Original subtitles

Thousands of years ago,

ancient powers ruled our world--

Egypt, China, India, Greece, and Rome,

players in a high-stakes game of strategy and luck.

Success will bring them wealth and immortality...

failure, oblivion and death.

In their battle for survival, each civilisation

will face the same challenges.

How they respond will shape their destiny.

In this episode, "Origins,"

in a brutal world where nature is both friend and foe,

our ancient powers are just beginning.

They must use all their skill and ingenuity

to shape their territory and establish their cultures.

So who will tame the land and claim their future?

10,000 years ago, the kingdom of ancient Egypt

does not yet exist, but bands of hunter-gatherers

are drawn to the banks of the River Nile.

At the water'’s edge they live hand to mouth.

They forage, fish, hunt wild cattle and even hippos.

These wandering people have just enough to eat,

but to set down roots, they need more than this.

How can they make this landscape

work harder for them?

Egypt'’s geography is key to how this country developed

because the Nile is what makes Egypt.

Through endless miles of scorched desert,

the Nile creates a narrow strip of life-giving fertility.

But it'’s this river'’s unique geography

that gives early Egyptian settlers a head start.

Once a year, heavy rains at its source far to the south

send an enormous torrent

rushing towards the Nile'’s river valley,

flooding the riverbanks and bringing abundant life.

Floods in Egypt came annually for over four months,

starting at the end of June,

and a large part of the country was submerged,

and the waters flowed out,

depositing huge, rich amounts of silt,

so they never needed any fertiliser here.

So really, it was an amazingly rich, fertile soil

and very easy to cultivate.

The early settlers take advantage of this healthy soil

and plant crops,

but they can'’t depend on them year round

because as the floods recede and desert temperatures rise

their precious crops sometimes fail.

They must find a way to keep them watered.

Irrigation technology was key. Very quickly, they decided

that they were going to harness this water,

and so they cut a series of canals,

they built reservoirs, they figured out ways

so they could have more than one crop a year.

As the people farm, they devise a simple

but effective piece of technology.

The shadoof was a means of raising water

from the lower Nile

and was lifting it up with a bucket and a counterpoise,

and this was used then to collect water.

You can either put it into more buckets

and move it along or even into another set of canals.

Now, these early Egyptians

have a constant water supply and food.

This land was so fertile that they could grow wheat, barley,

all kinds of fruits and vegetables,

cucumbers, lettuces galore, and herbs and spices.

No longer forced to wander the land

in search of sustenance,

the Egyptians are now fully-fledged farmers.

Their domain is this narrow river valley,

and their mastery over this environment sets them

on their way to becoming an ancient power.

Farming was really the mainstay of ancient Egypt,

and without the Nile and its annual flood,

Egypt would never have been the rich and great civilisation.

Everything about Egyptian culture

comes from the environment,

and the Nile is the sort of central part of it.

The Egyptians have struck lucky--

they have a reliable source of water

to grow their crops and their civilisation.

Far to the east, another ancient power is taking shape,

but on a far more dangerous river.

From the western plateau to the eastern plain,

two huge water courses snake through China--

the Yellow River and the Yangtze.

In the east, these rivers and their tributaries

form a network of inhospitable marshes and swamps,

but on the Yangtze, in the water lands of Liangzhu,

people are attempting to settle and farm.

Rice is their staple food.

The entire Liangzhu culture is built on rice farming.

But rice is temperamental and difficult to grow.

Rice farming has different requirements

to wheat farming.

It's a crop that needs refined management.

In its growing cycle, it needs

constant irrigation and draining,

irrigation and draining.

If these farmers water their rice too much

or too little, their crop will fail.

Get it right, and in good conditions,

they can manage a decent harvest.

But the weather is not always on their side.

Here, the monsoon season lasts from May till September,

bringing with it the threat of flooding.

This unpredictable natural disaster

can wipe out their precious crop

and leave the people of Liangzhu facing starvation.

To secure their food source and their future,

can the people here control this destructive flooding?

They have a plan, but it'’s risky,

involving an unprecedented level

of engineering and sheer hard work.

It takes thousands of workers years to build

a series of earth dams and create two vast reservoirs.

Liangzhu's hydraulic system includes high dams and low dams.

The high dams reservoir is the blue area on our map.

It's the other side of that mountain so can't be seen from here.

The low dams, are in front of us.

This huge area is the low dam reservoir.

Around 10 square kilometres.

Now, when the monsoon rains thrash down,

these reservoirs contain the excess water

and stop it flooding the precious rice fields

downstream.

Its complex structure, and its huge scale

represent the highest standard

in people's hydraulic endeavour at that time.

