The series was produced in conjunction with the Open University and is a departure from the previous series not only in that each episode is an hour long rather than half an hour (though heavily edited half-hour versions have also been shown), but also in that it does not concentrate on a single period of history but rather one ancient civilization per episode including the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks.

The Arab and Muslim world has had a profound and lasting influence on our life today, the list is long and full of surprises, but perhaps the most important thing that the Islamic Empire did for us is preserve, refine and improve all the knowledge left by the scholars of the ancients, and without that work by the Muslim scholars all of that knowledge might have been lost and our lives much the poorer.This episode features reports from Zain in Egypt, Spain and France elaborated by demonstrations from Adam Hart-Davis, Marty Jopson and expert guests that examine the ideas and inventions that emerged from the Islamic Golden Age.

Cut off from the rest of the world for centuries, the Chinese developed a unique culture and made many technological, scientific and artistic advances long before the West.

The Mesopotamians weren’t just a single people, but a whole series of overlapping civilisations, the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, each one building on the achievements of the one before, and between them they laid the foundations of our civilisation.This episode features reports from Cockburn in Syria and Bahrain elaborated by demonstrations from Hart-Davis, Jopson and a variety of experts that examine ideas and inventions of the Mesopotamians.

I’m setting out to show that the early Brits were well organized, spiritual and technologically advanced Europeans, long before the Romans came and changed everything.This episode features reports from around the British Isles by Hart-Davis and Darling elaborated by demonstrations from Jopson and a variety of experts that examine the ideas and inventions of the Ancient Britons.