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Reference source of past TV
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Frontier House (USA)
Did you see Castaway 2000 and
1900 House (UK)?
If you are interested in Social History, this would have
been for you!
Frontier House (USA)
A six-part series
Last part shown on Channel 4, Sunday 11
August 2002 at 8.00pm
| See
the full story on the PBS
web site |
Great Excavations
Last part shown on Channel 4, Thursday 11 May, 2000 at 8.00pm
| In Part 6 - "New Pasts" -
"John Romer" investigated modern
archaeology, including a painter who showed off
the assets he gathered from a number of
shipwrecks which provide the basis for his work,
and ancient artwork which suggested pre-Christian
communication was not as primitive as first
thought. |
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More information? Visit the Great Excavations
web site.
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Hidden Treasures
(A first on this subject !)
(Metal Detecting)
Last in Series
Shown on BBC 2, Thursday 21 October 2003 at 9.00pm
A repeat of the Series
Completed on BBC 2, Tuesday 27 July 2004 at 7.30pm
 This Eight-part
Series followed ordinary people who, armed only with metal detectors, have found extraordinary
relics.
Miranda Krestovnikoff
presents this series on metal detecting and archaeology
Lost Goddess (2.09.03): (8.06.04) the hunt for Roman ruins and a mystery
Goddess. Alan Meeks, after 25 years detecting without finding anything valuable, found a hoard of Roman treasure
in Baldock, Hertfordshire.
Caesar's Gold (9.09.03): (15.06.04) the story behind one of the most unique
hoards of jewellery found buried in Hampshire; For years, coins and rubbish were the only finds for Kevan Halls
and his metal detector - then his luck changed, and a hoard of jewellery netted him £350,000.
But why was it buried in rural Hampshire? Miranda follows a trail leading to the Roman ruler Julius Caesar.
Pagan Silver (16.09.03): (22.06.04 at 8.30pm) Leicestershire field walker
Ken Wallace discovered the largest hoard of Iron Age coins in Britain, buried at the time of the Roman invasion.
Miranda looks at the hoard of over three thousand silver Iron Age coins discovered in a field in Leicestershire
three years ago. Were they offerings to the Gods?
Cup Of Gold (23.09.03): (29.06.04 at 8.30pm) Miranda investigates the
'Ringlemere Cup', a Bronze Age treasure found two years ago in a potato field in Kent by Cliff Bradshaw.
It had been buried for over three thousand years.
Suffolk Mystery (30.09.03): (6.07.04) For over 15 years, metal detectorist
Dave Cummings and his friends have unearthed a remarkable collection of Anglo-Saxon gold, coins, and bronze
from a potato field in Suffolk. Miranda investigates.
Riches of Rome (7.10.03): (13.07.04) Miranda talks to Dave Phillips who has
built up a wonderful collection of small finds over 30 years, but that's nothing to his discovery of two of the
richest Roman graves ever found in Britain. The burials contained over 150 items including a set of beautiful
bronzes, vases, glassware, silver jewellery and a very rare hunting kit.
Saxons, Vikings and Monsters (14.10.03): (20.07.04) The discovery of an
astonishing Anglo-Saxon gold sword hilt in Lincolnshire. Miranda and British Museum experts follow leads that take
them into the realms of the Dark Ages, Saxon Kingdoms, Viking Raiders and serpent monsters.
Find of the Series (21.10.03): (27.07.04) A panel of experts are asked to name
the find of the series from a choice including Roman jewellery and Iron Age coins. Plus a visit to Charlecote Park,
Warwickshire, where the National Council for Metal Detecting are holding a competition.
Visit BBC
History
and the Hidden Treasure
website for more information |
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Horizon
BBC 2, Thursdays at 9.00pm
New Series starts 16 September 2004
Selected archaeological programmes shown in
2004
The Secret Treasures of Zeugma
(Repeated in 2001)
Shown in the Education Zone - 27 August & 10 September 2004 at 05.00
The story of a group of archaeologists' race against time to save the treasures of a vast
and magnificent ancient city in eastern Turkey. When a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates was completed, the site
was threatened by flood.
