1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:04,200 Throughout my life I've been fascinated by the Greek myths, 2 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,000 by the tales of those tragic heroes, 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,200 by the loves and personalities of the Gods, 4 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:14,740 and their battles with monsters, or even with one another. 5 00:00:14,740 --> 00:00:18,020 Myths are stories without known authors, 6 00:00:18,020 --> 00:00:21,740 and I've always wondered, where do they come from? 7 00:00:24,500 --> 00:00:27,340 On their trail, I will go on a journey of discovery 8 00:00:27,340 --> 00:00:32,000 East and West across the Mediterranean. 9 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:36,740 I will travel from a mountain in Turkey where a god was castrated, 10 00:00:37,940 --> 00:00:42,980 to the peak in Greece where the young king of the gods was brought up to power. 11 00:00:43,340 --> 00:00:48,300 I'll trace the fragile beginnings of our Western alphabet and literature. 12 00:00:48,300 --> 00:00:52,740 This is huge, this is really the beginning of literate Western civilisation for us 13 00:00:52,740 --> 00:00:55,260 and we are witnessing it in the palm of your hand. 14 00:00:56,940 --> 00:01:01,980 I will uncover a hidden inscription which tells a remarkable story. 15 00:01:02,980 --> 00:01:07,980 This really is the lifeblood of ancient history and we're finding it straight in front of us. 16 00:01:08,060 --> 00:01:12,380 I will enter the underground lair of a once terrifying snaky monster... 17 00:01:14,300 --> 00:01:18,940 ..and look upon his final explosive resting place. 18 00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:21,060 It's really steaming, hotting up, 19 00:01:21,060 --> 00:01:25,660 been blazing away for about 5,000 years, it's still not exhausted. 20 00:01:27,220 --> 00:01:30,740 And I will discover a place where, amazingly, 21 00:01:30,740 --> 00:01:34,500 the Greek past is still mirrored in our world. 22 00:01:34,500 --> 00:01:39,500 In this film, I will reveal how Greeks' myths of their battling gods 23 00:01:40,540 --> 00:01:45,260 were shaped by the minds of people from a particular place, 24 00:01:45,260 --> 00:01:50,180 living at a time which has been described as a Dark Age. 25 00:02:06,180 --> 00:02:09,540 I teach ancient history here at New College, Oxford, 26 00:02:09,540 --> 00:02:14,380 where classical Greek has been studied for so many centuries. 27 00:02:16,660 --> 00:02:21,300 It really is the place to think about the ancient world. 28 00:02:25,300 --> 00:02:29,860 And not only think about it, but look at it too. 29 00:02:29,860 --> 00:02:34,900 Nearby, the Ashmolean Museum is built on classical Greek principles. 30 00:02:39,500 --> 00:02:43,860 Recently, it's been excitingly redesigned. 31 00:02:43,860 --> 00:02:48,740 The cultural links between ancient civilisations are at its heart. 32 00:02:54,700 --> 00:02:59,740 Here I always reflect how Greek art, philosophy, politics 33 00:03:00,780 --> 00:03:04,420 are at the roots of our Western world, 34 00:03:04,420 --> 00:03:09,460 and at the heart of their legacy lie the Greek myths. 35 00:03:10,180 --> 00:03:15,220 These are stories that have inspired art of great beauty... 36 00:03:15,540 --> 00:03:18,740 and great horror, from the Renaissance to the modern, 37 00:03:18,740 --> 00:03:23,300 and influenced philosophers and thinkers for thousands of years. 38 00:03:23,300 --> 00:03:27,860 Even today, the tales of the Greek mythical heroes - 39 00:03:27,860 --> 00:03:32,100 Odysseus, Adonis, Achilles - are still alive for us. 40 00:03:32,100 --> 00:03:36,340 But grander still are the myths which made the Greek gods what they were. 41 00:03:36,340 --> 00:03:41,140 Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, 42 00:03:41,140 --> 00:03:45,780 and ruling over them, Zeus himself, the father of gods and men. 43 00:03:45,780 --> 00:03:49,260 The most fascinating of these myths 44 00:03:49,260 --> 00:03:52,700 are the stories of the wars of the gods in heaven. 45 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:55,900 I believe we can understand their roots 46 00:03:55,900 --> 00:03:59,860 and understand the world in which they developed. 47 00:04:05,700 --> 00:04:09,180 Our knowledge of these myths comes from ancient hymns to the gods 48 00:04:09,180 --> 00:04:12,300 and epic poetry. 49 00:04:12,300 --> 00:04:16,500 Above all, the great poetry of Homer. 50 00:04:16,500 --> 00:04:19,020 In the very first book of his Iliad, 51 00:04:19,020 --> 00:04:24,100 Homer actually describes the singing of just such a hymn with myths to the god Apollo. 52 00:04:25,260 --> 00:04:30,300 Homer probably composed in the mid to late 8th century BC - 53 00:04:36,060 --> 00:04:40,140 They were dark in one respect. Greeks on the mainland 54 00:04:40,140 --> 00:04:42,260 had lost the art of writing. 55 00:04:42,260 --> 00:04:47,060 But during this pre-literate age, myths proliferated. 56 00:04:47,060 --> 00:04:50,540 They were not fantasies of the human unconscious mind, 57 00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:54,860 they were born through contact with real places 58 00:04:54,860 --> 00:04:59,900 by a particular people whom I will trace for the first time. 59 00:05:02,220 --> 00:05:07,260 Theirs is an extraordinary story of exploration and imagination 60 00:05:07,660 --> 00:05:10,420 and it begins for me with a journey 61 00:05:10,420 --> 00:05:15,060 to the Greek island from which they came more than 3,000 years ago. 62 00:05:18,980 --> 00:05:24,020 The island of Euboea was known to the Greeks as Long Island. 63 00:05:27,100 --> 00:05:31,260 It's not on many tourists' trail 64 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:36,260 but at the Euripus Strait, the island lies so close to mainland Greece 65 00:05:36,340 --> 00:05:39,980 you can actually walk across using a short bridge. 66 00:05:47,780 --> 00:05:52,860 Towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, between the 10th and 8th centuries BC, 67 00:05:53,580 --> 00:05:57,140 there were a number of relatively sophisticated settlements on Euboea. 68 00:05:57,140 --> 00:06:01,340 I believe that their residents played the crucial role 69 00:06:01,340 --> 00:06:06,060 in development of the Greek myths about the gods in heaven. 70 00:06:09,420 --> 00:06:14,500 The contemporary evidence for them comes from archaeological finds. 71 00:06:17,060 --> 00:06:21,380 'In Euboea, the most telling excavation has been on a hill 72 00:06:21,380 --> 00:06:23,500 'near the town of Lefkandi, 73 00:06:23,500 --> 00:06:27,020 'where the excavation is led by Irene Lemos, 74 00:06:27,020 --> 00:06:29,540 'my colleague from the University of Oxford.' 75 00:06:36,060 --> 00:06:41,060 So this is the deposit where you put everything you find on the hill, mainly pottery? 76 00:06:41,220 --> 00:06:43,500 Yes, this is where we keep all our pottery. 77 00:06:45,220 --> 00:06:49,460 Oh, my God, it looks as though you're clearing up after the party the night before. 78 00:06:49,460 --> 00:06:52,780 There's so much you can't make any sense of it. All you've got 79 00:06:52,780 --> 00:06:56,380 is a mass of undecorated pieces, none of which match, as far as I can see. 80 00:06:56,380 --> 00:06:59,620 Pretty much, yes. This is a normal bag, really. 81 00:06:59,620 --> 00:07:04,620 Right, and that is the contents of about half a crate out of that? 82 00:07:06,060 --> 00:07:09,140 And you've got how many hundreds of crates? I dread to think. 83 00:07:09,140 --> 00:07:11,620 We have 1,000 crates. 84 00:07:11,620 --> 00:07:14,620 1,000? Yes, in here. 85 00:07:14,620 --> 00:07:18,380 You're going to be here until you're old and grey, 86 00:07:18,380 --> 00:07:23,420 they're never going to let you out. You'll be locked in, it's the end of your life. 87 00:07:25,620 --> 00:07:28,820 'Pottery is so important for historians 88 00:07:28,820 --> 00:07:32,620 'because it leaves an indestructible human trail, 89 00:07:32,620 --> 00:07:36,300 'and it's exciting when fragments can be assembled into one object.' 90 00:07:36,300 --> 00:07:39,060 How many pieces are there in that one, for instance? 91 00:07:39,060 --> 00:07:42,260 Around 20. 20? Are you sure you've got them in the right order? 92 00:07:42,260 --> 00:07:47,300 Yes, definitely. And that's all held together with little bits of glue, 93 00:07:47,820 --> 00:07:52,700 and then I see it beautifully photographed and think in an airy way that it's a perfect piece. 94 00:07:52,700 --> 00:07:54,540 Yes. 95 00:07:54,540 --> 00:07:57,740 All the pottery in the world is waiting to be found, Irene. 96 00:08:05,500 --> 00:08:07,620 'The most significant of Irene's finds 97 00:08:07,620 --> 00:08:12,660 'are brought to the Eretria Museum, a few kilometres from Lefkandi. 98 00:08:13,100 --> 00:08:21,140 'Here, there are objects which reveal the prominence of myths in Euboean society. 99 00:08:25,180 --> 00:08:28,540 Here, Robin, you will see some of our complete finds 100 00:08:28,540 --> 00:08:31,820 and some of the best - mostly from the cemeteries 101 00:08:31,820 --> 00:08:35,380 of Lefkandi. What have we got here? This is a figurine of a centaur. 102 00:08:35,380 --> 00:08:37,300 A man and a horse, wonderful. 103 00:08:37,300 --> 00:08:41,260 So this really is evidence of a figure of myth, 104 00:08:41,260 --> 00:08:43,740 and that must mean that the myths were known 105 00:08:43,740 --> 00:08:46,940 and being told in Lefkandi in the 10th/9th century. 106 00:08:46,940 --> 00:08:51,420 I don't think I recall a centaur any earlier than this. 107 00:08:51,420 --> 00:08:56,340 Is this one of the first? It is actually the first three-dimensional representation 108 00:08:56,340 --> 00:08:59,740 we have of the mythical centaur. Heavens. 109 00:08:59,740 --> 00:09:03,700 This particular one has six fingers and a gash on his leg, 110 00:09:03,700 --> 00:09:07,460 so it might be a particular one. Ah! 111 00:09:07,460 --> 00:09:11,380 It could be Chiron, the teacher of Achilles. Absolutely. 112 00:09:11,380 --> 00:09:15,700 What this really means is that the myths we talk about must have been 113 00:09:15,700 --> 00:09:20,140 known and circulating at Lefkandi, possibly told in poetry. 114 00:09:20,140 --> 00:09:22,980 So when we're thinking, "What did they talk about?" 115 00:09:22,980 --> 00:09:27,460 An object like this gives you a real idea of the surrounding culture 116 00:09:27,460 --> 00:09:29,860 and understanding of the people. 117 00:09:33,380 --> 00:09:36,940 This looks likes some kind of a ship, I think, Irene. 118 00:09:36,940 --> 00:09:39,860 Yes, it is a boat, and it is most probably galley. 119 00:09:39,860 --> 00:09:43,100 Right, and what sort of date are we talking about? 120 00:09:43,100 --> 00:09:45,700 Well, it is early 9th century BC. 121 00:09:45,700 --> 00:09:48,580 What, 9th century BC boat on a pot? I don't believe you. 122 00:09:48,580 --> 00:09:52,060 It is the earliest one. Right. Actually, when we found it, 123 00:09:52,060 --> 00:09:56,220 I excavated this part and nobody believed me 124 00:09:56,220 --> 00:10:00,620 that we had the bit of a boat and then we got the rest of it. 125 00:10:00,620 --> 00:10:02,340 And proved you right? 126 00:10:02,340 --> 00:10:04,300 Yes. It's very sophisticated. 