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00:02The ancient Greek world was the birthplace of Western civilization, and also of extraordinary legends.
00:11There was the lost city of Atlantis, a utopian world that vanished into the sea.
00:18Does it lie beneath this island?
00:24There was the terrifying Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster, that lured its victims into an underground labyrinth and
00:32devoured them.
00:34Could this palace reveal the secrets behind the legend?
00:42How did the religious sanctuary of Zeus give rise to the Olympic Games we still celebrate today?
00:51At Delphi, there was the mystic Oracle, enabling the ancient Greeks to see into the future.
00:57What was the secret behind their predictions?
01:02Greek imagination created the first theatre, and Greek ingenuity the first acoustic arena.
01:08How were they able to design a sound stage unsurpassed to this day?
01:15The Colossus of Rhodes was the tallest bronze statue ever made.
01:19How were they able to make it stand an incredible 100 feet high?
01:25And high above the city of Athens stands the supreme masterpiece, the magnificent Parthenon.
01:33How were the ancient Greeks able to realize so many groundbreaking innovations at the dawn of European history?
01:50The land we know today as Greece, lying in the eastern Mediterranean, was once a very different world.
01:58In antiquity, Greece was made up from a collection of warring city-states that became an empire.
02:06As this strengthened, much of the eastern Mediterranean fell under the Greeks' control.
02:13Some of these lands had their own rich history and culture.
02:17Others lived on in legend, where fact and fantasy became one.
02:22Nowhere was clouded by a more terrifying story than the island of Crete.
02:27At its centre lay the infamous Palace of Conossos.
02:33This was once the power base of the Minoan civilization, an advanced maritime race who controlled the wealth and trade
02:40of the Mediterranean.
02:43More formidable still were the stories of the island's infamous King Minos.
02:50In Greek mythology, he is said to have built a labyrinth to cage a monster.
02:56Half man, half bull, the Minotaur was the shocking result of a union between a sacred bull and the king's
03:03unfaithful wife.
03:05Half man, half man, half man, half man, half man, half man, half man, half man, half man, half man,
03:06half man, half man.
03:15Today on the island, the remains of the Palace of Conossos can still be seen.
03:20Could this building once have housed the most terrible creations from the ancient Greeks' mythical past?
03:26Or did the structure of the palace inspire the story of the Minotaur?
03:31Built some 2,000 years before the Greek world flourished, the palace contained hundreds of luxurious rooms.
03:39But did horror lurk deep beneath the splendour?
03:44In 1900, an English archaeologist decided to find out.
03:49Sir Arthur Evans began to excavate what he believed could be the legendary palace.
03:59As Evans dug, a magnificent palace began to emerge.
04:05Covering an area of 20,000 square yards, it revealed astonishing technical feats of the Bronze Age people Evans called
04:12the Minoans.
04:17From little more than foundations, Evans was able to reconstruct a part of the palace to create a glimpse of
04:24a lost culture.
04:26One could say that the Minoans were truly remarkable in the building technologies.
04:31They invented certain techniques and methods that were a breakthrough at that time.
04:40One innovation was a series of terraces dug into the hillside to create the palace's east wing, which stood four
04:47storeys high.
04:51Another was the grand staircase running up inside the palace.
04:55It was supported by cedar wood pillars.
04:59It's a masterpiece in many ways, because it's no easy thing to build a staircase going down two flights on
05:06a wooden frame.
05:08The diameter of each column defines its maximum load.
05:13Three and a half thousand years ago, the Minoans calculated how to make the strongest framework possible by placing these
05:20columns directly beneath one another.
05:25And they outstripped all other contemporary civilizations in their mastery of light.
05:31Using light wells and windows on a scale never seen before.
05:37To control internal light and space, the ancient architects created a groundbreaking system of doors.
05:50The palace boasted an elaborate underfloor drainage system.
05:54This not only dealt with Crete's rainfall, it also carried away waste from one of the world's earliest toilets.
06:03This is the famous toilet of the Minoan Palace.
06:07Outside these doors, you see this large slab, and we have here a hole.
06:12So somebody, let's say a servant, was outside flushing water as the toilet was being used.
