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Jerash, the most spectacular Roman city in the East, lies high in the hills of Gilead in Jordan. Destroyed by earthquakes in the eighth century it has remained forgotten for many centuries. Among the city's most celebrated features are its great central colonnaded street which runs for over half a mile, its unique Oval Piazza and its theatres, temples and 15 churches. A five-year plan is already under way to uncover more of the city and restore it to its former glory. Every day teams of international architects and archaeologists reveal some new clues to the past.
The average ancient Egyptian - what did he expect from life? What were his clothes and food? What illnesses did he suffer and die from? Four thousand years later, how do you find out? Chronicle, six years ago, filmed Dr Rosalie David and her team as they unwrapped an Egyptian mummy. Now their researches have extended to the rest of the Manchester Museum collection and beyond to Egypt itself - in a skull-filled hut in the shadow of the Pyramids, in previously unfilmed tombs at Giza, and in the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina near the Valley of the Kings at Luxor. By using the most up-to-date scientific techniques the team are discovering both the pleasant and the not-so-pleasant realities of life and death in Ancient Egypt. Re-aired 26 February 1987, 5 July 1990
During the Cultural Revolution immense effort was put into archaeological excavations. The finds that resulted were of world importance. Chronicle has obtained from Peking extraordinary film that charts the discoveries made in China between 1966 and 1972.
Eleven years ago Chronicle began recording the rescue of the last and most important Egyptian temple from the swirling waters of the Aswan High Dam. The first of the monuments rescued was the celebrated Abu Simbel. The Ptolemaic temples of Isis and Trajan's Kiosk, dating from 350 BC, and built on the now submerged island of Philae, are the last. Each stone has been catalogued and moved to dry land for renovation. Now they have been reassembled on an exact replica of their original site. The British people contributed to the venture through the proceeds of the Tutankhamun exhibition, and Royal Navy divers helped dismantle the stonework. The task is now complete and the temples can be seen as intended - as the 'Pearl of Egypt.'