127 00:10:04,300 --> 00:10:07,380 We've got the oars, we've got one to steer by, 128 00:10:07,380 --> 00:10:11,780 we've got the mast and with that they could set out onto the Aegean, 129 00:10:11,780 --> 00:10:16,220 steering by the stars, we have to remember, pulling on their oars for a long journey. 130 00:10:16,220 --> 00:10:20,340 So with ships of that sophistication, there's every reason 131 00:10:20,340 --> 00:10:24,220 why the Euboeans should be able to look outwards from Lefkandi, 132 00:10:24,220 --> 00:10:28,020 and that's clear evidence that Euboeans would be great travellers 133 00:10:28,020 --> 00:10:30,900 at a time when the rest of Greece is not capable of it. 134 00:10:37,740 --> 00:10:41,500 It's extraordinary to think how the Euboeans would have sailed. 135 00:10:41,500 --> 00:10:44,060 They had no maps, no compasses, 136 00:10:44,060 --> 00:10:48,500 they didn't have our cardinal points like east or west. 137 00:10:48,500 --> 00:10:52,220 Their world view was shaped by local landmarks, 138 00:10:52,220 --> 00:10:54,740 especially distinctive cliffs. 139 00:10:57,260 --> 00:11:01,300 Undaunted, they would set out from these shores and with them travelled 140 00:11:01,300 --> 00:11:06,220 a mental cargo of the oral stories which they called muthoi. 141 00:11:10,460 --> 00:11:15,540 These muthoi were not fixed but were open to new influences and insights, 142 00:11:16,820 --> 00:11:19,220 and in their travels, I believe, 143 00:11:19,220 --> 00:11:24,260 the Euboeans encountered landscapes and stories which inspired new myths. 144 00:11:30,340 --> 00:11:32,620 Their trail takes me first 145 00:11:32,620 --> 00:11:37,660 to the very eastern limit of settlement for Dark Age Greek travellers, 146 00:11:38,260 --> 00:11:40,940 out on the coast of modern Turkey. 147 00:11:54,460 --> 00:11:57,580 From the 10th century BC onwards, 148 00:11:57,580 --> 00:12:00,580 Euboeans came east in search of metals, 149 00:12:00,580 --> 00:12:02,540 especially copper and tin, 150 00:12:02,540 --> 00:12:07,260 which was needed for their newly acquired skill of a bronze working. 151 00:12:09,940 --> 00:12:12,060 It's here, just by this shore, 152 00:12:12,060 --> 00:12:15,420 that I'm going to find the crucial Euboean link 153 00:12:15,420 --> 00:12:20,420 which helps to explain the trail of myths surrounding the Greek gods and their wars in heaven. 154 00:12:28,700 --> 00:12:33,740 What Euboeans learnt here was nothing less than the stories 155 00:12:33,860 --> 00:12:38,660 of a violent struggle among the early gods - stories of castration 156 00:12:38,660 --> 00:12:42,820 and baby eating, and of how their ruling god Zeus came to power. 157 00:12:49,620 --> 00:12:53,300 My belief stems from the remarkable discoveries 158 00:12:53,300 --> 00:12:57,940 made by the archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1936. 159 00:13:02,180 --> 00:13:07,220 Woolley's excavations lay on the outskirts of the coastal town of Samandag... 160 00:13:09,460 --> 00:13:12,020 ..near the Syrian border with Turkey. 161 00:13:15,180 --> 00:13:18,980 Today, even to rediscover Woolley's site is not easy, 162 00:13:18,980 --> 00:13:23,900 it's been covered over and there'd been no more excavations for years. 163 00:13:23,900 --> 00:13:28,060 So I've begun from a landmark he mentioned, 164 00:13:28,060 --> 00:13:31,260 the shrine of a local Muslim saint. 165 00:13:32,860 --> 00:13:37,900 We know Woolley excavated just to the northeast of the shrine. 166 00:13:38,820 --> 00:13:42,700 This place is about a mile inland from the sea, but believe it or not, 167 00:13:42,700 --> 00:13:45,460 in antiquity it was actually on the coast, 168 00:13:45,460 --> 00:13:48,340 just beside a river which has silted it up. 169 00:13:48,340 --> 00:13:51,780 That was why Woolley named it Al Mina, 170 00:13:51,780 --> 00:13:55,660 Arabic word for the port or harbourage by which it's still known. 171 00:13:55,660 --> 00:14:00,100 Now, I'm going to try to get in and see the site that Woolley excavated, 172 00:14:00,100 --> 00:14:03,500 which is down there among what are now orange groves. 173 00:14:11,940 --> 00:14:15,380 There are no traces here of Woolley's trenches. 174 00:14:19,740 --> 00:14:23,140 Oranges now ripen in the fields. 175 00:14:25,180 --> 00:14:28,900 Most of his finds have been shipped off abroad. 176 00:14:30,500 --> 00:14:33,940 Woolley found nothing so exciting as gold and sculpture here, 177 00:14:33,940 --> 00:14:37,940 but for historians he found something every bit as important. 178 00:14:37,940 --> 00:14:41,500 He dug and dug down through nine layers of time, 179 00:14:41,500 --> 00:14:44,540 and then on virgin soil at the very bottom, 180 00:14:44,540 --> 00:14:48,540 he found a layer of predominantly Greek pottery, 181 00:14:48,540 --> 00:14:51,860 most of which has turned out to be Euboean. 182 00:14:51,860 --> 00:14:54,140 My natural conclusion, then, 183 00:14:54,140 --> 00:14:59,180 is that Euboeans were the first settlers right out here at Al Mina. 184 00:15:05,220 --> 00:15:09,420 Fascinatingly, the pottery fragments from the 8th century BC 185 00:15:09,420 --> 00:15:13,860 which Woolley found were mainly from simple drinking vessels. 186 00:15:13,860 --> 00:15:18,860 They were functional and they're not desirable items for foreign trade. 187 00:15:19,140 --> 00:15:22,820 So I believe Euboeans brought them to these shores 188 00:15:22,820 --> 00:15:26,180 for their own personal use in the settlement. 189 00:15:30,420 --> 00:15:35,420 Experts still argue over Al Mina's pottery, which is scattered nowadays 190 00:15:35,580 --> 00:15:39,220 all the way from the British Museum to Australia. 191 00:15:39,220 --> 00:15:41,700 But if you actually come to the site, 192 00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:46,740 you realise there was something much more important in the Euboeans' minds. 193 00:15:49,780 --> 00:15:53,820 to the great beacon of a mountain, which rises steeply from the sea. 194 00:15:53,820 --> 00:15:58,140 It affected the clouds, the rain, the sea itself, 195 00:15:58,140 --> 00:16:03,140 and round it swirled some of the world's oldest myths about the gods. 196 00:16:18,300 --> 00:16:23,300 Today this mountain is known as Jebel Aqra - Bald Mountain. 197 00:16:23,460 --> 00:16:27,420 It had many names in the past, Mount Hazzi was one, 198 00:16:27,420 --> 00:16:30,540 and for the Greeks, it became known as Mount Casius. 199 00:16:35,900 --> 00:16:40,940 Mount Casius rises nearly 2,000 metres directly up from the seashore. 200 00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:46,980 Often wreathed in clouds, it is a focal point for thunder and lightning. 201 00:16:48,980 --> 00:16:52,140 Nowadays, we sometimes think of a landscape like this 202 00:16:52,140 --> 00:16:54,580 as a mass of rock and soil, 203 00:16:54,580 --> 00:16:59,420 which exists independently of an observer's eye. 204 00:16:59,420 --> 00:17:04,100 But landscapes are also given character by human concepts 205 00:17:04,100 --> 00:17:07,260 and in antiquity, they inspired myths. 206 00:17:07,260 --> 00:17:09,500 When Euboeans arrived here, 207 00:17:09,500 --> 00:17:14,460 they needed to understand the elemental power of the mountain peak, 208 00:17:14,580 --> 00:17:19,580 and they found that near-Eastern cultures already could explain it. 209 00:17:20,340 --> 00:17:24,420 For more than 1,000 years, long before any Euboean Greeks 210 00:17:24,420 --> 00:17:29,420 settled below, this mountain peak was the centre for prayers, 211 00:17:30,340 --> 00:17:33,340 hymns, and animal sacrifices. 212 00:17:34,980 --> 00:17:39,420 Mount Casius was a holy mountain for the Hittites. 213 00:17:42,300 --> 00:17:46,740 The Hittites old empire had fallen around 1200 BC, 214 00:17:46,740 --> 00:17:50,740 four centuries before Euboeans settled here. 215 00:17:52,300 --> 00:17:56,820 At its peak, it had ruled over a vast swathe of land, 216 00:17:56,820 --> 00:17:59,660 from modern Turkey right into Syria, 217 00:17:59,660 --> 00:18:04,140 and its cultural influence had survived the empire's fall. 218 00:18:06,260 --> 00:18:11,300 When Euboeans arrived, that influence was still present in local myths and religion. 219 00:18:18,900 --> 00:18:21,700 On the summit of this mountain, 220 00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:24,660 the Hittites believed lived the god Teshub, 221 00:18:24,660 --> 00:18:27,940 whom they later called Tarhunta the Conqueror. 222 00:18:27,940 --> 00:18:31,340 He was a god of weather and of storms and thunder, 223 00:18:31,340 --> 00:18:34,700 and when the rain clouds break on this mountain, 224 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:39,700 everyone for miles around is only too aware of his power. 225 00:18:39,860 --> 00:18:43,060 Religious ceremonies were offered to the mountain too 226 00:18:43,060 --> 00:18:46,260 and we've recently learned something very important. 227 00:18:46,260 --> 00:18:48,900 From fragmentary Hittite tablets, 228 00:18:48,900 --> 00:18:53,940 we know that the ceremonies included the Song of Kingship, 229 00:18:53,940 --> 00:18:55,900 and the Song of the Sea. 230 00:18:55,900 --> 00:19:00,940 This is crucial because they are the stories we know from other Hittite texts 231 00:19:01,540 --> 00:19:05,820 about the many battles and fights of the Hittite gods 232 00:19:05,820 --> 00:19:07,140 for control in heaven. 233 00:19:11,500 --> 00:19:16,540 Most remarkably, these Hittite myths share many details with the Greek myths 234 00:19:17,700 --> 00:19:20,820 of how their ruling gods came to power. 235 00:19:20,820 --> 00:19:25,860 The myths are so similar - did the Hittite one influence the Greeks? 236 00:19:28,260 --> 00:19:30,260 To answer this question, 237 00:19:30,260 --> 00:19:33,060 I need first to travel northwards 238 00:19:33,060 --> 00:19:36,340 to the ancient centre of Hittite power. 239 00:19:53,020 --> 00:19:55,900 Down this 71-metre tunnel 240 00:19:55,900 --> 00:19:59,700 lies a spectacular sight from the pre-classical world. 241 00:20:06,940 --> 00:20:11,660 This is Hattusas. Its remains cover an astonishing area. 242 00:20:11,660 --> 00:20:14,260 It was the capital of the Hittite kings 243 00:20:14,260 --> 00:20:19,180 until their empire fell more than 3,000 years ago. 244 00:20:24,620 --> 00:20:29,660 These scattered limestone foundations can only hint at the city's true grandeur. 245 00:20:35,420 --> 00:20:40,420 The Hittite Empire was so mighty at its peak that down in the south 246 00:20:40,420 --> 00:20:45,380 even the Egyptian pharaoh was forced to retreat before its army. 247 00:20:52,740 --> 00:20:57,740 The kings of Hattusas honoured their gods at a shrine created out of a natural ravine. 248 00:21:03,620 --> 00:21:08,660 Along its walls run carved reliefs which show the gods in procession 249 00:21:09,300 --> 00:21:14,300 and at the centre, the Hittite weather god Tarhunta. 250 00:21:15,100 --> 00:21:19,860 He's visible here in outline, though nowadays the carving is rather faint. 251 00:21:19,860 --> 00:21:22,380 He's holding out his hand to Hepat, 252 00:21:22,380 --> 00:21:26,900 a goddess who's come up from Syria and is standing on a panther. 253 00:21:26,900 --> 00:21:31,900 He himself is standing on these two bended figures who symbolise mountains. 254 00:21:32,860 --> 00:21:37,540 This is one mountain and this one is Mount Hazzi. 