06:20Leading to the palace were the very first cobbled roads in Europe, built over a thousand years before the Romans.
06:27There were even sidewalks for pedestrians.
06:32It became clear that Knossos lay at the heart of a highly sophisticated civilization.
06:39So why did Sir Arthur Evans link it with the myth of the Minotaur in its labyrinth?
06:48He found a number of clues, including strange engravings in the shape of a double-headed axe.
06:54What was their secret meaning?
06:56An ancient word for this axe is labyrinth.
07:00Evans believed this palace could be the very origin of the word labyrinth.
07:07Another clue linking the palace to the myth is the layout itself.
07:11Fifteen hundred interconnecting rooms, many below ground.
07:16A bewildering maze that would drive outsiders to panic.
07:21Rather than being the actual site of Minos' mythical labyrinth, built to imprison the Minotaur,
07:27could the maze-like palace in fact have given rise to the story?
07:32A possibility backed up by evidence that the bull, an ancient symbol of power, played a key role in Minoan
07:39life.
07:44Experts now think the Minotaur myth evolved when the powerful Cretans controlled the seas,
07:50demanding tributes from lesser states such as Athens.
07:55According to legend, the Athenian hero Theseus volunteered to confront the monster.
08:02Armed with just a sword and string to mark his path through the labyrinth,
08:06Theseus the Athenian confronted the Minotaur, slaying the beast.
08:24The Athenians promoted this story. It made them look victorious.
08:33But in reality, Athens was at this time only a minor city, when the powerful palace of Knossos flourished.
08:42There is no doubt that this great palace could inspire storytellers.
08:47Or that its architecture would inspire the Minoans' successors, the ancient Greeks.
08:54Myths of monsters, heroes and gods were at the heart of Greek beliefs.
08:58The gods controlled human destiny.
09:01And for the Greeks, the desire to know what the gods held in store for them became an obsession.
09:10A remote hillside at Delphi was discovered to have special powers.
09:14Using the medium of a priestess, it was possible to channel these special powers and talk to the gods.
09:21These predictions and forecasts at Delphi were known as the Oracle.
09:27Greeks in their thousands would soon make the pilgrimage to this mysterious mountain refuge to discover their future.
09:36Predicting the future became big business.
09:38The Oracle created a huge source of revenue.
09:41And this remote hillside at Delphi became so important that Greek city-states had embassies and treasuries built here.
09:51You had the wealth of the Swiss banks and the authority of the Vatican all in one place because Delphi
09:57was glittering with treasure.
09:59Treasure laid up for the gods, really for the glory of man.
10:04Delphi was believed to be the centre of the Greek world.
10:08It became an enormous architectural site.
10:11The Roman writer Pliny observed 3,000 monuments there.
10:16The most important was the great temple of Apollo.
10:19This was the centre for the Oracle.
10:22If you wanted to look into the future in the ancient world,
10:25if you had any kind of question about what was going to happen,
10:27there was only one place where you could be really sure that you would hear the voice of God, and
10:33that was Delphi.
10:34In such a superstitious society, the Oracle was consulted on every issue.
10:42Delphi was a great expert, the ultimate expert.
10:45Big politics, shall we go to war?
10:48Or the intensely personal things, who's the father of the child?
10:53The sheer difficulty of reaching the Oracle served to enhance its mystique.
10:58But why sight the complex 2,000 feet up a mountainside?
11:03The reason lies in a legend which records how a herd of goats was the first to experience Delphi's mystical
11:10power.
11:12Grazing on the hillside beneath Mount Parnassus, the goats were reported to have been overcome by sweet-smelling vapours.
11:21The story goes that the goats themselves began to speak.
11:25Their words were interpreted as prophecies, and the belief in the Oracle at Delphi was born.
11:33In Athens in the 6th century BC, a politician called Cleisthenes believed he could use the Oracle to his advantage.
11:42He needed to raise his political status, so he decided to build a temple at Delphi, where the magical vapours
11:48appeared.
11:49He dedicated it to Apollo, the god who could predict the future.
11:54So the first task was to build a retaining wall of stone for a massive terrace 70 feet wide and
12:01190 feet long.
12:03The columns were made from local limestone.
