The Archaeology Channel

 

They were the masters of the Andes. They were the masters of the Pacific coasts of the South American continent. They created the first social superpower of the Americas. Their ancient name is still well known to us today: the Incas. Yet this remarkable civilization apparently never had a writing system. Their history has therefore been reported only by their enemies, the Spanish conquistadors who violently invaded their empire starting in 1532. However, for the last 15 years, thanks to new, advanced-technological tools and proliferating research programs, a new story of the Inca Empire has arisen, revealing new aspects, either unknown or badly understood, until now. What is the real story of the Incas, this legendary people? All over their ancient empire, scientists are gathering new clues by which to reconstruct the answers to this question.

Length: 90 min

Country: France

Language: French, Italian & Spanish

Director: Thibaud Marchand

Producer(s): Christie & Agnès Molia

 

This film recounts the unexpected discovery—in the ancient Egyptian-Greek papyrus archives of the Louvre Museum—and the arduous decipherment, of a very ancient musical score. It invites us to follow the work on this ancient score by scientists, including by “music archaeologists” who are passionate about the sound worlds of ancient humanity. Abundant visual evidence—painted, sculpted, and carved into stone—of the importance of music in ancient civilizations exists. Even some of their ancient musical instruments have survived into our present day. But recovery of the sounds of this music is another matter. From Delphi to Pompeii, from Egyptian temples to the newest technically advanced laboratories, new discoveries are bringing back to life elements of the musical soundscapes of antiquity, otherwise lost forever.

Duration: 53 min

Country: France

Language: English, French & Latin

Director: Bernard George

Producer(s): Olivier de Bannes

 

Donydji is a small Indigenous homeland in North East Arnhem Land in the far north of Australia. Homelands are situated within the traditional lands of the people who live in them. They are of central importance to those peoples’ identity and culture. This film charts the Donydji community’s transition from nomadic life to the digital age, starting in the 1960s and all the way to the present day. One family is featured, across three generations, from the traditional elder, Dhulutarama, who still knew how to make stone tools, to his granddaughter, Joanne Yindiri Guyula, who teaches at the Donydji school. This is a moving and representative portrait of one family’s struggle to preserve their culture and remain on their homeland despite the severe obstacles they face: sub-standard education, deplorable service delivery, lack of job opportunities for youth, inadequate government policy, bureaucratic mismanagement, and pressure from mining interests.

Length: 60 min

Country: Australia

Language: English

Director: Glenda Hambley

Producer(s): Glenda Hambley

 

Few Greeks—and even few Spaniards—know that Greek sailors served on the ships of the mission of Magellan and Elcano, who 500 years ago attempted the long and turbulent journey that was to become the first known round-the-world voyage. This film is a rigorous documentary, but as told via a fictional vehicle. It contains a dialogue, wherein History interrogates the little-known Greek naval pilot who managed to return to Spain with the only surviving ship of this first circumnavigation, thereby bequeathing to the future, and to humanity’s written heritage, the nautical diary from that singular expedition.

Length: 38 min

Country: Spain

Language: Spanish w/English subttles

Director: Pedro Olalla

Producer(s): Pedro Olalla

 

In 1911, in the Dutch Indies, Emile van Rouveroy, a young Dutch planter, fathered a daughter with his housekeeper, named Enok, a local Sundanese girl, then only 15 years of age. He legitimized Enok and raised their daughter, Nelly, in his own, white family. Nelly and her mother never saw each other again. One-hundred-ten years later, two of Emile’s grandchildren, Dorna van Rouveroy and Maurice Boyer, search for traces of Enok and of her fellow sufferers and descendants. They focus on what skin color and ethnic origin have meant; what they mean today; what it means to be an “Indo,”or partly colored, in modern Indonesia and in Dutch society; and what it means today to descend from a colonial family and to be bi-racial.

Length: 60 min

Country: Netherlands

Language: Dutch, English, Indonesian

Director: Dorna Xandre van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal

Producer(s): Dorna van Rouveroy

 

One of history’s greatest mysteries is that of the Maya, who built great rainforest cities across two millennia and then abruptly abandoned them. New discoveries reconstruct this story. Cave sites tell when the rains stopped and how long droughts lasted. Grave site bone analyses tell what the Maya ate, whence they came and how their lives changed. Lidar penetrates the jungle. CGI reveals Maya achievements like never before, uncovering the skilled geo-engineering that enabled increasingly complex and immense cities. One key find—the KomKom vase—offers the only known Maya writing at the cusp of their collapse. It details wars, dynastic power struggles, and failing governance amid deepening drought, and murder. Cave sites reveal escalating offerings, adult sacrifice and, in final desperation, child sacrifice. This film recounts the Maya collapse as it was written by the Maya themselves.

Length: 52 min

Country: Canada

Language: English

Director: Leif Kaldor

Producer(s): Leslea Mair

 

 

Archaeological excavations at the site of Dhaskalio, led by Colin Renfrew and Michael Boyd of the McDonald Institute of the University of Cambridge, have completely transformed our understanding of what was previously seen as a Cycladic enigma. The currently uninhabited island of Keros, in the Cyclades Islands of Greece, was the site of the world’s earliest known maritime sanctuary, in use during the Early Bronze Age. It was also a thriving center of early metallurgy, including Bronze and other metals production. The site also provides voluminous evidence about major early developments in architecture.

Length: 87 min

Country: Greece

Language: Greek & English

Director: Kostas Macheras

Producer(s): Michel Dimitrakakos Kostas Macheras

 

This animated film features hand-drawn visualizations accompanied by music and other sound effects, but without any speech sounds. These animated drawings dynamically envision pre-Neolithic tools, weapons—such as big game spears—and other artifacts, as well as pre-Neolithic practices, including big game hunting and its hazards, leading to a dramatic portrayal of a hunter’s violent death in a confrontation with his prey and the ensuing burial practices. Add to this the centuries-later rediscovery and display of the skeletal remains of our human ancestors, and of their artifacts, in modern museums.

Length: 4 min

Country: UK

Language: No dialogue

Director: Michael Blake

Producer(s): Michael Blake

 

England—today an island nation-state—has been separated from the European continent by the ocean waters of the English Channel for the last 8,000 years. Seafaring across the English Channel, and via the Irish Sea—to invade, settle, or trade—has ensued for eons, from the Bronze Age all the way through to the 20th Century. And so have shipwrecks, caused by reefs, storms, piracy, and war. Each shipwreck tells a different tale from the long and rich record of British maritime history. In 1973, the British Parliament passed the Protection of Wrecks Act, which enabled the designation of restricted areas around significant shipwrecks to be monitored, researched and presented to the public by a system of volunteer maritime heritage conservationists. By 2023, 57 shipwrecks had received crucial protections under the Act.

Length: 35 min

Country: UK

Language: English

Director: Michael Pitts

Producer(s): Michael Pitts