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The Self-Access Centre - English - TV Documentaries - Classical World

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	Title	Author	Subcategory	Subtitles	Length	Rating
The Bible describes how Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in a storm of fire and brimstone. Could the inspiration for this story come from a natural apocalypse around the Dead Sea in the Middle East? 1	Ancient Apocalypse :Sodom and Gomorrah	BBC	Classical World		50 mins	Like (0 likes)
Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. 2	Ancient Worlds - City of Man, City of God	BBC	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles explores the roots of one of the most profound innovations in the human story - civilisation - in the first episode of an epic series that runs from the creation of the first cities in Mesopotamia some 6,000 years ago, to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. 3	Ancient Worlds - Come Together	Channel 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
n Richard Miles's epic story of civilization, there have been plenty of examples of the great men of history, but none came close to the legend of Alexander of Macedon, known to us as 'the Great'. Uniting the fractious Greek city-states, he led them on a crusade against the old enemy, Persia, and in little more than a decade created an empire that stretched from Egypt in the west to Afghanistan in the east. 4	Ancient Worlds - Return of the King	BBC 2	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles looks at the winners, losers and survivors of the great Bronze Age collapse, a regional catastrophe that wiped out the hard-won achievements of civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean about 3,000 years ago. In the new age of iron, civilisation would re-emerge, tempered in the flames of conflict, tougher and more resilient than ever before. 5	Ancient Worlds - The Age of Iron	Channel 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Richard Miles explores the power and the paradox of the 'Greek Thing' - a blossoming in art, philosophy and science that went hand in hand with political discord, social injustice and endless war. 6	Ancient Worlds - The Greek Thing	BBC 2	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Archaeologist and historian Richard Miles examines the phenomenon of the Roman Republic. 7	Ancient Worlds - The Republic of Virtue	BBC	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
In the 4th century BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle travelled to Lesvos, an island in the Aegean teeming, then as now, with wildlife. 8	Aristotle's Lagoon	BBC	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Dan Cruickshank final journey begins in Mostar in Bosnia and its famous bridge. 9	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 10 - Bosnia to France and Home	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
In Australia outback Dan Cruickshank unearths termite mounds and erotic cave paintings. 10	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 3 - Australia to Cambodia	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
From swords of the samurai to the tranquillity of a temple, Dan Cruickshank experiences the extremes of Japan. Then, in China, he walks the Great Wall, contemplates the massed ranks of the Terracotta Army and finds peace in the Empress of China's marble boat 11	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 4 - Japan to China	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
In Calcutta, Dan Cruickshank tangles with a ten-armed naked goddess. 12	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 5 - India to Sri Lanka	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
The rarely visited trading domes of Uzbekistan and Fire Temple of Azerbaijan get an incisive Dan Cruickshank appraisal, before he moves on to scale a cliff face towards arguably the biggest archaeological puzzles of the 19th century. 13	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 6 - Uzbekistan to Syria	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
Dan searches for the Arc of the Covenant, from Jordan, through the Holy Land to Ethiopia. 14	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 7 - Jordan to Ethiopia	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
Dan Cruickshank journey reaches new heights of discomfort in the heat of the desert. 15	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 8 - Mali to Egypt	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
Documentary series. Dan Cruickshank visits Turkey, Russia, Poland and Germany. 16	Around the World in 80 Treasures - Episode 9 - Turkey to Germany	BBC	Classical World		55 mins	Like (0 likes)
Just off the southern coast of mainland Greece lies the oldest submerged city in the world. A city that thrived for 2000 years during the time that saw the birth of Western civilisation. An international team of experts uses the latest technology to inves 17	City Beneath the Waves: Pavlopetri	BBC 2	Classical World		114 mins	Like (0 likes)
Using drama reconstruction, choreographed fight sequences and state-of-the-art special effects, Colosseum – Rome’s Arena Of Death takes viewers back to a time and a place where fights to the death, not penalty shootouts, made spectators’ pulses race. 18	Colosseum - Rome's Arena of Death	Tilman Remme	Classical World		12 mins	Like (0 likes)
What really went on at the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi, how did it get its awesome reputation and why is it still influential today? 19	Delphi: The Bellybutton of the Ancient World	BBC 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Dr Tony Spawforth investigates the religion founded by the Pharaoh Akhenaten. 20	Egypt's Lost City	UKTV	Classical World		49 mins	Like (0 likes)
Documentary telling the story of the spectacular discovery of an ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 2005. Tomb KV63 was the first ancient tomb to be discovered in the valley since Howard Carter unearthed Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. The burial site, next door to Tutankhamen's, revealed a golden casket which archaeologists believe could be that of the legendary pharaoh's child bride 21	Egypt's Lost Tomb Revealed	Michael Lynch	Classical World		57 mins	Like (0 likes)
Thutmosis III was ancient Egypt's greatest warrior king. 22	Egypt's Warrior King	More 4	Classical World	English	52 mins	Like (0 likes)
Virginia Woolf said Homer's epic poem the Odyssey was 'alive to every tremor and gleam of existence'. Following the magical and strange adventures of warrior king Odysseus, inventor of the idea of the Trojan Horse, the poem can claim to be the greatest story ever told. 23	Gods and Monsters: Homer's Odyssey	BBC 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Olympian Jonathan Edwards narrates the story of Odysseus's hazardous journey back to Ithaca after the fall of Troy, including his encounter with Polyphemus, a one-eyed Cyclops 24	Greek Gods and Goddesses - The Odyssey	Jean-Claude Bragard	Classical World	BSL	58 mins	Like (0 likes)
