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Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez

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Three archaeological finds that changed our understanding of the origins of civilisation.

In this series, Janina follows in the footsteps of three men who set out across the globe in search of lost treasures. Their discoveries rewrote history, but these finds are not always what they seem.

In this series, Janina follows in the footsteps of three men who set out across the globe in search of lost treasures. The discoveries they made – the real palace behind the myth of the Minotaur, a lost Viking ship and the world’s oldest city - rewrote history.

But the finds are not always what they seem, because the men behind them were products of their eras, driven by nationalism, colonialism, and ego while competing to stamp their mark on our shared past.

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Janina Ramirez

Emma Parkins

Ed Stobart

Ben Harding

Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez: Series 1: The Lion Man

The Lion Man

Series 1

BBC Two - Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez, Series 1, The Lion Man

The tale of a Nazi archaeologist and of a treasure that revealed how civilisation began.

Nina Ramirez travels in the footsteps of the Nazi archaeologist who, on the brink of WWII, discovered The Lion Man, a treasure that would reveal how civilisation began.

The Lion Man takes Nina deep into the dark heart of Nazi Germany, where in a remote cave in late August 1939, archaeologist Robert Wetzel came across the 40,000-year-old artwork now known as the Lion Man. 

Just a week later, WWII broke out, the excavation came to halt and, in one of the great mysteries of archaeology, Wetzel never mentioned his incredible find again. 

As Janina discovers, the Lion Man represents a revolution in the human story. Half-man and half-animal, it is the first artwork created from the human imagination, revealing the very origins of human art, religion and culture.

But, in fact, Janina learns that it is almost a miracle the Lion Man came to light at all, because it was not pulled out of the cave as a single artwork but as hundreds of tiny ivory shards, found in numerous chance discoveries across eight decades. 

This incredible tale of exploration takes Janina from caves in southern Germany to Arctic Norway, as she finds out how the Lion Man gave us our first understanding of the birth of civilisation. 

She also explores how the artwork gives us a disturbing insight into one of the most troubled periods in our recent history, asking how a pioneering archaeologist like Robert Wetzel could also believe that an ice-age artwork like the Lion Man could support the ideology of Nazi Germany.

Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez: Series 1

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How in the summer of 1939, on the cusp of World War II, explorers discovered three astonishing ancient treasures that would transform our understanding of the origins of civilisation.

The summer of 1939 saw a golden age of exploration and archaeology coming to an end. It had been an era of adventurers setting out to explore the remotest corners of the globe, hoping to unlock clues to our forgotten past. 

During that last summer of peace, when the world stood on the precipice of a war that threatened to end civilisation itself, three extraordinary treasures were discovered that would radically change our understanding of the origins and diversity of human culture, bringing us closer to the worlds of our ancestors. 

Dr Janina Ramirez goes on the trail of these remarkable pre-war explorer archaeologists, from the English lady who discovered the Sutton Hoo Hoard in her back garden and the German archaeologist who hoped to use his discovery of the Lion Man to further the goals of the Third Reich to the glamorous husband-and-wife team of explorers who headed deep into the Mexican jungle in search of the Olmec Heads. 

Each of these discoveries is far more than treasure – they tell us how the societies we live in today were born.


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The Lion Man

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