255 00:21:37,540 --> 00:21:39,420 That is really very neat. 256 00:21:39,420 --> 00:21:43,180 Mount Hazzi is exactly Mount Casius of the Greeks. 257 00:21:43,180 --> 00:21:47,700 And the other one is the second peak on Mount Hazzi's ridge. 258 00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:52,540 The importance of that mountain in Hittite religion could hardly be clearer. 259 00:21:54,420 --> 00:21:59,460 The song of Tarhunta's rise to power performed on that very mountain 260 00:22:00,260 --> 00:22:04,740 is known to us from texts found here in Hattusas. 261 00:22:09,060 --> 00:22:14,140 From them we learn that Tarhunta was not the first king of the Hittite gods. 262 00:22:16,900 --> 00:22:20,780 He overthrew his own father Kumarbi, 263 00:22:20,780 --> 00:22:24,460 and Kumarbi himself had usurped the kingship 264 00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:28,780 from the older god Anu in a myth with a gruesome climax. 265 00:22:28,780 --> 00:22:30,740 As Anu was losing the battle, 266 00:22:30,740 --> 00:22:33,020 he flew up to heaven but Kumarbi caught him 267 00:22:33,020 --> 00:22:37,460 and sank his teeth in Anu's sexual parts, bit them off, 268 00:22:37,460 --> 00:22:40,500 and swallowed a mouthful of sperm. 269 00:22:40,500 --> 00:22:44,580 In defeat, Anu warned him that he'd now become pregnant, 270 00:22:44,580 --> 00:22:48,740 and sure enough Kumarbi conceived a son - 271 00:22:48,740 --> 00:22:51,100 the storm god Tarhunta. 272 00:22:53,460 --> 00:22:56,700 So back here in the shadow of Mount Casius, 273 00:22:56,700 --> 00:22:59,900 the actual scene of those heavenly battles, 274 00:22:59,900 --> 00:23:03,980 it's no wonder that Euboeans nearby were impressed 275 00:23:03,980 --> 00:23:08,780 by the ancient Hittite stories of kingship and castration. 276 00:23:08,780 --> 00:23:13,780 As always, myths were never fixed, they evolved and mutated. 277 00:23:13,980 --> 00:23:19,020 So Euboeans adapted what they heard, and worked its bloody details 278 00:23:19,420 --> 00:23:23,740 into what they already suspected of their own early gods. 279 00:23:25,180 --> 00:23:26,580 The Greek myths tell 280 00:23:26,580 --> 00:23:29,380 how deep darkness would fall at night 281 00:23:29,380 --> 00:23:31,900 near the beginning of the world. 282 00:23:31,900 --> 00:23:36,940 Father Heaven would come down and stretch himself out above the goddess Mother Earth, 283 00:23:37,260 --> 00:23:40,900 thrust into her and have sex with her so tightly 284 00:23:40,900 --> 00:23:44,180 that no light could come between the pair. 285 00:23:44,180 --> 00:23:49,260 After a while, Mother Earth could bear it no longer, she called together her sons 286 00:23:55,420 --> 00:23:58,740 The next night came, Father Heaven approached, 287 00:23:58,740 --> 00:24:01,940 lay on top of Mother Earth, thrust into her 288 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:06,100 and out from behind the bushes came young Kronos, 289 00:24:06,100 --> 00:24:11,140 armed with a curved sickle with sharp teeth made of adamantine metal. 290 00:24:12,020 --> 00:24:15,780 And with one sweep, a right-handed sweep we're told, 291 00:24:15,780 --> 00:24:18,700 he mowed off his father's private parts. 292 00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:23,460 In agony, Heaven flew up to the sky, light then dawned between them. 293 00:24:23,460 --> 00:24:26,420 The private parts, they were enormous, fell, 294 00:24:26,420 --> 00:24:28,780 full of blood and sperm, through the air 295 00:24:28,780 --> 00:24:31,940 and the sickle, dripping with blood, was thrown away. 296 00:24:37,580 --> 00:24:42,660 The parallels between the Greek and Hittite stories of castration are obvious. 297 00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:48,740 In due course, Greeks even located their version of the event here on Mount Casius. 298 00:24:50,140 --> 00:24:54,660 The mountain was therefore a place of such pagan power. 299 00:24:56,820 --> 00:25:01,860 Indeed it was so potent that even much later Christians believed 300 00:25:02,260 --> 00:25:05,540 they needed a way of counteracting it. 301 00:25:05,540 --> 00:25:10,580 This 6th-century church complex is a witness to their concern. 302 00:25:11,140 --> 00:25:16,140 At its centre stood literally a Christian storm trooper - 303 00:25:17,300 --> 00:25:20,180 St Simeon Stylites the Younger. 304 00:25:29,260 --> 00:25:33,220 St Simeon perched on a 50-foot high pillar. 305 00:25:33,220 --> 00:25:37,700 Only its base survives, and during 32 years, 306 00:25:37,700 --> 00:25:39,860 he never came off it. 307 00:25:39,860 --> 00:25:44,860 Around him clustered pilgrims who would sit and gaze upwards in awe. 308 00:25:45,740 --> 00:25:49,020 These are the really special seats for the VIPs. 309 00:25:49,020 --> 00:25:52,020 Even the Roman emperor consulted the saint, 310 00:25:52,020 --> 00:25:53,180 but on a few days, 311 00:25:53,180 --> 00:25:57,900 ordinary questioners could sometimes send written requests up to him. 312 00:25:57,900 --> 00:26:02,060 And they would bring them to the bottom of this stone staircase 313 00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:04,780 and they would climb, as I am, 314 00:26:04,780 --> 00:26:06,820 and give them to his attendant, 315 00:26:06,820 --> 00:26:11,780 who would then take them up a wooden ladder for the saint's blessing at the top. 316 00:26:11,780 --> 00:26:16,820 And I think we see why he stood particularly here at such a height. 317 00:26:20,100 --> 00:26:23,540 who swarmed on Mount Casius, 318 00:26:23,540 --> 00:26:28,380 and he's there as a Christian challenge, fighting with them - in his view, demons. 319 00:26:29,940 --> 00:26:34,060 These demons were the gods whom Euboean settlers had honoured long before 320 00:26:34,060 --> 00:26:37,420 in the myths of this very mountain, 321 00:26:37,420 --> 00:26:41,140 the place where the gods had established their rule. 322 00:26:41,140 --> 00:26:43,220 They knew the myths orally, 323 00:26:43,220 --> 00:26:46,900 especially from local women with whom they lived. 324 00:26:46,900 --> 00:26:50,780 They did not read them from Hittite texts. 325 00:26:50,780 --> 00:26:55,340 They took those stories fresh in their mind across the seas 326 00:26:55,340 --> 00:26:58,260 to the lands of the Greeks and beyond. 327 00:27:05,820 --> 00:27:10,860 When Euboeans travelled on their boats to and from Al Mina and along its coastline, 328 00:27:12,020 --> 00:27:14,300 they journeyed by island hopping. 329 00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:19,020 The nearest island to Al Mina is hardly 80 kilometres away. 330 00:27:19,020 --> 00:27:21,620 In the 10th to 8th centuries BC, 331 00:27:21,620 --> 00:27:26,620 it was a place of differing kingdoms and a varied population, 332 00:27:26,740 --> 00:27:30,580 a place where many cultures came together 333 00:27:30,580 --> 00:27:35,460 and myths floated across the sea - the island of Cyprus. 334 00:27:41,100 --> 00:27:45,180 One of the most important ancient stopovers on the island 335 00:27:45,180 --> 00:27:50,140 was the coastal settlement of Amathus near modern Limassol. 336 00:27:50,740 --> 00:27:55,780 At Amathus, I believe, an important encounter occurred for the Europeans. 337 00:27:56,460 --> 00:28:01,500 The result of it eventually allowed Greeks to record their myths for posterity. 338 00:28:05,420 --> 00:28:10,380 In recently excavated graves here, Euboean pottery was found buried 339 00:28:11,260 --> 00:28:15,860 alongside objects belonging to Phoenicians. 340 00:28:15,860 --> 00:28:19,300 The Phoenicians were a Near-Eastern people 341 00:28:19,300 --> 00:28:24,020 and unlike mainland Greeks at this time, they were literate. 342 00:28:25,780 --> 00:28:30,820 I think it was possibly here that a really important lesson was learnt. 343 00:28:31,380 --> 00:28:36,380 Somewhere, one day, an inquisitive Euboean sat with a Phoenician 344 00:28:36,780 --> 00:28:41,860 and looked and listened while the Phoenician wrote out the letters of hisscript 345 00:28:42,540 --> 00:28:44,060 and described them. 346 00:28:44,060 --> 00:28:49,140 And the Greek adapted them and copied them down as letters still in use in the modern Greek alphabet, 347 00:28:50,140 --> 00:28:54,660 alpha, beta, gamma - exactly the order which we know 348 00:28:54,660 --> 00:28:59,700 Phoenicians used for their own letters aleph, beit, gimmel. 349 00:29:00,380 --> 00:29:05,420 The Greek thought he needed signs for the vowel sounds he was hearing so he added them, 350 00:29:05,580 --> 00:29:10,580 epsilon, iota, and so forth, making the fullest alphabet the one which is most easy to read. 351 00:29:12,340 --> 00:29:17,380 And it's that Greek alphabet that is the ancestor of all the alphabets we still use in the modern West. 352 00:29:23,580 --> 00:29:28,660 As the alphabet developed, myths could eventually become more fixed as they were written down. 353 00:29:30,700 --> 00:29:35,740 But during the Greek Dark Ages, they were still told orally and open to influence. 354 00:29:37,300 --> 00:29:41,140 On Cyprus, we can follow this happening 355 00:29:41,140 --> 00:29:45,220 to the story of a local fertility goddess. 356 00:29:45,220 --> 00:29:50,260 Like other visitors to Amathus, Euboeans encountered her shrine. 357 00:29:51,700 --> 00:29:56,580 Her worship here dates as far back as the 2000s BC. 358 00:29:56,580 --> 00:30:01,020 Through contact with visitors from the near East, 359 00:30:01,020 --> 00:30:04,740 she then took on a wilder sexual identity, 360 00:30:04,740 --> 00:30:09,780 and then when the Greeks arrived, she became Aphrodite. 361 00:30:12,060 --> 00:30:13,700 Jacqueline Kariorgis 362 00:30:13,700 --> 00:30:18,740 has spent her whole life studying the transformations of the goddess of love. 363 00:30:34,180 --> 00:30:37,340 So the goddess of love and sex is in fact, for the Greeks, 364 00:30:37,340 --> 00:30:39,540 an introduction in the early Dark Ages. 365 00:30:52,460 --> 00:30:57,340 You're making this Greek Aphrodite sound as though she lived in Paris! She's sexy and all the rest of it, 366 00:30:57,340 --> 00:30:59,180 but, Jacqueline, there are said to have been 367 00:30:59,180 --> 00:31:02,300 prostitutes here serving the cult of the goddess, 368 00:31:02,300 --> 00:31:05,340 at least by Christian sources. Do you believe that? 369 00:31:17,260 --> 00:31:19,260 And they kept the money as their dowry? 370 00:31:24,820 --> 00:31:27,180 But nowadays their fathers build them a house. 371 00:31:29,860 --> 00:31:34,900 To the west of Amathus is another place now associated with Aphrodite. 372 00:31:35,220 --> 00:31:40,220 It is known as the Rock of Aphrodite and the local story is that if you 373 00:31:41,300 --> 00:31:46,380 swim all the way round this rock, you are blessed with eternal beauty. 374 00:31:49,540 --> 00:31:54,580 The beach alongside is now considered the location of Aphrodite's literal emergence. 375 00:31:58,340 --> 00:32:03,380 Of course, the story of Aphrodite is connected to much grander stories in heaven, Jacqueline. 376 00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:08,420 When Father Heaven is castrated, of course, blood and white sperm flies everywhere 377 00:32:08,820 --> 00:32:12,860 and according to the Greeks, when the sperm falls down into the sea, 378 00:32:12,860 --> 00:32:17,780 somebody very significant was born from it - your goddess, Aphrodite. 