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Starring

Michael Wood (Host)

Format

Boxset, Colour, PAL

Main soundtrack

English or Greek (selectable), Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles

OFF, Greek

-

Region

Aspect ratio

In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great: 4:3
In Search of Myths and Heroes: 16:9

Number of discs

4

Classification

BBFC

Studio

2 Entertain Video

DVD release date

In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great - 1 Aug 2005 in the UK
In Search of Myths and Heroes - 18 Apr 2005 in the UK

Run time

470 minutes (7 hours 50 mins)

EAN

-

Episode 1: Son of God
Episode 2: Lord of Asia
Episode 3: Across the Hindu Kush
Episode 4: To the Ends of the Earth

"To this day no one has traced the whole of Alexander's great journey on the ground--that was my plan." Despite Michael Wood's enormous effort, modern politics prevented him from realizing his goal. Yet this British historian and creator of more than 60 documentaries has come closer to doing so than any of his illustrious predecessors, including the great early twentieth-century British explorer Sir Aurel Stein and the indefatigable mid-century traveler Freya Stark, both of whom intensively explored portions of Alexander's route. We are grateful to have the record of Wood's journey across Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and India. It is to his credit that only in Iraq was he prevented by the authorities from following the ground trod by Alexander's army. There were also political difficulties in Greece, Israel, and Egypt, but Wood managed to overcome them.

Except for suggesting some alternate routes, the film does not contribute much to traditional scholarship on Alexander. On an artistic level, however, it is a major achievement that will enrich both scholars and the general public. With stunning images of parts of the world rarely seen by Western eyes, Wood conveys a sense of the extraordinary distances and dramatic campaigns in the difficult country through which Alexander led his army. No book or film has ever before so persuasively conveyed this message.

The effect is cumulative over the four one-hour episodes. The first two segments are a military and cultural travelog involving the ancient itinerary and the modern peoples who inhabit the Turkish and Near Eastern regions conquered by Alexander. Wood has a keen eye for contemporary life, and he interacts effectively with the locals. His itinerary is occasionally enlivened by on-site interviews with specialists, such as one at the location of the Battle of Issus, the scene of Alexander's victory over the Persian king Darius in 333 B.C., during their first head-to-head encounter. On this famous coastal plain, amid the intrusions of a steel factory, electric power lines, and highway construction, Tulane University professor Kenneth Harl offers an energetic reconstruction of the battle. Later on, the journey into Egypt's Western Desert to retrace Alexander's route to the Siwa Oasis provides, perhaps for the first time, a comprehensive visual record of that dramatic landscape. These film images remind one of Lawrence of Arabia, with the addition of Wood's running historical commentary.

Although the political situation in Iraq prevented him from doing ground-level examination there, Wood, innovative as always, managed to hitch a ride on a U.S. Air Force AWACS flight that was monitoring the northern "no-fly zone." Within this sensitive military zone is the site of the Battle of Gaugamela, where, in 331 B.C., Alexander's army finally defeated Darius' forces in one of the largest and most decisive engagements of antiquity. Wood's discussion of that battle is illustrated from aloft, with a description of the ancient armies' movements through the terrain as seen on the AWACS's radar screens. The itinerary resumes in Iran with Wood's discovery of the route used by a detachment of Alexander's forces to circumvent the Persians' blockade of the pass leading to Persepolis, where the imperial palace complex provides, even in its ruined form, a dramatic backdrop for Wood's account of Alexander's destruction of this symbol of ancient authority in Asia in the spring of 330 B.C.

But it is in the third episode, covering the journey through Afghanistan and the central Asian republics, that the film's power becomes evident. With Wood, we are stunned by the present-day devastation of Kabul and the loss through looting of the treasures in the great museum there. The museum director's comment is touching: "It was as if our mother and father had died. Our whole history was here." From the ruins of Kabul, Wood follows Alexander's route across the towering Hindu Kush through the formidable Khawak Pass. He travels by Land Rover, then horse, and finally on foot, all the while recounting the ancient writers' descriptions of the suffering endured by Alexander's army from starvation, cold, exhaustion, and altitude sickness. At the head of the 12,000-foot pass, from which the land stretches away into central Asia, Wood notes that after "following Alexander's footsteps up here with this wind you can really feel, whatever you think about him, what an amazing achievement it was to drive an army over these mountains."

In episodes three and four, Wood experiences the push to Samarkand, the return to Afghanistan and the crossing of the Khyber Pass into the northwest frontier, the journey down the Indus, and finally the return trek across the Makran Desert toward Persia. Using techniques known today mainly to mountaineers, Alexander's army climbed those steep heights to engage and defeat Indian enemies who had taken refuge there. By seizing Aornos, Alexander accomplished what is said to have thwarted Herakles during his wanderings across the earth. In the long run it was an insignificant military engagement, but the difficulty of the heights, plus the association with Herakles, certainly contributed to the enhancement of Alexander's legendary reputation. Of equal drama is the conqueror's return from the Indus Valley to Persia across the utter desolation of the Makran Desert in southern Pakistan. This journey was so devastating to Alexander's army that it has justifiably been compared to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. These remote areas are brought to life by Wood's film, enabling those who read and write about Alexander to have a geographical stage on which to place historical characters.

