Original subtitles

Thousands of years ago, ancient powers ruled our world.

Egypt.

China.

India.

Greece.

And Rome.

Players in a high stakes game of strategy and luck.

Success will bring them wealth and immortality.

failure, oblivion, and death.

In their battle for survival, each civilization will face the same

How they respond will shape their destiny.

In this episode,

Origins.

In a brutal world where nature is both friend and foe, our ancient powers

are just beginning.

They must use all their skill and ingenuity to shape their territory and

establish their culture.

So who will tame the land and claim their future?

Ten thousand years ago, the kingdom of ancient Egypt does not yet exist.

But bands of hunter -gatherers are drawn to the banks of the River Nile.

At the water's edge, they live hand to mouth.

They forage, fish, hunt wild cattle, and even hippos.

These wandering people have just enough to eat.

But to set down roots, they need more than this.

How can they make this landscape work harder for them?

Egypt's geography is key to how this country developed because the Nile is

makes Egypt.

Through endless miles of scorched desert, the Nile creates a narrow strip

life -giving fertility.

But it's this river's unique geography that gives early Egyptian settlers a

start.

Once a year, heavy rains at its source, far to the south, send an enormous

torrent rushing towards the Niles River Valley, flooding the riverbank and

bringing abundant life.

Floods in Egypt came annually for over four months starting the end of June,

a large part of the country was submerged, and the waters fled out,

huge, rich amounts of filth, so they never needed any fertilizer here.

So really it was an amazingly rich, fertile soil, and very easy to

The early settlers take advantage of this healthy soil and plant crops.

But they can't depend on them year -round.

Because as the floods recede and desert temperatures rise, their precious crops

sometimes fail.

They must find a way to keep them watered.

Irrigation technology was key. Very quickly they decided that they were

harness this water.

And so they'd cut a series of canals, they built reservoirs, they fitted out

ways so they could have more than one crop a year.

As the people farm, they devise a simple but effective piece of technology.

The shadoop was a means of raising water from the lower Nile and was lifting it

up with a bucket and a counterpoise.

And this was used then to collect water. You can either put it into more buckets

and move it along or even into another set of canals.

Now these early Egyptians have a constant water supply and food.

This land was so fertile that they could grow wheat, barley,

all kinds of fruit and vegetables, cucumbers,

lettuces galore, and herbs and spices.

No longer forced to wander the land in search of sustenance,

The Egyptians are now fully -fledged farmers.

Their domain is this narrow river valley, and their mastery over this

environment sets them on their way to becoming an ancient power.

Farming was really the mainstay of ancient Egypt, and without the Nile and

annual floods, Egypt would never have been the rich and great civilization.

Everything about Egyptian culture comes from the environment, and the Nile is

the sort of central part of it.

The Egyptians have struck lucky.

They have a reliable source of water to grow their crops and their civilization.

Far to the east, another ancient power is taking shape, but on a far more

dangerous river.

From the western plateau to the eastern plain, two huge watercourses snaked

through China.

The Yellow River and the Yangtze.

In the east, these rivers and their tributaries form a network of

marshes and swamps.

But on the Yangtze, in the waterlands of Lianzhu, people are attempting to

settle and farm.

But rice is temperamental and difficult to grow.

If these farmers water their rice too much or too little, their crop will

Get it right, and in good conditions, they can manage a decent harvest.

But the weather is not always on their side.

Here, the monsoon season lasts from May to September.

bringing with it the threat of flooding.

This unpredictable natural disaster can wipe out their precious crop and leave

the people of Liangzhou facing starvation.

To secure their food source and their future, can the people here

control this destructive flooding?

They have a plan, but it's risky.

Involving an unprecedented level of engineering and sheer hard work.

It takes thousands of workers years to build a series of earth dams and create

two vast reservoirs.

The water system of the two groups is divided into high and low dam areas.

The high dam area is the dark blue area on our map. It is actually the place

where we turned the mountain over and couldn't see it.

The low dam area is the large area in front of us. It is about 10 square

kilometers from the low dam area.

Now, when the monsoon rains thrash down, these reservoirs contain the excess

water and stop it flooding the precious rice fields downstream.

Now they've tamed the wild

river. The Anjou's farmers can safely plan for the future.

and create somewhere to call home.

The people here build a huge settlement.