12:06To look good in the eyes of Apollo, Cleisthenes paid for a splendid facade to be built from imported marble.
12:16He believed the expense was worth it.
12:18He was anxious to win the Oracle onto his side, to help him win political support back in Athens.
12:26His gamble paid off.
12:29Legend recalls that Cleisthenes was blessed with good fortune, and his career was greatly advanced.
12:40At the temple, it became the practice for a woman, known as the Pythia, to reveal Apollo's prophecies.
12:47The male priests had their own reasons for this.
12:50For if a man was to have this power, he would become more powerful than the priests themselves.
12:56But women had no power at all, and the priests of the temple could control a lucrative industry.
13:02The priests of Apollo were busy behind the scenes.
13:06A woman was chosen to speak because she could be manipulated at times of men's choosing.
13:15Like theatre, the priests worked hard to stage manage the event.
13:19It was important that the clients felt that they had been given an accurate prediction.
13:26There have been many attempts to explain how the Pythia entered her trance-like state.
13:30From poisonous honey cakes to narcotic substances.
13:36But could a recent scientific investigation provide the answer?
13:43Experts exploring the geology of Delphi found two major fault lines in the hillside.
13:49And these lines in the rock meet directly beneath the room where the Pythia sat in the temple of Apollo.
13:57Knowing toxic gases can emanate from fault lines, the scientists tested a stream that still flows near the temple.
14:05They found evidence in the water of ethylene, a sweet-smelling gas that can cause a trance-like state and
14:12even delirium.
14:15By becoming the supreme authority and the central point of the Greek world, the Oracle of Delphi remained influential for
14:22over a thousand years, all the while answering the Greeks' desperate desire to know the future.
14:35To honor their gods, the ancient Greeks created wonders that forced them to make extraordinary technological discoveries.
14:45One such breakthrough was a theatre built to honor the god Dionysius.
14:51It was the greatest theatre in the Western world, with the most advanced acoustic design.
14:59Hidden in the hills of Epidorus, about a hundred miles from Athens, the 14,000-seat theatre has dazzled audiences
15:07for two and a half thousand years.
15:10It is a feat of engineering.
15:13Fifty-five rows of stone seats built into the hillside, with such precision that the theatre has perfect acoustics.
15:20This theatre at Epidorus is quite simply the most special theatrical space in the Western world.
15:28It's the largest of all the surviving ancient theatres. It's the most beautiful.
15:33This is somewhere where the spirit of the god of drama, Dionysius, still lives on.
15:39Surprisingly, the reason for siting the theatre in this remote place has its origin in medicine.
15:45Next to the theatre was a vast healing centre, and to the ancient Greeks, theatre was medicine.
15:55One way of trying to understand the link between the healing cult and this particularly exquisite theatre,
16:01is that for the ancient Greeks, music, and Greek theatre is a fundamentally musical experience, was actually used in medical
16:09therapy.
16:10The great philosopher Aristotle actually writes about how people who are distressed and psychologically disturbed can come to a great
16:20resolution of that,
16:21and to a much happier state of mind by listening to certain kinds of music and watching certain kinds of
16:25performance.
16:26At the adjacent healing centre, the god of medicine, Asclepius and his magical snakes, were said to work miracles.
16:36Medical cures and remedies were inscribed on stone tablets.
16:41Shrines were built to the cult of Asclepius, and the centre developed into a wealthy healing sanctuary.
16:47People came from across the empire to cure every ailment and disability.
16:52In 360 BC, the money collected from patients was used to build a vast theatre.
16:59The architect, Polyclitus, had already built a round house at the sanctuary, but now set about a far grander circular
17:06design.
17:09He chose a bowl-shaped site facing west, so the rising sun would light up the landscape behind the stage.
17:16He dug out the round performance space before creating the huge seating area known as the gazing space.
17:24Thousands of limestone blocks cut from local quarries formed the seats.
17:29His design was for 32 rows, although 23 more were added two centuries later.
17:36Behind the actors was the scanner, the origin of the word scene, a two-storey stage building which was painted
17:44as a backdrop for the play.
17:46The scanner also enabled early special effects.