Eminent classical historian Robin Lane Fox embarks on a journey in search of the origins of the Greek myths. He firmly believes that these fantastical stories lie at the root of western culture, and yet little is known about where the myths of the Greek gods came from, and how they grew. 25	Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes	BBC 4	Classical World	English	90 mins	Like (0 likes)
A dramatised documentary Chiefly centred on the Italian campaign of Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian general. 26	Hannibal - The Man, the Myth, the Mystery	Edward Bazalgette	Classical World		10 mins	Like (0 likes)
It is said that once, the mighty King Solomon ruled an empire that stretched across the ancient world. According to Biblical lore, at the height of his powers he built the ‘First Temple’, the most magnificent building of its day, bedecked in gold, to house the Ark of the Covenant 27	Horizon - King Solomon's Tablet of Stone	BBC	Classical World		50 mins	Like (0 likes)
The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is explored, with stops in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. 28	In Search of Myths and Heroes - Arthur	Michael Wood	Classical World		59 mins	Like (0 likes)
The Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the oldest myths of a hero's quest. It is a classic story of betrayal and vengeance and like many Greek myths has a tragic ending. 29	In Search of Myths and Heroes - Jason & The Argonauts	Michael Wood	Classical World		62 mins	Like (0 likes)
The documentary tells the story of the eruption from the point of view of assorted inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum whose names and occupations are known, including a local politician and his family, a fuller, his wife, and two gladiators. 30	Pompeii - The Last Day	Peter Nicholson	Classical World		39 mins	Like (0 likes)
A BBC Television documentary film which tells the story of the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza through the commentary of the fictional builder Nakht. 31	Pyramid	Jonathan Stamp	Classical World		58 mins	Like (0 likes)
Through their superlative buildings, the legacy of the Egyptian empire continues to enthrall people to this day. Yet these incredible structures were made over 4,000 years ago. 32	The Ancient World with Bethany Hughes - Engineering Ancient Egypt	More 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Bettany Hughes searches for the truth about the 'Golden Age' of Ancient Athens, investigating how a barren rock wedged between the East and West became the first democracy 2,500 years ago. 33	The Ancient World with Bethany Hughes- Athens The Truth About Democracy	More 4	Classical World	English	100 mins	Like (0 likes)
Three cities dominated the ancient world: Athens, Rome and a third, now almost forgotten. It lies hidden beneath the waters of the Mediterranean and a sprawling modern metropolis. Alexandria was a city built on a dream; a place with a very modern mindset, where - as with the worldwide web - one man had a vision that all knowledge on earth could be stored in one place. Bettany Hughes goes in search of this lost civilisation, revealing the story of a city founded out of the desert by Alexander the Great in 331 BC to become the world's first global centre of culture, into which wealth and knowledge poured from across the world. Until its decline in the fourth and fifth Centuries AD, Alexandria became a crucible of learning; Hughes uncovers the incredible discoveries and the technical achievements of this culture. The film's cast of characters reads like a list of the greatest figures of ancient times: political figures like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and intellectuals including female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Hypatia, Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes and Ptolemy. At last, after 1,500 years squashed under a modern metropolis, new clues are emerging from the earth to the real nature of this grand experiment in human civilisation. 34	The Ancient World with Bettany Hughes - Alexandria : The Greatest City	More 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Bettany Hughes traces the story of the mysterious and misunderstood Moors, the Islamic society that ruled in Spain for 700 years, but whose legacy was virtually erased from Western history. In 711 AD, a tribe of newly converted Muslims from North Africa crossed the straits of Gibraltar and invaded Spain. Known as The Moors, they went on to build a rich and powerful society. Its capital, Cordoba, was the largest and most civilised city in Europe, with hospitals, libraries and a public infrastructure light years ahead of anything in England at the time. Amongst the many things that were introduced to Europe by Muslims at this time were: a huge body of classical Greek texts that had been lost to the rest of Europe for centuries (kick-starting the Renaissance); mathematics and the numbers we use today; advanced astronomy and medical practices; fine dining; the concept of romantic love; paper; deodorant; and even erection creams. This wasn't the rigid, fundamentalist Islam of some people's imaginations, but a progressive, sensuous and intellectually curious culture. But when the society collapsed, Spain was fanatically re-Christianised; almost every trace of seven centuries of Islamic rule was ruthlessly removed. It is only now, six centuries later, that The Moors' influences on European life and culture are finally beginning to be fully understood. 35	The Ancient World with Bettany Hughes - Alexandria : When the Moors Ruled Europe	More 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
A new film about Alexandria provides the centrepiece of Bettany Hughes' definitive history of the ancient world and classical civilisation. 36	The Ancient World with Bettany Hughes - The Minoans	More 4	Classical World	English	60 mins	Like (0 likes)
Can the remains of a Greek athlete tell us about the world of ancient sports? "The First Olympians" uses forensics, special effects and reconstructions to bring us back in time to the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. Find out everything about the sports and lifestyles of athletes in Ancient Greece. 37	The First Olympians	UKTV	Classical World		58 mins	Like (0 likes)
The most iconic of the royal tombs however was built as the tomb for Khufu. Located at Giza, the Great Pyramid is the last of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Ancient World’ that still survives. Although built to be the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu, his actual tomb was never found. 38	The Great Pyramid	UKTV	Classical World		46 mins	Like (0 likes)
Documentary looking at the Secret History of the Mongols, said to have been written by Genghis Khan's adopted son, which reveals a very different man to the brutal butcher of Western legend. 39	Timewatch - The secret History of Ghengis Khan	BBC	Classical World		50 mins	Like (0 likes)
New archaeological research has given fresh insight into what happened in the Roman amphitheatre. 40	Timewatch - The True Story of the Roman Arena	UKTV	Classical World		56 mins	Like (0 likes)

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