aphrodite's worship here may

well have had a heady, mysterious side. So, the um archaeologists working here gave me a tip off that

they discovered something a bit special. So that's a niche. So it's basically a kind of hole that a

religious object would be put in. And if you look up at the top, it pretty much looks like a shell,

like a scallop shell. There's a debate going on amongst the archaeologists at the moment. But

if it is, then a shell is always associated with Aphroditi because of her birth from the sea. And

also a scallop shell looks like the female sex. So, I'd wonder if this is somewhere where people

came for secret, mysterious underground rights in her honor. Um, I mean, we don't know yet. Is it

still being debated? But, um, we will find out. That's amazing. How amazing to be here. Amazing.

These discoveries are changing what we thought we knew about the goddess

and her cult. Not just a romantic love deity, Aphroditi was clearly a complex,

potent creature. And this island holds many of her secrets. The worship of Aphrodite in Cyprus

is a treasure for me because it shortcircuits us into the lives, loves, and ambitions of women

and men who lived thousands of years before us and the symbols that they left behind. [Music]

[Music]

One of the striking things about Cyprus is the number of shipwrecks that can be found

in its waters, modern and ancient ones alike. Discoveries from ancient wrecks

are currently being studied by the Department of Antiquities and the University of Cyprus.

work starting to reveal remarkable things. Cargos of ancient wine, 2,400y old olives and other

treasures from around the Eastern Mediterranean. Evidence that Cyprus, with its strategic position,

was part of an international maritime trade network long after the Bronze Age.

Now, where you have that kind of wealth and opportunity, you can expect the Romans to

come. And my next treasure reveals the triumph and the tragedy of Cyprus under Roman rule.

I'm heading to the ancient city of Kurion, a gorgeous settlement just along Cypress's

southern coast. This is one of the best preserved ancient archaeological sites in Cyprus. An amazing

location with a tragic secret. Kurion was first excavated in the 1930s by an archaeologist called

George McFaden. Although actually he wasn't just an archaeologist. Um he was also a World

War II spy who helped facilitate missions here for the Americans in Cyprus and elsewhere.

McFaden was really troubled by the rise of communism and fascism and he thought it would help

people to understand and return to the values of civic life from ancient civilizations. So he was

absolutely passionate about his work here in Coron and he made some quite remarkable discoveries.

The settlement that McFaten unearthed was once a jewel of the island. Originally founded as

a Greek colony in the Bronze Age, its port connected it to maritime communities across

the Mediterranean. But its heyday was in the age of Rome. [Music] The Roman generals Julius

Caesar and Mark Anthony both gave Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, Cyprus as a kind of strategic

love gift. But once Cleopatra was defeated, then Rome was in charge here. And in fact,

some of the very finest antiquities here do date from the time of the Roman Empire.

A theater for 3,500 people. A huge stadium, the only one in Cyprus. The remains of a bath house,

a grand forum, a temple expanded under the Roman Emperor Trajan. [Music] Kurion's residence became

mega rich, partly from trade and things like oil and wine. And so you find these super rich

mansions, or what's left of it here for the elite, packed with the very finest artworks.

This is called the house of the gladiators for obvious reasons. I have to say I hate images of

gladiatorial combat because it's just so awful, isn't it? To think of these men who are made to

suffer for entertainment. These are two kinds of gladiators called secretures over there. The the

guy with a full face helmet, he's a thrian or a thriax. And that man who's called Darius was

probably the referee. So what this does tell us is that here there was a really intense localized

take up of Roman traditions and Roman leisure activities by Kurion's elite. But this charmed

life of Roman luxury didn't last forever. The gifts of the earth that had made these men so

rich soon turned sour. So this is a water trough. You can see the animals would have been chained

up there. You can see it has been completely shattered into two pieces. And that damage

was the result of an earthquake storm between around 365 and 370 CE that devastated this city.

The earthquakes tore through Coron, collapsing many of its homes, including what archaeologists

call the earthquake house. Right across the city are signs of this monstrous destruction.

The local museum, once the home of George McFaden, guards relics of this traumatic event. And I've

been given special access to recent finds. Dr. Tom Davis, who's excavated Curion with Criate

and international colleagues since the 1980s, discovered some of these precious items. This is

a mosaic glass plate and uh as you can see it's a magnificently colored beautiful mosaic piece

glass that is so beautiful and it must be rare you you don't find these you don't find these the only

things we know of elsewhere is in Egypt gives us a sense of how rich and uh connected this city

was into uh the ancient world would have been a beautiful serving plate kind of a public plate you

know when for the elegant guests when they come you'd pull this out it was shattered completely

in the force of the earthquake and gives us a real insight in how powerful this quake was.

Further finds in the museum reveal the terrible fate suffered by some of the city's inhabitants.

[Music] So these poor people were found in the earthquake house. Yes,

they were cowering in a doorway trying to protect each other. As you can see, there's the infant,

the mother, and the father. Discovery like this reminds us that it's not just archaeology

that we're dealing with humans and this is this is a human tragedy. It's just terrible

to think of the of the trauma that they went through the the you know the fear. Obviously

they're huddling together for protection. Can you tell how quickly they died? Uh very

fast. Um you can see the skulls completely crushed in his case. It would have been in

the aftershocks. The a wall obviously came down right on top of them. We had probably

12 sets of human remains we found now in just two houses. So this shattered this community,

but but they were left in the house. They weren't removed or or rearied. Well, that's one of the the

really special things about this is either the family never survived or the neighborhood itself

was completely destroyed because they were left as they were in that moment of time. I wonder

if almost there was a sort of sense that it was such a tragedy. It was almost as if they're being

dealt with like kind of radioactive waste. you know, people didn't want to disturb them. Their

community is wiped out. And how do you respond to that? And that's kind of the question of Coron.

Kurion had suffered a hammer blow, but its spirit wasn't entirely crushed. And

we know that because this extraordinary mosaic that survived. So what you're looking at here

is Greek poetry that's written in an ancient Greek form. And it was dedicated by this man,

Ustolius, who has remembered with love the city even through its abject misery. Before

the city's guardian had been Feebas Apollo, but now there is a new protector of this earthruck

land. [Music] Uslius built a lavish home, but it wasn't for himself. It was a refuge

for the needy of Kuron's population on behalf of a higher power. So the clues as to who they

thought was now looking after the city comes in this second mosaic. So just look at the images

you've got here. There are two fish and various birds possibly representing peace and prosperity.

Some people think that these are crosses, but the evidence is really nailed by this poem. So now we

hear that Kurion is g by the much venerated Sumata Christristu the symbols of Christ.

Christianity was already gaining momentum. Were these earthquakes a catalyst for change?

Certainly, this city's elite employed a new language of symbols to communicate

their sense of community in the face of disaster.

Curion is a reminder that nature can give and it can take away, but it's also an incarnation

of the power of human resilience across time and in the face of the very greatest adversity.

[Music]

[Music]

Cypress is known for its fabulous beaches, but it's actually an island with a great variety of

landscapes. Now I'm traveling to the Trudeau mountain region. An area of stunning natural

beauty formed like the island itself by the collision of African and European tectonic

plates. Home to some wonderful historical gems. My next treasure reveals the symbolic art created

as medieval Cyprus became a theater of power for east and west alike. Over [Applause] [Music] 200

beautiful churches are scattered in the Trudeau mountains. And I'm interested in

what some choice examples reveal about Cyprus under the Byzantine Empire, the imperial early

medieval Christian dynasty which took over the Eastern Roman world. I'm starting my

investigation at one of the area's most intriguing churches, the monastery of St. John Lampadist.

In here, you can find the secrets of Cypress's medieval past and you

can find out about the intrigues of the power players of the day.

And there's a service. There's a service going on.

[Music]

It's a real treat to see this.

Young and old still travel in from surrounding villages in the mountains to take part in mass

[Music] and sometimes to leave curious wax offerings. symbols of devotion

just as ancient people did for their gods, including Aphroditi. With the service over,

I've got a chance to explore the church's exquisite decoration.

In many ways, this is a kind of perfect little Byzantine church. So if you look up

there for instance at this amazing image of Christ, Panta Christ all powerful,

you'd find pictures like that in in the very finest churches in Constantinople.

But they're not just churches. If you know how to read them, they're also ciphers for history.

This church's wall paintings, which date to between the 11th and the 16th centuries,

are packed with clues to the political and cultural influences in Cyprus at this time.

[Music] So, this panel shows the passion of Christ when Christ was being taken to

be crucified. And there are a couple of really interesting things about it.

um those soldiers there, the flag that they're carrying has a red cresant moon on it. We often

associate a cresant moon with Islam, but back then it was actually a symbol of Constantinople. Also,

if you look at those soldiers, they're meant to be Roman soldiers, of course, but they're dressed

in medieval armor. And that's because this was painted right at the same time as the Crusades.

The Crusades were military missions between the 11th and 16th centuries which saw thousands of

European Christian knights descend on the Holy Land to claim it for themselves. And the story

of how Cyprus got embroiled in the Crusades is a plot worthy of Game of Thrones. [Music] A

Byzantine prince called Isaac forged documents that meant he could lay claim to Cyprus. Now,

Richard the Lionheart from England was sailing through these waters and ahead of him was his

fiance and his sister who were caught up in a terrible storm wrecked on the shores of Cyprus

and were then taken prisoner and kidnapped in effect by Isaac. Um, Richard the Lionheart was

so furious about this he tore to Cyprus to rescue his damsels in distress. There's a

fantastic detail which says that Isaac begged not to be shackled in chains of iron. So Richard in

his cunning made his chains instead of silver, imprisoning Isaac and taking Cyprus for his own.

[Music] From 1191, Cyprus was in crusader hands, and influences from Western culture start to

creep into these churches. A wooden panel reveals double-headed eagles, symbols of Constantinople,

right next to rampant lions, an emblem of a noble French family called the Lucinons,

who Richard the Lionheart sold Cyprus to just a year after he'd conquered it. But why are there

so many of these churches up in the mountains? There are more in this concentrated area of Cyprus

than anywhere else in the Byzantine Empire. I'm hoping another church, Panaya to Araka,

decorated the year after the crusader takeover, might offer some answers. Medieval historian Angel

Nicol Canari is passionate about the story this church's art tells. Hello. Is it Angel? Hello.

Hello. I'm Better. I'm good. How lovely to meet you. Thank you for inviting me here because I've

never been before. It's fantastic, isn't it? It's I mean it is like a jewel box of color. So

tell me one thing. So I mean I'd expect there to be churches in in lots of local villages,

but there are so many up here in the mountains. There are several reasons after Richard the Lion

Hut and after the settlement of the Luzians, some of the Greek nobility um retreated on the

mountains. They lost all their class privileges and they couldn't stay uh in the towns where

the new uh aristocracy settled. And is there evidence of that here in the church? Well, this

is the dedicatory inscription and it says that someone called Leon Duafendu, which means Leo,

son of the Lord, is the donor for the decoration of this church. I like the fact that he's written

this all underneath an image of Christ as well. So, it's quite it's quite a prominent position,

isn't it? Of course. Of course. We don't know if for sure you know he had to escape

the Franks but there were donors responsible for the building and decoration of these churches.

The displaced Greek aristocracy poured their love and money into these churches. There are

other touching clues to just how traumatic they must have found this experience.

This is sort of supplication to the Virgin Mary. And this inscription says, "Me,

Leona Fendua, and my wife and my children and my servants, we um request your help

in this dire situation. Please keep us happy and save our souls." It might indicate that

it was indeed a difficult period of time for the Criots. And this lovely sympathetic

looking Mary. She seems full of sorrow. You know that she's sad. Humane, isn't she?

But it wasn't always to be such a desperate situation.

Over time, the cyprits and the lucinons became more integrated, explaining the mix of symbols

seen in some of the churches. I mean, I love the fact that you've got all these hidden messages

and stories in the walls. Thank you for showing me how to decode them and read them. You're welcome.

But as I leave the church, there's a surprising turn of events. Um, the weather seems to have

set in somewhat. Uh, so I'm suddenly really realizing how remote these mountains are. Um,

I'm kind of living the historical experience cuz like those communities of the medieval world,

looks like I'm going to be um hanging out here for for a bit longer. [Music]

I've been stranded up in these mountains before and the monasteries here have a reputation for

taking in wafes and strays. So, I'm going to see if anyone's at home. [Music] Hello. Hello,

father. Hello. Hello. Hello. Good day. Hello. Welcome. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

How lovely to be here. What? It's such a beautiful church. This is first name. I came once before,

maybe 20 years ago, and somebody invited me in here and gave me some food and drink when

I was lost. So, I thought I'd come again today. If you have a little bit time,

can I invite you to something to drink? I'd love for that. Thank you. Welcome, please. Thank you.

Traditionally, monastic communities here had to be pretty much self-sufficient, which included

making their own wine. Thank you. Please welcome. This is our guest room. Yes. Thank you. You want

to try commanderia? We have rosé red wine. Red dry wine. Well, I could I could try them all. But no,

maybe we start with this. This is the commandaria wine. Yes. It's one of the oldest wine in the

world. Liquor wine. It's a bit like liquor wine. It's quite delicious actually. And I think the

story goes that it's called Command Daria because the Knights Templar, the Crusader Knights were

here. Thank you. This is great. Uh the commander of the Knights Templar gave his name to this wine

and it became so famous it was described as the the the king of wines and a wine for kings. And

it was considered so good, the story goes that Richard the Lionheart when he eventually married

his fiance, he drank this at his wedding. So, yamas, welcome. Thank you. Yamas. Yamas.

Oh, that's going to that's going to keep good. That's very good. That's going to keep the chill

of the snow out today. Yes. Thank you, Father. The You're very kind. This is Thank you very much. To

me, the art of these churches and the communities around them are a true treasure of this island.

Not only are these buildings beautiful, but if you know how to decode them,

you can find the story of medieval Cyprus hidden on and inside their walls.

[Music] Cypress is a treasure trove of amazing historical riches. especially

its capital, Nicicoia.

The rich architecture here reflects those who've controlled it, the Venetians, who desired Cyprus

partly for its trade with the East, the Ottomans, and even the British. But I'm here to witness

something extremely unusual. Following conflict between Greek and Turkish populations in the 1960s

and 70s, a huge slice of this city has been off limits to most, including its own inhabitants.

What's behind this roadblock is a ghost town. Now, for me as a historian, in some ways,

it's remarkable because what's in there has lain pretty much untouched since it was barricaded off

half a century ago. It's very very difficult to get access, but the UN's given me an opportunity

to investigate. The United Nations have been custodians of this area since 1974,

keeping the peace between both sides. As it's still strongly contested,

I'd need to be chaperoned by one of their daily patrols. So, it's obviously a very sensitive area,

so I'm actually not sure whether I'm allowed to to talk to you yet, but I'm coming up here to meet

the colonel. Morning. Are you Colonel Hansen? Yes, I'm John Hansen. I'm the chief of staff unfair.

Welcome. Thank you. I'm I'm Bethany Hughes. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for letting us in

because talk about a unique place. Well, it is unique. It's uh you know, a chance in a lifetime

for many people. So, I hope you find what you're looking for. You tell me what I can and can't do.

I'm sticking with you. Certainly will. Certainly will. Don't worry. Known as the Green Line, this

charged treasure is a ceasefire buffer zone which cuts the island in two. To the south lies the

Greekeaking Republic of Cyprus and to the north the self-administered Turkish Republic of Northern

Cyprus. And the buffer zone carves a line straight through the center of Nicico itself. [Music]

here. In some places, people are able to pass between the two sides via checkpoints,

but no one except the UN can enter the buffer zone. [Music] It's so ironic,

isn't it? You said people just sitting having a a lunch either side. It's just unbelievable,

isn't it? Greek criates and um the Turkish area here. Unbelievable. Should we go through? Yes.

Following several centuries of rule by the Turkish Ottomans and later by the British,

Cyprus finally won its independence in 1960 and the Republic of Cypress

was created. But there followed a period of intense political unrest

between Greek and Turkish populations as Cypress struggled to define its identity.

In 1964, the British major general in charge of the peace force took a blunt

green chinograph pencil and drew a temporary ceasefire line through the city. A decade

later that line became impassible and the city was divided into two.

In 1974, this band which ran directly through the center of Nicico was suddenly abandoned.

And these streets are a time capsule of how they were in that moment. I'm

immensely privileged to be allowed to come here as many of those who lived and

worked in these streets are unable to access what was once their own.

Oh, look at this. So, this is just obviously a, you know, a regular store. And you can

hear the call to prayers just started. That's amazing, isn't it? Cuz this is a Greek shop.

Wow. All these objects are completely ordinary things, but they've become extraordinary because

of how they were left. So, the newspapers, I bet they'll I bet there'll be a date to one of these.

22nd of January 1973. So just the the year before this all fell apart. You see that is

the thing about history because everything that's been touched by human hands matters

through time. But when things like this are left, they become completely freighted with

meaning and with memory. It's it it's very moving coming here. [Music] This is a former

car garage and while much of the building has been stripped, over 50 cars remain. Second left

tenant Dan Tal, another UN peacekeeper, knows more about the relics in his care.

This area had a a big Toyota dealership and all these brand new cars would come in through

Famagusta and all of them would be driven directly to Nicosia and then sold. Every single car will

have between 30 and 50 miles on the board. Can you can you see it on here? Let's check.

Yeah. So, this one um 37.5 miles. So, that is just at 37.5 miles lifespan as an active car.

ready to sell and then the war broke out would abandon. I mean

all of that just that flash of time as you say it is literally a time capsule.

But it's not only objects which have been trapped in time here. The architecture of this place is

also a record of the city's rich heritage. This former primary school, its walls now riddled

with bullet holes, is a beautiful example of neocclassical design. And the Ledra Palace,

now the UN's crumbling base, was once the most glamorous hotel in all of Nicar, a 1940s Italian8

design, where the creme de la creme of European and Middle Eastern elites would rub shoulders and

sip cocktails together. When the green line came down, all the parties suddenly stopped.

And one of the most impressive historical monuments are the

city walls dating to the time of Venetian control.

