Lost Cities of the Ancients

This episode looks at the legendary lost city of Piramesse. This magnificent ancient capital was built 3,000 years ago by the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses the Great, but long ago the whole city disappeared. When it was rediscovered by early archaeologists, it opened up a bizarre puzzle - when Piramesse was finally found it was in the wrong place, somewhere Ramesses the Great could not possibly have built it. Recreating the stories of both the early archaeologists and the ancient Egyptians, the film enters a lost world, recounting the strange tale of the quest for Piramesse and following the intriguing detective work of modern archaeologists Manfred Bietak and Edgar Pusch as they solve the baffling mystery of how this great lost city could vanish, only to reappear thousands of years later in the wrong place.

In the Lambeyeque valley in Northern Peru lies a strange lost world – the forgotten ruins of 250 mysterious pyramids, including some of the biggest on the planet, colossal structures made out of mud bricks. Long ago, the Lambeyeque people were haunted by a terrible fear and believed that building pyramids was essential to their survival. Their obsession reached its height at a city called Tucume, an eerie place of 26 pyramids standing side-by-side, the last pyramids this civilization created before they vanished forever.

It was one of the greatest vanishing acts in history. More than 3000 years ago a mysterious and ruthless civilization rose from nothing, created a brutal and unstoppable army, and built an Empire that rivalled Egypt and Babylon. And yet, just as it was at the height of its powers, this great empire suddenly vanished from history.