One major theme that emerges is the enormous impact of Alexander's life and legend on local people, in coffee houses in northern Greece, in bazaars and tents in central Asia, and along the Indus frontier. The memories exist, deeply embedded in the folk traditions of a vast segment of Earth's peoples. No matter that many of the memories are hostile. Alexander's passing is still regarded as a disaster among the Zoroastrians of central Iran, who believe that his destruction of the ancient Persian Empire was an act of evil. To this day they call him "Alexander the Accursed."

The viewer is overwhelmed by the scale of the geographical obstacles encountered and overcome, albeit with huge losses, by Alexander's army. We are astounded that the young Macedonian king could have led an army through this alien wilderness while retaining the loyalty of his men through much of it. There are few historical parallels for Alexander's qualities of leadership. Yet, one wonders, what was the point? With Wood as our competent guide we begin to ask, "What was Alexander doing in this part of the world? What did his men think? Why did they follow him?" The viewer must conclude with Wood, lacking evidence to the contrary, that this was a highly personal undertaking without further meaning.

By Eugene N. Borza, professor emeritus of ancient history at Pennsylvania State University.

Source: Archaelogy http://www.archaeology.org/9805/etc/multimedia.html

Episode 1: Jason and The Golden Fleece

The tale of Jason, the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece is one of the oldest stories in all of Greek myth. In this episode, Michael Wood traces the route of Jason and his famous boat, the Argo, along its route from Greece to Turkey and Georgia. The story of Jason can be traced back to the town of Volos in modern day Greece. The probable site of ancient Iolkos, it was here that King Pelias feared Jason a contender to this throne and so sent him on an impossible mission to finish him off. The mission was to travel to the far away kingdom of Colchis — in the Black Sea — to retrieve the magical Golden Fleece that had been taken there. But Jason proved courageous and strong and set out on an epic route.

Wood similarly travels by boat from Greek island to Greek island, stopping off to explore the history behind certain nodes in the story. From Greece, he journeys on to Turkey and struggles up the massive currents of Istanbul's River Bosphorous. Once out into Turkish countryside, Wood discovers whole communities of Pontic Greek — still living and speaking Greek in modern day Turkey. Are they the hangover from hordes of ancient Greeks pushing east and exploring the Black Sea? Is the whole Jason myth an explanation of that exploration? In Georgia, Wood travels to Vani, an archaeological dig that has revealed an Iron Age kingdom rich in gold. Finally in the remote north west region called Svaneti, Wood finds the true source of the myth. Here tribesmen have for centuries panned for gold in the river using sheep's fleece.

Episode 2: Arthur The Once and Future King

In this episode of the series, Wood explores the greatest British myth: the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Traveling round the Celtic world from Cornwall to Wales, Brittany, Ireland and Scotland, Wood uncovers the extraordinary story of how a shadowy Welsh freedom fighter — a Dark Age Che Guevara — became a medieval superman, and finally the model of a Christian hero.

On the way we discover the real stories behind the Round Table, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail itself, the unattainable, mystical cup of Christ which has inspired poets novelists and film makers from the Middle Ages right down to Indiana Jones, Monty Python and The Da Vinci Code. Finally, in an intriguing piece of historical detective work Michael offers us a tantalizing glimpse of a historical Arthur — but in the unlikeliest of places.

Episode 3: The Queen of Sheba

Michael Wood begins his quest with an exotic and mysterious woman of power — the Queen of Sheba. Immortalized in the Hebrew Bible, the Muslim Koran and in many Christian traditions, the tale of the Queen's journey to Jerusalem to meet (and sleep with) King Solomon has been told and retold for nearly 3,000 years. Wood's journey starts on Easter night in Jerusalem and takes him round the Red Sea to Egypt, Eritrea and Ethiopia, and the lost world of Axum, the little-known first civilization of Black Africa. In the Yemen, he explores the stunning monuments of Marib, the earliest civilization of Arabia.

But Wood is also looking for a living story, and on the journey he discovers the legend of the Queen of Sheba alive in Arabia and Ethiopia, where she is still viewed as the mother of the nation, whose son brought the mythical Lost Ark of the Covenant back to Axum — where it still resides today! "Hollywood made Sheba the lover of Solomon and they made her white," says Wood. "In Africa she's black — and a woman of power. In Arabia she's half woman, half demon. But the tale of her transformations — from exotic and mysterious alien to eternal female, from fantasy mother and lover, to cloven footed demon — is a parable of so many women of power throughout history!"

Episode 4: Shangri-La

Wood's search for Shangri-La takes him on a thrilling trek through India, Nepal and Tibet. The tale of the magical hidden valley of Shangri-La was popularized in the 1930s by James Hilton in his novel, Lost Horizon. But, the story of a lost kingdom behind the Himalayas free from war and suffering is descended from a much older Indian myth. When Europeans first caught wind of the tale back in the 16th Century, they set about trying to discover it.

To find the truth behind the legend, Michael follows their track on foot through the Maoist controlled lands of Western Nepal and then on into Tibet. On the way he visits Mount Kailash — the sacred center of the world for all Hindus and Buddhists. Eventually, after hundreds of miles on dirt roads, he reaches the fantastic ruins of the lost city of Tsaparang, which he suggests is the real inspiration behind the myth. "One of the oldest myths of humanity, the paradise myth continues to haunt us today, especially in our time of rapid globalization," Wood concludes. "Whether such a paradise actually existed or not, it represents one of our most basic human desires."

Source: PBS.org http://www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/program_episode.html