379 00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:20,420 The Greeks, when they later thought about it, 380 00:32:20,420 --> 00:32:25,460 tried to connect that name Aphrodite with their own Greek word, aphros, 381 00:32:25,980 --> 00:32:28,940 meaning foam or foaming white sperm. 382 00:32:28,940 --> 00:32:31,820 Do think there was any historical truth in that? 383 00:32:38,220 --> 00:32:39,660 Like a wordplay? 384 00:32:41,620 --> 00:32:43,700 That was a pretty good way to be born. 385 00:32:43,700 --> 00:32:48,660 But there is a local story that when she was born, she was washed to this very beach. 386 00:32:48,660 --> 00:32:52,740 This is what the Cyprus Tourist Board still tells you nowadays, Jacqueline. 387 00:32:52,740 --> 00:32:55,180 Do think there's any history in that? 388 00:33:18,900 --> 00:33:20,660 When is the first link, do you think? 389 00:33:23,900 --> 00:33:27,180 Well, it shows beautifully how what will be a myth, I am sure, 390 00:33:27,180 --> 00:33:29,780 continued in modern Cyprus, begins and starts 391 00:33:29,780 --> 00:33:33,660 from a beautiful landscape, and then acquires a force of its own 392 00:33:33,660 --> 00:33:35,980 exactly as it did in the ancient world. 393 00:33:35,980 --> 00:33:38,460 This is how myths are made. 394 00:33:50,860 --> 00:33:55,900 The vision of Aphrodite emerging from the sea is so compelling 395 00:33:55,900 --> 00:33:59,140 that it has inspired great artists through the centuries. 396 00:33:59,140 --> 00:34:04,060 The most famous image is by the Renaissance master, Botticelli, 397 00:34:04,060 --> 00:34:08,260 Aphrodite being blown ashore in a shower of roses. 398 00:34:08,260 --> 00:34:12,020 She seems far removed from Heaven's castration. 399 00:34:12,020 --> 00:34:15,900 Without that act, though, she would never have been born, 400 00:34:15,900 --> 00:34:18,900 adult, erotic, and dangerously desirable. 401 00:34:23,820 --> 00:34:27,380 Here in Cyprus, the myths were being re-imagined 402 00:34:27,380 --> 00:34:30,500 under the constant influence of new ideas. 403 00:34:32,780 --> 00:34:37,220 The goddess had been worshipped for millennia beforehand 404 00:34:37,220 --> 00:34:42,260 but her waterborne origin became a new, then an accepted, detail. 405 00:34:43,820 --> 00:34:48,820 This same adaptability is at work when our myths of kingship in heaven 406 00:34:49,300 --> 00:34:52,380 reach another nearby island, Crete. 407 00:34:54,060 --> 00:34:58,980 The myth I've come to find continues the story of the god Kronos 408 00:34:58,980 --> 00:35:02,140 after he'd castrated his father, Heaven. 409 00:35:04,140 --> 00:35:09,140 In the story, Kronos would in turn be overthrown by his own son, Zeus, 410 00:35:10,340 --> 00:35:14,860 and Crete is where Zeus was raised to his destiny. 411 00:35:24,980 --> 00:35:27,300 Every year on the 12th of September, 412 00:35:27,300 --> 00:35:31,140 on the summit of the highest mountain in Crete, 413 00:35:31,140 --> 00:35:36,100 Mount Ida, local shepherds gather for a religious ceremony. 414 00:35:42,140 --> 00:35:47,180 It's a difficult ascent for the pilgrims, as the mountain rises 3,500 metres. 415 00:35:48,340 --> 00:35:53,300 The winds on its upper slopes, as I found out, are fearsome and freezing. 416 00:36:01,380 --> 00:36:06,420 At the summit, villagers maintain a simple windowless church. 417 00:36:07,380 --> 00:36:11,900 Like Mount Casius in Turkey, this Cretan mountain peak 418 00:36:11,900 --> 00:36:16,740 has seen a long continuity of worship, from pagan to Christian. 419 00:36:16,740 --> 00:36:19,260 HE CHANTS IN HIS LANGUAGE 420 00:36:28,980 --> 00:36:33,940 Nowadays, the priest reads a written liturgy and passages of scripture. 421 00:36:34,100 --> 00:36:39,100 He reminds worshippers that Christ died for their sins on a cross 422 00:36:39,380 --> 00:36:43,260 whose very fragments are said to be sheltered in this church. 423 00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:51,380 He calls on God to show mercy. 424 00:36:51,380 --> 00:36:56,340 The pagan Greeks had no scriptures. They had many gods who never died. 425 00:36:56,820 --> 00:36:59,980 They never expected mercy from them. 426 00:36:59,980 --> 00:37:03,780 They prayed to them as if they were great aristocrats in heaven, 427 00:37:03,780 --> 00:37:08,820 unpredictable in their favours to mortals and unpredictable in their quarrels. 428 00:37:09,220 --> 00:37:14,300 It's so moving that the mountain is still a sacred place for Cretan pilgrims. 429 00:37:19,740 --> 00:37:24,700 Long before Christ, Mount Ida was a sort of pagan Bethlehem 430 00:37:25,180 --> 00:37:30,180 because of its role in the myth of the Greeks' supreme god, Zeus. 431 00:37:37,700 --> 00:37:41,500 That myth begins with Zeus' father, Kronos, 432 00:37:41,500 --> 00:37:45,020 who had castrated his own father, Heaven. 433 00:37:45,020 --> 00:37:48,660 But it was prophesied that Kronos himself would be 434 00:37:48,660 --> 00:37:53,620 overthrown by a son, so he swallowed his babies at birth. 435 00:37:57,220 --> 00:37:59,340 It is this nightmare image 436 00:37:59,340 --> 00:38:02,780 which the 19th century Spanish master, Goya, 437 00:38:02,780 --> 00:38:04,660 shows in this painting. 438 00:38:07,060 --> 00:38:11,260 But when Kronos' wife, Rhea, bore yet another son, 439 00:38:11,260 --> 00:38:15,740 she handed Kronos a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes. 440 00:38:15,740 --> 00:38:19,300 He was tricked and swallowed it instead of the baby... 441 00:38:20,940 --> 00:38:24,820 ..and the baby Zeus was flown away to Crete 442 00:38:24,820 --> 00:38:26,740 to Mount Ida. 443 00:38:28,780 --> 00:38:33,340 The Greek story is remarkably like that old Hittite story 444 00:38:33,340 --> 00:38:36,420 of the struggles of their gods and the succession in heaven. 445 00:38:36,420 --> 00:38:39,780 Kumarbi, the surviving god, had taken a huge bite 446 00:38:39,780 --> 00:38:44,820 out of Heaven's private parts, swallowed it, sperm, DNA, and all, 447 00:38:45,820 --> 00:38:50,220 and wondrously, inside his stomach it mixes together, we are told, 448 00:38:50,220 --> 00:38:53,900 like the metals that make bronze, and he finds he's pregnant. 449 00:38:53,900 --> 00:38:58,940 In due course, he expels or excretes in some way his firstborn son. 450 00:39:00,540 --> 00:39:05,540 And then we can follow tattered texts that amazingly say, 451 00:39:05,540 --> 00:39:09,700 "I will eat my son, I will crush him, Tarhunta." 452 00:39:09,700 --> 00:39:14,700 Instead, he's given a very sharp rock on which he bites and in agony, 453 00:39:15,900 --> 00:39:20,940 throws the rock away where it is to become an item of cult forever. 454 00:39:23,340 --> 00:39:28,380 Like his Hittite counterpart, Tarhunta, the young Zeus, too, would eventually defeat his father. 455 00:39:30,860 --> 00:39:35,900 But first he had to be raised secretly to maturity. 456 00:39:40,100 --> 00:39:45,100 The myth tells how the baby Zeus was hidden in a cave, this one, 457 00:39:45,300 --> 00:39:50,220 I believe, about 1,000 metres below the summit of Mount Ida. 458 00:39:54,380 --> 00:39:59,420 During the Greek Dark Ages, Euboeans were among many pilgrims who came here. 459 00:40:03,500 --> 00:40:07,220 The cave had had a long sacred history. 460 00:40:07,220 --> 00:40:11,500 People of Crete had been worshipping here for at least 1,000 years 461 00:40:11,500 --> 00:40:15,220 before it became associated with stories of Zeus. 462 00:40:21,700 --> 00:40:26,780 Nobody yet knows how deep this cave is, the nursery of Zeus, or how far back it runs. 463 00:40:28,300 --> 00:40:31,380 It's been excavated and the covers have concealed 464 00:40:31,380 --> 00:40:35,220 what was recently found, but it's still never been fully excavated. 465 00:40:40,300 --> 00:40:45,300 Before Zeus, this cave was sacred to a young Cretan fertility god, 466 00:40:45,780 --> 00:40:47,460 invoked as Kouros. 467 00:40:47,460 --> 00:40:49,740 His worshippers, the Kourites, 468 00:40:49,740 --> 00:40:53,940 would honour him by dancing and clashing shields in the cave. 469 00:40:57,220 --> 00:41:02,300 By the 8th century BC, this Kouros had had been merged with Zeus, 470 00:41:02,500 --> 00:41:07,500 so the noisy ritual worship had to be brought into the myth of the baby Zeus, too. 471 00:41:10,620 --> 00:41:15,700 The dancing is explained as the Kourites attempt to make the baby inaudible 472 00:41:16,660 --> 00:41:19,580 so that Kronos wouldn't realise his abusive father. 473 00:41:19,580 --> 00:41:23,180 Well, of course you can see there is a slight inconsistency. 474 00:41:23,180 --> 00:41:25,580 They're trying to hide the baby deep in this cave 475 00:41:25,580 --> 00:41:28,060 and at the same time, they're making a noise that 476 00:41:28,060 --> 00:41:30,700 you would think would alert anyone to his presence, 477 00:41:30,700 --> 00:41:32,980 but that is the way the story grew and developed. 478 00:41:34,660 --> 00:41:39,660 Like the goddess Aphrodite of Cyprus, the early god of the Cretans, Kouros-Zeus, 479 00:41:40,940 --> 00:41:46,020 was evolving and adapting to the multicultural exchanges of the time. 480 00:41:47,860 --> 00:41:52,060 The myths go on to tell how, when Zeus had reached manhood, 481 00:41:52,060 --> 00:41:55,980 he emerged from his cave and defeated his father. 482 00:41:57,900 --> 00:42:02,900 But first, father Kronos had been forced to vomit up all his children 483 00:42:03,620 --> 00:42:06,620 and the very stone that had replaced Zeus. 484 00:42:17,940 --> 00:42:20,540 This myth was to become central 485 00:42:20,540 --> 00:42:24,300 at the most famous sanctuary in antiquity, 486 00:42:24,300 --> 00:42:29,300 one in which a sea voyage was also to play a major role. 487 00:42:34,260 --> 00:42:38,260 To understand how, we have to turn to a hymn 488 00:42:38,260 --> 00:42:41,580 in honour of one of Zeus' many children - 489 00:42:41,580 --> 00:42:46,340 Apollo, god of the light and the sun, poetry and prophecy. 490 00:42:46,340 --> 00:42:51,380 In fine hexameter verses, the poet describes how Apollo chose his first priests. 491 00:42:55,460 --> 00:43:00,460 On the wine dark sea, he tells us, the god spied a swift, dark ship 492 00:43:00,540 --> 00:43:05,580 with a crew of travelling Cretans who were going on business to sandy Pylos. 493 00:43:06,300 --> 00:43:09,020 Miraculously, the god jumped in 494 00:43:09,020 --> 00:43:14,020 in the shape of a large and fearsome dolphin, and redirected the ship. 495 00:43:16,300 --> 00:43:20,460 He prevented it from landing at Pylos, and guided it 496 00:43:20,460 --> 00:43:25,140 along the Gulf of Corinth to Krisa, near modern Itea. 497 00:43:32,140 --> 00:43:36,620 Apollo then revealed himself to the terrified Cretans and told them 498 00:43:36,620 --> 00:43:41,300 to follow him up Mount Parnassus to a site on its flank, 499 00:43:41,300 --> 00:43:44,340 where he would found a rich temple. 500 00:43:48,420 --> 00:43:53,420 Today, their route takes us through the finest olive grove in Greece, 501 00:43:53,420 --> 00:43:55,500 up a winding mountain road. 502 00:43:57,700 --> 00:44:02,260 When the Cretans arrived at their destination, their hearts, 503 00:44:02,260 --> 00:44:05,460 the hymn tells us, were stirred within them. 504 00:44:28,620 --> 00:44:31,060 In the early morning light, 505 00:44:31,060 --> 00:44:36,100 Delphi remains one of the most magical places in the world. 