The walls and their fortifications originally went right the way round the city and actually they

became a symbol for Nicico. And when you look at beautiful historical maps like this, you can see

and and you can just feel how ridiculous, how terrible it is that this is a city that's been

divided in half. For Greeks and Turkish criates alike, the buffer zone is steeped in personal

memory and symbols of their identity. One of the narrowest points of the buffer zone, so-called

Spear Alley, was once a scene of devastating violence over the right to this land. One night,

the Turkish soldier decided to put a bayonet on the end of his um broomandle and try stab soldier.

Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But this place did cause escalations uh from time to time.

It's just a madness, isn't it, that there is a a divide like this in the center? Yeah. Sad. It's

very sad. What What do you think is the answer? It's that integration. It's that dispelling the

fear of the other side. Wersworth poet has a beautiful line where he says, "Humans have

have different faces, but we all share one human heart." And you know, you can't say better than

that. Yeah. But over the past 50 years, there have been rare flashes of harmony between both sides.

One relates to an incredible woman called Annie who lived right here. Now, Annie was a woman who

was born in 1900, but she refused point blank to leave in 1974 when the city was divided. And so,

UN peacekeepers had to take her in and out of one of these gates to get her shopping.

And when she eventually died in 1991, she'd become such a cause celebr such a symbol of

resistance and tenacity that her funeral was actually the first ever by communal event of

the buffer zone attended by Greek criates and Turkish criates alike. [Music] And today there

are also glimmers of a more peaceful future. A shared sense of responsibility has brought

some people together from both sides to work on restoring their mutual heritage.

And a new state-of-the-art VR project by the Cypress Institute is capturing the historic

buildings here digitally so the next generation of criates will understand their history. [Music]

Elsewhere at the old Nicicoia airport, there's something else

bringing people together. In 1968, this terminal building was opened as

a cuttingedge development costing over a million pounds. But 6 years later,

it found itself in the heart of the buffer zone. And now it's succumbed to mother nature.

There's a very strange beauty to this place because humans haven't been here for close on

50 years. Unwittingly in a way, the buffer zone has become a kind of nature sanctuary. So there

are very rare birds and plants and animals here. Rare mulong, a type of endangered sheep which had

been on Cyprus for 10,000 years and now making a resurgence in some areas along the buffer zone.

an expression of hope in this wilderness. And it's this precious new world which some Greek

and Turkish criates are working together to try to protect. It's a humbling thought

that a shared responsibility for this fragile sleeping beauty could perhaps

become a catalyst for change. And that is why the buffer zone is a treasure for me. [Music]

Cypress's natural riches and its strategic location have been both a great blessing and

at times a curse. One Arab geographer of the 10th century wrote that this is an island that is in

the power of whichever nation is overlorded in the region and it's certainly been host to a maelstrom

of cultures and influences although Cypress never really seems to have lost sense of itself.

This beautiful land forged treasures that represented the things that really mattered

to women and men from prehistory onwards. And some of the symbols they left behind

still speak to us today. [Music] An earlier travel time next week. Betany sails to Turkey

to reveal sea and secrets at 5:30. And you can stream all episodes of her treasures

of the world from Albania to Azabaijan on all four. Truly inspiring stuff. Up next,

Sophie Morgan's beaten people living wild with tips on how to change your life.

[Music]

I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track, and I 100% definitely

got what I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It is just

extraordinary where I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures. Some

of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity. Buried in ancient sites, extraordinary

buildings, and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help to explain

the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today. That's Turkey.

And this gorgeous coastline runs down the Aian and then the Mediterranean seas. Over there is Greece

and the rest of Europe. Head south and you hit the Middle East and North Africa. If you travel

inland, you'll reach the Black Sea and Asia. So, this is a strategically crucial highway. [Music]

It's home to remarkable human stories from the private lives of an eccentric dynasty to newly

discovered secrets of a neglected civilization. From Roman riots to the legend of the Trojan War,

I'm exploring the treasures of Turkey in the Mediterranean.

The coastline of Mediterranean Turkey bristles with history. It's rich with

stories from ancient times, and many of its secrets are still waiting to be uncovered.

[Music]

This treasure isn't a single place. It is a remarkable family with an enduring legacy.

A dynasty whose women ruled as well as men and whose capital was this place,

its modernday Bodram, ancient Helicanasses.

The dynasty, the Hecatmludes, ruled over an area known as Keria in the 4th century B.C.E. [Music]

The Kerrion people were great artists, soldiers, and seafarers. They were smart and distinctive.

So, it's odd that they've pretty much been written out of the history books.

Ah, hello. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great to be in Bard. Thank you. Bye. Okay. So,

you've got to ask yourself why. Why do people hear so little about the Karens? Well,

it is partly because written sources are very scarce. But I've got to say

it is also just because I'm sure that there was prejudice amongst Western

scholars who couldn't quite wrap their heads around them, who couldn't categorize them.

They're a bit too exotic. They weren't Greeks. They weren't Romans. They weren't even Persians.

So, I'm going to try to do what I can to help give the Carans the attention they deserve. My

mission starts with an unexpected lastm minute call to say I'm being granted access to a really

special place. the recently discovered tomb of the head of the Kerrion dynasty,

King Hecatomminus. The family reached the height of their power under Hectominus' son, Mosulus,

but it was Hectomnus, who kickstarted it all. The tomb isn't open to the public, so it's a

huge privilege to be allowed inside. I don't know what to expect. Uh, so I am genuinely excited.

It looks very promising.

It's not very Indiana Jones, but this is how it's done. [Music]

This is um it's so sensitive that you had to come through an air lock obviously to get in. [Music]

Oh my god. Look at this. This is Hecatomnus. So this is the man who founded the Hecatnid dynasty.

And this is his sarcophagus. This is where he was buried. That is so beautiful. Look at this.

I mean, you never get to come into a tomb that hasn't been um opened before. And Lutters got

in here and took some of the golden treasure, but they're the only people apart from the restoers

who've been in. So, this is an absolutely remarkable once in a-lifetime experience.

I mean this is so the Karens were very famous for the quality of their their stone carving and he's

the big man so he'd have used the absolute best in the business and look how beautiful look how

beautiful this look at his fantastic features on his face so this is a real portrait and I think

I'm just working out what I'm looking at here so so okay so this is a umerary banquet so So,

uh, you know, the idea is it's almost as if he's still alive even though he's

being buried inside. And they're mourning him with him present at his own funeral.

These are his servants. And these must be his children. These are his children. My god. So,

that's going to be little Mosulus or one of his brothers. So, I'm guessing his daughters

are going to be over this side. Yeah. Look, look, look. It's holding a little bird which

was often a symbol that appears inerary scenes but you'd normally mean that I get the children

represented as grown-ups on the other side. So I don't know. Let's see if they're around here.

Oh my goodness. This is tight.

Okay.

[Music]

Oh, wow. Look at this. It's a hunting scene. So,

here's Heca Thomas again. And he's hunting a lion. Oh, of course he's hunting a lion.

Cuz that proves how omnipotent you are. Oh, this is just so incredible. [Music]

Okay. So, that's what you'd expect to find around here. Oh my goodness. So,

these are the the children grown up. So, that would mean that this is Mosulus,

Hecatomminus's son, and I never thought I'd see his face like this.

Moses and his wife Artameeseia succeeded Hecatomnus. Together they embarked on an

ambitious building program. The climax, an uber elaborate royal tomb in central Hakanasses.

This was the high street of ancient Hakanasses. And today it is a charming,

if slightly unexpected, entrance to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The monument,

a groundbreaking mixture of eastern and western art, was destroyed probably by an

earthquake in medieval times. So you have to try to imagine the moselum. It was 40

m high and a kind of fivetory wedding cake creation. Um it was covered in sculptures

of battle scenes and images of the royal family and interestingly a lot of Amazon's

almost at the top there was an entire Egyptian stepped pyramid and then above that a fourhorse

chariot driven almost certainly by Mosas and Artameeseia themselves. It was enormous.

Mosus might have come up with the idea for this monument but at the time of his death

in 353 B.CE it was unfinished. So Artameeseia took up the challenge and created a wonder.

[Music] Now here's the thing. Artameeseia was Mosulus's wife and successor and she

was his sister. And these two had another brother, Adreas, and another sister, Ada,

who were married, too. Frankly, this is odd. So, what's going on? Is it

that the Hecatomminids as a new dynasty are trying to make a mark, to be distinctive,

to distinguish themselves from others? Or is it just that they want to keep power really

tight within the family? Either way, these sibling marriages really set them apart.

Perhaps the most significant impact of their sibling marriages was that it promoted female

power. Hecatonid women ruled with their brother husbands not just behind the scenes,

but in public. When their spouses died, they weren't passed over for a younger male heir. And

what's more, they ruled with confidence. There's a great story about Artameeseia. The island of roads

was controlled by Keria, but the Rohians revolted and sent a fleet here to try to take Hikarnasses.

Altameisia was having none of it and she hid her fleet in a secret harbor and ordered them

to attack. The Rodians were surprised and completely overwhelmed and the Kerranss

boarded the Rohdian ships and then sailed straight back to the island of roads. When they arrived,

of course, the Rhodians thought that these were their countrymen rather

than enemies and they welcomed them in. And so Kerrier retook the subordinate island.

After Artameeseia's reign, the next Hecatonid couple,

her brother and sister, Adreas and Adah, took control.

When Adreas died, Adah ruled alone for 4 years, but then she was exiled.

Luckily for her, the most powerful man in the world at the time, Alexander the Great,

rocked up and offered his allegiance. You get the sense the two of them really got on. Uh Ada

actually adopted Alexander and she sent him sweet treats, kind of cakes and buns before

he went into battle. Alexander successfully besieged Hakonasus and reinstated Ada as queen.

But that wasn't the end of her story. In 1989, archaeologists here in Bodram made

a truly remarkable discovery, an undisturbed tomb believed to be that of Adah herself. The

finds are now in Bodram Castle. The castle was built in the early 1400s on what's believed to

be the original site of the Hecatnid's Palace. The stunning treasure unearthed in the excavation

is displayed here as are what are almost certainly the mortal remains of Adah herself.

[Applause]

The Hecaton family are a treasure because they are remarkable in themselves,

but also because they focus our attention on the neglected Kerran civilization. Their dynamism and

determination forged new forms of culture and they even gave us one of the seven wonders of

the ancient world. Plus, thanks to Mosulus, they gave the world a new word, Moselum.

[Music]

My next stop to explore ancient civilizations is on this stunning

stretch of the Mediterranean coastline, now known as the Turquoise Coast or the Turkish Riviera.

In antiquity, the coastline here right inland to the Taras Mountains was home to a brilliant

civilization called the Lickians. Now, we hear about the Lickians in Homer as allies of Troy,

but we also know that they were real. Uh they had their own language and alphabet and beliefs

and often lived in cities overlooking these seas. Now, new discoveries are revealing their secrets.

By the 2nd century B.C.E. the city of Petara was Likia's capital city and primary seapport.

For centuries hills of sand covered not only the shoreline but the site

of Petara itself until in the late 1980s archaeologists began excavating.

As the truckloads of sand were cleared away, this remarkable building was revealed.

It is just blowing my mind the fact that when I first came to Turkey,

this place was completely covered in sand. I mean, no one knew it was here. And yet,

not only is it the most impressive building, it was also home to what

one enlightenment thinker described as the most perfect form of government.

This was the Liian League, a coalition of all the cities in Liia,

the first known democratic federation in history. The member cities of the league

committed themselves to be governed by the central assembly that met here

in this council chamber. Each city elected and sent one, two, or three representatives

depending on its size. This proportional system of representatives was unique in ancient times.

The president of the Lickian League, the Licky Arc, sat here and all around him were citizens of

cities eagerly representing their own interests. So the atmosphere here must have been absolutely

electric. And in fact, this system was so successful, it directly inspired the men

who drafted the American Constitution. And if you think about it, American chambers of Congress are

shaped exactly like this. The Federation survived right up until the 4th century.

Now, before I leave Petara, I've just got to mention one of the city's most celebrated sons.

He was born here around 1700 years ago and he was a churchman called Nicholas of Myra. Now

Nicholas Admmyer is arguably one of the most famous men in the world and you might think

that you haven't heard of him but he was also called St. Nicholas aka Santa Claus

aka Father Christmas. Um Nicholas was born here but he lived most of his life in another

Lickian city around 50 miles east along the coast. A beautiful place called Myra.

Ancient Myra, modernday Dere was another leading lickian city.

St. Nicholas was bishop here in the 4th century.

This church was the site of his original burial place.

[Music] After his death, his story was painted up here on the walls. Um, and we learned that

his parents who were very wealthy died in a pandemic. So, he inherited a huge amount of money

which he put to very good use. Um, he donated to charitable works. Uh, he was just generally

very kind and he even paid one man so that his daughters didn't have to become prostitutes. So,

look up there. There he is. This is St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, Santa Claus,

Noel Baba, as he's called here in Turkey. And he is wearing a red outfit. He's got a white

beard and he's got little white trimmings on his coat. Fantastic. St. Nicholas made Myra famous,

but I also want to search further back in time to a period more shrouded in mystery.

And for that I've come to the archaeological site recently dubbed the Pompei of Anatolia.

Ancient Myra doesn't appear in real solid historical sources until relatively late.

So to find out more about the city and its people and its stories, we have to turn to

archaeology. And there have been some brilliant recent archaeological discoveries here. And I

know that two of the women working on the finds are here today. [Music] Hi ladies. Hi. They're

archaeologists. Sema Taloo and Best to Sema. Sema and Best Best. Nice to meet you. How lovely to

meet you. So these are two of the team that found something very special here in the theater. So So

what what was it exactly? What did you find? 100 intact figurines like these actually. Oh,

they're beautiful. They're so beautiful. They're so I mean honestly where did you find them? Um

we found middle of this era. So just right in the middle of the theater. Yes. It's unusual.

Why were they here? We think the people is around a ritual here and after after the ritual they're

thrown away. It's very exciting because it's like a jigsaw puzzle of history. Yes. Look at

that. It's a lady. Lady and her kids. Fantastic. Do you know who this is? Heracles. Heracles. The

color is so beautiful, isn't it? Yes. Incredible. Oh, look. Lovely hairstyle. Yes. So sweet. That

baby is so adorable. And it's so lovely to see this because in history often we hear about the

kings and the queens and the powerful and the the great and the good and the very rich but it feels

as though some of these are ordinary people. We can see uh and we can understand the ancient

dresses faces garments are red and blue pink. Amazing. They're lovely. Yes. This is very special

collection. When we found them, we so excited. Our team is hugging each other happily. Actually,

we crying. Yeah. Yeah. Nearly. I can still I can hear the emotion in your in your I love

them. It's making you cry. That's so sweet. It feels as though this has changed your life a

bit. Yes. Of course. Yes. Incredible. What a what a privilege to see them. Thank you.

The figurines offer a wonderful glimpse into the world of the people of ancient Myra, and

they're not the site's only portal to the past. There's something up here I haven't shown you yet.

[Music]

[Music]

These extraordinary structures are tombs sculpted into the rock face mostly in the 4th century BCE.

[Music] Some of these tombs are built to look like temples, but a lot of them represent homes

just just like the houses that the Lickians would have lived in. And I don't know if you

can see those cylinders. Uh there's a kind of line of them there. And those are meant to be logs that

were used in house construction and actually are still used in in traditional houses here today.

And there are little traces of blue and red and yellow and paint. So, we know that originally

these would have been a riot of color. So, it's kind of gorgeous, isn't it? Cuz because it's

really physically where the dead were being made to feel at home. [Music] Some tombs are accessible

to the public, but off the beaten track, access is strictly only with special permission for

academic research, including one tomb, which is particularly striking. I've been warned,

it's a scramble to reach. [Music] The rock here is just honeycombed with these tombs. some of

them slightly more inaccessible than others. And that was quite that was quite some climb,

but worth it. Uh because what's here is wonderful. Um so inside the tomb, this is the family itself.

And then on the outside here, uh you've got friends and guests. There's even a mother holding

a little child's hand. And you know, I was talking about the colors that they used. You can see the

remnants of the original paint. Reds and blue over 2,000 years old. This is wonderful, isn't it?

The Lickian lands and their culture are a treasure because of their incredible

epic natural beauty, but also because they offer

us intimate clues to the lives of women and men from the distant past. [Music]

This part of the Mediterranean coast was a vital meeting place of civilizations

and cultures. And it's home to one of the most famous ancient cities in the world.

This treasure is an epic story and an enduring mystery. The world of Troy. I've been obsessed

with the heroins and heroes of the Trojan War for decades, and it is a great tale, but it's dogged

with controversy. Is the Trojan War myth, or is it history? I'm going to head in land to try to

unwrap the riddle of Troy. The story of the Trojan War, of how a mighty fleet of Akan Greeks sailed

across the sea and attacked the city of Troy, laying siege to it for 10 years, was told almost

3,000 years ago by the Greek poet Homer. It's a brilliant, dramatic account. It plays out at

a strategically crucial location. what's now the continental boundary of Europe and Asia.

The ancient Greeks and Romans really believed the story, but in later centuries, even the location

of Troy was unknown, suggesting the tale might be just a myth. Then in the 19th century, amateur

archaeologists using geographical clues from Homer identified this spot as the possible site of Troy.

I just adore this place. Um, I first came here as a teenager and the whole site is like a giant

puzzle of fragments that you have to try and piece together. Um, like adding chapters together in a

great book. The first excavations were led in the 1870s by Hinrich Schlean. but grabbed headlines,

unearthing an ancient settlement now accepted as Troy and a spectacular cache of treasure.

The treasure was from too early in Troy's history to be directly linked to Homer's tales,

but it confirmed the importance and wealth of the city. Professor Rustam Alan, the current director

of the excavations, is going to show me where the treasure was found. So just before we go in, what

is all this pottery? There is a handmade pottery and the first time we have a well-made pottery is

in Yes. place. Yeah. So made on a potter's wheel. So it's beautifully even. That's mean the 2,500

years BC. So that's 4,500 years old. Yes. Okay. We can go down. Professor Alan, this is incredible.

Feels quite dangerous now. Yes. Dangerous. Yes. A little bit dangerous. Be careful. I will. I will.