17:51When a play required a god to descend from the heavens, an actor was flown in on a hoist.
17:57The masked performers often played to audiences of up to 14,000 without the benefit of microphones.
18:05Polyclitus was able to create perfect acoustics.
18:10Even a coin being dropped at the centre of the performance circle can be heard clearly in the back rows.
18:19The design of the theatre also enhances the sound of the human voice.
18:23The secret lies in how sounds are reflected by the stone itself, reducing the amount of distorting echo.
18:34A sound is produced by somebody's mouth. It will hit a wall, that's a reflection.
18:40What they've done in Apodavros, in order to create a large quantity of short reflections, is that they've broken up
18:46the surface.
18:47There is no surface which is flat. So when a sound hits a wall, it's diffused in many, many directions.
18:54It enhances the original sound by kind of stretching it a little bit longer than it already is.
19:00And in the quest for perfection, the Greeks developed another technique to make the sound even clearer.
19:07When somebody speaks in a theatre, you can hear resonances, and if you have an ear for it, you know
19:12which resonances are going to get in the way of the dialogue.
19:17So if you were to find something that can take those resonances out, then you're laughing.
19:22And that's exactly what they tried to do.
19:24They used a resonator, which they would tune to the frequencies that they wanted to take out, and to the
19:29reflections they wanted to take out.
19:31And they would have embedded them in the wall.
19:34Two and a half thousand years later, the theatre is still entrancing audiences.
19:39The place that has inspired for millennia remains one of the world's finest theatres.
19:49The ancient Greeks produced some of the most astonishing buildings in history.
19:55But it was on the small island of Rhodes that a giant was created.
19:59The islanders set themselves an unprecedented technical challenge to engineer a statue of superhuman proportions.
20:09The Colossus once guarded the harbour to the island of Rhodes.
20:14It stood for nearly a century and was one of the ancient wonders of the world.
20:20At 110 feet high, it was nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty, built over 2,000 years later.
20:27The story of the Colossus began in 305 BC, when a powerful enemy fleet began a year-long siege of
20:35the small island of Rhodes.
20:37The attackers far outnumbered the small island's population, but against all odds, the islanders defeated them.
20:45To celebrate their surprising victory, the Rhodians decided to build a giant bronze statue of their sun god, Kilios.
20:55A local sculptor, Harreys of Lindos, was given the challenge of building a statue nearly twice as tall as any
21:03ever built.
21:05Construction took 12 long years of hard labour and 200 tons of bronze.
21:11To begin, the architect, Harreys, had to work out where best to build the statue.
21:18Well, as an engineer, the key considerations the sculptor would need to think about in finding a location for the
21:24Colossus would be, firstly, the visibility.
21:27It would have to be in a prominent position overlooking the harbour.
21:30Secondly, it would need a really strong rock foundation to be built upon.
21:36Early representations of the Colossus show the statue astride the harbour.
21:40Well, the old harbour here at Rhodes is in a natural bay, but still the mouth of the harbour is
21:45very large compared to the height of the Colossus.
21:48This tower on the right of the harbour mouth is about the height that the Colossus was,
21:53and you can see how ridiculous it would be that it could stand astride the harbour mouth with its legs
21:59at an impossible angle, very difficult to support.
22:03Recent archaeological finds have now convinced experts that the Colossus stood on the hill overlooking the bay, where a medieval
22:11castle now stands.
22:14Further evidence of a sanctuary to the sun god Helios, near the castle, suggests that this was where the Colossus
22:20had once stood.
22:23There was no precedent for a statue of this size, so at every stage of construction,
22:28Harris was taking a step further into the unknown.
22:33He decided to build a wooden frame over which he would hang beaten bronze panels.
22:39Starting at the feet and working upwards, the Colossus was supported by a mound of earth, as it grew to
22:45over 100 feet high.
22:50The island of Rhodes was renowned for its bronze work, which was a major export.
22:56But because the Colossus was so large, the entire casting pit could only make one small section at a time.
23:03We have evidence from around the time that the Colossus was built that the Rhodians were experts in bronze work.
23:09This is one of the largest bronze casting pits ever found from ancient Greece, and it proves that the Rhodians
23:16were able to make large hollow bronze pieces.