506 00:44:36,340 --> 00:44:41,380 Apollo's first shrine here dates from the Greek Dark Ages, 507 00:44:42,220 --> 00:44:46,900 probably from around 825 BC. 508 00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:51,940 At Delphi, a prophetess would predict the future as an Oracle. 509 00:44:53,380 --> 00:44:58,500 Her prophecies were made here at the Temple of Apollo itself. 510 00:44:59,420 --> 00:45:04,460 In response to petitioner's questions, she would enter a trance 511 00:45:04,460 --> 00:45:08,140 and her garbled words were later translated 512 00:45:08,140 --> 00:45:10,820 into elegant hexameter verse. 513 00:45:10,820 --> 00:45:13,980 But the ambiguity of her predictions 514 00:45:13,980 --> 00:45:17,380 sometimes lead to unexpected outcomes. 515 00:45:17,380 --> 00:45:21,020 The most famous example? It has to be Croesus, 516 00:45:21,020 --> 00:45:22,900 the richest man in the world, 517 00:45:22,900 --> 00:45:26,900 the King of Lydia who was planning in Asia to invade eastwards. 518 00:45:26,900 --> 00:45:30,980 So famous was Delphi that he already sent messengers 519 00:45:30,980 --> 00:45:34,900 to ask the Greek god Apollo whether he would succeed. 520 00:45:34,900 --> 00:45:38,300 And the prophetess gave the answer, 521 00:45:38,300 --> 00:45:43,380 "If you cross the river, you will destroy a great empire." 522 00:45:43,380 --> 00:45:47,980 So Croesus did invade, crossed the river, and yes, 523 00:45:47,980 --> 00:45:49,740 he destroyed a great empire. 524 00:45:49,740 --> 00:45:52,980 But the empire was his own. 525 00:45:54,620 --> 00:45:57,420 Today, Delphi is still a place of great pilgrimage. 526 00:45:57,420 --> 00:45:59,900 Hundreds of thousands of visitors every year 527 00:45:59,900 --> 00:46:04,900 wind up the sacred way, past the remains of the great Treasuries, once full of gifts to the temple. 528 00:46:09,140 --> 00:46:12,020 INAUDIBLE 529 00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:22,620 For me, all the treasures they contained 530 00:46:22,620 --> 00:46:27,660 pale beside one ordinary looking object now lost to us. 531 00:46:27,980 --> 00:46:33,060 It's an object that had been set up at Delphi as a sign and wonder to the future... 532 00:46:36,300 --> 00:46:41,380 ..the very stone that Kronos had swallowed believing it to be his son, Zeus. 533 00:46:43,100 --> 00:46:48,180 And it would've been seen by our 8th century Euboeans, for they'd come 534 00:46:48,540 --> 00:46:53,580 then seeking the Oracle's advice on their settlements abroad. 535 00:46:54,180 --> 00:46:58,740 That wondrous stone at Delphi is the West's first holy relic. 536 00:46:58,740 --> 00:47:02,020 It fitted beautifully with the Euboeans' insights 537 00:47:02,020 --> 00:47:04,620 into the origins and battles of the gods, 538 00:47:04,620 --> 00:47:09,660 gathered in their travels around Al Mina, Cyprus, and Crete. 539 00:47:10,700 --> 00:47:14,180 And among the other pilgrims who'd marvelled at it 540 00:47:14,180 --> 00:47:18,780 in the late 8th century was the poet, Hesiod. 541 00:47:18,780 --> 00:47:23,380 It's Hesiod's poem, the Theogony, or the Generation of the Gods, 542 00:47:23,380 --> 00:47:26,220 which is our fullest early Greek source 543 00:47:26,220 --> 00:47:28,580 for the stories of the struggles in heaven, 544 00:47:28,580 --> 00:47:33,060 the struggles of heaven and earth, Kronos and the emergence of Zeus. 545 00:47:33,060 --> 00:47:37,900 He knew them, surely, after confirming them and elaborating them with the priests here. 546 00:47:37,900 --> 00:47:40,260 He was not a widely travelled man. 547 00:47:40,260 --> 00:47:45,260 Apart from travelling here, he made one other journey further afield. 548 00:47:45,260 --> 00:47:49,140 He took his poem off to perform it at a competition. 549 00:48:04,340 --> 00:48:09,380 To reach his competition, Hesiod risked this very sea crossing. 550 00:48:10,500 --> 00:48:15,540 He went to compete at the funeral games of the fallen warrior, Amphidamas. 551 00:48:16,620 --> 00:48:20,340 Better still, he even won the prize for poetry. 552 00:48:23,460 --> 00:48:27,780 Now, it's a fair guess that the poem with which he won 553 00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:32,340 was nothing less than his Theogony, the Generation of the Gods. 554 00:48:37,740 --> 00:48:42,780 The site of the competition may help us understand why he won. 555 00:48:47,540 --> 00:48:52,540 so Hesiod sang before Euboean judges the very stories which featured 556 00:48:53,100 --> 00:48:57,340 in the Euboeans' own discoveries about the battles of the gods. 557 00:48:57,340 --> 00:49:02,260 No wonder he met an appreciative audience here and won the prize. 558 00:49:04,500 --> 00:49:07,860 When Hesiod came to Euboea in the late 8th century, 559 00:49:07,860 --> 00:49:11,780 Lefkandi had been eclipsed by the nearby settlement of Eretria. 560 00:49:16,340 --> 00:49:19,860 Here in the storerooms of the Eretria Museum, 561 00:49:19,860 --> 00:49:24,940 the shelves are crammed with boxes full of objects excavated here by the Swiss School of Archaeology. 562 00:49:27,300 --> 00:49:32,300 They have given us a clearer picture of the lives of our Euboean travellers, 563 00:49:37,820 --> 00:49:42,580 OK, Robin, I wanted to show you here two shards with the graffiti. 564 00:49:42,580 --> 00:49:44,580 Early writing. Writing, early writing. 565 00:49:44,580 --> 00:49:46,940 They were found in the sanctuary of Apollo. 566 00:49:46,940 --> 00:49:50,140 The first one is dated from the end of the 9th century, 567 00:49:50,140 --> 00:49:51,220 early 8th century. 568 00:49:51,220 --> 00:49:53,700 We can see four letters. 569 00:49:53,700 --> 00:49:55,060 Well, they're not Greek. 570 00:49:55,060 --> 00:49:58,060 I can't understand them. What are they? They are Semitic. 571 00:49:58,060 --> 00:50:00,740 Good heavens. So this is at the turning point 572 00:50:00,740 --> 00:50:03,020 when some near Easterner has either 573 00:50:03,020 --> 00:50:04,980 taught a Euboean to write, 574 00:50:04,980 --> 00:50:10,060 or the Euboean is copying what he's learned perhaps in the near East? 575 00:50:10,220 --> 00:50:12,700 Absolutely, but it was carved on an Euboean pot. 576 00:50:12,700 --> 00:50:15,500 This is a typical Euboean drinking cup. 577 00:50:15,500 --> 00:50:18,500 We are right at the start of the origin of writing. 578 00:50:18,500 --> 00:50:20,060 How extraordinary. Yes. 579 00:50:20,060 --> 00:50:24,740 And at the end of the series, we have again a graffito carved on 580 00:50:24,740 --> 00:50:29,260 a local pot, Euboean, with another four letters. 581 00:50:29,260 --> 00:50:34,260 I think I can read it. It's Hera... Hera. Yes. Four Greek letters. 582 00:50:34,340 --> 00:50:37,100 So what we have is a real moment of transition. 583 00:50:37,100 --> 00:50:40,500 We have somebody trying to write Greek in a non-Greek alphabet, 584 00:50:40,500 --> 00:50:44,420 and then we have Greek written in the real Greek alphabet. 585 00:50:44,420 --> 00:50:49,460 This is an enormously important change. This is really at the root of all Western civilisation. 586 00:50:49,460 --> 00:50:53,820 The Greek alphabet and we have the Roman alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet, our alphabets. 587 00:50:53,820 --> 00:50:56,820 If they couldn't write, we wouldn't know anything about them. 588 00:50:56,820 --> 00:50:58,580 If they couldn't write down Homer, 589 00:50:58,580 --> 00:51:00,420 we wouldn't be able to read his poems. 590 00:51:00,420 --> 00:51:02,060 We wouldn't know anything about Hesiod. 591 00:51:02,060 --> 00:51:05,420 This is a real change for people and we're witnessing it 592 00:51:05,420 --> 00:51:07,660 in the palm of your hand. Incredible. 593 00:51:07,660 --> 00:51:11,780 Now, I want to show you the neck of an amphora. Euboean women, wonderful. 594 00:51:11,780 --> 00:51:14,540 Look, they're dancing. Yes, or it's a procession. 595 00:51:14,540 --> 00:51:18,700 And they are holding garlands, it looks like, and these very trendy skirts. 596 00:51:18,700 --> 00:51:21,780 They've had to breathe in for the painter anyway. 597 00:51:21,780 --> 00:51:26,220 Tight waists, long skirts, 8th century BC fashion, wonderful. 598 00:51:26,220 --> 00:51:29,540 Now, this was found in the west quarter near Eretria. 599 00:51:29,540 --> 00:51:34,580 It's a very important find and it's a monumental amphora. 600 00:51:35,100 --> 00:51:38,420 Which stood then buy a grave, would that be right? Exactly. 601 00:51:38,420 --> 00:51:40,060 And I can see a chariot. 602 00:51:40,060 --> 00:51:45,140 It's a sort of chariot race or on this bit, there's somebody... 603 00:51:45,140 --> 00:51:48,380 Oh, they're trying to jump off and on the back of the chariot. 604 00:51:48,380 --> 00:51:52,020 The apobates. Yes, this is a sort of Greek game they play where the skill 605 00:51:52,020 --> 00:51:55,260 is to jump onto a chariot when it's moving and jump off the back of it. 606 00:51:55,260 --> 00:51:58,260 Probably during funerary games. Fantastic. 607 00:52:11,860 --> 00:52:15,260 In the Greek Dark Ages, Euboeans were not only renowned 608 00:52:15,260 --> 00:52:20,260 for their horsemanship. Their soil was fertile, especially for the cultivation of grapes. 609 00:52:33,260 --> 00:52:37,420 During the grape harvest nowadays, families traditionally gather 610 00:52:37,420 --> 00:52:42,220 at the end of work to eat and of course to drink. 611 00:52:44,060 --> 00:52:49,100 And to swap stories as their Euboean predecessors also did. 612 00:52:54,540 --> 00:52:59,260 We can imagine Euboean travellers, perhaps fresh from a journey out to Al Mina, 613 00:52:59,260 --> 00:53:03,540 full of stories of those castrated gods and waterborne goddesses. 614 00:53:03,540 --> 00:53:08,580 And the wine made here was an important item in the trade that had sent them sailing eastwards. 615 00:53:16,980 --> 00:53:22,020 The ground, the soil, is the best here in Euboea for wine? 616 00:53:22,060 --> 00:53:25,300 Yes, it's very good ground 617 00:53:25,300 --> 00:53:29,700 because here... It's rich. It's rich, yes, very rich. 618 00:53:29,700 --> 00:53:33,940 You live the year of the poet Hesiodos. 619 00:53:33,940 --> 00:53:38,940 Hesiod tells us we pick the grapes in mid-September, like you, and in mid July 620 00:53:41,740 --> 00:53:43,940 we cut the corn. 621 00:53:43,940 --> 00:53:48,980 When the goats are very fat, the wine is very good 622 00:53:49,180 --> 00:53:52,180 and the women are very sexy, 623 00:53:52,180 --> 00:53:56,020 but the poor men are exhausted, not by the women but by the heat. 624 00:53:56,020 --> 00:53:58,740 THEY LAUGH 625 00:54:04,220 --> 00:54:09,260 Hesiod's great poetic legacy is not only his account of the tribulations of the farming life. 626 00:54:11,420 --> 00:54:15,860 He was, above all, a poet of battles in heaven. 627 00:54:17,700 --> 00:54:22,700 His Theogony doesn't end with Zeus' victory over his father. 628 00:54:22,980 --> 00:54:27,740 Hesiod tells us that Zeus' rule in turn is challenged. 629 00:54:27,740 --> 00:54:32,780 Mother Earth, to avenge her son Kronos, raises up a vast snaky monster, Typhon. 630 00:54:37,540 --> 00:54:42,540 When Hesiod performed his prize poem, its first verses, about Typhon, I believe, 631 00:54:43,700 --> 00:54:48,420 will particularly have caught his Euboean audience's attention. 632 00:54:48,420 --> 00:54:52,660 They may even have given him more details after the performance, 633 00:54:52,660 --> 00:54:57,700 for there were Euboeans there who knew so much more than Hesiod about Typhon. 