Yeah, because everywhere there is a trenches. So this is where Schlleman excavated all. Yes,

we are now inside of the early Troy city gate where he discovered the treasure. So I mean

just I've just got to pause for a moment because first of all that's extremely exciting for me.

So where we are now so this is the the citadel of Troy dating back to around 2500 BC. I mean I can

see there is archaeology this kind of bit I can show to you here. Thank you is if you look here

uh is then after surface and you can see the burnt layers and some mud break structure. So

this it's it's redder this soil. Yes. The the mud break is after the fire is getting red color. Are

we looking at a destruction layer? Yes. So this what we're looking at this this is the city of

of of the treasure and this is the fire that that would have destroyed that culture. Yes.

Exactly. Incredible. You love working here don't you? Yes. Um since over 30 years I came

here as a students. the the magic of the poetry power of the poetry is I think is make the Troy

uh one of the most important place in history. I feel every mornings the

uh the homeic landscape is similar with the real landscape in in around the tri. Amazing.

So you're an archaeologist and a scientist but you can feel the it's almost like the

aura of Homer is in the landscape. Yes, of course. all all the time. So exciting.

Much of the treasure found at Troy was smuggled out of the country, but recently some of the finds

have been returned and are now in the Troy Museum. You just have to look at these. So,

the jewelry in this case is over 4,500 years old. And if that weren't staggering enough

in and of itself, the workmanship is so fine. It's so exquisite. I think probably

my favorite pieces are these amazing earrings which have a kind of shower of leaves tumbling

down. And it is brilliant being so close to them because it just shortcircuits you to a

connection to those early Bronze Age ancestors of Homer's Trojans. And I have to say this,

I love wearing gold earrings. And isn't it fantastic that the women and the

men of this time and place in prehistory loved wearing this kind of jewelry, too?

Historians agree that if there was a Trojan War,

it almost certainly took place in the late Bronze Age, probably around 1,200 B.CE.

And most of what you see on the site of Troy today dates to that time. And there

is mounting evidence that the events described by Homer do indeed have their roots in reality.

The truth is we just don't know whether a single Trojan war happened out there on the plains of

Troy. But tablets from the time describe clashes between Greeks and local Anatolians here in what

is now Turkey. Uh if you look at the journeys that Homer describes in his poetry, then these

match almost exactly Bronze Age trading routes. And one of the princes of Troy, Prince Hector, is

described as a tamer of horses. And archaeologists have found really huge numbers of horsebones here.

So, it's all very tantalizing, but it does suggest that there are kernels of truth and a foundation

of history to those fantastic tales. More clues have emerged after years of excavation. These

huge blocks of limestone make up the 550 m worth of walls that originally surrounded the city.

In Homer, the walls of the city are described as sloping and indeed they do slope. But not

only that, originally there was a mud brick structure on top. So these would have stretched

10 m high. So I am certain that I'm standing here in front of Homer's well walls. Troy

[Music]

There's one more place I want to visit. A four mile journey from the mainland. The

Turkish island of Bosjardada known in antiquity as Tenados. [Music] I've never actually made

it here before. Um, but this island crops up loads in ancient sources and it plays a really

crucial role in the drama of the Trojan War and in particular in the story of the Trojan horse. So,

it is fantastic to finally be getting here [Music] today. Buzz Jarda is an intoxicating

mix of culture from both east and west. It's also famous now, as it was back in antiquity, for its

wine. In a final plot twist, the Aan Greek fleet came here as the conflict was reaching its climax.

You'll probably remember the story of the Trojan horse when the Greeks built a giant wooden horse

and left it outside the gates of Troy with a SWAT team of Greek soldiers hidden inside waiting for

their chance to trick their way into the city. Well, the poets and the myth makers tell us that

the rest of the Greek army with their ships waited here for the signal to attack. And coming here,

it is just brilliant because this bay is still full of ships actually waiting for

the right winds to sail up the Dinell. So this is somewhere where the landscape makes myth real.

In the story, the final assault the Greek fleet launched from here on Troy

was a success. After 10 years, the Trojan War was over. But the legend lives on.

It is fascinating how obsessed we continue to be with these stories of Troy. Um, just last

year there was a news story that the Trojan horse itself had been discovered at the site of Troy in

the form of 50 m long planks and beams. Um, now that actually turned out to be a hoax, but it

just shows us how driven we still are to try to find the physical evidence of these epic tales.

The world of Troy is a treasure because of the enduring power of the story and

the fascinating modern discoveries that suggest it's rooted in reality. It's a

world where archaeology and ancient poetry come together to paint a picture of the past.

[Music]

This part of the Turkish Aian coast is packed with ancient wonders. My final treasure was

once one of the greatest cities in the Roman Empire. This place is truly exceptional. For

thousands of years, it's been a magnet for travelers. And today it's one of

the most spectacular archaeological wonders on earth. Welcome to Ephesus.

The whole city is a world heritage site. Ephesus had existed for at least 6,000 years,

and its port became a central hub for travelers between east and west. [Music]

Ancient Ephesus was exciting and energetic and impressive. At its height, over 200,000 people

lived here and traders and tourists and pilgrims made their way to the port and then up into this

city, not to mention the rich and famous of the ancient world. So, Alexander the Great and those

doomed lovers Anthony and Cleopatra and the Christian evangelist St. Paul all walked these

streets. [Music] Ephesus's early draw was as a place of pilgrimage. From the 6th century B.CE.

It was home to another of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Artemis.

This street was built as a grand processional highway right to the temple. Now sadly very

little survives of the temple itself. But Artemis wasn't just confined to the

sanctuary. She pervaded this whole city and some rather wonderful discoveries

have been made here that bring us face to face with the goddess herself. [Music]

The goddess that was excavated right in the governmental heart of Ephesus

is definitely a creature of the east. [Music]

Just look at her. I you really do feel as though you're in the presence of a goddess. She is wild,

isn't she? But of course, the first thing you notice are these strange protuberances around her

chest. And the truth is, we just don't know what they are. We we don't know whether they're breasts

or bull's testicles or eggs or sacks of honey. But whatever they are, they tell us that Artimus had

dominion over nature and the natural world and over the supernatural world, too. Look at those

sphinxes up here. And these strange monsters, you can absolutely understand why people would

travel for days and for miles just to be in the presence of this ferocious, fckened power. [Music]

The temple of Armis made Ephesus famous, but it was later under the Roman Empire

as a thriving port and capital of the province of Asia that the city became mega rich. Much of

what you see here today is the result of a Roman building boom in the first and second centuries.

Streets were paved with marble and magnificent new public buildings. Temples, fountains, gateways,

a concert hall and bars were constructed. In fact, Ephesus was packed with treasures. This

is probably the most famous. This is the library of Kelsus. But this wasn't just

a library. This was a tomb in honor of a man called Kelsus with a public library on the top.

The library, one of the most impressive buildings in the empire, could hold 12,000 scrolls and was

full of architectural wizardry like temperature and humidity controls.

There were also new luxury private homes. Remarkably,

this city center apartment complex survives. [Music] Ongoing restoration

work is giving us a rare glimpse into the domestic world of Ephesus's wealthy elite.

It's just fantastic cuz every time I come here, they've excavated or pieced together a bit more.

This was a place of real comfort. Hot and cold water, underfloor heating, and high-end decor.

[Music]

Coming here, you just feel so close to the women and men of Ephesus who

use their wealth to decorate their beautiful homes in this way. But it is just fabulous,

isn't it? And do you know what? Arteimus even has a presence here because excavators when they

were working recently discovered a gorgeous statue of the goddess in this very house.

[Music] But change was coming.

One of the most famous visitors was Christian evangelist Paul of Tarsus,

later known as St. Paul in the mid 1st century he preached in the

local synagogue here and then more widely to the Ephesian population.

From Paul's point of view, Ephesus, which was a cosmopolitan city and a hub for travelers, was the

ideal place to try to spread the word about Jesus. But things didn't quite go according to plan.

For most people living here at the time, Paul's new message was unsettling and unwelcome,

as an account in the Bible makes clear. According to the Acts of the Apostles,

a silver smith called Demetrius, who made his living here by selling miniature souvenirs

of the temple of Artemis, stirred up his fellow traders by claiming that Paul's radical teaching

would not only put them out of business, but also threatened the temple and the goddess herself.

Soon, the city was in uproar with crowds of people in the streets.

They converged here on the theater. It was a dramatic setting. This was one of

the largest theaters in the ancient world with an astonishing capacity of 24,000.

It must have been a highly charged moment. Paul wanted to come to address the crowd,

but they were working themselves up into a blind frenzy.

Local officials intervened to try to keep the peace, telling the Ephesians that this new

cult would be no threat to Artemis. But the truth was the writing was on the wall for the old gods.

Despite the initial resistance, the new Christian religion flourished in Ephesus. [Music]

The city had a special connection to Jesus's mother, Mary, who was said to have spent

her final years nearby. And it was here in Ephesus that she received her greatest honor.

It seems that this is the first church in the world to be dedicated to Mary. And not only that,

but right here at the council of Ephesus in the fifth century, Mary was declared Theotocos,

the mother of God. Now, that is quite some status for a woman to hold.

And I think it is no coincidence that Mary was honored in this way here because this

is the place that for centuries had adored a strong virgin character in the form of Artemis

the goddess. And just as with Artemis, pilgrims still come here to honor Mary.

Ephesus is a dynamic treasure. A destination for centuries for travelers and traders and

scholars and merchants and pilgrims. A carnival of humanity buying and selling and praying and

making and creating the wonders that are here and surely appreciating them too. [Music] Exploring

the treasures of Mediterranean Turkey has been a delight and an epic journey.

A reminder that as a species, we create and seek out stories wherever and whenever we live. From

world famous legends to wonders of the world and worldclass discoveries. The past isn't

just a repository of history and myth. It's an inspiration for the narratives of our own lives.

And Betany returns Saturday 18th here on four. A list of organizations providing

support in Turkey and Syria can be found online at channel4.com/support-humanitarian.

Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00, Kathy Burke explores aging,

arm of Bill Bailey and Jennifer Saunders. It's growing up.

I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track. And I have 100%

definitely got what I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It

is just extraordinary where I've been given special access to significant and surprising

treasures. Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity. Buried in ancient sites,

extraordinary buildings, and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that

help to explain the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives

today. This time, I'm exploring the delights of central and eastern Turkey. Throughout history,

the land all around me has been a bridge for civilizations and a place where diverse culture

has flourished, too. From the magical cave homes of Capidokia, that is Indiana Jones right there,

to a giant morale on top of the world and recently discovered mosaics forgotten for over 1,700 years.

[Music]

My journey will take me hundreds of miles across central and eastern Turkey.

This treasure isn't on. It's within the natural wonder all around me. the awesome,

breathtaking, otherworldly landscape of Capidokia.

This extraordinary terrain of eerie towers and cones

are the eroded ashfields of ancient volcanoes.

Natural forces have created geological wonders here. And humanity's dynamic relationship

with this extraordinary environment has created man-made wonders, too.

For thousands of years, locals and visitors have been inspired to carve homes into the soft rock.

Cool in summer, warm in winter. People have lived here right up to modern times.

Zelve inhabited until the 1950s was once one of

the largest man-made cave communities in Capidokia.

Ome seban lived here until he was 13. So this is

your house here? Yes. Yeah. Can we go in? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Over time, rockfalls and collapsing rooms made it just too dangerous to live here,

and Zelves's families eventually relocated to a new village close by. So, there's a fire here.

Yeah. Really good. How many people lived here when you were living here?

It sounds like very happy memories here. Next door is where Omare and his family slept. You

obviously really enjoy coming back here. So, what is the one thing that you most miss?

[Music]

The Turkish word for aura also translates as soul

or spirit. This special atmosphere attracted pilgrims to Capedokia,

seeking out a kind of biblical wilderness to test and nourish their spirits.

Christianity came early to Capidokia. Just months after Jesus's death, his followers gathered in

Jerusalem and there were people from this region among them who then brought his word back here.

As time went on, more and more religious enthusiasts flocked to Capidokia, tempted

by this strange otherworldly landscape where they felt they could be close to God in the wilderness.

And as time went on, populations didn't just occupy man-made cave

towns above the surface. They also borrowed underground.

I've come to the subterranean city of Ka Mackley. [Music] Uh, I have to say it's slightly traumatic

coming back here because I first came here in 1986 when there were no lights anywhere at all. And

um, I got stuck and lost. Uh, and it gave me claustrophobia. Um, so I'm quite um I'm being I'm

being quite brave coming back, but but this time I've I've arranged to to meet a guide down inside.

Hello. Hi. Oh god. Hi. Hi. Nice to see you. Nice to see you on me. I'm actually quite glad it's a

friendly face. Where are we? What are we standing in now? We're in a teeny tiny miniature church

complete with an alter stone. Yes. Cut out of rock. Aha. And any other clues here? A plus sign.

Let's see. Like a Greek cross. Yeah. Yeah. You can see that, can't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. So,

what's I mean the fact So, you've got a church down here. Why is that? Do you think I mean are

people using this just to live regularly? It may have been used a storehouse uh at times

of peace. Yes. And it probably served as a a place of refuge during times of war when survival was at

stake. [Music] For Christians fleeing persecution in the medieval period, this place was a safe

haven and clues as to how it was defended can still be found within the Warren of corridors. So,

it looks like a millstone, but is it? It does look like a millstone, but the original purpose

of it would be rolling it across this tunnel. Yes. To seal the tunnel shut. That is clever. I mean,

that is Indiana Jones right there, though, isn't it? It is very Indiana Jonesesque for sure.

With stone doors carved in situ, around 100 tunnels, and eight floors, this underground city

is a feat of engineering, cleverly designed to accommodate thousands of people for long periods

of time. So, what are we looking at? Look what we have here. a ventilation shaft. Oh,

so that is such good news. Put your hand out. Feel the fresh air coming out. Oh my god,

that's great news. So that goes up to the surface, is it? It does. To the ground level

both and to deep down. They had to provide fresh air in. Yes. Have that circulate through these

tunnels. Okay. So that they could continue staying alive. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm just going

to hang out here for a second. I can feel it's cold and lovely on my face. It does feel good,

doesn't it? It does feel really good. It feels really good. I But I'm sure you want

to take me deeper in. Do you? I do. I sure do. Okay, great. Off we go then.

This city included a communal kitchen, rooms for farm animals, and even a cemetery.

I imagine when you come down here and spend time here, does it make you feel close to the

people who created this? Are you impressed by them? Impressed. I'm astounded. I mean,

the extensiveness of the carving, the labor that must have went into

it over who knows how many centuries is just mind-blowing. Yeah. Never ceases to amaze me.

In the 10th century, church building and decoration rose to a whole new

level. [Music] Nearby is Takari, one of the most beautiful rock cut churches in all of

Capedokia. Every single inch of this church has been carved out of the natural rock.

It was begun around 9:15 and then it was extended 50 years later.

These are some of the most exquisite frescos to survive from the medieval world. This is simply

the best that money can buy. Artists were brought in from Constantinople,

what's now Istanbul. And if you just look at the material that they're using,

so this beautiful, beautiful blue, this is lapis lazuli, which has come all the

way from Afghanistan. And there's gold on some of the halos. So it's a real statement church,

but it's also a church with a bit of a secret that's only just been discovered.

It's a clue to this church's intriguingly humble origins. [Music] So, up until a

couple of years ago, people thought that this was just a a slightly grubby, skanky, kind of

inexplicable storm, but there's been a brilliant bit of scholarly detective work. And it's been

revealed that almost certainly this was a hermit's cell. So, this was where a solitary hermit lived.

And the reason that the church is here at all is that it was built around his space. So you know

this was the kind of sacred beating heart of the place and this is one of the clues. [Music] Now

this is called a haggiocope and what that means is a kind of saintly port hole. So the hermit

who was living here would have been able to look out straight at the Virgin Mary and adored her.

So the whole church was constructed to enhance and protect the hermit's

piety creating an ultimate religious experience.

[Music] Capidokia is a treasure because of the special relationship it's allowed its inhabitants

to enjoy with the natural world that continues to this day. Thank you. Everywhere you go,

there's evidence of the brilliantly ingenious ways that people have worked with this remarkable

landscape around them. I mean, these homes in these fairy chimneys are just fantastic.

And it's Capidokia's spiritual dimension,

too. Hermits, Christians, mystics, and Muslims flocked here from far and wide,

captivated by its ethereal wilderness, which nourished soul and spirit. [Music]

My next treasure takes me back over 10,000 years and to the Neolithic site of Carahan Teepe.

What's being discovered here is changing what we know about the story of human life on

Earth. [Music] only unearthed in 2019. No one's been allowed to film with this access before.

What you're looking at here is one of the earliest settlements ever discovered. It's

11,400 years old. So, just stop and think about that for a minute. Carahantepe is

7,000 years older than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. [Music] And so far only 1% has been

excavated. So this is genuinely the most extraordinary treasure trove of a place.

At a time when most people were hunter gatherers, this place was

expertly carved out from the bedrock with different rooms for different purposes,

indicating the sophistication of the society that built it. Obviously, this place is still

being decoded. Um, but we think it was created as some kind of giant assembly area. So far,

200 of these massive columns have been discovered. And a lot of them are decorated with wild animals,

things like leopards and wild boar. I don't know if you can make this one out. So, this is a human

figure. So there's something important happening here. But you probably some kind of ritual.

But what's been discovered just over there is completely unique and was completely unexpected.

11 monumental columns inside an enclosure.

You've got to ask what is going on here. Um there's there's a kind of channel that

allowed water to come in. So maybe this was for some kind of right of passage. And that

central rock there is in the shape of a leopard. And the whole thing is

overlooked by this beautiful bearded face. It's a man who's got a snake for a body.

We can only begin to imagine the rituals that went on here. But but what this does

tell us is that the people who lived here turning the landscape into something human.

The evidence of ritual suggests this 11,000y old community had a belief system,

but their home here didn't endure. People lived here for 1,500 years and then they abandoned the

place. But before they left, they did something extraordinary. They covered over the site as if

they were putting a person to bed and laying him or her to rest in a deep sleep. [Music]

Now, the incredible thing about this site is that it's not alone. There are probably 10 others like

it in this region. Um, and there's another excavation I've just got to take you to. I'm

heading around 30 mi down the road to one of the most famous Neolithic sites, Gbeckley, potbellied

hill in Turkish. I really do love this place. Um, I first came here when the excavations were quite

new and it was completely mindblowing and now there's a whole lot more that's been discovered.