The Truth of Troy
(Thursday 25 March 2004 at 9.00pm) The legend of Helen of Troy has enchanted audiences for
three thousand years, but historians have never been able to prove that the Trojan War actually happened.
Secrets of the Star Disc
(Thursday 29 January 2004 at 9.00pm) The extraordinary story of how a small metal disc is
rewriting the epic saga of how civilisation first came to Europe, 3600 years ago.
Selected
archaeology programmes shown in 2003
The Day We Learned To Think (Thursday 20 February 2003 at 9.00pm)
Is drawing and talking what makes us human?
Horizon followed an ancient art trail from Europe to South Africa in
search of the answer, with a surprising result.
The Mystery of Easter Island (Thursday 9 January 2003 at 9.00pm)
It is one of the most
mysterious and remote places on the planet. To the people who live
there it is Rapa Nui. To the rest of us, it is Easter
Island. For years explorers, archaeologists and adventurers have
been bewitched by this strange place and its bizarre stone statues.
Now science is beginning to piece together the true story of what
happened on Easter Island. Who the original settlers were, why they
built great statues and what was their catastrophic end.
Extreme Dinosaurs (Saturday 4 January 2003 at 8.20pm)
First shown: BBC Two 9.00pm Thursday 23 November 2000
Amazing new discoveries in South America are
revolutionising what we thought we knew about the dinosaur world. It
now seems that South America was home to both the largest meat-eater
- so new it's still without a name - and the largest herbivore - the
enormous long-necked Argentinasaurus. ...
See also the
Walking with Dinosaurs Special -
Land of Giants
(Shown on BBC 1: Wednesday 1 January 2003 at 6.50pm)
Selected
archaeology programmes shown in 2002
The Secret of El Dorado (19.12.2002)
Amazon explorers' tales of cities of gold soon became myths. Back in the 1960s
archaeologist Bill Denevan noted that the landscape was crossed with unnaturally straight lines. The programme
unearths evidence those civilisations did exist. Did prehistoric farmers also leave a legacy more valuable
than gold: the knowledge to
save rainforests and feed a planet?
The Mystery of the Miami Circle
(25.01.2001) & (18.04.2002)
In 1998 an apartment block in Miami was knocked down for redevelopment. Underneath the
rubble there was a huge, mysterious, ancient circle of holes
cut into the bedrock. Florida archaeologists halt construction of two skyscrapers. Have they found unique
Native American artefacts or a 1950s sewage system?
The Lost Pyramids of Caral
(31.01.2002)
New evidence from Peru suggests that pyramid-building civilisations arose in the
Americas a thousand years earlier than previously thought - and at exactly the same time as in Egypt
Helike - The Real Atlantis
(10.01.2002)
On a winter night in 373 BC, the classical Greek city of Helike was destroyed by a
massive earthquake and tidal wave.
The entire city and all its inhabitants were lost beneath the sea.
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Visit
the BBC "Horizon" Archives
for past programme
information
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[TV] |
How
the Victorians Wired the World
Shown on Channel 4, Saturday 8 July, 2000 at 7.00pm
Ice Mummies
(Repeat of a BBC "Horizon" programme series)
Last part shown on BBC 2, Monday 31 July, 2000 at 9.30pm
King Harold
Shown on Channel 4, Friday 27 December 2002 at 8.00pm
Fact or Fiction: King Harold
Tony Robinson travelled around England
and northern France in his investigation. Harold II of
England who is best known for having lost the Battle of Hastings,
and the crown, to William of Normandy in 1066 is one of Britain's
unsung heroes. Only 19 days before his untimely death at Hastings,
Harold had defeated a massive Viking army a victory that ended for
all time incursions into England by Norsemen. And he fought
extremely bravely and almost won against William.