634 00:54:58,540 --> 00:55:03,580 They had tracked him, they believed, from one end of the Mediterranean right across to the other. 635 00:55:05,820 --> 00:55:10,300 I even believe that the Euboeans bigger picture of Typhon 636 00:55:10,300 --> 00:55:15,380 may have been incorporated later by Hesiod into his Theogony, 637 00:55:16,340 --> 00:55:21,300 so I've returned to Mount Casius in modern Turkey on those Euboeans' trail 638 00:55:21,300 --> 00:55:25,660 to discover the roots of their great knowledge about the monster. 639 00:55:27,540 --> 00:55:32,540 In the 8th century BC, when Euboeans journeyed across the sea to settle in Al Mina 640 00:55:33,460 --> 00:55:35,580 in the shadow of Mount Casius, 641 00:55:35,580 --> 00:55:39,660 they settled where near Eastern myths swirled around them. 642 00:55:41,220 --> 00:55:46,300 Just as they'd adapted the story of Father Heaven's castration by Kronos, 643 00:55:46,420 --> 00:55:51,460 so they adopted another Hittite story heard on this very mountain, 644 00:55:52,060 --> 00:55:55,260 the story that gave them details of the myth of Zeus 645 00:55:55,260 --> 00:55:57,380 and his battles against Typhon. 646 00:55:59,460 --> 00:56:03,620 Here they learned how the power struggles of the Hittite gods 647 00:56:03,620 --> 00:56:08,620 had not ended with the defeat of Kumarbi by his son, Tarhunta. 648 00:56:11,380 --> 00:56:15,820 In revenge, Kumarbi raised up a series of monsters, 649 00:56:15,820 --> 00:56:19,420 including the serpent monster, Hedammu. 650 00:56:19,420 --> 00:56:24,540 The story of Hedammu has recently been pieced together from fragmentary Hittite tablets. 651 00:56:25,940 --> 00:56:30,940 But we also now know that it was part of the ancient song of kingship 652 00:56:31,380 --> 00:56:35,700 sung by choirs on the very slopes of this mountain. 653 00:56:41,780 --> 00:56:46,780 And here is the king of Hittite gods himself, Tarhunta, 654 00:56:47,180 --> 00:56:52,260 the storm god who fought a snake monster just like his Greek counterpart, Zeus. 655 00:56:54,460 --> 00:56:59,420 Around the bay from Mount Casius in this ruined fortress of Karatepe, 656 00:57:00,300 --> 00:57:02,580 his statue still stands. 657 00:57:06,340 --> 00:57:09,540 As the worn inscription on it reveals, 658 00:57:09,540 --> 00:57:14,420 in the 9th and 8th century BC, the end of the Greek Dark Ages, 659 00:57:14,420 --> 00:57:19,460 the House of Muksas ruled this region, what we know as Cilicia. 660 00:57:24,780 --> 00:57:29,660 The kingdom was one of several which had succeeded the Hittite Empire. 661 00:57:32,180 --> 00:57:37,180 We know that these neo-Hittites maintained some of the older empire's gods and traditions. 662 00:57:41,100 --> 00:57:46,140 And it was through them that Euboeans heard the story of the Hittite snake monster. 663 00:57:47,460 --> 00:57:51,940 We are even able to locate the creature's mythical lair, 664 00:57:51,940 --> 00:57:56,300 a place that became the home of their Typhon, too. 665 00:58:00,020 --> 00:58:03,260 The coastal kingdom of the House of Muksas 666 00:58:03,260 --> 00:58:06,940 included ravines to the southwest of Karatepe. 667 00:58:06,940 --> 00:58:11,820 Turks now call them the Caves of Heaven and Hell. 668 00:58:13,540 --> 00:58:17,140 This fearsome abyss has been hollowed out over thousands of years 669 00:58:17,140 --> 00:58:21,780 by the rivers, and it drops straight down for hundreds of feet. 670 00:58:26,340 --> 00:58:29,260 It still known in Turkish as jehenem, 671 00:58:29,260 --> 00:58:33,740 that's gehenna or hell in Muslim and Christian tradition. 672 00:58:33,740 --> 00:58:37,980 And it really would be hell now to try to get to the bottom. 673 00:58:42,580 --> 00:58:46,340 Fortunately, Heaven doesn't require a climbing rope. 674 00:58:46,340 --> 00:58:49,060 It's a few hundred metres from Hell, 675 00:58:49,060 --> 00:58:52,060 where stairs lead down into the ravine. 676 00:58:53,820 --> 00:58:57,740 In ancient times, saffron crocuses grew here, 677 00:58:57,740 --> 00:59:01,660 objects of cult for the ancient Hittites. 678 00:59:03,940 --> 00:59:07,140 Modern Turks named this place cennet, Heaven. 679 00:59:08,860 --> 00:59:13,060 But beyond Heaven is the underground lair of a monster. 680 00:59:21,980 --> 00:59:26,580 One of the stories we have of the Hittite snake monster is that 681 00:59:26,580 --> 00:59:31,020 at first, it defeated the storm god Tarhunta, 682 00:59:31,020 --> 00:59:35,940 then stole his eyes and heart, which it hid in a cave. 683 00:59:37,540 --> 00:59:41,540 In later Greek myth, Zeus, too, is defeated at first 684 00:59:41,540 --> 00:59:44,100 by the snaky monster - in Greek, Typhon - 685 00:59:44,100 --> 00:59:46,580 on Mount Casius itself, we are told. 686 00:59:46,580 --> 00:59:51,580 And Typhon cuts away the god's sinews using an adamantine sickle, 687 00:59:51,700 --> 00:59:56,780 wraps them up in a basket, and conceals them in his lair of the Corycian Cave. 688 00:59:57,740 --> 01:00:02,420 If we consider the story in its real context, we can understand for the 689 01:00:02,420 --> 01:00:07,420 first time how and when the story passed to the Greeks and then grew. 690 01:00:11,100 --> 01:00:14,580 Visible beyond the remains of this Christian church 691 01:00:14,580 --> 01:00:17,420 is the Corycian Cave of the Greek myth. 692 01:00:28,660 --> 01:00:31,140 At its mouth, there's actually an inscription 693 01:00:31,140 --> 01:00:36,220 which identifies it, although it dates from some 600 years after the Greek Dark Ages. 694 01:00:40,900 --> 01:00:44,580 To protect it from damage, it has been concealed 695 01:00:44,580 --> 01:00:49,540 and its location is known only to the cave's Turkish guardian. 696 01:00:51,220 --> 01:00:54,060 He's agreed to uncover it for me. 697 01:00:54,060 --> 01:00:58,220 I am the first scholar to see it in years. 698 01:00:58,220 --> 01:01:01,100 In 1896, an inscription was reported here. 699 01:01:01,100 --> 01:01:04,260 It's absolutely thrilling. We've managed to find it again. 700 01:01:04,260 --> 01:01:07,820 As far as I can see, beautifully cut Greek lettering. 701 01:01:07,820 --> 01:01:11,260 This really is the lifeblood of ancient history. 702 01:01:11,260 --> 01:01:14,780 This is what we rely on and we are finding it straight in front of us. 703 01:01:14,780 --> 01:01:19,780 And it looks as though it's lines of verse by one Eupaphis, 704 01:01:19,780 --> 01:01:24,820 who is in the dells of... and the cave... 705 01:01:26,020 --> 01:01:28,620 We'll have to wait till the lines are clearer. 706 01:01:31,860 --> 01:01:34,380 After a couple of hours of digging, 707 01:01:34,380 --> 01:01:37,100 all four lines of verse are revealed. 708 01:01:37,100 --> 01:01:41,740 Wary of going into the depths, Eupaphis wrote his verses 709 01:01:41,740 --> 01:01:45,380 and had them inscribed on this beautifully dressed stone. 710 01:01:47,740 --> 01:01:51,220 What he tells us is so important for fixing its context. 711 01:01:51,220 --> 01:01:56,260 He tells us, how I honoured and propitiated the gods Pan and Hermes. 712 01:01:57,060 --> 01:02:02,020 Now, that's immensely important because in the story, precisely Pan 713 01:02:02,180 --> 01:02:06,580 and Hermes are the gods who rescue the stolen sinews of Zeus. 714 01:02:06,580 --> 01:02:10,380 So this is the cave, certainly, where it happened. 715 01:02:10,380 --> 01:02:12,860 And he calls it, "En arimois", 716 01:02:12,860 --> 01:02:17,340 in Arima, a name which is going to be so important for our Greek travellers 717 01:02:17,340 --> 01:02:22,380 but which also ties up with the Hittite place name here - 718 01:02:22,380 --> 01:02:27,380 Erima on the map - and he describes how he entered the depths 719 01:02:32,820 --> 01:02:37,500 So when he was in the bottom, he heard the echoing noise of a river. 720 01:02:49,140 --> 01:02:53,620 The Arima cave is a quarter of a kilometre deep. 721 01:03:01,300 --> 01:03:06,300 As I descend, I well understand the dark demonic nature of this cave 722 01:03:06,820 --> 01:03:09,460 in the ancients' imagination. 723 01:03:11,500 --> 01:03:15,740 Arima was a continuing place of pilgrimage for Greeks 724 01:03:15,740 --> 01:03:19,100 and then Romans, a continuity, I believe, 725 01:03:19,100 --> 01:03:24,100 which goes right back to the age of the neo-Hittites and even earlier. 726 01:03:24,420 --> 01:03:29,420 And like those ancient pilgrims, at the bottom I find my way is blocked 727 01:03:29,900 --> 01:03:34,860 and beyond, the river does indeed echo. 728 01:03:34,860 --> 01:03:37,940 DISTANT GURGLING 729 01:03:37,940 --> 01:03:42,980 When I hear this sound of the river behind the rocks as it snakes its way down into the next world, 730 01:03:44,540 --> 01:03:49,580 I realise we have elements of immense religious significance for the ancient Hittites. 731 01:03:50,220 --> 01:03:55,300 Every year, the Hittite king would hold rites and a festival at the watery abysses 732 01:03:56,100 --> 01:04:01,100 throughout his kingdom to assure his control over the waters of the land. 733 01:04:01,860 --> 01:04:06,900 And here, the neo-Hittite king, centuries later, the sons of Muksas, had exactly the site 734 01:04:07,940 --> 01:04:12,940 at which to maintain those same rites and festivals that were part of the tradition. 735 01:04:13,460 --> 01:04:15,420 And it is through knowledge 736 01:04:15,420 --> 01:04:19,060 of the hymns and the stories told round the cave, 737 01:04:19,060 --> 01:04:22,900 that Euboean Greeks became aware of the snaky monster here 738 01:04:22,900 --> 01:04:25,220 whom they turned into Typhon. 739 01:04:37,980 --> 01:04:42,980 And at the mouth of the cave, visible proof of the continuing power of the myth. 740 01:04:45,260 --> 01:04:48,820 This church was built in the 5th century AD 741 01:04:48,820 --> 01:04:53,860 using the stones of an earlier pagan Greek temple dedicated to Zeus, 742 01:04:54,420 --> 01:04:57,700 and marking his battle against Typhon. 743 01:04:57,700 --> 01:05:01,020 By building a church in ancient Arima, 744 01:05:01,020 --> 01:05:04,740 the early Christians had a clear purpose. 745 01:05:04,740 --> 01:05:08,980 It is a fine tribute to the power of the pagan gods and monsters 746 01:05:08,980 --> 01:05:11,140 we've met in the cave behind. 747 01:05:11,140 --> 01:05:16,180 It sets straight across the opening of the Corycian Cave to cancel them out. 748 01:05:20,700 --> 01:05:23,780 We should think of Christian pilgrims coming once a year 749 01:05:23,780 --> 01:05:28,780 all the way down to this very inaccessible place to celebrate the Christian liturgy, 750 01:05:28,780 --> 01:05:33,700 knowing that they were now safe from the demons, from Typhon, 751 01:05:33,700 --> 01:05:36,980 the terrible Typhon, in the cave behind. 752 01:05:36,980 --> 01:05:41,420 In the Greek myths, with his stolen body parts restored, 753 01:05:41,420 --> 01:05:45,420 Zeus hurled thunderbolts and lightning against the monster. 754 01:05:47,700 --> 01:05:51,860 It was believed that traces of his mythical fight 755 01:05:51,860 --> 01:05:55,020 could be found elsewhere in Cilicia. 756 01:05:55,020 --> 01:05:59,420 Just to the northeast of the caves, there's another huge ravine 757 01:05:59,420 --> 01:06:04,460 known nowadays as Kanlidivane, meaning, "The crazy place of blood." 