Dating to 9,600 B.CE. This site 200 years older than Carahantepe is also full of depictions of

animals. And what's amazing is that these images adorn columns from the earliest

monumental temples in the world. We think hunter gatherers congregated here for some

kind of religious experience. And that's not all. As excavations are carrying on, um there's more

and more evidence being discovered of a kind of settled life here. Um, so there are these huge

stone tools for grinding wild grain and seeds and nuts and and massive systems for collecting

rainwater. [Music] These discoveries are completely rewriting history. Our understanding of

the world was that when we invented agriculture, we settled down in villages and then towns.

And we also invented religion so that we had a kind of accepted code of behavior. But this is

being built when we're still hunter gatherers. So what this tells us is that we're choosing

to come together in huge ceremonial spaces to enjoy a kind of ecstatic shared experience.

New Neolithic sites are being discovered all over this area. And these two teep may be part

of a constellation of at least 12 within a 60-mi radius. The Tach Tempash. Incredibly,

these aren't just being unearthed in the countryside, but in people's homes. I've

just been tipped off that while digging a new cellar, a local man has discovered something

extraordinary. Hello. Hello. Are you Aziz Bay? Okay, thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. So all

around all around here in the village there are lots of um excavations being discovered.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll mind I'll mind a hole in the floor. Thank you. It's funny here.

Okay. So, it's a a kind of carved mural from the Neolithic. It's basically like a story board. So,

there's a huge bull. He's attacking a man. He's sort of like in a real position of distress. I

think he's hunting him. There's a leopard who's also and he's just about to attack this poor man

who's hugging his stomach. Might be clutching his penis. That seems to be a bit of a theme around

here. So, this is a whole story being told. I mean, that's amazing. So, these are people who

aren't just representing themselves. They're kind of writing a narrative into the stone.

They're telling the story of what mattered to them, what you know, what their fears were of

their lives. I'm sure this is probably kind of tmic. So, this is the worst thing that can

happen to you. Basically, you get attacked and eaten by wild animals. They're probably trying

to prevent that happening by imagining it and making it real in stone. This is incredible.

[Music] The new museum at Shan Leurfer houses

a stunning find. One of the most significant statues in the world

man. [Music] This sculpture was discovered by chance during construction work. And it's

also 11,000 years old, which makes it the earliest known lifelike lifesize sculpture

of a human being that exists. And you know how you feel you really want to get to know and to

meet and to try to understand those women and men who created those incredible structures?

Well, here is one of them. His eyes are made of obsidian, which is a kind of black volcanic glass,

and he seems to be naked, apart from this V-shaped necklace, and it looks as though he's grasping at

his penis. So, this is a wonderful representation of male power. And just think what worlds those

eyes would have stared out at. A prehistoric landscape packed with treasures and wonders.

My next treasure close to the Neolithic Tepees is an ancient city with special significance for

three world religions. Shanley Orfer originally simply Orurf is known as the city of prophets

and it's believed to be the biblical city of Ur, as well as the birthplace of Abraham or Ibraim,

the prophet revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. In fact, it's been a sacred

city for thousands of years, attracting pilgrims from across continents. [Music]

There are other candidates for the location of Ur, but recent scholarship and regional

tradition point to Urer. [Music] According to that tradition, Abraham's mother was pregnant

when the king at the time, King Nimrod, was given a terrible prophecy by his stargazers that a boy

child would destroy his kingdom. Paranoid, Nimrod ordered all pregnant women to be brought to his

palace. If they birthed a girl child, they were allowed to go free. But if it was a boy, then

that child was killed. So to guard against this terrible fate, Abraham's mother hid in a cave and

birthed her son safely. [Music] The cave Abraham is said to have been born in around 4,000 years

ago is now in this mosque complex. [Music] Tens of thousands of Muslims come to pray here every year.

It's believed Abraham sheltered in the cave for 7 years before moving to his father's home.

an example of humanity imbuing the earth with a spiritual dimension.

At the time, polytheism, the worship of many gods, was universal. But Abraham believed something that

was radically new. He said there was only one God and only that one God should be worshiped. And he

didn't keep his ideas to himself. um he tore down idols and he challenged those around him with his

arguments. And so he's come to be acknowledged as one of the world's first monotheists.

We're told that King Nimrod was so outraged by what he saw as Abraham's blasphemy that he

threw him from a huge height towards a great fire. But God intervened. He

turned the flames into pool water and the logs into fish. And so Abraham was saved.

Today both the pool and the carp in it are considered sacred. Thank you.

These must be the most cusseted fish in the world. Um because you're not allowed to catch them.

If you do, then you'll become blind. And loads of people come here to feed them.

For centuries, connection to Abraham attracted pilgrims, travelers, and traders from far

and wide. The perfect environment for the city's bustling, vibrant bazaar to thrive.

Somewhere craftsmen still use the fruits of the earth to create beautiful everyday things.

Hi. Can I have one? Okay. Fantastic. Thank you.

You sure? Thank you.

back.

Yeah. Hi. Oh, thank you. Oh, fantastic. That's brilliant. So, I've just been given a beautiful

bit of fresh bread. I'm just kind of having some tomato paste. This is Yeah. Aha. So,

isot is this really traditional thing that they produce here. It's um a kind of special

paste made of dried peppers. It's really hot. [Music] Oh my god, that is so delicious. Um,

lots of people aren't eating at the moment because it's Ramadan here. So, this is a special bread

that's made for Ramadan. So, people are all coming here to the market partly to kind of buy spices to

make the meal at the end of the day. So, I feel a tiny bit guilty, but it's also very tasty.

But there's also something a little unexpected here. [Music] Pigeons are recorded in Mesopotamian

cuneaifor tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs. And today they're praised in this ancient city for

breeding and racing. There's a reason there so many of these pigeons in the bazaar cuz

um this is a city that is completely obsessed with them. I mean, pigeons have been used here

since antiquity for messages and for food and for their poo for the guano,

which is a fantastic fertilizer. But here in Urf, they breed them, they auction them. There are guys

who say they sell their fridge and their wife's gold jewelry in order to buy the perfect pigeon.

And they pass hands for huge, huge amounts of money or sometimes the same amount as a car. So,

um, it's a kind of fantastic quirky characteristic of this place, but it also goes right the way back

to the ancient world. [Music] The abundance in Bazaar comes from its location in the fertile

cresant, a cradle of civilization, nourished by the waters of the river Euphrates. It's

one of the places where settled farming was first established. [Music] This river is such

a lifegiver. It created such a land of plenty. It came to be thought of as sacred. And in the Bible,

we hear that the Euphrates started in the Garden of Eden itself. [Music]

The Euphrates is the longest river in Western Asia. A waterway steeped in history, legend,

and sacred stories. Just like the neighboring city of's rich and eclectic history is written in

its food, in its monuments, in its extraordinary generosity and hospitality, and in its beautiful

landscapes, which at times like this feels not just like a treasure, but a bit like paradise.

[Music]

[Music]

In antiquity, this part of the Euphrates was strategically vital. A last stop in

the Greco Roman world before crossing into lands controlled by foreign powers.

We're told that Alexander the Great built a pontoon bridge across the river

and then his general and successor Seus founded a city on the banks.

A city that came to be known as Zurgma. Under the Roman Empire, Zogma became one of the largest and

most important cities of the Eastern frontier. A flourishing commercial military and religious

center, it lay abandoned for around 1700 years. Hello. An archaeological team are now uncovering

Zugma's secrets, and they've invited me to stay overnight at their dig house.

[Music]

Breakfast with archaeologists is often a treat. And the view here isn't bad either.

From up here, you can really get an understanding of the story of Zugma. Um, so that down there is

a massive dam that they started to construct in the late 1990s. And as builders were working,

they began to uncover little clues that there was a settlement here. But of course,

there was an issue because this whole area was due to be flooded. So archaeologists

desperately came in to try to rescue the ancient settlement that was here on this hill. [Music]

Experts had long known about an ancient settlement here, but these pressured excavations before the

dam's completion in the year 2000 revealed just how incredible it was. This is the level

that the waters reached in the year 2000, but there's still 30% of the city left below. So,

you can probably just about make it out. Um, there's a street here running to the north. Those

are pillars at the edges of homes and then under the water, beautiful mosaics were discovered.

45 mosaics were recovered before the waters rose.

Along with sections of the site spared the flood, they give us an idea of Zugma in its

heyday. [Music] This city was home to up to 40,000 people. And so far, archaeologists have discovered

a temple and the agura or marketplace as well as these fabulously wealthy homes.

Experts are using the latest AR technology to better understand the site.

So you got the mosaic down there which I can see anyway in the pillars,

the columns. Dog friend join me for the experience. You see this is fantastic. So

you can see the wall paintings as they would have been. I can actually go around 360°.

This is fantastic.

Thank you. I'm really excited because a house which archaeologists have been excavating since

2007 is finally due to open to the public. Lead excavator, Professor Koutmish Gorkai is giving

me a special preview. Good night. Thank you. This is extraordinary. I mean, I have to say I'm not

often lost for words, but what an incredible Yes. place. And you found this all just like

this in situ. Yeah, just like this in situ. This is the central courtyard of the house.

Uhhuh. With this beautiful mosaic. So, Oceananis is obviously the the kind of spirit of the ocean,

but also of all the waters. And, you know, we're right here. The waters bringing so much to this

settlement. Yes. Yes. So, what's the date of this one? It's middle of the second century.

In the time of Trajan and Hadrien, some of the veterans lived in these houses. They got married

with the local ladies, rich ladies. And the ladies got some of them at least Roman citizenship. Ah,

amazing. So, this is the outside. Can we actually go into the house? Sure. Sure. Of course. Yeah.

[Music] Amazing. The beauty just continues. This is remarkable. It's so exquisite and actually so

interesting to see so many images of of women here. Yes. Yes. Uh since we are in the women's

quarter reserved for the lady of the house. Therefore, we have these depictions probably

damea or penalopee. Yes. Just basically kind of fabulous strong women. It's like the the

mosaics are sending out messages. Yes, of course they speak I would say because they indicate the

intellectual background of the house owner because they choose the specific scenes from

the nolla or you know Greek mythology or theater plays. It's really interesting is

it to think of the people the men and women who lived here who are living in really in

the height of of luxury in a successful city. Ishil Ishikaya is also working on the site.

Hi. Hi. Hello. What I mean this is beautiful. I know that these are the muses, aren't they? Yeah.

And and that's why this house has been named the house of the muses. Yeah. So beautiful. And what

are you doing? You're kind of analyzing them or um documenting the different colors and the geometric

patterns for stylistic comparison. This room is a dining hall. So the muses would welcome the

guests. a starting point for the discussions and that they will carry out during the evening. They

almost look like oil paintings. These it is. And actually mosaics are called paintings in stone.

And the colors. Oh my god, they're beautiful. Is it local material that's used? That's mainly local

material from the Euphrates. How appropriate. And how cool. They're all women. It's good, isn't it?

In the 3rd century, this whole city was abandoned. Um, a lot of the doors were found with locks on

them, as if people had stored away their personal possessions and hoped or or expected to come back,

but that wouldn't happen. And I just wonder if these incredible little bits of graffiti here on

the wall are telling us about the beginning of a time of trouble. So here you've got

uh a camel with a man sitting underneath him with a kind of thick woolen coat on and this

might be his name. There's there's writing besson above him. But then look up there. So

that's a a fallus which was a kind of um basically a good luck symbol as if it was trying to protect

them. This is a a horseman from the east. He's got a huge sword and he's attacking. And then

here there's a massive fall saying get lost, you know, leave us alone. So it's an enigmatic secret

message that somebody from the ancient past was putting on this wall that that we can now read.

The fabulous artistry of this place gives us a unique window onto the social worlds

of the women and men who lived on the frontier of the Roman Empire.

Sigma is a unique and extraordinary treasure. I partly because of its

amazing story of salvation and its exquisite mosaics, but also because for me I spend my

life looking for history. And this is a place where history looks back at all of us. [Music]

My final treasure is over 2,000 m high on one of the tallest peaks in the eastern

taus mountain range, Mount Neret. This is the um ancient processional way that was

built over 2,000 years ago. That has been quite a climb to get to the top,

but worth it cuz I think I think I'm just about to make it in time for sunrise.

The sacred monuments on the summit of this mountain bear witness to

the extraordinary ambition and vision of one man,

King Antious I of Kagini. [Music] Up here you are king of men, king of gods, king of the world.

Kagini founded in the 2nd century B.C.E. after

the break up of Alexander the Great's empire was a small but wealthy kingdom.

This is King Antious. Now he was a really skillful ruler and he actually spent most of

his time playing off the superpowers of the day, Rome and Paththeia, which was an ancient kingdom

that at its height stretched from here from the northern Euphrates right the way up to Afghanistan

and Pakistan. And he wanted everybody to remember what a great job he was doing. And so he installed

this very lovely creature here. This is Tiki and she's a personification of divine good fortune.

Antiocus chose this peak as a location for his tomb, accompanied by 9 m tall

statues of gods and goddesses. Over the centuries, earthquakes have shaken the heads from the bodies.

This is a pretty monumental location to choose for your morale, isn't it? And the

scale of these statues is just awesome. But it's also really fascinating because

they are the most brilliant mix of Greek and Eastern influences. [Music] Antiocus

repeatedly claimed both Persian and Henistic descent and the design of the monuments shows

his desire to promote a blended east meets west culture. This one is Zeus

Oramazdes. So that's Zeus, the Greek king of the gods combined with a Persian deity

called Aramas. And if you look at him, you know, he's got this fabulous Greek beard,

but also this really typical eastern diadem with with a very eroded thunderbolt right there at the

top. But Mount Emirate could be hiding a great secret. Of course, in some ways, this is all

just decoration because we haven't actually discovered Antiocus' tomb yet. Um, his burial

is almost certainly right inside the mountain there underneath this kind of natural pyramid.

The exact location of Antiocus' burial remains a mystery. And the

wonders continue on the western side of the mountain. [Music]

So on the back of the thrones on both the eastern and the western terraces there are 237 lines of

ancient Greek and this is Antiocus telling the world what matters to him. It's fantastic for me

to see this first time I've been this close. As you might expect, it starts with a lot of

kind of pomp and circumstance. And he says, "I am King Antiocus, the great king, the gods,

the righteous one, the manifest deity, a friend of the Greeks and the Romans alike." But then

it's actually really touching because he sort of, I don't know, he kind of turns very human and he

says, "Despite expectations, I have triumphed over peril and challenges. I have made myself

the master of hopeless situations and I have been blessed with a long and fruitful life.

Antiocus wanted his mortum to last for all time. 2,000 years so far isn't bad. Now,

I might be in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Uh, but I'm just about to enter something

some would call functional, but this shed holds something totally extraordinary. Um,

so in here there's a beautiful piece of sculpture that's been rescued from the side of the mountain

and I'm unbelievably lucky to get access to have a look at it. [Music] Oh, this is just incredible.

What you're looking at here is the world's oldest known horoscope. Um, as you can see,

it's really fragile. It was out on the side of the mountain, but it's been brought in here

for conservation. And it is an extraordinary thing sending us all kinds of messages. So,

up there you've got the planet. So that's Mercury, Jupiter, and Mars with the other stars arranged on

the body of this lion who's got a moon round his neck. And the alignment of these stars is giving

us a date. And that date is likely the 7th of July 62 B.CE, which we are almost certain was

the coronation date of King Antious. [Music] So it's just an extraordinary thing in historical

terms. Um it really matters in terms of the human experience and it's also just beautiful.

In 72 CE around 100 years after Antiocus' death, the kingdom of

Komaini finally lost its independence when it was absorbed into the Roman Empire.

The grand monuments on Mount Emirit were abandoned.

[Music] Mount Emer is a treasure and an audacious wonder. Partly because of the sheer scale of its

monuments, but also because of the scale of the ambition of a man who wanted to create a

civilization for east and for west and that drew its inspiration from all points of the compass.

[Music]

This journey through Turkey has brought me close to nature in profound ways. Um,

from rock cut cities of Capidokia to sacred caves, from majestic men of the mountain to

minute tesserai used to create mosaics. It's reminded me that for thousands of years,

we've used the treasures of the earth to create enduring and truly wonderful

things. [Music] Support information can be found online at channel4.com/support-humanitarian.

Well, from weaponry to warships, next Saturday night, examining the defenses

against two millennia of threats. Join Alice Roberts for Fortress Britain. That's at half

eight. Next tonight, a trail, a tale of treachery and dangerous collaboration.

But how far did it really go? Edward VII, Britain's traitor king. Coming up,

I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So, I asked my

friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track, and I 100% definitely got what

I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places. It is just extraordinary

where I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures. Some of the

most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity buried in ancient sites, extraordinary buildings,

and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help to explain the story of us.

Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today. This time I'm exploring Albania,

an exciting enigmatic country that's been described as the pearl of the Balkans. Closed

to outsiders by a communist dictatorship for much of the 20th century, Albania's history and culture

is rich and complex. From its mountainous north to the Adriatic and Ionian coasts,

it hides unexpected treasures and wonders. A home to powerful Roman settlers, Eastern empires,

and epic blood feuds. Here, ancient codes of honor and tradition still hold sway.

A land that's been a battleground for centuries, but that is now forging its own

identity, its own history. Since the fall of communism over 30 years ago,

many of the sites here are being re-exavated and reinterpreted. So now is a brilliant

time to explore the stories of Albania's past. Welcome to the treasures of Albania.

[Music]

Albania sits at a strategic gateway on the Adriatic Sea with Italy to the west,

Greece to the south, and Turkey to the east.

Home to an ancient tribal people called the Yrianss. Yria was celebrated by Shakespeare,

Albania has been influenced by neighboring empires

for over 2,000 years. But the people here have retained a unique proud

identity despite conquest by Greeks, Romans, Ottoman Turks, and 20th century powers.