Now they'’ve tamed the wild river,

Liangzhu'’s farmers can safely plan for the future

and create somewhere to call home.

The people here build a huge settlement.

It covers 300 hectares

and is surrounded by a 50-metre-wide perimeter wall

that'’s over four metres high.

Inside, there are homes, workshops, and tombs,

as well as a central palace.

Liangzhu is like Venice.

It's a water town.

In the town, there are all kinds of man-made waterways.

A total length of 35 kilometres.

And the surrounding water network is like a road network.

30,000 people live here,

and at its heart are huge rice granaries,

the foundation of their wealth and security.

With their food source secured and their land safe,

the people of Liangzhu

are the start for this ancient power.

In China, remarkable engineering

transforms a dangerous threat

into the beginnings of the civilisation.

To the west, an island people are attempting to settle

in a very different terrain.

On mainland Greece, there are a few isolated settlements,

but on the mountainous island of Crete,

in the middle of the Mediterranean,

a new culture is growing.

This island'’s isolation provides a natural defence

against invaders,

and the fruits of the sea are a ready source of food.

But for the people who live here, the Minoans,

there are downsides.

The challenges that the Minoan faces

is dependent on which part of the island you are.

Because you either find very, very dry, rocky places

or you find plains like the one we are just now.

And so each of these ecological spheres

was good for specific things.

So one was for grazing.

Another might have been good for grain.

So this is how it was.

Each region of the island is able to produce

different foods,

but spread out across 8,000 square kilometres

of rocky terrain,

no single area has all the variety it needs.

So to feed their people,

the Minoans must find a way to share it.

The Minoans hope that these buildings are the answer

to their problem.

As archaeologists, we are still trying to really understand

how these places function.

Because we see that there are these open places.

For example, we have the three western courts,

a central court, and an eastern court.

If I had to try and define a Minoan palace

it was about crowds of people gathering together.

This palace isn'’t a home for their king,

but designed for the people.

There are a lot of places for storage and storage of staples,

like wine, oil, maybe also barley and wheat.

And so what we can reckon

is that all these were stored together.

Maybe to be used in order to

maintain the community as a whole.

Built on a high promontory,

this palace is visible to every Minoan,

and it overlooks their settlements and farmland.

Now we can see that places like Phaistos

worked like gathering places,

where ceremonial activity was going on

that allowed people to bring their stuff.

And they were also getting everything that they needed.

So there was exchange

and there was also putting things together.

In a way, a palace can be compared to a hub.

So I bring my olive, you bring your wheat

and you bring my meat.

And then we can put everything together

and get whatever we need.

Pooling their food in this communal palace

allows the Minoans to share their riches

so this island'’s resources benefit them all.

Now, with well-fed people and few enemies,

the Minoans set about creating a culture,

a cornerstone for any ancient power.

This object was found in a rectangular tomb

on the south central part of Crete.

This fascinates me because it'’s a unique artefact .

It is a masterpiece of elegance and skill.

The intricate paintings that decorate this sarcophagus

reveal details of a Minoan funeral.

On this long side, of the sarcophagus

we can see a procession of gift bearers to the deceased.

The deceased is shown standing by his tomb .

He'’s presented like a mummy without hands.

The quality of the representations,

the colours, the hairstyles,

the garments, and, of course , these illustrations

give also evidence for the skill

of the craftsmen of this special culture.

So the society must be socially stratified, prosperous, wealthy,

and well organised.

This communal society creates the perfect environment

for an explosion in culture and art.

They make pottery with myriad designs and colours,

celebrating the sea and the land,

fine jewellery that glitters and shines,

sculptures that hint at deep beliefs and rituals

and celebrate the world they have mastered.

This vase depict a procession of farmers.

This object tells us a lot how the Minoans saw the world.

They loved nature, they exploited natural resources.

I mean the, the development of agriculture was a main factor

for the prosperity of the Minoan economy.

For well over a millennia, the Minoans'’ community spirit

allows them to live in harmony with their environment,

building an ancient power rich in resources and culture.

But nature is about to turn on them.

Just over 100 kilometres to the north,

on the island of Santorini, there is a huge volcano,

dormant for as long as anyone can remember.

In 1500 BCE, it erupts.

It is one of the largest eruptions in human history,

destroying Santorini

and sending 30 cubic kilometres of ash

and lava into the atmosphere.

It signals the beginning of the end for the Minoans.

The eruption'’s fallout destroys their crops, weakening them,

allowing Greeks from the mainland,

the Mycenaeans, to occupy the island.

They will be the people to take this ancient power

to the next level.

