Episode list

To ensure body and spirit remain everlasting, the Egyptians developed elaborate rituals, massive tombs, and even magic incantations passed down through millennia. Not only do the entombed remains display a shocking knowledge of biology and chemistry, they hold the promise of a life beyond the mortal coil... While some ancient cultures lavished bodies with burial goods, the Romans were all about processional pomp and grandeur. What can be learned from the war wounds of the skeletons found in the Gladiator Burial Pit of Ephesus? Or the remains of the victims of Mt. Vesuvius? The remote Mustang Caves of Nepal hold thousand-year-old corpses. But a deeper investigation yields shocking information. What ritual climb accompanied their burial? What symbols were left for the living?

A mysterious well filled with bones reveals a strange practice in ancient Persia... Why were these ancients laid bare atop desert towers, their bodies picked clean by vultures before being consigned to the grave... Thousands of kilometers away, archaeologists digging in Mongolia uncovered a two-thousand-year-old textile that holds the key to solve the mystery of what soma, the mysterious elixir that brings light, gods and immortality, is made from. And, in Sichuan, hanging coffins are discovered... legend has it the ancient Bo People could fly. To date, we still haven't been able to determine how they suspended their leaden coffins from the cliffside. Who were the Bo? How did they achieve this and why did they disappear?

Jell Mound, in Gjellstad Norway is a known Viking burial ground where archaeologists are using ground penetrating radar to unveil new findings every year. Vikings believed the soul needed to be freed from the body after death, but it wasn't just the soul that took flight to Valhalla. For these warring people, what did death promise? Across the great ocean explorers uncover one of the largest Incan burial sites at Ancon on the Peruvian coast where the salt content of the region prevents the decay so prevalent in other cultures. 'Juanita' the mummified teenager was sacrificed to the volcano 500 years ago. Why was she drugged with coca leaves and alcohol? And what do the sacred waters of Lake Titicaca hide and what do they tell us about the Inca? Using DNA from skeletons excavated in New Mexico more than a century ago, researchers have shown that more than a dozen people buried in a small, hidden chamber were likely members of a powerful Native American dynasty related through their mothers. Could this burial site reveal the Chacoans to be a matriarchal society?

In 1928, an earthquake shift uncovered a row of painted warriors, 7-foot statues that encased mummies from an ancient civilization, perhaps a cemetery of Chachapoya children. Who were they? And what were the large Sentinel Sarcophagi set to guard against, in life, or in death? Curious bone arrangements in Winterborne link somehow to intermingled ashes from dig sites of Slovenia. Why would the Celts build human-animal hybrids? What were they trying to accomplish? Excavations of the Tophet of Carthage, a place of great archaeological controversy, unearths more questions than answers... was this simply a children's cemetery or was it a place of child sacrifice.

The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang rests in an underground kingdom, in a tomb so large the archaeological dig could last a century. Buried with 8,000 life-sized terracotta warriors and a moat of mercury to guard his body under a sky of pearls, what could justify such a show of funereal grandeur? We might think of Neanderthals as uncivilized, but we now know they too buried their dead. Could evidence of cannibalism and strange markings on other bones finally shed light on these distant relatives? Researchers discover that the oldest of the Chinchorro mummies are children. Embalmers disassembled the corpse, treated the organs then reassembled the pieces, using wood supports, filling the internal space with fibre or feathers. What could this mean?

At the sacrificial alter, El Castillo, where thousands met their death, researchers find exciting new evidence. Can a sacred well at Chichen Itza, where thousands of Mayan victims were deposited shed new light on the Maya? Were they simply at the mercy of bloodthirsty Gods? Or was there great honor in being sacrificed? Ceramic pieces found at Khonkho Wankane mortuary prove these people stripped dead bodies of flesh using quicklime. Whatever was left, they carried with them as they moved with their herds. What can science tell about these ancient chemists and their solutions? How did they justify the literal weight of loved ones carried on their backs? The Xiongnu nomadic people's burial complexes protect not just the elite leaders, but shares new clues on their influence and control over the silk road.