My first treasure, rescued from an advancing sea, shows how Albania's long absorbed the influence

of outside forces. [Music] I'm heading to this fantastic ancient site which is um tucked away

in this ridiculously evocative landscape um which itself hides a fascinating chapter in

Rome's legendary past. 87 miles from the heel of Italy and just two miles from the island of Corfu,

this is the site of Brent. Spanning 500 acres, the Wateride Archaeological Park is a crossroads of

culture, boasting antiquities from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman era. It's also rich in marine life.

Hi. Hello. Hello. Me Jez from Albania. Yeah. Thank you. Did you get any fish? Yeah. No. No. Good

luck. I love Albania. They're so friendly here in Albania. I first came about seven years ago,

I think. And every you know, you're going to be okay. It's Albania. It's one of the friendliest

uh countries on Earth. And that is pretty timeless, isn't it? I know that they've

been fishing these waters here since Utrint was founded. So, probably for close on 3,000 years.

From the Bronze Age, Brint was dominated by local tribes, including the Yrianss,

and then thrived under Greek control. But in the 1st century B.C.E., Butrint fell prey to

Roman ambitions as Rome expanded from Italy into Western Europe, North Africa and Asia.

In 48 B.CE, Julius Caesar was headto-head in a ferocious power struggle with his archeneemy

Pompy. Pompy had his fleet stationed across the waters there in what's now Corfu. And

as civil war raged, Julius Caesar stationed his legion here in Bhutrint and saw an opportunity.

Caesar saw Bintrint as the perfect place to house his veterans. But the

Roman millionaires who already had villas here didn't much fancy ex squadies as neighbors.

One of them was a great friend of Cicero, that very influential author and politician.

And he asked Cicero to step in. Cicero obliged and petitioned the Senate to block

the development. He succeeded. And so Julius Caesar's grand plans for Bintrint were spiked.

But another Roman ruler soon had Bintrint in his sights. [Music]

That's the Ionian Sea over there where the man who would be Emperor Augustus Octavian

defeated Cleopatra the queen of Egypt and her lover the Roman general Mark Anthony

in the battle of Actium. On his way back to Italy, Octavian stopped off here at Butrint to

re-energize Caesar's plan to make this a premier Roman colony and he renamed it Alusta Butrom.

As emperor, Augustus commissioned court poet and spin doctor Virgil

to mythologize Roman control of the city. In his epic poem, The Anid,

Virgil concocts a tale of the Trojan hero, Anias, stopping here on his way to found Rome itself.

So, this is how Virgil describes Anias's arrival in the city. I saw before me Troy in miniature,

a slender version of our massive tower, and I pressed my body against a sky and gate,

and those with me feasted their eyes on this, our kinsman's town. And isn't it just brilliant and

brilliantly vivid to imagine Virgil imagining Anias, that massive Trojan hero right here?

Italians would continue to mythologize their connection to Brint. Millennia later,

this led to these remains being uncovered while Italy was trying to forge a new global empire.

This theater was excavated between 1928 and 1932 by this man. He's Luigi Maria Ugalini and he was a

dedicated, ambitious, passionate, dashing Italian archaeologist, which all sounds great apart from

the fact that he was sent here on commission by Mussolini's fascistic regime. Basically,

um, the fascists wanted to draw a direct line from ancient Roman greatness to their plans for

Italian world domination. So although the work here was incredible and they

discovered extraordinary things, it was as much about politics as it was about science.

[Music] These are just some of the finds that Ugalini discovered. It's the Imperial family

and they originally decorated the theater. So, it was a really unmissable sign to

everyone that the Romans had arrived. That's Augustus himself there. And this is his wife,

Livia. She was looted after the fall of communism. She's only just been returned. So,

um I'm I'm meeting Livia face to face. Now, she's back home.

Celebrating 2,000 years since the founding of the Roman Empire,

Mussolini cast his regime as the second coming of Rome. Commemorative stamps were even issued,

featuring Anias at the newly unearthed Bintrint. Archaeologists have been working at the site ever

since, and I've been allowed into the dig site to check out the latest finds.

So this bit of the site is slightly hard to read, but that's because it's being excavated at the

moment. And if if you just use your imaginations, it's particularly exciting for me because what

the archaeologists have discovered is the Greek agura or marketplace that was underneath the Roman

forum. Basically, um, the Romans in in that Roman way came here and trashed the Greek buildings that

they found. There's basically a sort of Greek marble dump over there in the corner. But look,

the archaeologists have discovered this fantastic line of columns. Do you see do you see the one

um still in the earth? And this was part of a stoer which was a sort of

colonade where those lovely Greeks would walk and talk and think big beautiful

ideas. And it goes right the way down the length of the forums. That's around 75 m.

Amongst the clues unearthed, one new find particularly stands out. I've just

been presented with this, which you've got it right. It's a fallus. So, I've seen a lot of

um Roman fallaces in my time. It's the first time I've held one. This would have been put on

a Roman house for good luck. Loads of people think it was something to do with brothel,

and that's just not right. um uh an erect fallus was a symbol of good

fortune and power and strength. So, how cool is this? So, this this would have

been on a on a Roman house to show that the occupant, you know, was a good strong Roman,

but no talisman could protect Butrint against the forces of nature. because

of all the um geocismic activity around here. Uh but always had problems with the

sea creeping in and Roman engineers tried to raise the street levels but really they

were fighting a losing battle. Um in the 4th century CE there was a massive earthquake here

that wrecked huge huge quarters of the town and really that was the end of Butrin's glory days.

As Butrint lost influence, its remains were slowly lost under woodland. The city,

now reclaimed by these excavations, became Albania's very first UNESCO World Heritage

site. Putrint is one of those enchanting places where myth meets reality and reality

is as magical as myth. It's also somewhere where you can see Roman ambition for empire playing out

both physically and psychologically. But it's a reminder of the vulnerability of history,

too. Because if sea levels continue to rise here, then not just parts of this site,

but all of it will be under those waters. So, it's a fragile treasure and a fragile wonder.

My next wonders is um a bit of an adventure to get to because it is the magnificent Albanian Alps.

These mountains are part of a 630 m long range stretching through the north of the

country into Kosovo and Montenegro. They're home to remote communities with formidable reputations.

Officially, these are called the Albanian Alps, but locals here describe them as the

mountains. Partly because in legend malign spirits inhabited this place, but also through history,

if an invading army made it over those peaks, then local communities knew there was trouble ahead.

The village of Seth was settled centuries ago by a tribe of Albanian Highlanders called the Shayla.

Echoes of their tradition survive and are still respected.

[Music] The Shayla were a tribe who were renowned for their cunning, wily resourcefulness and also

like many of the tribes around here, they ferociously followed a a kind of medieval

code of conduct called canon law. [Music] Handed down orally and fiercely adhered to,

canon covered every aspect of life. But most notorious was Jakamare, the blood feud. I know

this all looks incredibly idilic now, but canon law was really hardcore. Like it was basically

a a kind of system of honor killings. So if you offended someone then they had the right to kill

you or a member of your family. And horrifically in the 19th century when travelers made it here

um they said that at least a quarter of all deaths were as a result of Jakamare.

This imposing cooler or lockin tower was built as a sanctuary for those

with a price on their head. Hi. Are you Kim? Hi. Nice to meet you. Lovely dog.

Hello. Welcome. Thank you. Kim's family are its guardians. Okay. Upstairs. Yeah.

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] Kim, how long has your family been in charge of this tower?

So, if there's somebody here and he's murdered somebody else in the village

and then they've brought him here kind of for protection and to work out if

there's going to be a reconciliation, how long would he spend here in this tower?

[Music]

at times whole villages and tribes were caught up in blood feuds which could last

for generations. [Music] Do you think that any elements of canon law exist here? I mean,

so are kind of the sort of spirit of it. Does that still survive? Yes.

And I've got a funky feeling that if you're inviting me for a drink,

is it going to involve some homemade raki? Super. Is it great? That sounds perfect.

Canon law states, "An Albanian house belongs to God and guest." Taking up Kim's hospitality,

I join him and his friends Drenie, Christy, and Yanus for some potent home brew.

It's a really beautiful thing that if somebody turns up at your door,

you're going to make them welcome as a guest.

Kang Keshnik or Songs of heroes are epic legendary poems accompanied

by the single stringed loot. And Yanuz is one of Albania's last loot players.

[Laughter]

Wow. Bravo. What were you singing about?

So, how old were you when you learned to play?

It's amazing for me to hear this because it sounds like do you know Adysius and

the Odyssey and Homer that they sang these beautiful epic poems always to a

stringed instrument that was like three and a half thousand years

ago. So it feels like traveling in time being here listening to you. [Laughter]

[Music]

Cut off from much of the country by the harsh terrain,

timehonored traditions thrive. But it's only now that the Highlander's

tribal origins are becoming clearer. 25 miles down river is Lake Kman.

Brand new excavations in these mountains

are revealing insights to the lives of Albania's medieval highlanders. [Music]

This is an unexpected bonus and I'm very excited. It's obviously something I had to share with you.

So these are things that belong to the North Albanian tribes. They come from different areas,

from different graves and also from different centuries. So these are some of the earliest.

So these are probably 6th century CE. That those lovely earrings, these beautiful things. Look at

these. So these are brooches, huge brooches that would have been worn from either the sixth or the

seventh centuries. And they tell us about the establishment of Christianity in the region.

Because if you look at the design, it's a tree of life with peacocks either side on this bigger

one. And that was a symbol that was used a lot at the time. And the smallest thing on the table,

but one of the loveliest uh and latest from the 10th century CE is this. Look at this beautiful

ring that has an eagle as a symbol on it. So we know that eagles were used as a kind of symbol,

a logo, a brand if you like for the tribes here. And isn't it fantastic that the symbol

for Albania on the flag is a double-headed eagle and women and men who lived here on this

site over a thousand years ago because this is from the 10th century CE. They

would have worn this eagle symbol with huge pride and and as a sense of real belonging.

And that sense of belonging still endures among the people I've met here. The majestic

Albanian Alps are a treasure because of their spectacular scenery, but also because of the

wealth of stories that they hold. This is a place where bards still sing tales of heroes of old

and of myths and legends and where time itself almost feels as though it stood still. [Music]

[Music]

This is Juriccastaster. It's not just a jewel of Albania. It's a jewel of the Ottoman world.

The town of Juriccasta has been inhabited for at least 2 and a

half thousand years and it became home to a mighty superpower of the east whose

influence stretched from Istanbul through Europe, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

From the 15th century, the Ottomans officially controlled Albania right

up until its independence in 1912 and they made it part of their vast expansive empire. Very briefly,

this town was actually the capital of Ottoman Albania and it flourished

with wealthy land owners and feudal families pouring wealth into the town.

Once again, Albania absorbing the ways of

outsiders and making them their own with impressive results.

Something you see all around here are these fantastic roof tiles, the kind of roof stones

really. one of the most famous sons of the city, the author Ismael Khadar, who by the way has been

nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature no fewer than 15 times, um describes them so

beautifully uh cuz he talks about them as gigantic scales which protect the tender life underneath.

Imposing Ottoman towerhouses across the city doubled up as homes and fortresses. [Music]

The man who commissioned this house, um, Bachier Zeo was pretty much second in command around

here. And we know that he used to stand here and look out over the town and also keep an

eye on the roads down in the valley to see whether it was bringing threats or

opportunities. [Music] Built in 1811, the interior of this place was all about luxury and status.

boasting inside Lu's a steam bath and lavish decorations.

So the um the whole top floor of the house was reserved specifically for visitors,

including this gorgeous, gorgeous reception room, which is the the grandest room in the

house. and and that's partly to do with that tradition of hospitality that you

get in Albania right the way through the centuries but also there's a hard-nosed

business reason for that because of course people would have come here and done trade

deals stretching right across the Ottoman Empire but it's interesting isn't it so

the very finest room in the house was reserved specifically for travelers and for guests [Music]

Living like this would not have been possible without the backing of the man who dominated 19th

century Ottoman Albania. Lots of Albanians rose really high in the ranks of the Ottoman hierarchy

particularly in the army uh because they were so valued for their ferocity and their bravery.

Uh but some became so powerful that that basically they were um warlords like this man Alip Pashia.

He had his own army. He had his own navy and he was in control of a million and a half people.

Alipashia was infamous for his autocratic rule. In his vast castle at nearby Tempellena,

he welcomed guests keen to woo him for his powerful patronage.

The castle once full of marbleclad halls and fountains covered 10 acres.

You have to try to imagine this place absolutely buzzing with soldiers and unics and envoys from

across the Ottoman world and travelers and spies including famously Lord Byron the great

romantic poet who traveled here from England on the equivalent of his student Gapier that

icon of romanticism Lord George Gordon Byron ventured into the Balkans and through the

Ottoman Empire in the autumn of 1809 on an epic grand tour. Here he was welcomed into

the heart of Pashia's Ottoman court and lavished with hospitality. And it seems

things haven't changed. So I was just about to tell you about Byron and how blown away he

was by the hospitality that he was offered right here. And I've got cooled in by this

lovely lady who's offering me some coffee, I think. Thank you, Phom. That is so kind.

Look at this. So, they've obviously insisted, they have they have no idea who I am, that I accept

this hospitality from them. Um, Byron talked about being given sweet sherbet 20 times a day. Um,

and the fact that he wasn't allowed to pay for anything, not a single household item

the whole time that he was here. And I've been offered sweets and now this beautiful look, this

beautiful Turkish coffee. And isn't it incredible to think about this? So, he was here at exactly

this time of year. I mean, this week um uh only over 200 years ago. And he got hospitality that he

never forgot. And I've been offered it as well. I think I might have to spend most of the day here.

Oh, it's delicious.

Oh, look. Thank you, Famin. Thank you. It looks fantastic. Early morning, Raky.

Thank you so much.

[Music]

Despite Alip Pashia's generous hospitality, Byron was wary, calling him a remorseless tyrant,

guilty of the most horrible cruelties. But Byron loved Albania, comparing it to his native

Scotland. [Music] Byron was obviously completely enchanted by this place. Um he actually calls

Albania Irkum which is the ancient Roman name for it and he writes about it in his poem Charles

Harold which is a sort of kind of autobiographical account of his adventures. He says land of Albania

let me bend mine eyes on thee thou rugged nurse of savage men. And there's a a very splendid portrait

of him wearing Albanian dress which is one of the most famous images that we have of the great man.

Byron's host Alip Pashia belonged to an Islamic sect that spread along the

Ottoman Empire's road systems. The main religion of its army beectism.

The Vetachi communities here in Albania are in these very remote locations. I've

never actually made it up to one before. They have these things called tees which

are basically like they're kind of spiritual centers and they

were always there to welcome travelers on the road. You look at that eagle.

The Te's spiritual leaders, the Baba and the Dervish, represent a faith that

descends from Sufi and Shiite traditions and that borrows from other beliefs, too.

Hello. A Hello.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Better. Thank you so much. who's better. Honestly,

it is completely incredible to be here. So, the Becttaches have have been in Albania for

hundreds of years. They're very secretive, so you don't often get access and allowed

up here. But I also know that for hundreds of years, they've welcomed travelers here.

But I had no idea that it was still. It's just I'm I'm so excited because

this is it feels like we've traveled back oh, you know, 400, 500, 600 years in time.

[Music] Thank you so much for allowing me to come here. What

are the key principles of being a beecti? Take

Islam.

so beautiful. What was it like during communism? And was the faith suppressed then?

That must have been very hard for you. Duam. Do you think that one of the reasons that um

the Btashi faith survives in Albania is because this is a country through history where lots of

people have come, Christians and Muslims and the worshippers of the old gods and it's a a

faith of love. And that's why it's a faith that has survived still today in Albania.

This is a real honor for me now to be given hospitality here. So, thank you.

Albania is the center of this once widespread faith of the road which puts tolerance for others

at its heart and continues to welcome travelers like me. Hello. Very nice.

Juriccast is a wonder not just because of its incredible Ottoman heritage, but because of the

history that it's made and witnessed, and because it's a reminder that human experience and history

itself travels along roads and byways, and that we're all made by the journeys that we take.

[Music]

These strange mushroomlike structures are a clue to an uncomfortable period in Albania's

modern history. It's impossible to tell the story of Albania without

acknowledging its time under communism. Uh because for much of the 20th century,

this country lived in the shadow of a paranoid man and his brutal regime.

I'm exploring the legacy of Albania's communist dictator, Enva Hodger, in the capital Tana.

This is the country's largest secret underground bunker. Um, it was built

to survive chemical and nuclear attack and it extends at least five floors down into the earth.

After invasions by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Albania emerged in 1944 as a communist state under

Ember Hodger's dictatorship. His regime held power for close on 50 years until its collapse in 1992.

The state just controlled all aspects of life.

um where you could live, what you could study, who you could marry,

who you could see, even what you could say. Hodger became convinced the country would

be invaded by enemies and even former allies. His response was the bunkerization of Albania.

175,000 shelters were built. This one was for Hodger and his military top brass.

There are over a hundred rooms in this bunker

uh with many different purposes. So you have decontamination rooms and areas for

live military command. And then there's this really weird almost beautiful cinema theater

um where officers would come to be given instructions and to watch information films.

And the idea was that even if a nuclear war was raging up above, some kind of strange perverted

subterranean version of normal life could continue down here. [Music] [Applause] [Music]

[Laughter] [Music]

This whole project was inspired by a visit to North Korea in the 1960s, but it wasn't realized

until the 1970s, which is why there's this strange kind of sinister 1970s vibe here. This

is Hodra's personal apartment. and it is one of the most secure places in the entire bunker. Um,

so there were checkpoints outside. There's about 100 meters of mountain rock above and

all these rooms are fully steel lined. [Music] This bunker and bunkers like this across the

country were built by political prisoners and enemies of the state. Uh so under Hodger 30,000

were sent to labor or internment camps. 18,000 were imprisoned for their political views. 6,000

were executed. A thousand were shot at the borders trying to escape. And there are 4,000 people still

unaccounted for whose bodies are probably in mass graves across the country. Hodgers bunkers whose

vast cost crippled the economy were never needed. There was no nuclear attack, but

there was devastating poverty. Under communism, Albania's population became one of the poorest

in the world. This area was called uh Blocku because it was off limits to everybody apart

from the communist elite. And it's where Hodger had his house right here. And um I Oh, hi. Is it

okay? Great. Great. I had they were going to let me in. Thank you very much. Thank you, Felando.