It covers 300 hectares.

and is surrounded by a 50 -meter -wide perimeter wall that's over four meters

high.

Inside, there are homes, workshops, and tombs, as well as a central palace.

30 ,000 people live here, and at its heart are huge rice granaries,

the foundation of their wealth and security.

With their food source secured and their land safe, the people of the Yangzhou

are the start for this ancient power.

In China, remarkable engineering transforms a dangerous threat into the

beginnings of a civilization.

To the west, an island people are attempting to settle in a very different

terrain.

On mainland Greece, there are a few isolated settlements.

But on the mountainous island of Crete, in the middle of the Mediterranean, a

new culture is growing.

This island's isolation provides a natural defense against invaders, and

fruits of the sea are a ready source of food.

For the people who live here, the Minoans, there are downsides.

The challenges that the Minoans face depend on which part of the island you

Because you either find very, very dry, rocky places, or you find plains

like the one we are just now.

And so each of these ecological spheres was good for specific things.

So one was for grazing, another might have been good for grain. So this is how

it was.

Each region of the island is able to produce different foods.

But spread out across 8 ,000 square kilometers of rocky terrain, no single

has all the variety it needs.

So to feed their people, the Minoans must find a way to share it.

The Minoans hope that these buildings are the answer to their problem.

As archaeologists, we are still trying to really understand how these places

function because we see that there are these open places.

For example, we have three western courts, a central court, and an eastern

court.

If I had to try and define a Minoan palace, it was about... crowds of people

gathering together.

This palace isn't a home for their king, but designed for the people.

There are a lot of places for storage and storage of tables, like wine,

oil, maybe also barley and wheat.

And so what we can reckon is that all this was stored together, maybe to be

in order to maintain the community as a whole.

Built on a high promontory, this palace is visible to every Minoan, and it

overlooks their settlements and farmland.

Now we can see that places like festivals work like gathering places.

Where ceremonial activity was going on, that allowed people to bring their stuff

and they were also getting everything that they needed. So there was exchange

and there was also putting things together.

In a way, a palace can be compared to a hub.

So I bring my olive, you bring your wheat and you bring my meat and then we

put everything together and get whatever we need.

Pooling their food in this communal palace allows the Minoans to share their

riches, so this island's resources benefit them all.

Now, with well -fed people and few enemies, the Minoans set about creating

culture, a cornerstone for any ancient power.

This object was found in a rectangular tomb on the south central part of Crete.

This fascinates me because it's a unique artifact.

It is a masterpiece of elegance and skill.

The intricate paintings that decorate this sarcophagus reveal details of a

Minoan funeral.

On this long side of the sarcophagus we can see a procession of gift bearers to

the deceased.

The deceased is shown standing by his tomb.

He is presented like a mummy without hands.

The quality of the representations, the colours, the hairstyles, the garments,

And of course, these illustrations give also evidence for the skill

of the craftsmen of this special culture.

So the society must be socially stratified, prosperous, wealthy,

and well -organized.

This communal society creates the perfect environment for an explosion in

culture and art.

They make pottery with myriad designs and colors, celebrating the sea

and the land.

Fine jewelry that glitters and shines.

sculptures that hint at deep beliefs and rituals, and celebrate the world they

have mastered.

This vase depicts a possession of armor.

This object tells us a lot about how the Minoans saw the world.

They loved nature. They exploited natural resources.

I mean, the development of agriculture was a main factor for the prosperity

of Minoan economy.

For well over a millennia, the Minoans' community spirit allows them to live in

harmony with their environment.

Building an ancient power rich in resources and culture.

But nature is about to turn on them.

Just over 100 kilometers to the north, on the island of Santorini, there is a

huge volcano.

Dormant for as long as anyone can remember, in 1500 BCE.

It erupts.

It is one of the largest eruptions in human history, destroying Santorini and

sending 30 cubic kilometers of ash and lava into the atmosphere.

It signals the beginning of the end for the Minoans.

The eruption's fallout destroys their crops, weakening them.

Allowing Greeks from the mainland, the Mythenians, to occupy the island.

They will be the people to take this ancient power to the next level.

The Minoans' ancient power is both triumph and tragedy.

But they are the foundation of all that follows in Greece.

To the south, Egypt's early farmers have harnessed the Nile.

Now they need someone to lead them to their glorious future.