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[TV] |
Landscape Mysteries
Repeat of an eight-part Series
The Terraces of Avalon (8)
Shown on BBC 2, Thursday 8 July 2004 at 7.30pm
 Professor Aubrey
Manning embarks on a new set of journeys in which he tries to solve mysteries arising from the landscape of
the British Isles. He will search for clues in the geology, natural history, and archaeology to explain why the
land has come to look the way it does.
Read Aubrey Manning's
introduction and
interview.
Programme 1: (15.04.04)
This eight-part series begins with
In Search of Irish Gold with Aubrey travelling to Ireland in search of a Celtic Eldorado, a secret source of
Bronze Age gold, buried more than 3,000 years ago. How can clues in the landscape help Aubrey work out if and where
deposits still exist?
Programme 2: (6.05.04)
Next, in Figures in the Chalk
Aubrey travels to the Chalk Hills of England to unravel the origins of the enigmatic chalk figures such as the
Long Man of Wilmington and the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset. The age of these chalk figures has never been fully
established and Aubrey, alongside a team of archaeologists from Reading University, come up with a remarkable new
discovery.
Programme 3: (13.05.04)
Then its on to the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. Here, in 1823, the skeleton of a young man - who had died 29,000
years ago - was found. In Britain before the Ice
Aubrey attempts to unravel the mystery of the lost world in which this man lived and finds out what Britain must
have been like before the last ice age, looking to a 29,000-year-old skeleton and other nearby finds for clues.
Programme 4: (27.05.04)
Sees Aubrey in the Solent, off the south coast of England. Its known that people once lived in a landscape that is
now covered by the sea but how did this area become flooded?
In Secrets of the Flood Aubrey investigates a
mystery that has puzzled experts for centuries.
Programme 5: (3.06.04)
In The Tower People of Shetland, Aubrey travels to
the most northerly territory in the British Isles to Shetland in a search for clues to the identity of the
ancient people who lived in the Broch Towers there.
Programme 6: (10.06.04)
Aubrey, in The Abandoned Marsh, visits the bleak
Romney Marsh in Kent. Here he searches for clues to this haunting and empty landscape that humans colonised then
abandoned and sets out to discover why it is now one of the most deserted areas in the country after being home to
an expanding population in the 13th century!
Programme 7: (17.06.04)
Aubrey ventures to an even more bleak and dangerous place the North Yorkshire coastline where many a ship has
been wrecked. But when the tide goes out, a different and mysterious landscape is revealed. Can Aubrey solve
The Riddle of the Yorkshire Tracks? Strange
markings in the rocks on the North Yorkshire coast are the starting point for this investigation into a
forgotten story from Britain's industrial past. Aubrey discovers that at the beginning of the 17th century,
long before the industrial revolution, the now deserted coastline south of Whitby was dominated by Britain's
first chemical industry!
Programme 8: (8.07.04)
In this last programme, the riddle of
The Terraces of Avalon,
Aubrey travels to Glastonbury to investigate and asks whether there's a connection between the terraces of
Glastonbury Tor and the myths and legends of King Arthur's Isle of Avalon.
Visit the
Landscape Mysteries website
for programme information
An Open2.net Series with the
BBC and
OU |
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[TV] |
Leonardo's Dream Machines
First shown in February 2003
Repeat of a two part programme
Shown on Channel 4, Saturday 3 April 2004 at 7.05pm and 8.05pm
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Did Leonardo da Vinci create
the blueprints that could have given the world the supergun of its day and the gift of flight, or were his designs
merely fanciful? In this two-part programme, today's experts attempt to bring to life two of his most ambitious designs,
an 80ft crossbow and
a glider based on a
recurring wing shape in his drawings.
Visit Channel 4
History and
Leonardo's Dream Machines
website for further information |
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[TV] |
London
A three-part Series
Water and Darkness (3)
Shown on BBC 2, Friday 21 May 2004 at 9.00pm
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 Innovative three-part series about the history of London as told by author Peter Ackroyd
Fire and Destiny (7.05.04): From Boadicea's torching of the city to recent bombings, Peter Ackroyd traces
London's extraordinary ability to survive and grow stronger every time it burns.
