The Silk Road

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Sam Willis

Jon Morrice

Mike Smith

Richard Downes

The Silk Road: Episode 3

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Episode 3

BBC Four - The Silk Road, Episode 3

Sam visits Persepolis, heart of the first Persian Empire, before heading to Istanbul.

Sam Willis continues his journey west in Iran. He begins in Persepolis, heart of the first Persian Empire, before heading to Istanbul and then coming full circle to Venice.

In the final episode of his series tracing the story of the most famous trade route in history, Dr Sam Willis continues his journey west in Iran. The first BBC documentary team to be granted entry for nearly a decade, Sam begins in the legendary city of Persepolis - heart of the first Persian Empire. 

Following an ancient caravan route through Persia's deserts, he visits a Zoroastrian temple where a holy fire has burned for 1,500 years, and Esfahan, one of the Silk Road's architectural jewels and rival to Sam's next destination - Istanbul. In the ancient capital of Byzantium, Sam discovers how the eastern Roman Empire was ruled through silk and how Venetian merchants cashed in on the wealth and trade it generated. 

Sam's last stop takes him full circle to Venice. Visiting Marco Polo's house, Sam reminds us how the great traveller's book was one of the first to link east to west and how the ideas and products that trickled down the Silk Road not only helped to trigger the Renaissance, but set Europe on a path of unstoppable change.

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Historian Dr Sam Willis travels the most famous trade route in history, the Silk Road.

Dr Sam Willis reveals how the Silk Road was the world's first global superhighway where people with new ideas, new cultures and new religions made exchanges that shaped humanity.

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