23:20It works a bit like a kiln.
23:22They would fashion a large block of clay, and then by placing wax around the outside in a thin layer,
23:28and more clay outside that, they could create the shape that they wanted to cast.
23:33They would pack earth down around the whole structure, and then fire the clay from beneath using fires in the
23:40bottom of the pit.
23:42That would then set the clay into the shape of the form.
23:45The wax would be drained out, and the liquid bronze poured in from the top.
23:51Hundreds of these pieces were cast and carried up the growing mountain to be attached to the wooden framework.
23:59The stones were dropped down inside to give stability.
24:04But after 12 years of construction, when the earth was removed, how could Heres be sure that the Colossus would
24:11stand up?
24:14Support a human shape with two legs, a sculptor might use a third support disguised in some way.
24:21Something draped down to the ground, through which they can have a third leg, essentially, for the structure to stand.
24:30Whatever technique he used, Heres' masterpiece withstood the elements for nearly 60 years.
24:37But in 224 BC, there occurred one natural force the Colossus could not survive.
24:50The earthquake doesn't just shake it backwards and forwards, but it would also twist it.
24:57And twisting the top of the tripod would break the connections between the legs.
25:02And at that point, given that the ankles are secured in the ground, it's the knees that are going to
25:08be the weak point.
25:08And that's where it would buckle.
25:17The people of Rhodes consulted an oracle, which warned that to rebuild the Colossus would bring them misfortune.
25:26So the giant statue lay in pieces for over a thousand years, until finally the bronze was sold for scrap.
25:35The Greeks had long excelled at creating incredible statuary.
25:40In Olympia, the Holy Sanctuary was dominated by the world's largest ivory statue, to the god Zeus, the god of
25:48all gods.
25:50But long before this statue was made, another brand of superhero was also making Olympia famous, the Olympic champion.
25:59And Olympia would become the most enduring sports arena, not just across the Greek empire, but for centuries afterwards, across
26:07the world.
26:12Olympia was the only place in the Greek world where both gods and men were worshipped.
26:17In July every fourth year, from all corners of the Greek world, thousands made their way to Olympia to compete
26:24in and to watch the greatest spectacle on earth.
26:29The Olympic Games began as early as the 8th century BC, with a 200-yard sprint.
26:36Held to mark a truce between two warring cities, it launched over a thousand years of games.
26:44As the games grew in importance, the sanctuary of Zeus was transformed into the world's first sporting city, with training
26:52centers, baths, guest houses and a stadium which could hold 40,000 spectators.
27:01Beneath this arch would run the finest athletes from across the Greek world.
27:05The games would decide on just one victor, whose reward was honor, in the name of the gods Zeus.
27:13The earliest race was 200 meters long. Later came the 400, then the 5,000 meters.
27:20And then there was the pentathlon, running, jumping, wrestling, discus and javelin.
27:27So many of the events of Olympia were versions of war. Men throwing spears, men throwing stones, men racing in
27:37hoplite armor, in heavy military equipment.
27:43Competitors were gradually reduced to just a final pair who would fight it out in wrestling and boxing combat.
27:49But only the elite could afford to take part.
27:54To go to Olympia meant you had to train for 10 months and then train for one month at Olympia
28:02itself.
28:03It wasn't for ordinary Greeks, that was for the very wealthy.
28:09Olympia soon grew into a vast sports complex, its buildings designed specifically for each athletic discipline.
28:16As Olympia soared in importance, shrines and temples were built to glorify and honor Zeus.
28:23But at Olympia, champions were also honored, with the first gymnasium and next door, a school for wrestlers and boxers.
28:34But there were other, more unusual events, housed in specially designed buildings.
28:40A contest for trumpeters and heralds was held at one end of an echo colony, an elongated building which could
28:47echo each note seven times.
28:53There was the Hippodrome, where chariot and horse racing events took place.
29:01Each race began with the horses being released from an elaborate starting mechanism, called an aphesis, to ensure total fairness.
29:10The horses raced out into the Hippodrome, nearly 800 meters long. An average lap was nearly a third of a
29:16mile.
