Secrets of the Parthenon

A highly sophisticated restoration team is painstakingly reassembling the Parthenon of Athens — a classic Greek building that has suffered from wars, earthquakes, and disastrous previous restoration attempts.

The Parthenon’s builders created dauntingly precise yet subtle curves throughout the structure, giving the building its legendary grace.
Etched in the marble itself, the restoration team discovers traces made by the ingenious tools the stonemasons used to carve the blocks with such speed and precision.

Experts examine the extent to which the Parthenon’s symmetry and visual harmony is dependent on a system of mathematical proportions.

Two hundred miles from Athens, faint lines left behind on another Greek temple reveal the technique the early engineers used to sculpt the Parthenon’s perfect curves.

Watch on Hulu or below.

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Ancient Warriors

Ancient Warriors is a 1994 20-part documentary series from the Discovery Channel.

Each half-hour episode looks at a major fighting people or force and charts the reasons for their rise to dominance and subsequent fall.

The show explores the motivations of ancient soldiers, as well as how they lived, fought, trained, died, and changed the world.

It also uses battle re-enactments and computer graphics to demonstrate military strategy.

The Vikings



Knights of the Templar



Macedonians




Maurya Warriors of the Elephant



Aztecs



Sioux



Ninja Warriors of the Night



Janissaries


The Huns



Highlanders



Spartans



The Normans



Legions of Rome



Shaolin Monks



Samurai



Irish Warriors of the Emerald Isle



Hawaiians The Warriors of Paradise



The Celts



Soldiers of the Pharaoh



The Assyrians

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Terry Jones' Barbarians

Terry Jones’  Barbarians is a 4-part TV documentary series first broadcast on BBC 2 in 2006.

Presented and written by Terry Jones, he challenges the received Roman and Roman Catholic notion of the barbarian. It could be compared to his earlier series Medieval Lives, it questions aspects of history we take for granted.

So you think you know everything about the Romans? They gave us sophisticated road systems, chariots and the modern-day calendar. And of course they had to contend with barbarian hordes who continually threatened the peace, safety and prosperity of their Empire. Didn’t they?

Terry Jones’ Barbarians takes a completely fresh approach to Roman history. Not only does it offer us the chance to see the Romans from a non-Roman perspective, it also reveals that most of the people written off by the Romans as uncivilized, savage and barbaric were in fact organized, motivated and intelligent groups of people, with no intentions of overthrowing Rome and plundering its Empire. Terry Jones argues that we have been sold a false history of Rome that has twisted our entire understanding of our own history. Terry asks what did the Romans ever do for us?

This is the story of Roman history as seen by the Britons, Gauls, Germans, Greeks, Persians and Africans. The Vandals didn’t vandalize – the Romans did. The Goths didn’t sack Rome – the Romans did. Attila the Hun didn’t go to Constantinople to destroy it, but because the Emperor’s daughter wanted to marry him. And far from civilizing the societies they conquered the Romans often destroyed much of what they found. Terry Jones travels round the geography of the Roman Empire and through 700 years of history – bringing wit, irreverence, passion and the very latest scholarship to transform our view of the legacy of the Roman Empire and the creation of the modern world

Watch the entire four part series uninterrupted here...



or you can watch specific episodes below:

1. The Primitive Celts



2. The Savage Goths



3. The Brainy Barbarians



4. The End of the World

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Legacy: The Origins of Civilization

Iraq: The Cradle of Civilization - After thousands of years as a hunter/gatherer, man built the first cities 5,000 years ago on the banks of the Euphrates in Southern Iraq.

Civilization began. City life transformed the human race with the glorious cultures of Mesopotamia such as Ur and Babylon.



India: The Empire of the Spirit - Ancient India is with us today in the living tradition of the Hindu religion, the basis of Indian culture. The traditions that are honored by millions of Hindus in the present were born in the Indus valley 5,000 years ago.



China: The Mandate of Heaven - Many breakthroughs on which the modern world is based were discovered in China long ago - iron-casting, gunpowder, even printing. When introduced to Europe, these things changed Western civilization. This episode presents the synthesis of East and West.



Egypt: The Habit of Civilization - Ancient Egypt was the first great nation on earth and endured for thousands of years. The god-like Pharaoh was the rock on which this civilization was built. Ancient traditions come together in the Muslim culture that is the Middle East today.



Central America: The Burden of Time - Isolated from the rest of the world, the Mayans and Aztecs created sophisticated civilizations that in many ways paralleled ancient Mediterranean empires. God-like kings and a priestly ruling class dominated splendid cities of temples and pyramids.



The Barbarian West - Civilization arose in Asia, but it was the West which would create the first world culture. This final episode traces the origins of western culture through Greece and Rome prevailing by borrowing from the legacies of the original five old world civilizations.

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