1. Hidden Treasures

The Byzantine Empire lasted for more than 1,000 years and at its height covered a million square miles of the globe.

Yet it's an almost entirely forgotten civilisation.

Historian Bettany Hughes begins a three part series using the latest archaeological evidence to rediscover this empire and the people who ran it.

So much more than golden icons and a complicated bureaucracy, Bettany discovers that the real legacy of this glamorous and strange society is still making news headlines today.

In thIs first programme, Bettany sees for herself as the bones of this civilisation see the light of day for the first time in a millennium.

Treasures found in the empire's capital, modern day Istanbul, betray much about the life and importance of a civilisation that whilst being devoutly Christian and the inheritors of the Romans, still managed to be exotic and eastern.

Producer: Philip Sellars

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2008.