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Unearthing Mysteries: The Complete Series 1-8
A BBC Radio History Series
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Narrated by:
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Aubrey Manning
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By:
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Aubrey Manning
About this listen
All 31 episodes of the archaeological series investigating the mysteries and secrets of the past
Much of human history is hidden from us, buried deep under our feet. Layered beneath the landscape are the unknown stories of ancient peoples and civilizations, written in bones and long-lost artefacts, waiting to be revealed and deciphered. Between 1999 and 2006, over eight radio series, renowned author and broadcaster Aubrey Manning followed geological and archaeological clues in an attempt to unravel some of these mysteries – from the Lost Map of London and the Amber Room to the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Antikythera Mechanism and the Land of Punt. This landmark radio series, lost for years, can now be listened to again.
Journeying around the British Isles and worldwide, he visits sites including tombs, tunnels and temples, setting out to uncover the secrets that lie within them. Could ‘KV 55’ in the Valley of the Kings be the final resting place of the great Pharaoh Akhenaten? What can the ‘Red Lady’ of Paviland tell us about how homo sapiens succeeded Neanderthals? Did the Saxons make top-notch steel 1,000 years before the Industrial Revolution? And was a swamp in the South Anatolian plain the unlikely location for the world’s first city?
These and other burning questions are tackled by Manning, with erudite input from a host of expert researchers, historians, scientists and archaeologists. His investigations take in a Roman drinking cult; a Bronze Age archer dubbed the ‘King of Stonehenge’; Boudica’s forgotten husband, Prasutagus; the tale of a saint, severed hands and a sword in the stone – and the remarkable discovery of British prehistoric cave art...
Production credits
Presented by Aubrey Manning and Brian Moffat (Series 1, Episode 4)
Produced by Dave Sharp, Sue Broom, Pam Rutherford, Helen Sharp and Martin Redfern
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the following dates:
Series 1 (first broadcast 13 July-3 August 1999)
Valley of the Kings
Glozel
Lost Map of London
Soutra
Series 2 (first broadcast 7-28 November 2000)
Sounds of the Stone Age
The Amber Room
The Drinking Cult
The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria
Series 3 (first broadcast 30 October – 20 November 2001)
The 'Red Lady' of Paviland
London's Mediaeval Medicine
Saxon Steel
San Galgano and the Sword in the Stone
Series 4 (first broadcast 5-26 November 2002)
Taming the Horse
Catal Huyuk
The Amesbury Archer
Meadowcroft Rock Shelter
Series 5 (first broadcast 5-26 August 2003)
Lynford Neanderthals
Ancient Egyptian Illnesses
Tri Radial Cairns
Great Orme Mine
Series 6 (first broadcast 7-28 December 2004)
The Land of Punt
Wharram Percy
British Cave Art
Mound Builders
Series 7 (first broadcast 20 December 2005-17 January 2006)
The Tunnellers of the First World War
The Romans in India
Ben Lawers and Loch Tay
The First Americans
Series 8 (first broadcast 12-26 December 2006)
The Antikythera Mechanism
First Residents of Britain
Prasutagus, husband of Boudicca
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