Ancient Apocalypse

The biblical story of Sodom. It’s stood for thousands of years as a powerful lesson of the perils of wickedness. According to the Bible, the men of Sodom were so wicked that God destroyed the city in a shower of fire and brimstone. But did the city of Sodom ever exist and could it be possible to locate? At Tall el-Hammam, in modern day Jordan, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a once thriving bronze age city, destroyed by some cataclysmic event, that they believe is the city of Sodom.

Eight thousand years ago, a lush paradise, home to mammoth, deer, and societies of hunter-gatherers connected Britain and mainland Europe - Doggerland. But this stone age Eden no longer exists. It was wiped out by a single devastating event, leaving it hidden beneath the waves of the North Sea for nearly 8,000 years. Slowly archaeology is revealing what life would have been like in this mesolithic paradise. But also how these people struggled to survive as their world was lost beneath the waves.

In 373 BCE the classical Greek city of Helike disappeared beneath the waves. Its destruction was so catastrophic that the only way the Greek authors could make sense of it was to blame it on the supernatural - Poseidon destroyed the city. It’s hauntingly similar to the myth of another Ancient civilization lost beneath the waves - Atlantis. Helike’s location is one of the greatest mysteries in archaeology, but could it be possible to rediscover the lost city and could Helike actually be Atlantis?

The Minoans, considered by many as the first European civilisation, flourished in the islands of the Aegean in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE before eventually disappearing around 1100 BC. A sophisticated people, both artistically and technologically, they are described as the first literate society in Europe, having left behind an unmatched legacy of unique art and architecture, incredible labyrinth-like palace complexes and fine artefacts. Their mercantile culture led to their presiding over a vast trade network and the grandeur of their civilisation is immortalised in the myth of King Minos and the Minotaur trapped beneath his palace at Knossos. But despite an extended period of cultural growth, Minoan civilisation is abruptly ended around 1550 BC as a result of a powerful explosive event.

Hundreds of years ago, sea-faring people called the Rapa Nui flourished on a small island at the easternmost edge of the Polynesian Islands – the Easter Island. When Europeans explorers first arrived in 1722, they found a tropical paradise, a land safeguarded by mysterious stone figures known as the moai. Hundreds of these statues dot the land to this day, facing inwards on the island, as if protecting its people. Scholars and archaeologists have spent centuries sifting through discoveries, trying to solve the mystery of the Rapa Nui. They soon discovered that the outbreak of a major conflict had devastating effects for the population on the Easter Island. Suddenly after, the Rapa Nui further succumbed to a series of deadly events that saw the entire social order of the island collapse and their culture, lost to history.

The Aztec Empire was the last great civilisation and dominant power of Mesoamerica in the 15th and 16th centuries. By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the Aztecs had built an empire covering an area of about 200km2. Its capital city of Tenochtitlan was a huge trading centre and it supported up to 140,000 people, making it the largest city in the Pre-Columbian Americas. Underpinning this empire was its military power of conscripted adult males. Aztec cities boasted temples, palaces and artwork displaying devotion to many gods. They developed sophisticated writing systems, calendars, and a religion that required human sacrifice. Yet their powerful empire would soon be decimated by their encounters with European colonisers and their demise does not just lie in the technological advantages their conquerors had against them.