29:20A Greek who won at the Olympic Games didn't get a medal, a precious metal.
29:27All he got was a ribbon round his head, a palm branch to wave around the stadium, and an olive
29:35wreath to take home.
29:38But his real reward started when he got home.
29:42He was allowed his pick of the spectacular heiresses in the town.
29:49He'd get a meal, a good meal at public expense for the rest of his life.
29:54And over it all, the fame, who'd be smiled at and pointed at for the rest of his life.
30:02The winners were recorded on statues around Olympia. Their names were even used in the Greek calendar.
30:09They named their years after Olympic winners.
30:13For the Greeks, an event was dated, the year in which such and such won.
30:20The Games continued for 1200 years, until the Christian Emperor Theodosius, in 394 AD, abolished them as a pagan event.
30:32Now the Olympic flame has been rekindled, and every four years, a torch is carried from Olympia to the modern
30:38site of the greatest show on Earth.
30:45But just as spectacular were the myths of the ancient Greeks, and there was no greater story than the lost
30:52world of Atlantis.
30:54The idea of Atlantis originates from the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato.
30:58He wrote about a utopian world that became corrupted and, as punishment, destroyed.
31:08No one has ever resolved whether the Atlantis myth was a moral allegory or an historical story.
31:15But the search to find this lost civilization has persisted ever since.
31:20And the events, which once struck a ring of islands in the eastern Mediterranean, have long been considered the inspiration
31:27of the Atlantis legend.
31:30Three and a half thousand years ago, an island volcano in the Aegean Sea erupted.
31:37The explosion left behind a vast bay beside the Greek island of Santorini.
31:43Had this been the destruction of Atlantis?
31:46To try and find out, archaeologists are examining the layers of volcanic strata on the island,
31:52which have preserved a picture of how life was before the eruption.
31:57Right here, ground zero. This is ground zero. Man lived on that surface.
32:02Man walked that surface. Man built a city on that surface.
32:07Here is a residue of man, what appears to be a broken field wall by man, on that surface.
32:14And then came the pumice, the down-rained pumice, piece by piece, particle by particle, burying that landscape,
32:21knocking a tree down. That's the remnant of a tree.
32:24It's now a hole because the wood is rotted away.
32:28And then the eruption continued with tens of feet of more pumice and ash.
32:36A tantalizing glimpse.
32:38But who were these people of Santorini?
32:41And are they a key to discovering the Atlantean race Plato described?
32:46He wrote of a great island power. At its center, a massive city built on concentric circles of land and
32:54water.
32:54And at its heart, a citadel full of spectacular treasures.
33:00Was Plato's circular city inspired by the round volcano which had erupted beside Santorini?
33:08The link between Atlantis and the island of Santorini hit the headlines in 1966,
33:14when a Greek archaeologist working on the southern side of the island uncovered some of the most beautiful works of
33:20art ever to be found at an ancient site.
33:24What was found was an unbelievably well-preserved town.
33:29This was due to the fact that that specific settlement was buried under the ash of the volcano.
33:38This layer of ash is somewhere near 8 or 10 meters, so it's quite a thick deposit.
33:45Which means that two- and three-storey buildings were actually preserved within this layer.
33:51But the most revealing discovery was of a wall painting.
33:55It represented a map of Santorini.
33:57And in the middle, it featured the volcano island before it erupted.
34:02It shows a profile of the island, one, two, three peaks.
34:08Those three peaks we see today.
34:11Going down farther, we see a waterway that surrounds a central island, a fairly large island.
34:19And on that island, a city.
34:22The impression one gets from this painting is a society that was able to have a large city on a
34:32small island,
34:34that they had a culture that would allow more than subsistence living.
34:38It allowed a large city to develop here and be supported by trade, exports and imports.
34:45Plato had talked of an island civilization.
34:48And if the wall painting is to be believed, then perhaps it was that civilization that had once prospered here
34:55in the bay.
34:57Where we're sailing right here, we'd be bumping ashore 3600 years ago against an island.
35:03And then if we believed that wall painting, we wouldn't just be bumping into an island,
35:08we'd be bumping into a little city that was sitting right here.
35:12And the wall painting is our closest representation as to how that city might have looked.