You see, this is so terrible and ridiculous and awful and heartbreaking. So, everybody,

as you know, in communism is supposed to live equally. Look at this mansion.

So, this is where Hodger lived with his family in some style.

Closed to the public and unchanged since his death,

it's rare that cameras are allowed inside this troubling reminder of a dark past.

[Music] It's such a a terrible bitter irony here because the house is full of beautiful,

beautiful works of art. But Hodger actually banished artists and writers to the countryside.

He said that they needed to purify their minds by soiling their hands. The house was

luxurious for its time with multiple bathrooms and living rooms filled with chunky television

sets on which he and his wife would watch the interrogation and torture of political opponents.

Hudger um was actually an avid reader. Agatha Christie of all people was one of his favorite

authors and he also loved French writers. But literature from the outside world generally was

banned here as as were many books and people really had to conform um because there was a

terrible outfit who operated here called the Cigari who were the secret police and they

would bug people's walls. They'd even put bugs in shoes and a rumor spread through the country that

they could read people's minds. So they were literally believed to be the thought police.

All this luxury and home comfort is sickening because one of Hodra's most famous proclamations

was, "We will eat grass until we bow to the pressure of foreign powers." Um, and for many

Albanians, that's pretty much what they had to do because between the 1970s and the 1990s, the vast

proportion of the population were at the poverty line and many were starving. [Music] Negotiating

the memory of this era is something that modern Albania is still tackling.

[Music] In the Tana sunshine, I'm catching up with an old friend. Lovely to see you,

too. Welcome back. Archaeologist Lita Mirror grew up under communism. There's a lot of conversation

now about whether you should keep history that is offensive to people and that has sorrowful

memories. So, so do you think that the communist buildings here should be preserved or or should

they be? Of course they have to be preserved. In that period I judged them in very negative

way. Now I think they have to be preserved but in that period wow I said because wishing for better

things but yeah is this that we have to preserve all the steps steps of history. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

And why why do you think I mean you and I love history. Yeah. But why do we need history? Why

do we need to preserve to be proud to educate the new generation to be proud for everything

we inherited from the past? I completely agree and it's almost in the buildings you learn to

love the buildings and then you love and care about the people who lived in them in history.

Yes. Yes. Yes. The memory is the past is the present and in base of that we can build the

future. Memory is life. It is a remarkable place. I think it's more welcoming to strangers than

almost anywhere else I've been. I think here they give everything they have. Yes. And this was in

centuries. And Raki is very good in Albania. It is very good. It is. And a lot of it. Yes.

Old symbols of the communist regime are becoming museums and arts and educational spaces.

It's great to see people coming together

to remember and to celebrate all that was banned under communism.

Wherever I've traveled in Albania, people have said this beautiful thing to me and is

a phrase I haven't heard before, blessed are your feet for bringing you here,

which which basically means thank you for coming. And it feels to me that that is

something which is constitutionally Albanian, that this is a territory which is all about

travel and exchange and outside influence. So the fact that communism turned the

country into a cage means that the communist heritage here is fascinating and revealing,

but it's not really a wonder or a treasure. It's something that carries with it its own tragedy.

For me, what's endured throughout Albania's story is its cultural resilience. That tremendous sense

of history and hospitality has survived through its communist past to the present.

It does feel right to describe Albania as a pearl of the Balkans, somewhere that treasure

seekers have sought out for centuries and that is itself wonderful. Across time,

this land has become a cauldron of civilizations, but it never seems to have lost a sense of its

own value and identity. It's a precious place that is itself a wellspring of civilization.

Betton is back slightly earlier next Saturday at 7:00 when she's in a man. Next tonight,

Professor Alice Roberts gets her hands on a horde of TUDA coins and

a 500year-old jousting scorecard in New Fortress Britain. [Music]

I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could get me access off the beaten track, and I have 100%

definitely got what I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places.

It is just extraordinary where I've been given special access to significant and surprising

treasures. Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity buried in ancient sites,

extraordinary buildings, and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that

help to explain the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes

our lives today. This time I'm in Oman, where ancient traditions have inspired

pioneering inventions and brand new finds are revealing the secrets of a global culture.

Oh my goodness, Sylvia, this is a serious discovery. From prehistoric civilizations to

medieval power brokers and maritime empires, I'm exploring the treasures of Oman. [Music]

[Music]

Aman covers an area the size of Italy in the southeastern corner of Arabia. It's

been described as an island of sorts between the Indian Ocean on one side and the vast sea

of sands of the Arabian desert on the other. Its remarkable geography has nurtured civilizations

for over 5,000 years and fostered innovations and cultural connections that still shape our world.

This is just such an extraordinary country. Um that's Wadin which is Oman's Grand Canyon. And

up there is Jebel Shems, the mountain of the sun. And it's called that because it

gets the very first rays of sunlight in the morning at sunrise and the very last

at sunset. [Music] My first treasure is the archaeology of the Jabal Hajar,

a mountain range rising 10,000 ft along Oman's northern coast. [Music]

If you know where to look, there are clues to Oman's deep and diverse,

really surprising history right across this land and particularly where I'm heading up now. So,

I'm driving up to the Jabel Haja mountains, brilliantly named because they're literally

the Rocky Mountains. Um, they're a wonder of Oman and they're unlike anything else on Earth.

The tectonic forces that created these mountains dragged up valuable minerals,

including hundreds of seams of copper ore. That created an opportunity that the local people

quickly exploited [Music] in some of the really earliest written records that exist. So some of

the earliest sources in history um there are these incredibly tantalizing references to this slightly

kind of mysterious enterprising people called the man or Majan who lived in these mineralrich

mountains exactly like this and I've always wanted to to try to track down their story.

Scribes from ancient Mesopotamia, what's now Iraq, recorded their king's lust for

man's resources and boasted of acquiring its copper and decorative stone. Until recently,

little was known about the people of Man. But here, at last, there are clues. Kamayra,

where archaeologists are uncovering complex settlements like this one, 4,000 years old.

It feels like quite a challenging landscape here now. But there must be something that these people

are using from the land because I mean obviously what you're uncovering is a really wealthy. It's

really sophisticated civilization. They benefit from the trade route which cuts through this

valley from the sea uh towards the center of Oman and um the trade was all about copper

in that period. So that's it. I think they were benefiting from the copper trade. You see copper

I mean it's almost like this magical metal, isn't it? And there's this kind of extraordinary moment

where the world changes and they start to really mine the copper that's in landscape like this and

then create bronze which which allows you to do all kinds of things as a civilization. Yes,

they are producing a lot of copper implements and also exporting massively

copper to Mesopotamia which was very developed at that point but it lacked natural resources.

So you have people from where we're standing now who would be helping the

trading of really really kind of highly cultured tools going to Mesopotamia in

what's now Iraq which we always think of as the birthplace of civilization. So it's

almost like what's happening here is driving the birth of civilization as we know it. Yes.

Kamira was built during a major turning point in human history

when the world's first states took shape in the Indis Valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.

And newly discovered treasures from graves show that the man people were right at

the heart of it. It's just a very tiny sample of what's been found in the grave.

Some of the pottery is locally made and some of it has been imported is probably an import from

overseas from India. Think of the journey that that little pot has made to be crafted in India

carefully taken on a boat down here exchanged for something that they wanted you know maybe a tiny

tiny bit of copper for instance and here there definitely must be a story about like why why

you put a piece of pottery that has not been made locally. You don't put random objects in graves.

They all have stories. It It's so fabulous to see these because the man or Madan people,

they they are quite enigmatic. It is quite hard to get a handle on them,

but these are kind of little bits of the jigsaw puzzle that are helping us understand their story.

Trading copper ore allowed the man to build sophisticated structures for the living and

for the dead. I've just got to show you something that that amazing society has

um left behind. It's the crowning glory of Arabian Bronze Age archaeology. [Music] This unique site

alain from the third millennium BCE is the man making a lasting mark on the landscape.

graves on a strategic hilltop framed by the jagged outline of Jabal Misht in the Hajar range.

There are 21 of these tombs. They were built around 5,000 years ago and they are

so well constructed. They're standing almost perfectly still today. [Music]

Dominating the valley below, the so-called beehive tombs offer a tantalizing glimpse inside this lost

culture. These tombs have been used and reused and looted and then reused again over the centuries.

Um, so there were hardly any finds in them. But just a few years ago, the archaeologists here

have discovered inside a tiny tiny fragment of human bone and a single copper ring. And if that

doesn't connect you to the people who lived here millennia ago, I don't know what does.

These ongoing excavations in Oman's Hajar Mountains indicate just what a

driving force ancient man was in the wider story of human civilization.

And these mountains may also hold a crucial key to humanity's future. They're home to the world's

largest concentration of opulite, fossilized lava from underwater volcanoes, and a slice

of the Earth's crust thrust from deep beneath the ocean floor to the surface 100 million years ago.

When offulite is exposed to air and to water, as it is here in Oman, it behaves in unexpected ways

with rather wonderful side effects. It permanently traps one of the most harmful greenhouse gases,

carbon dioxide or CO2. Geologist Muhammad Al- Kindi has devoted his life to studying the

unique rock formations of Oman. So this is normal mountain water. Why are you getting this kind of

film on the surface? This is a very thin crust of this natural reaction between the magnesium which

comes from the rock and CO2 that comes from water and the atmosphere. And the whole process happens

in water uh converting uh this this reaction into something we call magneside which is magnesium

carbonate. It happens naturally. It had happened since thousands and and probably millions of years

as well. And uh you know it's one of the ways that people are are thinking now to accelerate

in order to capture CO2. Amazing. So it's such a brilliant thought, isn't it? Because you know as

a species we haven't used the prochemicals on this planet very sensibly. We've caused huge

problems. But it could be that a solution could could be here in the geology of Oman. True. Very

true. This just, you know, the bounty of the mountains of Oman that we having here.

There are plans to accelerate the CO2 capture on an industrial scale with hopes that by 2040

a billion tons of carbon may have been turned to harmless stone. That's equal

to the annual CO2 emissions of the UK and Germany combined. The Hajar Mountains are

a treasure in so many ways. Not just because of their savage beauty, but also because our

common ancestors discovered raw materials inside these giant rocks that would help to fuel the

creation of Omani society and civilization itself. And just maybe our children might

be able to use the unique properties of these rocks to help secure the future of humanity.

[Music]

My next treasure is the land of frankincense, the far in Oman's far southwest. The Romans

called this part of the peninsula Arabia Felix or blessed Arabia partly because it

generated one of the most precious commodities of antiquity. [Music] Growing on a rocky plateau

between the fertile coast and the desert, it once made this corner of Oman vital to

the ancient world. This is Woody Doa. Um, and it's the best place in the world to see

a tree that made history. It's the Boswellia Sakra, the frankincense tree to you and me.

Under the punishing heat, the frankincense tree is at home

here. Many say the very finest frankincense is produced in defa.

Heroditus, the father of history, said that this whole country exhales more than

an earthly fragrance. And at one point, pretty much every major temple from Rome

to India would have been perfumed with incense from this very place.

A handful of families keep the tradition going using techniques first recorded 2,000

years ago. Salam. Hello. Salam. Lovely to see you. Hello. Hi. What What's your name?

Abdullah. Abdullah. I'm Betany. Sorry. Is this your Yeah. This is my grandfather.

Your grandfather. And this gentleman is is my uncle. Ah. And you are you learning from them?

Yes. Is it okay if I have a chat with him? Yes. Salam. Hi. Salam. Hello. Hi. Sorry to

sorry to bother you. So this is get the the sap. The frankincense is inside here. Is it?

It's the little bits of white. That's the frankincense beginning to come out. Oh,

that's so lovely. It's almost like it's sweating frankincense. And I know the Chinese when they

traded this centuries ago, they said it was like dripping milk, which it does does

look like, doesn't it? Yes. Oh, so this is the frankincense. Okay. But I just noticed this. Yeah.

So this is when it's dry. Yes. This is called the is the the best better one of them all.

It is.

Thank you, Shakaran. Shakaran, thank you so much. What a what a beautiful thing.

Abdullah, thank you so much. You've got a fantastic future

as a frankincense harvester and your English is brilliant. Salam salam bye.

For millennia, frankincense, burnt, chewed, or dissolved, was used to treat infections,

inflammation, even depression, and to perfume the stink of antiquity. We're

told that the Roman Emperor Nero used a whole year's supply at the funeral of his consort,

Papaya. Just the name frankincense is incredibly evocative. Um, if you think about it, it conjures

up images probably first of the three wise men bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense,

and myrrh to the baby Jesus. There's the famed queen of Sheba. And Tutin Carmoon,

the Egyptian pharaoh, was buried with four balls of incense to take with him to the afterlife.

To reach the palaces and temples of the ancient world, Dar's precious incense had

to be transported vast distances over land and sea. Trade networks spread out from

southern Arabia across the Indian Ocean and beyond. Corory on Dar's coast was a

world hub of the frankincense trade. Home to the ancient fortress city of Sumharam.

There's a fantastic historical source called the periplas of the erithraan sea that was

um basically a kind of compilation of navigational techniques from the 1st century

CE and it describes this very place as Moscow and says that ships from what's now Gujarat and

Kerala would overwinter here and bring cloth and sesame oil and wheat in exchange for frankincense.

Some identify this as a palace of the fabled queen of Sheba whose biblical wealth was built

on the frankincense trade. Over the last 25 years, excavations at Horriy have uncovered the entire

fortified city. Hi, is that Sylvia? Sylvia Lisky, who's directing this year's dig, has agreed to

share the very latest finds. I'm so happy to be here. What an incredible site. And the foundation

of the city dates to when? Around the end of the 3rd century BC and the beginning of the 2 century

BC. So it belonged to who? The city. I mean who who was in charge? The kingdom of Ramouth that

at one point decide to build an outpost inside the heart of producing area of frankincense. And

this kingdom was in the modern Yemen. Amazing. So, it's this like kind of fortified mini city

that existed really really just to promote that frankincense, right? Yes. This is interesting.

Slightly different kind of structure here. Yeah. This is a business center of somewhere. And here

you can see the market square with a small gate that can permit the hunter from the wadi directly

inside to trade the goods and go back without entering inside the city. Pretty narrow gate.

So you're really checking that he's got access, aren't you? Yeah, sure. We have all around store

rooms mostly of frankincense and to be protected they have the entrance from the roof. So they can

control very very well this luxury good and presumably a lot of security, a lot of guards

because I mean it's this this stuff, frankincense, it's it's worth huge amounts of money. I know at

this time we were sort of at the height of its trade. Even just the Romans are trading around

3,000 tons a year and that's worth about 10 tons of gold. So I mean it's it's seriously precious

stuff. It's a huge amount. But in fact not only Romans but also Hindia and also uh the Gulf. So

they spread the frankincense all over the anent world. So it was a really huge huge business.

Sylvia's giving me special access to an extraordinary fresh discovery. Tombs that

predate the foundation of Sumharam. Burial places of a community who may well have

pioneered frankincense trading here. Do you know how many graves there are here?

There are almost 700 graves. 700? Yeah. So it's really huge and properly. [Music]

Oh my goodness. It's really incredible because it's visible the entire body of the person buried

here. Yes. You can see here there's a leg, the hips, the head, and the arms. Oh my goodness,

Sylvia. This is a serious discovery. Yes. This is a really new discovery we found just yesterday.

Wow. Oh, how um and it's I'm almost speechless. So, tell me what you think you know about it. This

is the first complete skeleton that we found inside this necropolis and inside this kind

of graves. Whoever this is, you know, don't know yet whether it's a a woman or a man. But if this

is possibly from the fourth century or or fifth century BC, they're still trading frankincense

around here at this time. So that's that's going to be a part of this person's world probably if

it was connected with a high status of a society. It was in charge of something connected with the

frankincense. The world here it was so complex. They know everyone from India to Africa to the

Mediterranean. So it was a really an international place. Yeah. Always connected with frankincense.

Interesting. God's so much this person can tell us. It's really a lot but also all these place

have a lot of secrets still to discover and we try to understand step by step what's happened during

the history of this area. Yeah. Incredible. A lot more stories, a lot more a lot more histories to

be yielded here. The seaw routes were just one part of the story. Huge lines, caravans of camels

crisscrossed Arabia on the Frankincense Trail. And descendants of those traders, the Bedwin of Defa,

still live here, driving their camel herds across the Naj Plateau, a great wilderness

stretching over 16,000 square miles between the mountains of the coast and the desert dunes

beyond. [Music] The Bedwin here uh are still some of the few remaining camel pastoralists in Arabia.

Um, and I'm really lucky to get invited to to go and have a chat with them. Salam.

Thank you for letting me come. Hello, lovely camel.

And sunset is milking time. Oh, look at the baby camels. Baby camels. Oh,

I love camels so much. This is Leila. I've just discovered we share a love of camels.

She was just saying that camels make her feel calm. Do you have a favorite? So,

she seems very gentle.

Oh, really?

[Music] I know. That's so much better. Yeah. Drink it. Okay. Okay. Okay. When in a bedwin camp,

that is delicious.

It's pretty spectacular to experience this because

um ancient authors like Plenny talk about the camel caravan and the fact that it was

uninterrupted for around 2,000 miles from southern Arabia right way through

up to the north and the west and that it would take around 65 days for the camels

to carry their frankincense and other things, you know, gold and spices and precious cloths.

[Music]

This is such a beautiful home. So, thank you for letting me come here and sharing it with you. Do

you stay here for a long time in the year or or do you do you travel with your animals?

So, you're always following the water.

You have such beautiful frankincense here. It's just so wonderful to have

it here in the desert because the frankincense has been such a part of the history of Arabia,

the story of Arabia going back generations.

for

[Music] the markets for incense have come and gone. Ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia,

Rome, Constantinople. But here, frankincense and its traditions endure an unbroken chain reaching

back into antiquity. I I've always wondered what it was like to live in the past. So my great kind

of heroins and heroes. So the female pharaohs of Egypt like Hatcheps and Cleopatra and the great

philosophers like Socrates and adventurers like Alexander the Great. This would have

been part of their daily experience. So, uh, you know, it's one of those rare moments where you

really can say that it's as though you're you're living in ancient history at a moment like this.