Over millennia, plentiful food has allowed early rural settlements to

villages, towns, and territories.

But to become an ancient power, this land needs to unify under one.

This stone palette revealed his identity.

It's one of the earliest named images of an Egyptian king.

So this is the Narmer Palace, and you can see here at the top, there is the

of Narmer.

We know that Narmer comes from Upper Egypt because he's wearing the white

That is a representation of Upper Egypt.

sets the rules here, because he starts wearing that crown.

Nama is ambitious and aggressive.

He wants to add lower Egypt to his southern kingdom.

So he goes on the attack.

He showed himself smiting his enemies, and that's what we see.

Narmer is standing on the enemies of Egypt.

And you can see them trampling beneath him.

Narmer beats his enemy and emerges victorious.

On the other side of the palace, you see Narmer's victory procession. And he's

wearing the red crown of lower Egypt.

And you can see here at the end of the procession, his enemies with their

between their legs and it's to show what will happen to the enemies of egypt

nama is king of it all leader of over a million people

and over a thousand kilometers of the nile river valley this land

is now truly an ancient power ruled by a single man

after narmer unifies egypt This is a very important moment in history.

This is when Egypt starts to prosper and we know it as it is.

This is when all the grand monuments are on their way to being built.

This is the building of the great civilization and how it started.

Egypt has land, food, and a strong ruler.

But to the east, in India, another ancient power is beginning to emerge

with a very different character.

The Indus River flows over 3 ,000 kilometers from the Himalayas to the

Sea.

And over millennia, it has created a vast, fertile plain.

In this benevolent landscape, the first ancient Indian culture builds

something astounding.

Hidden away, in what is now Sin Province, Pakistan, is one of the best

cities of its age anywhere in the world.

This civilization precedes the Roman Empire by more than

two and a half thousand years.

So this is something very remarkable.

Today, its name translates as the Mound of the Dead.

It seems that the town was settled at one single point of time.

And there was a huge planning which went with the building of the town.

This city's inhabitants design its construction down to the last

using thousands of bricks, each identical in size.

They lay out the three -square -kilometer site on a grid system.

Rows of multi -story houses, each with their own central

courtyard, are connected by narrow alleyways to the main streets.

This triumph of urban design is home to more than 40 ,000 people

Life is good here But as our other ancient

powers have discovered there are always dangers to overcome

If you are maintaining a large population and in a very concentrated

you generate dirty water quite a lot. And through the

stagnant water you get diseases if no proper care is

taken.

The people here must find a way to defend themselves against this life

-threatening hazard.

Every household has the drain which is coming out of the house.

And then it turns and it joins the street drain. And the street drain then

it out of the town area.

It is one single item that can make your life good or bad.

If you can't get rid of the disposal properly, you become sick.

This drainage network removes infectious water from the streets.

But that alone is not enough to keep Mahendra Dharo's inhabitants safe.

They also need clean water for drinking and cooking.

So they build wells.

One well would have done for the whole neighbourhood, but here the case is

different.

They want to keep the water with them, very near.

They want personal water.

They undertook this task, despite the fact that they had the easy access to

water.

Across the city, these wells bring naturally filtered drinking water to

every courtyard.

And they celebrate their control of this critical resource with a huge ritual

bath in the city's center.

This might be the place where the community used to come to meet, to

But it is indication of a society which is flourishing.

This city and its people thrive for more than 700 years.

And it's just one in a network of urban settlements that stretch all along the

length of the Indus River and its tributaries.

Millions of people living in over 1 ,400 towns.

They planned the city, they built it.

This is unparalleled, this is wonderful, and highest achievement this

region made.

But even this flourishing ancient power can't foresee every threat.

We are compelled to say that it must have been some weather

variations and changes.

and the climate might have started behaving differently.

Over a period of years, changes in weather patterns and the monsoon rains

lead to drought all across the Indus Valley.

When the temperature rises, when the fertility of the land is

undermined,

when there are lesser rains, the food supply is diminishing

and it affects the growth of populations.

So when this decline comes in, the city cannot sustain itself.

So under its own weight, the city starts dying.

As water sources dry up, the people of Mahendra Dharo find their lands can't

sustain regular crops.

Their grand city is of little use, and they begin to leave.

This ritual, vacating the towns, happened slowly and very imperceptibly.

