Documentary films & series
Our analyses and companions to the great documentaries on prehistory and antiquity: what science actually says, with sources.
Beneath the waters of Alexandria's bay lie the remains of the Ptolemaic royal palace, the lighthouse foundations, and colossal statues. Underwater archaeology has been uncovering its best-kept secrets for thirty years.
Watch the documentary →Beneath the sands of Saqqara, the world's oldest royal necropolis keeps delivering: 59 sarcophagi in 2020, a gold-covered 4,400-year-old mummy, the Serapeum's underground labyrinth. Imhotep built for eternity.
Watch the documentary →At Saqqara, archaeologists unearth an Old Kingdom vizier's tomb, untouched for 4,000 years. Who was this all-powerful man? What does his tomb reveal about the secret organisation of pharaonic power?
Watch the documentary →Second part: the climatic aridification around 2200 BCE dries up the Nile floods, starves populations and precipitates civil wars. The Ipuwer Papyrus testifies to a world turned upside down.
Watch the documentary →How did the most powerful empire of the ancient world collapse in less than a century? This Arte documentary retraces the political disintegration of the Egyptian Old Kingdom.
Watch the documentary →Nota Bonus hosts Franck Monnier, associate researcher at the CNRS, for an hour-long interview on ancient Egyptian building techniques. Pyramids, ramps, quarrymen, site organisation: science has answered far more questions than most people realise.
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