[Music]

Oman is one of the driest, hottest places on the planet. But mountain communities have developed

a secret weapon that helps them to survive. Um, it's a complex ancient irrigation system called

the falage and it's an ingenious treasure that's helped to make Oman the country that it is today.

I've traveled to Misvat Albin, one of many villages perched on the southern

slopes of the Hajar mountains. They depend on the felage system for their existence.

Okay, so I know you can't see any water right now. Um,

but it originates kilometers up there in the mountains and then travels

underground and eventually emerges just a bit further down the valley here. [Music]

This is one of a hundred water systems in this region alone. Um,

and there are thousands right across Oman. We know that this one is probably a millennium old,

but there are some in this country that stretch back possibly over 4,500 years.

Oman's afflage, the plural of fage, have enabled life to flourish here for centuries and still

account for a third of Oman's irrigation. Fallage in classical Arabic means to divide

into shares. Um, and it's actually how the water is shared amongst the community here

that makes it particularly special. Each farming family is allotted specific units

of time to irrigate their crops. The timet is strict. Movable dams of stone and cloth are set

up to distribute the water so that everyone gets exactly their fair share down to the last drop.

I bump into Malik Haled Albri busy watering his crops. How long has your family been

farming this land here? Uh 50 years. And what are you growing? mango and banana and lemon

balm dates and it's really incredible seeing the afflage system working. So do you think

it's a system that encourages you to collaborate with people and to respect your neighbors here?

And you must respect your ancestors, your forefathers who invented this system as well.

It's so beautiful here. It almost feels like

you've you've stepped into a kind of part of the garden of paradise.

[Music]

The sharing of water has a huge symbolic significance. These irrigation systems may

predate Islam, but Muslim beliefs have reinforced their almost sacred status.

As Islamic scripture says, the best form of charity is to give someone water. And here,

the bounty of the fage translates into agricultural abundance.

Locals tell you that at harvest time here, uh, there's more produce than anyone can eat. So,

they gorge on pomegranates and bananas and mangoes and dates. So it really does

feel as though a little bit of heaven has been created here in these arid mountains. [Music]

Dates in particular have long been central to the food and culture of Ammanis who eat more

per person than any other nation. As oasis towns and villages like Misvat grew around each falage,

they became strategic stops on trade routes connecting mountain and desert.

If you've ever seen a natural oasis in the desert,

it feels completely incredible, almost kind of miraculous. But in some ways,

this is even more extraordinary because this is humanmade. It's human hands that created all

this fertility. And of course, an innovation like this would nourish exceptional success.

This is Bakla, the ultimate oasis settlement sustained by a perfectly preserved afflage network

that is at least a thousand years old. The entire Oasis town is surrounded by an 8mm fortified wall

to protect the allimportant water channels. And dominating the city is one of the great treasures

of Omani architecture. The hulking medieval bata fort built between the 12th and 15th centuries by

the Naban tribe. [Music] The Neban built up their wealth and power and influence from control of

the water supplies and the frankincense trade in this region until this palace come fortress came

to dominate one of the biggest towns in Arman that was eventually a capital of the land.

The sheer size of the fort, the largest of over 500 that still stand in Oman,

reveals the need to protect their success from envious rivals.

[Music] This palace flourished at a time um that some have called the Omani dark ages.

um books were being burned and our sources go dark and there's instability and turmoil

throughout the land. So it feels as though that sense and ethics of collaboration has fractured

and is being challenged. [Music] Huge amounts of dates were stored here in the castle obviously

to feed the population particularly in times of siege but they were also put to more sinister

use. Um so as they were stored then date oil would leak out from the bottom and this was

collected and then it was poured down from grills in the roof on anybody who invaded.

Now, because there's so much sugar in dates, that burning material would then stick to the

invader's skin. [Music] Backless date groves and fort still flourish. Now,

a UNESCO World Heritage site and a stronghold of Ammani culture and traditions.

The afflash system really is just wondrous. It's a real treasure because without it,

none of this would be possible. You wouldn't have a fort. You wouldn't have a town. You wouldn't

have fields. You wouldn't have trees. And if you think about it, in a way, the afflage is a kind

of metaphor for the evolution of Omani culture itself, where all these different influences

combined to create a common ground and a shared purpose in a beautiful, bracing land. [Music]

[Music]

The Masandam Peninsula in northern Oman,

famous for its dows, the iconic trading and fishing vessels of the western Indian Ocean.

Dows have been plowing these waters for at least a thousand years,

and we're getting what the crew tell me is the ocean's blessing.

Lovely. There are dozen species of dolphin around here and the sailors kind of say

that they're their friends. Not a bad start to a boat journey.

The Dows still play a vital role connecting the coastal communities within jagged inlets known

as the fjords of Arabia. Our next treasure is the maritime culture of Massandam. [Music] The

mountains and hillsides that plunge down into the sea are stunning, but they're

really inhospitable. They're impossible to pass through. So, it makes complete sense

that the people on this peninsula turns to the sea to survive and to seek opportunity. [Music]

Maritime trade is an essential part of Oman's identity as a shipb building and seafaring

nation. Massandam's key position at the entrance to the Gulf of Oman has placed it at the heart of

that story. Although it feels very remote, uh there are clues all around as to how strategic

this place was and still is. Um this place is called Telegraph Island and it gets its name

because in 1864 the British built a station here for the telegraph cable from Karach to

London. U and apparently it was a famously tough posting. I mean you can imagine it's very exposed.

It was very hot. There was hostility from local tribes. So although it feels quite romantic now,

I'm sure in its day this was seriously hardcore. [Music] A thousand years before the invention of

the telegraph, Omani merchants were sailing to South China and dominating the busy trade routes

from Sri Lanka and India to Arabia and East Africa. [Music] These dows were built so flat

and broad partly so they could transport really heavy cargo. Uh so we know that they carried

sapphires and pearls and ebony and ivory and carnelon from India. Uh teakwood and sandalwoods

and camper and copper and frankincense. So you have to imagine them just laden with treasures.

The success of Oman's merchants and sailors was based on their unrivaled navigational knowledge.

So the captain's reading these lines of um someone called Ahmed bin Majid who is

a 15th century Omani sailor known as the lion of the sea who wrote lines of verse

and pros to kind of guide people into how to best navigate these waters. So what was what

was that last bit? What was he saying here? He talk about the place where you do anchoring and

it depends on the the depth of the area and he just explained on that depth what you need

to do on that depth where you need to drop your anchor or how to stop how to park your

boat and secure things. Amazing. So still really really useful information. and sell still some

people they use it actually my grandfather used to you use this kind of way sometime

[Music] was the only modern Arabian state to have an overseas empire stretching from

Iran to Tanzania from the late 1700s to the 1850s the combination of internationalism

and isolation has generated a unique cultural phenomenon on the peninsula.

A village squeezed between the mountains and the sea with a one-off language and identity.

So, this is Kumzar, right on the northern tip of the Musandon Peninsula. It's incredibly isolated.

You can only get to it by sea. But it also sits on one of the most strategic choke points in

the world because out there is the straight of Holm and 40 miles across the water there's Iran.

Millions of tons of gas and oil go around Masandam every day. Yet the few hundred fishing families of

Kumzar seem to exist a world away from the super tankers out on the straight. [Music]

So, a friend of a friend has told me there's a woman here called Makia Al Kumsari, um,

who speaks some English. So, I'm hoping she can kind of decode this culture a bit for me. Hello.

Oh,

nice to see you here. It is lovely to be here. Oh, it's lovely to be here. can. More than welcome.

Yeah, you can. More than welcome. Thank you. Lovely. More than welcome. This is our review.

Have a seat. Thank you. What a place. What does it feel like living in this community? I love

everything here. It is amazing feeling amazing life for us especially today in our modern life.

I love the past. I love today. I will love the future. And the language here is so fascinating

cuz cuz am I right in saying it's it's a completely unique language Kamar has a secret all

sailors there all fishermen from many countries are coming to take their water from here they

bring their culture they bring their nationality they bring their language to this local area now

is mix of many languages at the world it I think it is as a mirror of the world. So, so in Kumsara

you have uh ancient Arabic, ancient Persian, Turkish, maybe French, Hindi, Portuguese, maybe

Portuguese and English and English. Yeah. Like a salad of a language. Yeah. Yeah. The language is a

mirror of the culture. You can see the history on the language. And it's so true as well what you're

saying that a a community that is cut off by the water isn't isolated. The waterway really was a

highway for people to travel and to learn from one another. I just got to hear you speaking a bit of

Kumzari. We've been talking about this beautiful language, but we've been talking in English.

Walking through the village, you can hear exotic loan words like the English door, forno,

the Portuguese for oven, or the Hindi words for bread, naan, and numbers 1 to 5, ecto, so char.

[Laughter]

[Music]

Who is she? She's obviously a friend of yours. Is she something to do with medicine? Cuz she

was doing medicine. Yeah, she has an organic medicine doing on herbs and the grass. She

has to told me she just now served one child who has broken his arm. the value there. Now

he is walking and playing. She told me to tell you he's okay and she is good in that.

So Mia can say so I've just met the wise woman of the village. I've never met a proper wise

woman before. So thank you for what an incredible She has got stories to tell.

Makia is taking me to Kumar's well. the magnet that attracted travelers from Europe, India,

Persia, each leaving a few words as momentos of their passing. So

this is the destination of all those travelers. Yeah. Which I call it the

secret of the language. Yes. The secret of the area, the secret of the culture.

Thank you for showing me this because this is like Kumsara is

made by the sweet water of the well and the salty water of the ocean.

The lure of fresh water was the making of Kumsar. Its language reflects the welcome they gave

to sailors, the shipwrecked and smugglers for centuries, making this treasure something of a

paradox. the most inaccessible settlement in Oman, but also one of its most deeply multicultural.

[Music] The land of Oman is a wonder because it's a reminder that geography and geology,

earth and sea, make history. And that when we face the challenges of extreme environments face on,

we can make treasures that help to connect cultures and civilizations across the continent.

[Music]

Betany is in Aabaijan next Saturday at 6:30. Tomorrow at 7:40, setting their ovens to 180,

Aradele Roberts, David Moresy, Tom Daly,

and Lucy Bulmont bake off a standup to cancer. Next tonight, continuing our historic odyssey,

emergency plans for invasions over the centuries. Fortress Britain with Alice Roberts. [Music]

I'm traveling across the world exploring secrets and wonders. This is really tight. So,

I asked my friends here if they could uh get me access off the beaten track. And I have 100%

definitely got what I asked for. An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places.

It is just extraordinary. I've been given special access to significant and surprising

treasures. Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity. Buried in ancient sites,

incredible buildings, and glorious works of art. I'm in search of the treasures that help

to explain the story of us. Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today.

This time the culturally rich, rugged, ravishing country of Azabaijan. Aabaijan

is a unique and completely remarkable land that's attracted adventurers and diverse cultures since

prehistory. [Music] From gas powered flames bursting out of the earth to ancient rock

carvings dating back tens of thousands of years. The marvels of the legendary silk

road. That is a beautiful color and futuristic skyscrapers towering over a medieval walled city.

I'll unpack the stories and wonders of a land whose very geography makes history.

Aabaijan sits between the majestic Caucus Mountains and the sparkling Caspian Sea. [Music]

The name Asbaijan comes from an ancient word for fire. And over there there are hillsides that

suddenly burst into flame. And down here under the Caspian Sea, there are fields of oil. Fossil fuels

have brought wealth to modern Azabaijan, but its wonders stretch right back to prehistory. [Music]

where I'm heading now is an amazing treasure that's on

the hills above the deserts just outside Baku.

This is Gobstan National Reserve in the foothills of the Caucasus mountain range.

A unique landscape that hides the story of humanity. 40,000 years ago,

nomadic hunter gatherers and fishermen set foot here and began to leave an indelible, tantalizing

record of how they lived. Carved into these rocks are more than 7,000 UNESCO protected pictures,

inscriptions, and stories. And I'm heading to one known as the seven beauties engraving.

It's a bit of a scramble to get to. Its outline is faint now, but originally it would have been

more like this. What you're looking at here are figures that date to around 7,000 B.CE. So that

means they are 9,000 years old and there are seven women represented here. You can see their tiny

cinched in waists and they've got this beautiful V decoration pointing down below their hips.

But they're also carrying these massive staffs. And if you look, can you see the ends have got

a curve in them? And that's usually a sign of status or or standing. And the thing is,

we don't know who they are. We don't know whether they're real women or female deities or the kind

of incarnation of some female spirit. But it must be some statement of of might. So

whatever this art is telling us, it's describing some kind of very inaccessible mystical power.

This art can be found on rocks and hillsides across 20 square miles. [Music]

There are over a hundred images of boats on the rocks here and there there are 10 on this rock

alone. Some are really really faint and eroded, but you can make out these three very well. Um I

mean they're incredibly old these. So these date back around 8,000 years. So that's the sixth or

7th millennium BCE. People are shown braving the seas, heading out on adventures. And of course,

we don't have history from this time. So these are unique clues as to what was happening.

It was only in the 1930s that the incredible art here was rediscovered.

Um, basically miners were working in the region and they moved a boulder and uncovered

these mysterious inscriptions. So archaeologists were called in,

but they had no idea of the scale of wonder that was going to be revealed.

[Music]

The ancient inhabitants of Azabaijan shaped and drumed on the stones of Gobstan to create

music. Nati Sherino has spent years sourcing the right rocks to replicate this primal sound.

Bravo. Bravo. That's fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah,

it's amazing. It's lovely for me to hear because I mean this is a sound that's been

played here for for not just thousands of years, but for tens of thousands of years.

[Music]

I know this was used to create music,

but do you think it was also used to send messages between the people and tribes here?

An echo of this, the original rock music continues in Aabaijan. So they still do this um traditional

dance here called the Yi dance and a lot of the moves are the same as the ones that you

see in the in the rock inscriptions. And the fact that they use this kind of massive bit of

stone in the center too, you know, that's that's exactly as they were doing here back in prehistory

passed down through generations. Yi is still very much alive in Azabaijani culture.

[Music]

Many of Gobistan's carved rocks are so delicate and unique, mainly only researchers can visit.

But I've been granted exclusive access to one called Gined. Last time I came here,

um I met an amazing archaeologist called Sabinch who made me promise that I would come back to see

the excavations she was working on. Um and she's made some incredible finds and I'm very lucky

to get to see them because this is somewhere the public can't normally go to. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Hello.

How lovely to see you. Yes. You promised that you'll return back. Oh yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So,

so tell me what I'm looking at here. We have Arabic inscription which is called Berm or

Beckler. It is the name of local tribe. We have medieval tribal sign which is called tongas. We

have goats. So this is obviously medieval period. So it's much much much Yes. A letter but they are

in the same panel with the bronze age goats. We have horses here like a curve. Yeah. Head.

Yeah. back line here legs first leg the other leg is here we have the other horse so that's

really fascinating so if this Arabic and that's a travel sign yes so these are people these are

sort of traders who are using the the you know silk roads maybe or or you know even a kind of

here as part of the spice route and they're leaving their mark and they're choosing to do

it on top of something that is probably three and a half maybe 4 thousand years old from the Bronze

Age yeah that's why that's quite interesting I think that in gustam we have uh dialogue of

let's call it dialogue between different cultures between different peoples the bronze age people

met the medieval carvings on the same plot on the same panel are there particular rocks that

I don't know have some sacred power or special meaning to people it is it is interesting that

choosing of this side wasn't accidentally because this side directly directed to the mountain and

maybe this mountain and this hill had any kind of relationship. Yeah. Sacred value for the locals

and the finds keep on coming. See and her team have identified over 540 new carvings here at

Jingodar since I've known her. We bumped into each other here in Gustan, five years ago and

we just were talking talking about archaeology and the power of archaeology and I remember you

saying how much it means to you. I feel the uh the the spirit of my ancestor and it really makes me

cry. I imagine that a thousand years ago somebody stayed there and carved these images on the rocks.

So when I registered them right now, I feel the same vibes. Yeah. That's so beautiful. So you're

up here, but you don't feel alone. You're you're in the company of women and men from history. Yes.

Really, this place has own importance and the value for me. No. Yeah. You'll keep on finding

more here. Yes. Yes. Don't you? Yeah. It's really great site. It is. The astonishing stories at

Gobistan offer a rare window into past lives at a vital intersection between east and west, bearing

witness to many great civilizations, including the Romans who carved Latin into this rock 2,000 years

ago. I just love this place because it feels like a completely unique and wondrous treasure because

this is somewhere where memory itself is set in stone. Um, all across this landscape there

are remarkable clues to people's lives from prehistory right through to the present. And

and what the art here tells us is not just what we've done, but what has mattered to us as humans.

[Music]

Aabaijan's strategic position on the Silk Roads. The ancient trade routes linking China with the

West spurred innovation with the exchange of goods, skills, and new ideas. I'm heading to

Shaki. Not only was it an absolutely stunning stop on the Silk Roots, but it also produced

some of the most sumptuous treasures to be traded all the way along those amazing roads.

It's a wonder because it traces the ways we use the raw materials of the earth to

create beauty. Jaki has been a hub for silk production for centuries. From here,

silk was exported to Russia, India, Iran, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and Europe. Even the

Romans bought silk from this region. The Khan dynasty made Shaki their capital between 1743

and 1819. It became known as the city of silk. In 1797, the ruler Muhammad Hassan Khan displayed the

immense wealth generated by the Silk Road when he built this lavish twostory summer residence.

a palace of light.

So this is the queen's chamber that I'm coming into. The re the reason I have to kind of stoop

down as I come in is that all these rooms have these wooden blocks on the floor cuz

people would all sit on the floor so it stopped the drafts come in but also to make you kind

of bow in this slightly subservient way in the presence of royalty. It's so gorgeous this place,

isn't it? Everything here tells you that it's connected to to women. So the red color that

was thought to be a representation of the power and passion of the female.