The Minoans'’ ancient power is both triumph and tragedy,

but they are the foundation of all that follows in Greece.

To the south,

Egypt'’s early farmers have harnessed the Nile.

Now they need someone to lead them to their glorious future.

Over millennia,

plentiful food has allowed early rural settlements

to become villages, towns, and territories.

But to become an ancient power,

this land needs to unify under one ruler.

This stone palette reveals his identity.

It'’s one of the earliest named images of an Egyptian king.

So this is the Narmer Palette, and you can see here at the top,

there is the name of Narmer.

We know that Narmer comes from upper Egypt

because he'’s wearing the white crown .

That is a representation of upper Egypt .

And he sets the rules here

because he starts wearing that crown.

Narmer is ambitious and aggressive.

He wants to add lower Egypt to his southern kingdom,

so he goes on the attack.

He showed himself smiting his enemies,

and that'’s what we see.

Narmer is standing on the enemies of Egypt,

and you can see them trampling beneath him.

Narmer beats his enemy and emerges victorious.

On the other side of the palette ,

we see Narmer'’s victory procession,

and he'’s wearing the red crown of lower Egypt,

and you can see here at the end of the procession,

his enemies with their heads between their legs,

and it'’s to show what will happen to the enemies of Egypt.

Narmer is king of it all, leader of over a million people

and over 1,000 kilometres of the Nile river valley.

This land is now truly an ancient power,

ruled by a single man.

After Narmer unifies Egypt,

this is a very important moment in history .

This is when Egypt starts to prosper

and we know it as it is .

This is when all the grand monuments are on their way

to being built .

This is the building of the great civilisation

and how it started.

Egypt has land, food, and a strong ruler.

But to the east, in India, another ancient power

is beginning to emerge

with a very different character.

The Indus River flows over 3,000 kilometres,

from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea,

and over millennia,

it has created a vast, fertile plain.

In this benevolent landscape,

the first ancient Indian culture

builds something astounding.

Hidden away in what is now Sindh Province, Pakistan,

is one of the best preserved cities of its age...

anywhere in the world.

This civilisation precedes the Roman Empire

by more than two and a half thousand years.

So this is something very remarkable.

Today, its name translates as the Mount of the Dead.

It seems that the town was settled

at one single point of time.

And there was huge planning

which went with the building of the town.

This city'’s inhabitants design its construction

down to the last centimetre, using thousands of bricks,

each identical in size.

They lay out the three-square-kilometre site

on a grid system.

Rows of multistorey houses,

each with their own central courtyard,

are connected by narrow alleyways to the main streets.

This triumph of urban design

is home to more than 40,000 people.

Life is good here.

But as our other ancient powers have discovered,

there are always dangers to overcome.

If you are maintaining a large population

and in a very concentrated area

so you generate dirty water quite a lot.

And through the stagnant water you get diseases

if no proper care is taken.

The people here must find a way to defend themselves

against this life-threatening hazard.

Every household has the drain

which is coming out of the house

and then it turns and it joins the street drain.

And the street drain then takes it out of the town area.

It is one single item that can make your life good or bad.

If you can'’t get rid of the disposal properly,

you become sick.

This drainage network removes infectious water

from the streets, but that alone is not enough

to keep Mohenjo-Daro'’s inhabitants safe.

They also need clean water for drinking and cooking

so they build wells.

One well would have done for the whole neighbourhood

but here the case is different.

They want to keep the water with them,

very near.

They want personal water.

They undertook this task

despite the fact that they had the easy access to the water.

Across the city, these wells bring

naturally-filtered drinking water

to almost every courtyard,

and they celebrate their control

of this critical resource

with a huge ritual bath in the city'’s centre.

This might be the place where the community used to come

to meet, to celebrate.

But it is indication of the society which is flourishing.

This city and its people thrive for more than 700 years,

and it'’s just one in a network of urban settlements

that stretch all along the length of the Indus River

and its tributaries.

Millions of people, living in over 1,400 towns.

They planned the city, they built it.

This is unparalleled, this is wonderful

and highest achievement this region made.

But even this flourishing ancient power

can'’t foresee every threat.

We are compelled to say that it must have been some

weather variations and changes

and the climate might have started behaving differently.

Over a period of years, changes in weather patterns

and the monsoon rains

lead to drought all across the Indus Valley.

When the temperature rises,

when the fertility of the land is undermined,

when there are lesser rains,

the food supply is diminishing.

And it affects the growth of populations.

So once this decline comes in, the city cannot sustain itself.

So under its own weight, the city starts dying.

As water sources dry up, the people of Mohenjo-Daro

find their lands can'’t sustain regular crops.