But it was definite march of the people from this region.

The Indus Valley people abandoned their sophisticated cities, leaving them

empty.

The civilization lost its rigor and it was no more.

It will be over a millennium before urban life is seen on the Indian

subcontinent again.

India has an early success as an ancient power, but then failed.

In the West, the Romans have grand plans, and will use engineering to

them.

Rome is a latecomer to the world of the ancient powers.

What begins as a small farming community on several hills expands over 400

years to become a bustling city of several hundred thousand people with

a rich metropolitan culture.

The great Roman architect Vitruvius said that all things depend on the power of

water.

Roman love of water has no limits.

Not only for drinking purposes, but necessary for a cultured life, a great

the life that the Romans considered dignified.

Having an overabundance of water was clearly a critical part of living well

Roman.

But in ancient Rome, this demand for water creates a problem.

The local wells are running dry, and worse, pollution is poisoning the river

Tiber.

The city desperately needs a new and reliable supply of... clean water.

But where can they find it?

Scouring the countryside, the Romans eventually find high -quality springs in

the surrounding hills.

But these are over 10 kilometers away.

Unless they can transport this fresh water, their city and ancient power

grow.

The solution they come up with is ingenious.

Gravity is arguably the most reliable system for getting your water from point

to point B.

The Romans made it work with the minimum amount of technology and therefore the

minimum amount of moving parts and things that could fail.

In 312 BCE

they begin construction on a remarkable feat of engineering,

the first of a series of aqueducts.

These grand structures shift thousands of litres of water over huge distances.

Their water channels are designed with a steady and carefully calculated

gradient to keep the water flowing.

It's millimetrically precise.

A grade more than 1 in 4 ,800 was going to cause significant erosion and

therefore significant manpower to repair.

Over the next five centuries, the Romans build 11 aqueducts. They stretch almost

500 kilometers and provide Rome with millions of liters of water.

Every day, a lifeline for this expanding empire.

The ability to supply water to the capital city of Rome and to all of the

important cities around the empire was absolutely fundamental to the population

growth and to the success of the Roman civilization.

Without that, they would certainly have shriveled and died, or simply not grown.

Rome's aqueducts are a wonder of the ancient world.

Proof of Rome's mastery over nature.

But this is just the beginning.

These luxurious baths are a spectacular temple to the Roman love of water.

The emperor put on this enormous expense and enormous display in order to give

his citizens a place to be Romans in the fullest sense of the term.

Huge forests of columns of all different kinds of granite, all different kinds

of marble.

pantheon of gods and heroes in the niches.

This vast site is equipped with a huge spa complex, two

gymnasiums, a swimming pool, and rooms ranging

from cold to hot.

A couple thousand years ago, we would have been surrounded by naked Romans.

The splashing of water, the voices echoing off the arches, the smells, the

perfumes.

This is a place where you could come and simply get away from the world.

These palaces of water are the hub of Rome's cultural life.

This place was not merely a place to get clean, but a place to do business

deals, a place to have banquets and sing merry songs with your friends, a place

to work out. It was the society of Rome all collected in one room.

Here, senators and paupers, men and women, all bathe equally.

The Roman baths are a great leveler.

But beneath this beauty, there is a terrible secret.

The dark side of this city's cultured facade.

Here, below ground, Hundreds of slaves toil in unbearable conditions,

stoking furnaces to heat the water.

This ferocious engine, constantly consuming wood, constantly producing

constantly consuming human lives.

This would have been just brutal.

People down here were really cogs in a machine.

Without this unseen world, without this unseen army, unthanked, unrecognized,

subhuman, nothing would have happened upstairs.

The slave's grim work is the harsh reality of Rome's ancient power.

Nature is controlled, but so too are humans.

The first challenge is complete.

Each ancient power has responded to their unique geography and taken the

steps to their future.

Egypt tames the Nile's floods and begins the rule of its

pharaohs.

China builds huge dams and reservoirs to control their fearsome river,

protecting and feeding their water town.

In the Indus Valley, the Indians go one better, planning and building a

vast city.

On Crete, the Minoans cooperate to create a society and a rich culture.

but are destroyed when a natural disaster hits.

In Rome, they stamp their authority in even grander structures.

All these ancient powers have established their civilizations.

But to put a permanent mark on the world, their next challenge...

is to build their empires.