The story of the Iceman is an ancient murder mystery, it involves Europe's oldest natural mummy, known to us today as Otzi. He was a man who was stalked, attacked and left to die alone more than 5,000 years ago. Thanks to the formation of some glacial ice Otzi was preserved and later discovered in remarkable condition.Due to the quality of his remains scientists, historians, and archeo
The Vikings, Scandinavian warriors who plundered and pillaged over a thousand years ago, their brutality became legendary as they left a trail of violence across Europe. For centuries viking longships terrorised people from Ireland to the Caspian Sea, however they were not just raiders they were also traders and explorers who ventured further than any Europeans before them.Now archaeol
In 1922 Howard Carter and George Herbert discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, it was found nearly entirely intact and instantly received worldwide press coverage sparking a new public interest in ancient Egypt for which the mysterious mask of Tutankhamun remains the popular symbol.However since the discover of his tomb, one question in particular has hung over the tale of Tutankhamun and that i
Constructed and established in the 3rd century BC, The Royal Library of Alexandria located in Alexandria, Egypt was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It was dedicated to the nine goddesses of the arts known as the Muses.Throughout the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty the ancient library flourished and became a major center of scholarship and
What is it that makes us human and where do we come from? Ever since Charles Darwin put forward the idea that we evolved from apes scientists have wondered about those first creatures that left the ape world and crossed into ours.In the last 50 years fossil finds have filled in some of the many blanks in the story of evolution, but the bones of our ancestors are few and far between allowing
They were the brutes of Ice Age Europe, although a branch of our human family tree they were still viewed upon as a dead end. Deep in our prehistoric past they were called Neanderthals. They carved out a marginal existence hunting by brute force with only simple stone tools, they were considered primitive with no language, art or the higher level thinking of an advanced species such as o
Located high in the Peruvian Andes there is an ancient city known as Machu Picchu, it is a ruin that appears to defy explanation. Who were the mysterious people that built this extraordinary place and for what reason did they build it in this particular location?With no defensive wall it doesn't look like a fortress, instead there are fountains and small pools, temples and strange alters cu
In the spring of 1900, at the tiny rocky island of Antikythera a violent storm drives a group of sponge divers to take shelter, after three days the storm finally subsided and one of the divers decided to try his luck under water, he finds something entirely unexpected. All around him on the seabed are corroded human limbs, horses and faces. It is the largest horde of ancient marble and bronze scu
The megaliths found at Stonehenge are some of the most investigated and interesting found in Britain today but despite centuries of examination, excavation and theories there is one big question that still remains, what were it origins and how over thousands of years did this iconic place evolve?In this two part series by the BBC a group of experts for the first time are taking a more hi-tech