Their grand city is of little use,

and they begin to leave.

This gradual vacating the towns

happened slowly and very imperceptibly.

But it was definite march of the people from this region.

The Indus Valley people abandon their sophisticated cities,

leaving them empty.

The civilisation lost its vigour

and it was no more.

It will be over a millennium before urban life

is seen on the Indian subcontinent again.

India has an early success as an ancient power,

but then fails.

In the west, the Romans have grand plans

and will use engineering to achieve them.

Rome is a latecomer

to the world of the ancient powers.

What begins as a small farming community on several hills

expands over 400 years to become a bustling city

of several hundred thousand people

with a rich metropolitan culture.

The great Roman architect Vitruvius said

that all things depend on the power of water.

Roman love of water has no limits ,

not only for drinking purposes ,

but necessary for a cultured life,

a great life-- the life that the Romans considered dignified.

Having an over abundance of water

was clearly a critical part of living well as a Roman.

But in ancient Rome,

this demand for water creates a problem.

The local wells are running dry, and worse,

pollution is poisoning the River Tiber.

The city desperately needs a new

and reliable supply of clean water.

But where can they find it?

Scouring the countryside, the Romans eventually find

high-quality springs in the surrounding hills,

but these are over 10 kilometres away.

Unless they can transport this fresh water,

their city and ancient power can'’t grow.

The solution they come up with is ingenious.

Gravity is arguably the most reliable system

for getting your water from point "A" to point "B."

The Romans made it work with the minimum amount of technology

and therefore the minimum amount of moving parts

and things that could fail.

In 312 BCE, they begin construction

on a remarkable feat of engineering,

the first of a series of aqueducts.

These grand structures shift thousands of litres of water

over huge distances.

Their water channels are designed with a steady

and carefully calculated gradient

to keep the water flowing.

It'’s milimetrically precise.

A grade more than 1 in 4,800

was going to cause significant erosion

and therefore significant manpower to repair.

Over the next five centuries, the Romans build 11 aqueducts.

They stretch almost 500 kilometres

and provide Rome with millions of litres of water every day,

a lifeline for this expanding empire.

The ability to supply water to the capital city of Rome

and to all of the important cities around the empire

was absolutely fundamental to the population growth

and to the success of the Roman civilisation.

Without that, they would certainly have shrivelled

and died or simply not grown.

Rome'’s aqueducts are a wonder of the ancient world,

proof of Rome'’s mastery over nature.

But this is just the beginning.

These luxurious baths are a spectacular temple

to the Roman love of water.

The emperor put on this enormous expense

and enormous display in order to give his citizens a place

to be Romans in the fullest sense of the term.

Huge forests of columns of all different kinds of granite,

all different kinds of marble .

A pantheon of Gods and heroes in the niches.

This vast site is equipped with a huge spa complex,

two gymnasiums, a swimming pool,

and rooms ranging from cold to hot.

A couple of thousand years ago,

we would'’ve been surrounded by naked Romans.

The splashing of water,

the voices echoing off the arches,

the smells, the perfumes.

This is a place where you could come

and simply get away from the world.

These palaces of water are the hub

of Rome'’s cultural life.

This place was not merely a place to get clean,

but a place to do business deals,

a place to have banquets and sing merry songs

with your friends, a place to work out.

It was the society of Rome all collected in one room.

Here, senators and paupers,

men and women all bathe equally.

The Roman baths are a great leveller.

But beneath this beauty, there is a terrible secret.

The dark side of this city'’s cultured facade.

Here, below ground,

hundreds of slaves toil in unbearable conditions,

stoking furnaces to heat the water.

This ferocious engine constantly consuming wood,

constantly producing flame,

constantly consuming human lives.

This would'’ve been just brutal.

People down here were really cogs in a machine.

I mean, without this unseen world,

without this unseen army--

unthanked, unrecognised, sub-human--

nothing would'’ve happened upstairs.

The slaves'’ grim work is the harsh reality

of Rome'’s ancient power.

Nature is controlled, but so too are humans.

The first challenge is complete.

Each ancient power has responded

to their unique geography

and taken the first steps to their futures.

Egypt tames the Nile'’s floods

and begins the rule of its Pharaohs.

China builds huge dams and reservoirs

to control their fearsome river,

protecting and feeding their water town.

In the Indus Valley, the Indians go one better,

planning and building a vast city.

On Crete, the Minoans cooperate to create a society

and a rich culture,

but are destroyed when a natural disaster hits.

In Rome, they stamp their authority

in even grander structures.

All these ancient powers have established civilisations,

but to put a permanent mark on the world,

their next challenge is to build their empires.