A series of documentaries presented by the historian Bettany Hughes. Travelling across present locations, Bettany explores the cultural and political pasts of ancient peoples, including the Greeks, Minoans and Egyptian.

The Ancient Worlds: Alexandria, the Greatest City |  Click here to watch
(50 min; English)

Bettany 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. 

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 mind set, where - as with the worldwide web - one man had a vision that all knowledge on earth could be stored in one place.  

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.