35:19It's amazingly impressive.
35:21They are showing the landscape, the boats, the costumes, the people, 3600 years ago in the Late Bronze Age.
35:29It's a snapshot of a past life.
35:32The painting bears an instant similarity to Plato's description of the circular city of Atlantis.
35:38But the people who had built it had no idea of the dangers that threatened to destroy them.
35:48There hadn't been any big major eruptions in this part of the world for thousands of years.
35:54So I don't think they had any concept of what a volcano was.
36:01The eruption began with a cloud of ash.
36:04The inhabitants on the adjacent island of Santorini fled for their lives as tons of volcanic rock erupted from a
36:11huge fissure.
36:14It goes up to 15 feet thick, this pumice, as it piled up.
36:17Well, before it ever got to 15 feet thick, they were gone.
36:20I mean, they left quickly.
36:22And that was a smart thing to do, because then it became a huge explosive eruption.
36:28Water from the sea flowed into the crack on the island volcano.
36:31You want an explosion? Mix water with rising lava.
36:36And you've got a disaster. We had a disaster here.
36:40There's a plume here rising up, perhaps 25 miles.
36:44And everything that's on that island is incorporated into that plume.
36:49The islanders of Santorini watched the island city vaporize.
36:54The volcano then collapsed back on itself, leaving a massive hole over 900 feet deep.
37:01That hole is called a caldera.
37:03It was filled by the ocean, and this provides this dramatic landscape today.
37:09The Atlantis legend lives on as marine archaeologists continue to search for signs of a lost city beneath the sea.
37:18And the catastrophic events which struck the island of Santorini have ensured that Plato's puzzle remains indelibly written into history.
37:30The ancient Greeks were able to match their extraordinary legends with their own achievements.
37:37They developed the skills to build the greatest wonder of ancient Greece.
37:42It is an icon of perfection.
37:44An architectural inspiration.
37:48The Parthenon.
37:52On the Acropolis, the sacred hill overlooking the city of Athens, the Parthenon was built as a symbol of success.
38:00It has stood strong for two and a half thousand years.
38:04The story of how it came to be built is as remarkable as the design of the building itself.
38:11This glorious new building that was arising from a field of ruins was a symbol to the Athenians.
38:19It told them that after their near annihilation by the Persians, they were now in charge.
38:27They were on the way up, and this was their reminder.
38:31The Parthenon would be no ordinary temple.
38:35Its exquisite proportions on the outside would be matched by its interior with splendid carvings and coloured reliefs.
38:44But the two men responsible for its construction would face fierce criticism.
38:50Phidias was appointed master of works.
38:53He was the most famous sculptor of his day.
38:57Pericles was the Athenian statesman who commissioned the building.
39:01It was part of a vast regeneration programme conceived by Pericles to transform Athens.
39:08To make it stand as an exemplar to the rest of the Greek world.
39:13It was a great idea, but how would he fund it?
39:17The money that was used had been contributed for the war against Persia by Athens' allies.
39:24The war had gone so well, not all the money was needed.
39:28So much of it was now diverted to the Parthenon, and Pericles' opponents used this.
39:33This was a disgrace. This was Athens misbehaving in the eyes of the other Greeks.
39:39Ignoring the political attacks, Pericles raided the war chest and started to build the Parthenon.
39:45At 101 feet wide and 228 feet long, it called for thousands of tonnes of expensive marble.
39:54The glittering stone, as it was called, was selected from the quarries that still remain at Mount Pentelican, eight miles
40:02from Athens.
40:04But a special technique was needed to drag the massive column drums up the steep slopes of the Acropolis.
40:11The Acropolis is high above the city. Getting the drums up here on a cart would have been pretty difficult.
40:18So they probably used a system that they'd devised over a century before, where they built a wooden frame around
40:23the drum.
40:24And then using oxen, they could pull the stones up the hill, a bit like a roller.
40:30At the building site, they probably used cranes with a pulley system to lift vast blocks of stone.
40:37Lifting power came from a windlass attached to the back of the frame.
40:42Once they got the blocks and stones up here, they had to manoeuvre them into position with absolute precision.
