The Ancients

Maya Hieroglyphs Decoded

Forget everything you thought you knew about the ancient Maya. Cracking their mysterious hieroglyphs didn't just reveal boring calendars, it exposed a cutthroat, Game of

Human Sacrifice in Ancient Britain

WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence from the start. When we picture human sacrifice in ancient Britain, the iconic, flaming Wicker Man often

Ice Age America: The Clovis Culture

Before the mammoths disappeared, people hunted them across Ice Age America. Armed with distinctive stone spear points, the mysterious Clovis culture left behind traces of

The First Punic War

How did the Romans ambush a massive Carthaginian fleet from behind a Sicilian island to win one of history's fiercest sea battles? For over 20 years, Rome and Carthage fo

Iron Age Ireland

How much of Iron Age Ireland is myth, and how much is archaeological reality? At the monumental Hill of Tara, sacred kings ruled over a landscape steeped in ancient ritua

Human Origins: Did We Begin in Africa?

The story of human origins is often imagined as a simple journey from Africa, but is the truth actually much messier? Tristan Hughes and leading palaeoanthropologist Prof

Egypt's Lost Cities

What happens when an entire city disappears? Beneath the sands and wetlands of Egypt lie the remains of forgotten cities that once stood at the heart of one of the ancien

Roman Emperor Augustus and His Trusted General

Augustus was Rome's first Emperor. But who made his empire possible? Behind the throne stood Marcus Agrippa, the brilliant general whose victories secured the Roman world

The Vandals

The Vandals have gone down in history as the barbarians who helped bring down the Western Roman Empire. Their name became synonymous with violence and destruction, but wh

Terror Birds

What kind of predator needs no teeth to terrify its prey? The terror birds were enormous flightless hunters that ruled South America for millions of years, standing metre

The Maya Ballgame

A rubber ball. A stone court. And a sport where the stakes could be life and death. For more than 2,000 years, Mesoamerican peoples played a remarkable ballgame that bec

How Slavery Built the Roman Empire

Was the Roman Empire really made by conquest? Or was it powered by something much darker? For centuries, millions of enslaved people sacrificed their lives and their lab

Romulus & Remus

The story of Romulus and Remus is one of the most famous myths from the ancient world. But the Romans believed the founding of their city stretched far beyond the tale of

Shapur I: Rome's Greatest Enemy?

Few rulers humbled Rome quite like Shapur I. A King of Kings, he rebuilt the Sasanian Persian Empire, defeated Roman armies and captured Emperor Valerian in one of antiqu

Scotland's First Warriors

Three thousand years ago, prehistoric Scotland was a landscape of rival communities, raids and warfare. Bands of warriors fought for power and territory leaving behind ex

The Catiline Conspiracy

In 63 BC, Rome faced a conspiracy that threatened to tear the Roman Republic apart. At its centre stood two figures: Marcus Tullius Cicero, the grand old orator of Rome a

Alexander the Great's Mad Scientist

WARNING: graphic descriptions of violence and warfare Meet Diades, Alexander the Great’s overlooked military engineer, the man who made the impossible siege of Tyre happ

Hollywood’s Odyssey: The Historians' Verdict

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film Odyssey brings Homer’s epic roaring back to life and Tristan Hughes and Dr. Emily Hauser are here to unpack every storm, monster and

The First New Zealanders

What if the first New Zealanders crossed an ocean, landed in a brand-new world, and built a whole society in just a few generations? Tristan Hughes and Dr Richard Walter

Odyssey | Sea of Monsters & Slaughter of the Suitors

When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, his homecoming turns into a ruthless reckoning. Tristan Hughes and Dr. Emily Hauser dive into the shocking climax of Homer’s Odys