758 01:06:09,020 --> 01:06:10,740 In the 3rd century AD, 759 01:06:10,740 --> 01:06:15,780 the Greek poet Opian served as a priest of the gods at the nearby Corycian Cave. 760 01:06:17,380 --> 01:06:22,420 And Opian tells us how Zeus took the monster Typhon and battered him all 761 01:06:23,100 --> 01:06:27,300 the length of the seashore, hitting his hundred heads against the rocks. 762 01:06:27,300 --> 01:06:32,340 And he goes on, "Even now the tawny banks and rocks run red with the blood from Typhon'sheads." 763 01:06:34,340 --> 01:06:39,300 Standing here, I can see exactly what the local poet meant. 764 01:06:42,540 --> 01:06:47,420 The rock seems stained with conspicuous streaks of red, 765 01:06:47,420 --> 01:06:50,500 especially now as the light fades. 766 01:06:56,860 --> 01:07:00,300 From the 5th century AD onwards, the Christians 767 01:07:00,300 --> 01:07:05,300 built no less than four Basilica churches by the rim of this ravine. 768 01:07:07,340 --> 01:07:12,020 No text survives to explain this surge of new Christian building 769 01:07:12,020 --> 01:07:15,540 but pagan buildings had existed on this site. 770 01:07:21,980 --> 01:07:25,540 At this ravine, just as at the cave in Arima, 771 01:07:25,540 --> 01:07:29,220 the churches were built as a counterweight, 772 01:07:29,220 --> 01:07:34,300 designed to cancel the traces of Typhon's demonic blood, 773 01:07:34,300 --> 01:07:37,700 an old cult of Zeus at the ravine itself. 774 01:07:37,700 --> 01:07:40,300 Kanlidivane is stained with blood 775 01:07:40,300 --> 01:07:45,140 but it cannot be Typhon's last resting place. He was far too big. 776 01:07:45,140 --> 01:07:49,500 His head brushed the stars, his arms spread out across east and west, 777 01:07:49,500 --> 01:07:54,220 he had those hundred hissing heads. He needed somewhere far bigger. 778 01:07:54,220 --> 01:07:58,140 So where was he, then, Euboeans would have wondered. 779 01:07:58,140 --> 01:08:03,020 He had to have a resting place commensurate with his size, one which measured up 780 01:08:03,020 --> 01:08:07,060 to the great cosmic war with the great majesty of Zeus himself. 781 01:08:09,980 --> 01:08:14,660 On their travels, Euboeans were to find just such a place, 782 01:08:14,660 --> 01:08:18,220 away at the furthest edge of the Greek world. 783 01:08:35,100 --> 01:08:40,180 In the mid 8th century BC, the Euboeans founded settlements 784 01:08:40,380 --> 01:08:44,020 on the island of Sicily's eastern shore. 785 01:08:44,020 --> 01:08:49,060 And every day, dominating the view, was the great volcano, Mount Etna. 786 01:08:53,740 --> 01:08:57,300 This is an eerie, dangerous place. 787 01:08:57,300 --> 01:09:01,740 Climbers like me have to be accompanied by a guide. 788 01:09:04,860 --> 01:09:09,260 These fumes can choke unwary travellers and up here, 789 01:09:09,260 --> 01:09:12,180 the wind can change in an instant. 790 01:09:16,100 --> 01:09:21,140 How did early Greeks explain this extraordinary burnt landscape? 791 01:09:22,220 --> 01:09:27,300 By myth - the very myth Euboeans had met in the east. 792 01:09:28,100 --> 01:09:32,940 Euboeans reasoned that the victorious Zeus had scorched Typhon 793 01:09:32,940 --> 01:09:35,620 on these very slopes, and below us, 794 01:09:35,620 --> 01:09:40,620 the monster is imprisoned and being lashed in punishment. 795 01:09:40,780 --> 01:09:45,780 And when he tosses and turns, his fiery anger erupts. 796 01:09:48,260 --> 01:09:52,740 300 years after the first Euboeans settled in this mountain's shadow, 797 01:09:52,740 --> 01:09:56,700 the great Greek poet Pindar witnessed an eruption 798 01:09:56,700 --> 01:10:01,460 and described it here belching out streams of unapproachable fire, 799 01:10:01,460 --> 01:10:05,060 the writhings of the monster. 800 01:10:07,740 --> 01:10:12,780 Well, this is Typhon's latest hole, blasted in 1968, quite amazing. 801 01:10:13,660 --> 01:10:17,460 I think you have to remember that poet Pindar... HE SPEAKS IN GREEK 802 01:10:22,060 --> 01:10:25,980 During the day, he sends out rivers of blazing smoke. 803 01:10:25,980 --> 01:10:30,980 Now I think that Pindar the poet in the 470s BC stood pretty near here, 804 01:10:31,540 --> 01:10:34,940 and then the whole thing exploded into the sea 805 01:10:34,940 --> 01:10:37,980 and the rocks came down with a crash, it's wonderful. 806 01:10:37,980 --> 01:10:40,780 He's really steaming this morning, he's hotting up. 807 01:10:40,780 --> 01:10:44,540 Under there he's been blazing away for about 5,000 years, 808 01:10:44,540 --> 01:10:47,100 still not exhausted. 809 01:10:47,100 --> 01:10:51,060 There's a great argument as to whether myth is contrary to reason. 810 01:10:51,060 --> 01:10:55,580 If you stand here, nonsense, myth makes perfect sense. 811 01:10:55,580 --> 01:10:58,500 There's no application, no opposition between the two. 812 01:11:00,260 --> 01:11:05,340 In the Greek imagination, the myth of Typhon did not end on Etna. 813 01:11:08,300 --> 01:11:12,900 Euboeans had found signs of his presence north of Sicily. 814 01:11:14,540 --> 01:11:18,060 In their journey westwards, our travelling heroes had sailed 815 01:11:18,060 --> 01:11:22,220 through the Straits of Messina and along Italy's coast. 816 01:11:28,180 --> 01:11:32,140 Even before they founded their Sicilian colonies, 817 01:11:32,140 --> 01:11:36,260 Euboeans had travelled as far north as the Bay of Naples. 818 01:11:38,140 --> 01:11:42,500 Etruscans were present in the area, so at first Euboeans avoided 819 01:11:42,500 --> 01:11:44,740 settling on the mainland. 820 01:11:44,740 --> 01:11:49,580 Instead they headed out to an island beyond the bay. 821 01:11:49,580 --> 01:11:53,340 This is the island which the Euboeans chose to settle, 822 01:11:53,340 --> 01:11:57,900 known nowadays as Ischiam, but they called as Pithecusa, 823 01:11:57,900 --> 01:12:01,100 which in Greek means "Monkey Island". 824 01:12:01,100 --> 01:12:05,940 Zoologists claim that in early times there were no monkeys here, 825 01:12:05,940 --> 01:12:09,220 and nowadays it's crawling with tourists. 826 01:12:09,220 --> 01:12:12,580 The ferry journey from Naples takes less than an hour. 827 01:12:12,580 --> 01:12:14,780 Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers 828 01:12:14,780 --> 01:12:18,100 visit the little island for its health spas and beaches. 829 01:12:19,740 --> 01:12:23,860 We can follow Euboeans in the west with the help of ancient texts, 830 01:12:23,860 --> 01:12:28,260 supported by archaeological evidence, which suggests 831 01:12:28,260 --> 01:12:33,340 they arrived on Ischia about 770 BC, and if correct, that's very soon 832 01:12:34,980 --> 01:12:38,220 after they had settled at Al Mina in the East. 833 01:12:39,260 --> 01:12:44,300 They found Ischia thinly inhabited so they settled beside this cove. 834 01:12:45,460 --> 01:12:49,620 And a local name for the island would have caught their attention, 835 01:12:49,620 --> 01:12:54,700 in Etruscan it meant "monkey", and the word no less was Arima. 836 01:12:55,580 --> 01:12:59,980 Out east in Cilicia and Turkey, they had come from one Arima, 837 01:12:59,980 --> 01:13:04,060 the cave in which Typhon had hidden the body parts of Zeus, 838 01:13:04,060 --> 01:13:09,100 and now they'd travelled to their furthest point west and had landed on yet another Arima. 839 01:13:09,860 --> 01:13:12,420 Was Typhon to be seen here, too? 840 01:13:12,420 --> 01:13:16,940 Yes, if they looked carefully even at the beach because on the ground 841 01:13:16,940 --> 01:13:20,260 the sand here is dark and volcanic 842 01:13:20,260 --> 01:13:23,060 as if Typhon himself has been active. 843 01:13:23,060 --> 01:13:27,500 It must have seemed heaven sent, an omen from the gods. 844 01:13:29,060 --> 01:13:31,660 Overlooking the cove is the hill of Monte Vico, 845 01:13:31,660 --> 01:13:35,460 just the place for a Greek Acropolis. 846 01:13:35,460 --> 01:13:38,980 On it, hot springs serve as a bathing spa. 847 01:13:41,740 --> 01:13:45,900 For the Greeks too, they steamed up from the ground. 848 01:13:45,900 --> 01:13:49,020 As on Etna, the cause seemed obvious. 849 01:13:49,020 --> 01:13:53,100 Why, the Euboeans reasoned, it was Typhon imprisoned below. 850 01:13:59,580 --> 01:14:04,380 The monster, they imagined, was so large that he lay stretched 851 01:14:04,380 --> 01:14:07,700 all the way from Ischia to volcanic Sicily, 852 01:14:07,700 --> 01:14:09,660 far across the sea. 853 01:14:12,700 --> 01:14:16,980 In his Iliad, Homer compares the sound of the Greek army's 854 01:14:16,980 --> 01:14:22,020 first advance on Troy to the crushing sound when Zeus lashes Typhon. 855 01:14:22,460 --> 01:14:27,420 "In Arima," Homer says, "where they say is Typhon's bed." 856 01:14:28,340 --> 01:14:33,380 Homer was composing, I believe, around 750 BC. 857 01:14:34,100 --> 01:14:37,660 By Arima, he meant exactly Ischia. 858 01:14:37,660 --> 01:14:41,020 Word of it had derived ultimately from Euboeans. 859 01:14:45,820 --> 01:14:50,860 The archaeological finds made on the island are now housed in the Pithecusae Museum. 860 01:14:55,740 --> 01:14:58,900 Among the objects here are small seal stones 861 01:14:58,900 --> 01:15:02,860 whose style and type of stone has been traced exactly to Cilicia 862 01:15:02,860 --> 01:15:07,060 in modern Turkey, the very place of Typhon's lair. 863 01:15:11,020 --> 01:15:15,020 The seals were buried in the graves of young children. 864 01:15:15,020 --> 01:15:19,660 This is a near-Eastern practice and the mothers, I think, may often 865 01:15:19,660 --> 01:15:23,340 have come with Euboean partners from the near East. 866 01:15:26,500 --> 01:15:30,020 The director of the museum is Professori Giovanni Castagna, 867 01:15:30,020 --> 01:15:33,300 and his most important treasure is this drinking cup. 868 01:15:34,540 --> 01:15:36,940 It too was made in the eastern Mediterranean, 869 01:15:36,940 --> 01:15:40,020 brought out here and later buried 870 01:15:40,020 --> 01:15:43,500 in a small boy's grave around 725 BC. 871 01:16:13,540 --> 01:16:18,540 This Greek inscription for me, Professori, is so suggestive 872 01:16:19,180 --> 01:16:24,140 because it is written in the characteristic script of the Euboeans, 873 01:16:24,140 --> 01:16:28,420 and there are the three lines in verse, and at least I think 874 01:16:28,420 --> 01:16:32,460 that this is the world's first literary allusion 875 01:16:32,460 --> 01:16:36,740 because the inscription says... HE SPEAKS IN GREEK 876 01:16:39,020 --> 01:16:43,060 "I am the cup of Nestor, good to drink with, 877 01:16:43,060 --> 01:16:47,500 "and whoever drinks from this cup will be seized 878 01:16:47,500 --> 01:16:52,260 "by the love desire of Aphrodite the goddess of love." 879 01:16:52,260 --> 01:16:57,340 Now in Homer's poems we know of the old hero Nestor, whenever he picks up his big cup 880 01:16:58,220 --> 01:17:02,020 as an old man, he talks for line after line giving advice, 881 01:17:02,020 --> 01:17:05,180 he's rather boring, and this is a witty allusion 882 01:17:05,180 --> 01:17:09,380 on a person's cup saying, "I am Nestor's cup, 883 01:17:09,380 --> 01:17:12,660 "but unlike the one in Homer, 884 01:17:12,660 --> 01:17:16,340 "if you drink from me, you will fall in love." 885 01:17:16,340 --> 01:17:20,220 Amazing, it makes us realise that the Homeric poems 886 01:17:20,220 --> 01:17:25,260 about the nobles and the heroes were not confined only to the aristocratic classes. 