40:48There's a clue here as to how they did that. These are bosses that were used for lifting ropes to
40:54carry the stones.
40:55They would normally have been cut off, but war broke out before the workers had finished.
41:01But the underlying genius of the building lies in the ancient Greeks' understanding of perspective, unsurpassed until the Renaissance.
41:10Well, they say that there isn't a straight line on the Parthenon. It's not exactly true, but certainly lines that
41:15you'd think should be straight aren't.
41:18The architrave along the top, for example, is two and a half inches higher in the middle than at either
41:23side.
41:25At every stage, the builders countered each optical distortion to make this temple appear to be perfect.
41:33Down here at the base, you can actually see that deviation from the horizontal.
41:37There's a very subtle rise along the step line here towards the middle, which drops off at the far side.
41:43And that gives us the impression from a distance of a perfect straight line.
41:48They created the columns with the same minute attention to detail.
41:53On the outside of the building, all these exterior columns slope inwards a bit.
41:58And they did that really to help build the grandeur of the design, that feeling of elegance.
42:03And they did that by cutting the top surface of the bottom drum so that it's sloped inwards perceptibly.
42:09Here on the corner, of course, the bottom drum is turned slightly, so the corner column rises up on a
42:15diagonal with extraordinary precision right up towards the centre of the building.
42:22The Greek builders addressed every detail.
42:26You might have thought these great stone blocks weren't moving anywhere, but the ancient Greeks did use cramps to hold
42:33them together.
42:34This is one of the original ancient iron cramps and the actual hole that it came from that's been recently
42:41excavated.
42:42And it would have sat in here like this, filled with molten lead which then set, holding those blocks together.
42:49In fact, the cramps don't carry a lot of force in everyday use.
42:54But in the case of an earthquake, these cramps would have helped just to hold the stones together.
42:59Maybe that's one of the reasons that the building's still here today.
43:06The centrepiece of this enormous building was to be found inside.
43:11Here, Phidias designed the most lavish and impressive statue.
43:17It depicted the goddess Athena to whom the building was dedicated.
43:22It was a masterpiece of ivory and gold.
43:25It was so extravagant, it absorbed over half the funds for the entire Parthenon project.
43:32At nearly 40 feet high, Athena dominated the interior, intimidating all who came to worship at the temple.
43:41The statue of Athena had on it over a ton of gold.
43:46It cost slightly more to put that gold onto the statue than it did to build the whole of the
43:52Parthenon.
43:54A stunning freeze, 524 feet long, depicted the annual procession in honour of Athena.
44:02The pale marble we see today would have looked very different two and a half thousand years ago, when it
44:07was painted in vivid colours.
44:11But the masterpiece was not an immediate success in its time.
44:17Pericles' opponents said he was dressing the Parthenon up like a pretentious woman.
44:22A slur both on his building and on his partner Aspasia, born outside the Athens elite.
44:30One Greek writer tells us exactly what a pretentious woman did.
44:35She put on built-up shoes to make her look taller, to suggest she was a more aristocratic family.
44:41She put on dabs of rouge on her cheeks to make it seem that she was younger and fitter than
44:47she really was.
44:47But above all, she plastered her face in powder of white lead, fashionably pale to look like an aristocrat.
44:56And they thought of the pretentiousness of Pericles in using other Greeks' gold to make Athens seem wealthier than she
45:05really was.
45:08To further discredit Pericles, Phidias, his sculptor and master of works, was accused of embezzling gold from the statue.
45:18He was also accused of blasphemy for portraying himself and his patron among the sacred figures on Athena's shield.
45:31A scandal for a few years in its own time, the Parthenon is now a landmark of architectural excellence for
45:39all time.
45:41The ravages of war and pollution have taken their toll, but still the temple stands.
45:49The Parthenon is a huge statement of a building, what you might call an iconic structure.
45:53It's a coming together of understanding of stone and rock and how to use it and work it, and of
46:00geometry and shape and form.
46:03Something that really wasn't achieved again for thousands of years.
46:09These seven wonders of ancient Greece are the legacy of one of the greatest civilizations.
46:16They showed mankind the imagination and inventiveness, the courage and conviction to lead architecture into the modern world.
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