The Crowd (14.05.04): By the 18th century London was the greatest capital in the world, but as its population
grew, so did the threats of drunken lawlessness and civil disorder. Ackroyd encounters authors who witnessed the
city's drama of crime and punishment and its voracious appetite for spectacle.
Water and Darkness (21.05.04): He interviews visionaries Friedrich Engels, Joseph Conrad and TS Eliot among
others on his journey into the desperate underworld of London in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He also encounters
the terrible demon Spring-heeled Jack and the Victorian chronicler of the urban poor Henry Mayhew.
Visit the BBC History and the
London website for more
information |
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[TV] |
Lost Buildings of Britain
A six-part Series
Millbank Penitentiary (6)
Shown on Channel 4, Monday 30 August 2004 at 8.00pm
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A six-part
series in which architectural historian Simon Thurley, from English Heritage, goes in
search of some of the most amazing buildings ever built in Britain. The only
problem is that none of these structures are still standing...
With the use of dramatic reconstructions, archive research and computer simulations,
Simon and a team of experts and historians take on the challenge of recreating
six amazing buildings that have gone forever, seeking not only to bring them
vividly back to life, but to establish without doubt their historical significance.
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (26.07.04):
Simon travels to London's West End and searches for the original Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Demolished some 200
years ago, it is regarded as the birthplace of British theatre.
Nottingham Castle (2.08.04):
Simon rediscovers Nottingham Castle, a fortress designed to withstand the most violent of
onslaughts. Experts in medieval weaponry test whether the stronghold was up to the task.
Whitehall Palace (9.08.04):
Recalling the era of the Tudors and the Stuarts, Simon investigates the story of Whitehall Palace, the main
residence of the British monarchy for a period of 170 years.
Fonthill Abbey (16.08.04):
Simon investigated the fate of Fonthill Abbey, an extraordinary country house built nearly 200 years ago by William
Beckford. Its gothic design was a major feature, but its notorious reputation owes more to the eccentric and even
shocking behaviour supposedly exhibited by its owner.
Glastonbury Abbey (23.08.04):
Simon turns his attention to Glastonbury Abbey, which was destroyed by Henry VIII in one of the most extreme acts
of architectural vandalism. The remaining ruins reveal little of what was once Britain's largest and richest
abbey.
Millbank Penitentiary (30.08.04):
In the last of the series Simon researches the history of Millbank Penitentiary which stood on the site now
occupied by Tate Britain. He discovers how this experiment in remodelling the British prison system failed, though
the lessons learned helped shape the prisons of today.
Visit the
Lost Buildings of Britain website for
other information |
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[TV] |
Machines Time Forgot
A four-part Series
Last Part shown Monday 11 August 2003 on Channel 4 at 9.00pm
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An interesting four-part series on forgotten feats of technological
invention.
Crane (21.07.03): a team including a film-set designer, an
engineer, carpenters and blacksmiths travel to a ruined abbey in
Normandy, where they make an ambitious attempt to reconstruct the
medieval cathedral crane using traditional methods.
Fireship (29.07.03): two teams of specialists try to re-create a seventh-century weapon of mass
destruction; a ship capable of projecting fire over long distances. Armed with a
complicated catapult and a dangerous flame-thrower, it proves a major challenge.
Turtle (4.08.03): A group of amateur submarine enthusiasts
attempt to rebuild the world's first submarine. Known as the turtle
because of its design - it was made of wood and shaped like two turtle
shells stuck together - this primitive vessel was difficult to operate
and fraught with danger.
Chariot (11.08.03): In the second millennium BC, the chariot emerged in the Middle East as
a tool of the Assyrian army. Did it provide a real military advantage, or was its role
more symbolic? A team of experts build a chariot using traditional materials and
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