887 01:17:26,100 --> 01:17:30,740 This is not a very grand grave and yet the owner of the cup 888 01:17:30,740 --> 01:17:35,220 believes that everyone has Homer on the brain, like you and me. 889 01:17:35,220 --> 01:17:37,900 It's wonderful. HE SPEAKS IN GREEK 890 01:17:40,700 --> 01:17:44,420 Don't mention it. Oh, thank you so much! 891 01:17:52,100 --> 01:17:56,580 Emboldened by their settlement on Ischia, a group of Euboeans 892 01:17:56,580 --> 01:18:00,500 then set out to settle across the Bay of Naples. 893 01:18:03,940 --> 01:18:08,500 Here with Ischia visible on the horizon, they founded the first 894 01:18:08,500 --> 01:18:13,500 Greek settlement on the mainland of modern Italy, Cumae. 895 01:18:19,420 --> 01:18:22,220 Cumae has a magnificent stretch of farmland 896 01:18:22,220 --> 01:18:27,140 and was to remain a centre of Greek influence for more than 1,000 years, 897 01:18:27,140 --> 01:18:30,620 but the better farming and the greater space were not, 898 01:18:30,620 --> 01:18:35,020 I think, their only reasons for settling here. 899 01:18:50,580 --> 01:18:55,620 On rocky islands, as Homer remarks in the Odyssey, there is no scope for using fine horses. 900 01:19:01,140 --> 01:19:02,420 Unlike Ischia, 901 01:19:02,420 --> 01:19:06,380 Cumae had a flat beach, which was a horse lover's dream, 902 01:19:06,380 --> 01:19:08,940 and it still is. 903 01:19:12,140 --> 01:19:14,420 This beach is near the Agnano Hippodrome, 904 01:19:14,420 --> 01:19:18,100 a racecourse for Italian trotting horses. 905 01:19:18,100 --> 01:19:23,180 Every morning their trainers exercised them here, much as Euboeans did in the past. 906 01:19:25,180 --> 01:19:30,180 Horse harness and chariot fittings have been found in Euboean graves at Cumae. 907 01:19:32,700 --> 01:19:37,700 The top trainer here is Vincenzo Palumbo, he's agreed to let me have a go. 908 01:19:38,060 --> 01:19:42,180 Horses and riding are my lifelong loves back in Britain. 909 01:19:53,780 --> 01:19:57,420 The Euboean Greeks I am sure came here and they would have practised 910 01:19:57,420 --> 01:20:01,820 on the sand with their horses in chariots exactly as we do. 911 01:20:01,820 --> 01:20:06,860 The sand gives more strength to the horses' exercise, like Olympic runners, and then we could imagine 912 01:20:08,020 --> 01:20:13,020 them all lining the beach cheering on as the horses come either at the gallop or in the chariot, and of 913 01:20:14,620 --> 01:20:19,700 course they do that trick of jumping on and off that we saw with the Apobates on the pottery in Eretria. 914 01:20:21,340 --> 01:20:25,660 Horses were not just bred for the Apobates race so vividly painted 915 01:20:25,660 --> 01:20:29,020 on pottery I saw at Eretria's museum. 916 01:20:30,660 --> 01:20:35,660 For aristocrats, they were both a status symbol and a devastating weapon in war. 917 01:20:37,700 --> 01:20:42,740 In the 8th century BC, Euboeans were the finest of all Greek riders and horse breeders. 918 01:20:44,100 --> 01:20:46,860 They even named their children after horses. 919 01:20:49,020 --> 01:20:53,660 One of the two founders of Cumae was a Euboean named Hipocles, 920 01:20:53,660 --> 01:20:57,220 and "hippos" is Greek for horse. 921 01:21:04,500 --> 01:21:08,140 Once settled in Cumae, the Euboeans found yet 922 01:21:08,140 --> 01:21:13,180 more evidence of battles in heaven, which established the power of Zeus. 923 01:21:21,340 --> 01:21:25,740 The myths tell how after the defeat of Typhon there was a new challenge 924 01:21:25,740 --> 01:21:30,740 against the gods, a tribe of insolent, enormous giants. 925 01:21:31,380 --> 01:21:36,420 Just inland from Cumae, Euboeans actually located the field of the giants' battle. 926 01:21:37,940 --> 01:21:42,860 They call this place Flegra, which means flaming. 927 01:21:42,860 --> 01:21:46,260 We can still see what the ancients described, the wounds 928 01:21:46,260 --> 01:21:50,460 of the thunderbolted giants which pour out streams of fire and water. 929 01:21:50,460 --> 01:21:54,580 These sulphurous fumaroles are not the only peculiar element. 930 01:21:55,940 --> 01:21:58,860 The surface here at Flegra feels to me remarkably thin. 931 01:21:58,860 --> 01:22:03,580 In the late 18th century, the scholar and diplomat Sir William Hamilton 932 01:22:03,580 --> 01:22:08,620 came to much the same conclusion and he decided to test it by an experiment. 933 01:22:09,580 --> 01:22:13,460 He thought he'd try dropping a stone and listening to the sound it made. 934 01:22:13,460 --> 01:22:16,060 So I'm going to try dropping this one and if I don't 935 01:22:16,060 --> 01:22:19,380 drop it on my feet, we'll see what kind of a sound we get. 936 01:22:19,380 --> 01:22:21,220 THUD ECHOES 937 01:22:21,220 --> 01:22:25,220 Exactly what Hamilton heard, an echo which he thought was 938 01:22:25,220 --> 01:22:27,900 the echo of a subterranean vault, 939 01:22:27,900 --> 01:22:31,060 which was seething with fire and boiling with water. 940 01:22:31,060 --> 01:22:36,100 But what I think is what the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Euboeans who visited here believed, 941 01:22:37,060 --> 01:22:41,140 it's the subterranean vault of a vast underground prison in which 942 01:22:41,140 --> 01:22:46,180 the Giants are lying scalded and wounded, fuming and furious at their final defeat by the Olympian gods. 943 01:22:51,940 --> 01:22:56,940 The Ancients also believed that the base camp of the battling giants could be found. 944 01:22:58,660 --> 01:23:03,700 They located it too in Flegra, but curiously the Flegra to which 945 01:23:04,780 --> 01:23:09,500 they refer is hundreds of miles from this unearthly landscape. 946 01:23:19,220 --> 01:23:23,460 North of their home island, the Euboeans found the three prongs 947 01:23:23,460 --> 01:23:25,940 of the Calcydic Peninsula, 948 01:23:25,940 --> 01:23:29,820 the westernmost prong they called the second Flegra. 949 01:23:32,780 --> 01:23:37,820 Beside this fine beach, the Euboeans founded the settlement of Mendi 950 01:23:41,060 --> 01:23:45,820 The first settlers were aware of the Flegra near Cumae. 951 01:23:47,420 --> 01:23:51,220 The transfer of the name Flegra here is most odd, 952 01:23:51,220 --> 01:23:54,180 the peninsula is not at all volcanic. 953 01:23:58,340 --> 01:24:03,380 Greek authors are clear that it was the base camp for the Giants before their final battle in the West. 954 01:24:05,780 --> 01:24:09,500 In recent years, we have begun to understand why. 955 01:24:09,500 --> 01:24:14,540 This is the most unlikely site, how did you ever come to discover there were things to excavate here? 956 01:24:15,140 --> 01:24:20,180 It was an accidental finding of this site when a worker found 957 01:24:21,060 --> 01:24:24,780 a very interesting specimen of a hipparion. 958 01:24:24,780 --> 01:24:29,820 That is an ancient horse, isn't it? It is an ancient three-toed horse. 959 01:24:29,940 --> 01:24:33,140 'Evangelia Tsoukala is a palaeontologist. 960 01:24:33,140 --> 01:24:37,580 'With her team she's been excavating this hillside near Mendi... 961 01:24:39,420 --> 01:24:43,020 '..and has made some remarkable discoveries.' 962 01:24:43,020 --> 01:24:47,140 I can show you here a very extraordinary bone. 963 01:24:47,140 --> 01:24:50,380 It's the biggest thing I've ever seen! 964 01:24:50,380 --> 01:24:54,060 It is a femur of a mastodon. Oh, my goodness, what is it? 965 01:24:54,060 --> 01:24:56,700 It is an ancestor of the mammoth. Ah, right. 966 01:24:56,700 --> 01:25:01,740 And if I look at it knowing nothing, I might think this was the bone of some enormously heavyweight human. 967 01:25:03,580 --> 01:25:06,940 The imagination of the lay men is incredible 968 01:25:06,940 --> 01:25:10,620 and I have an example from my excavation in Grevena, with 969 01:25:10,620 --> 01:25:15,700 the huge mastodons there, and the people there 970 01:25:15,900 --> 01:25:19,420 thought that they come from an elephant from a circus. 971 01:25:19,420 --> 01:25:23,100 From a circus? They'd escaped, but you persuaded them. 972 01:25:23,100 --> 01:25:25,900 After 20 years, yes! 973 01:25:27,780 --> 01:25:32,820 'This hillside has already produced many other giant prehistoric bones.' 974 01:25:33,180 --> 01:25:37,420 They must have been a race of gigantic people, what I'm thinking is that the Greeks, 975 01:25:37,420 --> 01:25:41,340 the Euboeans who had been out in Naples and had seen the shattered 976 01:25:41,340 --> 01:25:46,380 remains of the battlefield where the gods had zapped the Giants with thunderbolts, I can now understand 977 01:25:47,420 --> 01:25:52,460 why they come up here and they think "This is the camp, this is where the Giants bred, where they lived." 978 01:25:52,900 --> 01:25:55,740 Once you see it, you can see what the Euboeans concluded. 979 01:25:55,740 --> 01:26:00,780 Those things are far bigger than me, they are proof the poets knew these are giants. 980 01:26:01,300 --> 01:26:05,100 And this is why the whole story is partly located here 981 01:26:05,100 --> 01:26:08,420 and partly located on the smouldering volcanoes in Italy. 982 01:26:21,740 --> 01:26:26,700 From one Flegra to the other, across a vast expanse of sea, 983 01:26:26,820 --> 01:26:29,860 Euboeans linked the evidence they saw 984 01:26:29,860 --> 01:26:32,260 and made sense of it through myth. 985 01:26:33,900 --> 01:26:37,980 In this same pattern of Euboean travel and enquiry, 986 01:26:37,980 --> 01:26:43,060 we can discern the origin of central Greek myths about the gods. 987 01:26:43,420 --> 01:26:48,460 In the near East below Mount Casius, Euboeans had heard the amazing tales 988 01:26:48,660 --> 01:26:53,100 of the battle for the kingship of heaven, of a castrating sickle, 989 01:26:53,100 --> 01:26:55,340 and the shower of a god's sperm. 990 01:26:57,020 --> 01:27:00,900 They heard stories of stone swallowed in error, 991 01:27:00,900 --> 01:27:03,340 and the ruling god of storms and weather... 992 01:27:05,660 --> 01:27:10,700 ..and they traced that ruling god's great battle with the snaky monster across the world. 993 01:27:14,260 --> 01:27:19,140 In the near East, these stories were linked to religious rituals. 994 01:27:19,140 --> 01:27:23,700 Euboeans adopted them as stories, simply "muthoi". 995 01:27:25,540 --> 01:27:30,580 And as true travelling heroes, myths across the wine-dark sea. 996 01:27:32,220 --> 01:27:36,020 They found a goddess born from Heaven's sperm in Cyprus... 997 01:27:37,220 --> 01:27:41,100 ..the mountain which was their ruling god's nursery, 998 01:27:41,100 --> 01:27:44,980 a swallowed stone in holy Delphi... 999 01:27:45,980 --> 01:27:50,060 ..and the snaky monster steaming under volcanic Ischia and Etna... 1000 01:27:52,780 --> 01:27:57,020 ..and the defeated giants sweating under their western battlefields... 1001 01:27:58,820 --> 01:28:02,260 ..and leaving bones on their northern base camp. 1002 01:28:03,820 --> 01:28:08,340 These myths were not the random fantasies of unconscious minds, 1003 01:28:08,340 --> 01:28:13,340 they were rooted in Euboeans' experience of real places and real people. 1004 01:28:13,860 --> 01:28:18,340 What they learned in the East, they found far away in the West, 1005 01:28:18,340 --> 01:28:21,980 and through them these great myths about the gods 1006 01:28:21,980 --> 01:28:26,500 became central to Greek religion, literature, and art, 1007 01:28:26,500 --> 01:28:30,540 from where they live on still vivid in our world.