And it's just gorgeous cuz it also talks about abundance. So these grapes here,

grapes were one of the fruits in the garden of paradise. And the irises that you see everywhere,

these grow naturally in real profusion here in Azaba. But that blue color was thought to ward off

disease and evil. So So it's a ceremonial room, but it is absolutely packed full of messages, too.

These decorations reveal how a crucial destination

along the Silk Roads like Aabaijan enabled different cultures to meet and interact.

This is the main ceremonial audience chamber. So, the decorations here are kind of a bit more

crunchy. Um, they're all imagined, but they're fighting scenes. And you've got everybody who was

important at the time represented. So, there are Ottomans and Mongolians. And here, I think these

are um men from Aabaijan. You've even got a cosac up there. But why I just love this place was it it

talks about that combination of east and west too. So up here somewhere here I think there there's an

elephant because the rulers before these k used to go to India and use elephants in their armies. And

then over here is a really really interesting kind of mythological scene. It's a horrible

scene. It's a scene of total carnage because all these different animals are are being hunted down

and chopped to pieces and destroyed including a unicorn. And that is a unicorn that comes directly

out of western mythology and and fairy tales. The palace was beautiful and at the business end of a

dynasty which at the time was one of the most powerful in the caucuses. [Music] This is the

um the room the Khn would use to come in to kind of in effect go through his inbox. So look

at all his papers and documents and you know sign petitions. So it's really like his office. And so

all the decoration here is chosen to remind him how to be a good ruler. Uh so you've got a lion

and dragon in mortal fight to prove that struggle is pointless. There's a really lovely pomegranate

tree. So pomegranates are symbols of fertility, but also because you have hundreds and hundreds of

seeds in each fruit. the idea that it's only the outer casing, good governance that brings unity,

but it's up here. These medallions are definitely my favorite in the room. So, this whole ceiling,

by the way, was replicated perfectly on a carpet that would have been down below. And up here,

you've got um a woman with a lion's body. Uh but she's also got wings and she's holding a sword

and she has a crown. So that shows that she can be a ruler. And women in Aabaijan absolutely had

status and standing. And then there's this kind of funny version of it over here. So here you've

also got a woman with a lion's body. And she does still have a sword, but she doesn't have wings

and she doesn't have a crown. And that's because this woman is only fair of face. She's not also

beautiful in mind and soul and spirit. So the idea is that you have to be wise in order to exercise

real power. It's not just about how you look. And this gorgeous glass, well, it was brought all the

way from Italy by the Venetians who traded it for silk. The designs called shebacare,

web or latis. A lovely reflection of the interweaving of cultures along the silk roads.

[Music]

This is a city that's that's basically devoted to silk and has been for centuries. So down

all these little side streets you'll find quite a lot of the houses have got this

strange sort of attic structure on the top which is where the silk worms were held. So

um families have been producing silk here for almost thousands of years. Yeah. Look,

look. It's lovely, isn't it? And here is a malberry tree. And the reason these are here

is because salt worms love to eat malbury leaves. It's all they can survive on. Um,

so you have these little sort of mini malbury forests in the city.

As silkworms were cultivated in many private gardens, Shaki became known as a garden city.

So that seems to have been roped into a bit of spontaneous white malberry

harvesting. [Music] It's really cool this because this is how on Greek pots

and things you see this is how they used to harvest olives. So it's obviously been

going on like this you know for for well for hundreds of years I think. [Music]

Yeah. I just got one on my head.

In 1931, the first silk factory was built in Shaki,

and it's still producing exquisite carpets and scarves.

[Music]

It's one of the great things about Aabaijan. Wherever you go in a city or the countryside,

you always get offered tea by people. So, first time in my life though I've

ever shared tea with uh silk workers. There's a first time for everything.

Ilgar Agayv's family have been making silk here for generations. It's so interesting to see this.

Am I right in thinking that before under the USSR this was like the biggest enterprise in

all and also in all caucuses. Dying the fabric was once considered a sacred art and those who worked

the cloth were thought to be blessed. So he takes it and that goes straight in the dye there. Yes.

That is a beautiful color. Sure. The production of Kelahayi, a traditional woman's headscarf,

is also a process that's UNESCO protected. Each color is endowed with special meaning. A

bright red scarf is given to a bride before her wedding. And one popular pattern is the Buddha,

a symbol of fire and fertility. So what's happening here? So this is the first stop

where they put stamps and they use different uh type of uh stamps. As you see it's wooden

stamp and very useful uh for putting pattern on scarves. So they're keeping it warm but what is

it? What's that material that they're using on the stamps? Uh it's paraffhene and canifer

I thought I could smell that beautiful smell. So maybe that would scare away the mosquitoes as well

if you wear Sure. It's a it's a lovely atmosphere in here. It's very sort of calm. You can hear the

birds outside and it's quite meditative you know creating these things by hand. That's the why

this production goes well. Yes. If you link to the nature if you feel the nature of course it

goes successful way you get success. There's this beautiful thing that neuroscientists say

that if you're using your hands to make something, your brain is in its kind of alpha state because

it's what we're meant to do as a species. Of course. So, so it makes us happy and it is

not just a business. It's tradition and it comes spiritly and that's why we are successful on this

part on this production. We think the Kellayi headscarf appeared in Azabaijan 2,000 years

ago to protect against evil spirits. It remains an integral part of cultural and religious identity.

The factory in Shaki is overlooked up in the Caucus' foothills by Kish, one of the oldest

villages in Azaijan. So a good stop off to try on a kei. I basically bought the whole workshop load

of scarves. However, I don't really know how to put them on. But luckily, lovely Nyla here,

who's been traveling around and um helping me in Aaban, also wearing a particularly lovely scarf,

has agreed yes to show me how to do it the proper way. Because the thing with these is that, you

know, they're very particular ways to wear them. So, sometimes it shows that you're married or that

you're a young woman without children. And here there's myths and legends that if you knot them

in a particular way, it says that you're you're sending a message to people that you're wise or,

you know, ambitious. Okay, let's have a go. And I chose this one, by the way, cuz it's got

pomegranates on. And pomegranates are that lovely symbol of fertility, kind of ambition, and and

unity that you get here. But okay, thank you. You are welcome. Yeah. Ah, okay. Fantastic. So, now we

can have some tea. Silk stars like these have been traded in Shaki for centuries. [Music] It was a

typical merchants town with a bazaar, warehouses, and a caravansai, accommodation for merchants

traveling on the Silk Road. [Music] These caravans eyes were were really high security places.

Um they're basically like kind of castles for commerce. And and this is interesting. So um this

knocker announced the fact that men had arrived and for women that's why I'm I'm using that one.

Built in the 18th century, the complex has more than 200 rooms and a 14 m

high protective wall to keep out thieves. and it's still a hotel.

Basically, this was a kind of one-stop shop. So, um merchants would sleep on the upper levels

here. They do business underneath the arches with other traders. And then all their luxury goods,

which are really precious, were stored in these cellers down here. Silks and

spices and jewels and gold and carpets and textiles and precious dyes. And of course,

all those things had to get here. So there were mules and horses and camels. And we have records

of some camel caravans that had up to a thousand animals in them. [Music] For added security, the

stairs leading to the second floor were removed at night so the merchants could sleep easy. [Music]

The famous traveler Marco Polo um wrote about this place. Um he was praising the

gold and silver threads that were used in silk production here. And he said that there was so

much silk in this region that all the beds were covered in silk blankets even

in hotels. So there must have been silk blankets in in this place. And you know,

you just got to think of the buzz of staying here because we know that traders came here

from what's now China and Iran and Russia and North Africa and Western Europe. So,

so this was somewhere that you didn't just come to exchange goods, but also ideas.

[Music]

Shaki is a treasure in and of itself,

but also because it's a crucial component of the Silk Roads, that constant thread

of commerce and civilization that allowed cultures and ideas to meet and flourish.

[Music]

Aabaijan is home to nine different climate zones, creating an amazingly diverse terrain. From lush

green forests to rocky mountains to desert-like plains and the sandy shores of the Caspian Sea.

My next treasure is an otherworldly landscape forged by this unique geology. I'm traveling

to Yana Dag, famous for one of the most miraculous natural wonders in the world.

flames that burn perpetually, fueled by natural gas escaping from under

the ground. These fires have emlazed the landscape throughout history, attracting

the attention of travelers, including one French author in the 19th century.

The writer Alexander Duma who traveled here described these fields of flame in ecstatic

terms. He actually compared them to the volcano of Buvius above Pompei.

And I have to say I think there's a bit of dramatic license there. But

they are extraordinary, aren't they? I mean, as he says, they never seem to go

out. And and Dumar wrote that neither winds nor storm could extinguish them.

This particular wall of flame has been blazing away since it was accidentally

lit by a shepherd's cigarette back in the 1950s.

Just a few kilometers away, the landscape boasts

another natural wonder fueled by the gas reserve. Mud volcanoes. [Music]

These were created 25 million years ago and they are just extraordinary and there are over 700 here

in Aabaijan alone. And sometimes when they erupt, they produce traces of of fool's gold or gold

itself. Instead of being caused by hot boiling magma, these volcanoes are created when methane

gas churns up water under the earth to form bubbling pools. Curiously, they're cold, often

just above freezing temperature. It's no surprise that travelers who came to this region wrote about

them. So there's um a brilliant author who wrote in Arabic called Al-Masudi and he describes this

as being a place where you'd find fields of gold and mines of jewels and volcanoes of mud. I mean,

who could not write about something like this? Every 20 years or so, a volcano ignites

underground, causing massive explosions. A natural phenomenon once inexplicable,

encouraging early adventurers to talk about the power of nature here in ecstatic terms. With its

mystical, otherworldly feel, this all inspiring landscape has attracted pilgrims for centuries.

Just outside the capital Baku is the Ateshka Fire Temple.

It's built on top of a natural gas vent. The fires burn here all year round.

A deeply sacred place for one of the world's oldest active religions, the Zoroastrian faith.

Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam and was founded on the words and ideas

of the prophet Zoaster who who probably lived sometime around the 6th century

BCE. The beliefs are really interesting because there is one God but two spirits,

a spirit of good and evil. And it's up to us as humans to choose which path to follow. And if we

choose to follow the path of light represented by this holy fire, then through our deeds and

our words and our thoughts, we can all actively make the world a better place.

Fire rituals play a key part in Zoroastrian ceremonies. [Music]

All around this building you'll find these inscriptions in different languages. So this

one's in Persian and Sanskrit which is an ancient Indian language. And there's

a particular reason for that. So at various times through history right from antiquity

through to the advent of Islam and the modern world the Zoroastrians would have

times when they were really unpopular or even persecuted and a lot of the believers fled

to India and then came back again along the Grand Trunk Road and actually that's one of

the reasons you see so many visitors from the Indian subcontinent still here today.

The mountains of fire and flame here in the Caucusus region have inspired myths

and legends that appear in the cultures of both the east and the west. [Music]

These mountains are are always a place that have lived really large in the world's imagination. Um,

for instance, there's a fantastic Greek myth that Prometheus stole

fire from the gods to give to humanity so that they could advance civilization. But

the gods were not best pleased about this. And Zeus, the king of the gods,

chained Prometheus to a rock here and sent an eagle every day to peck out his liver. I mean

that is obviously bad enough but overnight his liver would regrow. So this torment was eternal.

So you kind of get the sense that this epic landscape was somewhere that people wanted

to imagine world changing events took place. [Music] Aabaijan's extraordinary geology still

mesmerizes and connects us to the people of the past who also found it a marvel.

The strange beautiful landscape of Azabaijan has intrigued travelers and

given this place a mystical meaning for centuries. This land is a treasure and a

wonder because it seems to exist somewhere between the natural and the supernatural.

[Music]

The Caspian Sea has shaped the fortunes of Aabaijan's capital city, Baku,

thanks to the international power players who've crossed it and the natural riches

it hides. For centuries, prochemicals attracted fortune hunters to this land.

The first oil well was drilled here in 1846 and the industry took off. Before long,

Aabaijan was producing more than 50% of the world's oil

and the capital city boomed.

[Music] My next treasure is the rich historic center of Baku. In the 1880s,

fantastically wealthy oil tycoons, including local [ __ ] Zenalin Tagv, and foreigners the

Rothschilds and Nobel brothers commissioned flamboyant mansions and impressive public

buildings. The population of the city mushroomed. They were all accommodated then in these elegant

boulevards and Baku became known as the Paris of the east. But in fact, Baku is a layer cake of

history reaching back centuries with over,200 families still living in its medieval heart.

Amongst the historic treats is the maiden Tower, 29 m tall and steeped in legend and

romance. One story goes that a king tried to force a maiden to marry him. She eventually

accepted on condition he built her a tower. Once completed, she threw herself from the top.

If you manage to make it up to the top of the tower, you've basically done a kind of climb

through history. So, right down at the bottom, the foundations were used as a Zoroastrian temple. So,

there was probably some kind of oil or or gas flame burning inside. Then, as you make your

way up, the walls start to become 5 m thick. And that's because from the 12th century,

this place was used as a defensive tower. That's almost certainly why it's called

the maiden tower because the idea is that it was impregnable um and people would have been

held safely inside. But then come the 18th and 19th centuries this was mainly used as

a kind of military observation point obviously looking at attackers coming in from the Caspian

Sea. And for the people of Baku, one of the worst times was in the 1720s when the Russian

Empire under Peter the Great advanced here, bombarded the city and then made their way

in. On the hill above the maiden Tower is another architectural wonder, the Shivven Shars Palace.

The Shivan Shars, one of the longest reigning dynasties in the Islamic world,

made Baku their capital between the 12th and 16th centuries. Built out of local limestone,

the complex includes a mosque, 52 rooms, and a morale for the Shivven kings.

Tucked away in the corner of the palace grounds, there's a peaceful sanctuary.

[Music] Travelers still cross continents to visit this sacred tomb.

So um this is known as the Dervishes tomb but it's actually the final resting place of a man called

Sed Yahar Bakui who was a a Sufi scholar and I should just say that as I've come in here it's

beautiful cuz it smells of roses because they leave rose oil here on his grave every day. He

was a really fascinating super super intelligent man. He wasn't just a Sufi. Sufi is the kind of

mystical form of Islam. He was also a philosopher. He came up with a sort of complex idea of how the

world worked. And it makes total sense that he was sponsored by this dynasty because this dynasty was

all about the acquisition and the advance and the power of wisdom and ideas. [Music]

In 1538, following 500 years of rule, the Shivvenar dynasty was overthrown and their

palace and kingdom became a target of conquest for rival empires. First came the Safavidids,

then the Ottomans, and finally the Russians. This palace was attacked

again and again over the centuries, but these are actually bullet holes. Um, and these have

been left here by Russian bolsheviks at the time of the first world war. [Music]

The historic center of Baku is a reminder of how travelers and traders and merchants and power

brokers have come here to exchange goods and ideas and also to play a geopolitical game of chess. But

they've left behind a checkerboard of cultures and wonders and treasures. [Music] I'm traveling

to the Carabat region in western Aabaijan, high in the rugged Caucusus mountain range. Inaccessible

for decades because of conflict, the cultural heritage of this region is my next treasure.

Over time, this region has become renowned for its composers and poets. [Music]

One of the most famous daughters of this region um in fact the daughter of one of the rulers here

is this incredible woman called Natavan who was a poetess but she was also clearly a really feisty

character. So she did things like provide water systems so that people had fresh water and she

sponsored literary and musical and philosophical salons that women as well as men could attend. Um,

but really her standout gift to the world was her beautiful poetry, which talks a lot about

love and friendship and and humanism. But because she lost one of her sons, it it's also tinged with

sorrow. So just just listen to this. Our parting has stolen my reason. My soul has forgotten

repose. Behold how merciless fortune has doomed me to endless woes. I wonder why my cruel lover

will not have pity on me. I burn in the flame of parting. The beloved who lit it was he. [Music]

Don't you think it sort of feels appropriate to this landscape

which which is so beautiful but but it is also touched with a kind of melancholy.

[Music] The poets here are lorded like rock stars. This 59 ft high morselum was

built during the Azabaijan Soviet Republic. It honors Mha Pana Wagif, an 18th century diplomat

and pioneering poet who wrote about ordinary feelings and emotions rather than religion

or abstract ideas. [Music] This place obviously still feels really passionate about its poetry.

So look at this. somebody's bothered to come in and leave a rose on the poet's grave. And I

wonder if it's partly because his words talked about everyday life. And surely that also has

to be why the Soviets approved of him. What you know why they erected this this beautiful

mortum because he was a man who wrote about the trials and tribulations of the common man.

[Music]

This is the Jadeir Duzu plane. The name means horse racing field in Asbaijani.

It's where ancient Carabach rulers hosted poetry and music festivals and games.

Oh, so this is amazing to see. So this is basically a kind of natural wonder of

the region. These are the Carabac horses and they've always been here and they've

been written about. So they appear in this epic poetry and in paintings and and the myth about

them is that they're so beautiful God gave them to the world in the form of sunbeams.

The Carabac horse is prized internationally for its speed, stamina, and temperament. and

is a symbol of the cultural figure of the region. Ballads and poetry written by women as well as men

describe how many nationalities and faiths, Azeri, Armenian, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, were

inspired by this stunning landscape. The medieval poet Nami Ganjavi wrote, "If you seek the company

of all who can be found here, you must remember to become simply the dust of the feet of each

and everyone." So if you respect everyone around you, you will live a good life. [Music] Aabaijan's

cultural heritage is a wonder celebrating the diverse influences that weave together here.

It feels like there's nowhere else quite like Aabaijan if you think of its glittering palaces

and the marvels of its mystical poetry. Not to mention this incredible otherworldly landscape

of the Caucasus. This is somewhere where the treasures of the earth have really shaped

the human story and the course of history itself. [Music] Streaming now on all four.

A shoe dreams and mering misery in the latest from new celeb bakeoff. Binge it before Patty

McInness packs pies 20 to8 tomorrow here on channel 4. Then teases travelers in brand

new temping fortune at 9:00. New to and next the story of how a Soviet spy climbed up the

ranks of British intelligence totally unnoticed in Fortress Britain with Alice Roberts. [Music]