Bettany Hughes' Voices of the Dead

Medieval Fightbook

Follow the close analysis of an ancient fight master's manuscript depicting combat techniques and devices used over 500 years ago.

Egypt's Great Mummies: Unwrapped with Bettany Hughes

Professor Bettany Hughes takes viewers on a journey of discovery as she investigates 10 of the greatest and most intriguing Egyptian mummies - and the secrets that lie beneath the bandages. Having remained in their tombs for thousands of years, wrapped, embalmed and buried with treasure, each mummy tells the story of the criminals, priests, children and pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.

Pompeii's Final Hours: New Evidence

Exploring life in Pompeii during the final days of the doomed city.

Ultimate Treasure Countdown

Unearthing the glittering, golden treasures of the pharaohs.

Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting

The history of still life painting with oil paints

8 Days That Made Rome

Bettany Hughes relives eight pivotal days that defined the Roman Empire and made it the world's first superpower.

Helen of Troy

British historian Bettany Hughes tours the eastern Mediterranean in search of facts behind the legends of "the face that launched a thousand ships," exploring the ways Greeks made love and war circa 1300 B.C.

Alexandria: The Greatest City

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. The documentary also looks at the role of astronomer and philosopher Hypatia, and incorporates stunning footage from the feature film 'Agora'.

Greek Island Odyssey

Historian Bettany Hughes has embarked on an epic, personal journey. Inspired by Homer's The Odyssey, she will sail the unpredictable Mediterranean seas, tracing Odysseus's long journey home. Her mission: to experience what the Greek hero experienced and to uncover truths behind the myths and legends, all while enjoying the delights of ancient Greece today. Follow her 1,700-mile adventure as it takes her to over a dozen islands and 22 historic sites and puts her through two hair-raising storms and even an earthquake.

Ancient Impossible

Ancient Impossible, the new H2 series, picks up where HISTORY’s long running Ancient Discoveries left off. In this next generation of storytelling, Ancient Impossible reveals how many of today’s technological achievements were actually developed centuries ago. Colossal monuments, impossible feats of engineering and technologies so precise they defy reinvention–the ancient world was far more advanced than we ever imagined. We’ll travel through history to reveal a radically different picture of the past, with innovations so far ahead of their time, they’re still in use today. New science uncovers a lost world more like our own than we ever suspected, and reveals how modern technology has its blueprint in the ancient world.

Genius of the Modern World

Historian Bettany Hughes retraces the lives of three great thinkers whose ideas shaped the modern world - Karl Marx, Frederick Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud.

The Mystery of Agatha Christie, With David Suchet

David Suchet, TV's Poirot, has spent more of his life acting out the plots and dramas created by Agatha Christie than anyone else in the world. Suchet is embarking on a journey to learn more about the woman who created Poirot and whose books remain outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. Suchet's journey takes him to the places Christie lived, the landscapes that inspired her and to meetings with people who knew the woman behind the fame and those inspired by her extraordinary legacy. He explores the close links between Christie's extraordinary life and her work and discovers what it was about the woman from a small seaside town that allowed her to become the best-selling murder mystery writer in history.

The Spartans

The rise and fall of one of the most extreme civilisations the world has ever witnessed – one founded on discipline, sacrifice and frugality, centred on the collective, whose goal was to create the perfect state and the perfect warrior.

When the Moors Ruled in Europe

A documentary movie covering the 700-year reign in Spain and Portugal of the Moors. It focus on Andlucia and specifically Fes, Granada and Cordoba.

The Greeks

National Geographic's landmark event series, The Greeks, brings together historians, archaeologists, actors, athletes, scientists and artists to launch a groundbreaking exploration into the ancient Greeks' journey - not just to better understand their past, but to discover how their legacy illuminates our present, and will shape our future. The story of the Greeks is the story of us.

The Nile: Egypt's Great River with Bettany Hughes

The historian explores the land that inspired her passion for the past by embarking upon a 900-mile journey along the river Nile and examining how it shaped ancient Egypt.

Ancient Apocalypse

Journalist and writer Graham Hancock travels the globe hunting for evidence of mysterious, lost civilizations dating back to the last Ice Age. He attempts to prove that a climatic event 12,000 years ago wiped out an entire civilization far more sophisticated than the simple hunter-gatherers some archaeologists believe lived at that time.