To outsiders, Turkmenistan is one of the world's least known countries. For the first time in ten years, a film crew has been free to visit spectacular excavation sites and follow international researchers into areas that have long been off-limits. Once considered the poorest part of the Soviet Union, oil and natural gas have brought new wealth to Turkmenistan today. A little known fact in the West is that 4,000 years ago, the country was home to one of the ancient world's centers of power. Although it flourished around the same time as the advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Margiana empire was later largely forgotten. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country has been slowly opening up to international researchers, and its astounding cultural heritage is coming to light.

Up to one million gladiators are thought to have died in arenas across the Roman Empire. And, although fascination with gladiators has been high, the details of their lives and deaths remain fragmentary. Now, with the discovery of an ancient Roman burial site containing 80 skeletons thought to be gladiator warriors, National Geographic recreates the world of the Roman arena and how six gladiators lived, fought and died.

"No discovery of our time has so moved the whole world," proclaims an intertitle introducing this special extended newsreel edition. For once, Topical Budget's characteristic hyperbole is on the money. The discovery and excavation (some would say grave-robbing) of the tomb of the 14th Century BC Egyptian pharaoh was already an international sensation by the time this newsreel screened in February 1923. The sense of breathless excitement surrounding the discovery extends to Topical's intertitles, which expend a good portion of the film's running time explaining the relatively fleeting, poor quality images of the excavation itself. But we do get to see the removal of an ebony, ivory and gold chair, and two glimpses of expedition leader Howard Carter - in long-shot from behind as announced in an intertitle, but also a much clearer, unheralded shot at the 'halfway rest house', where he cuts a dash in white shirt and trousers.

This short documentary depicts the search, discovery and authentication of the only known Norse settlement in North America - Vinland the Good. Mentioned in Icelandic manuscripts and speculated about for over two centuries, Vinland is known as "the place where the wild grapes grow" and was thought to be on the eastern coast between Virginia and Newfoundland. In 1960 a curious group of house mounds was uncovered at l'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland by Drs. Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad of Norway. Added to the United Nations World Heritage List, l'Anse aux Meadows is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.

A slide about the importance of accidental archaeological finds for the development of archaeological science and the study of history. The film appeals to farmers and construction workers in particular, urging them to report similar findings immediately.

Bones of the Buddha is a 2013 television documentary produced by Icon Films and commissioned by WNET/THIRTEEN and ARTE France for the National Geographic Channels. It concerns a controversial Buddhist reliquary from the Piprahwa Stupa in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was released in May, 2013, and was broadcast in July 2013 in the US on PBS as part of the Secrets of the Dead series.

Documentary that discovers all the secrets of mummification in the Canary Islands thanks to pioneering research. Regis Francisco López approaches the mummification techniques that took place in Tenerife for more than 10 centuries.

In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example, to Roman times, but rather celebrate it as an age in which creativity flowered, especially in terms of artistic design as well as symbolism. She shows plenty of good examples, ranging from the Franks Casket to the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Lindisfarne Gospels. - l_rawjalaurence

National Geographic follows archaeologist Ehud Natzer in his discovery of the tomb of Herod the Great.

A film on the "SAPPHIRE", the oldest identified wreck in Canadian waters. Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team is responsible for the excavation of the three-hundred-year-old frigate.

Documentary following a team of technicians in Italy as they reconstruct a number of historic Middle Eastern artifacts that were vandalized at the hands of Islamic State.

Move over, King Tut: There's a new pharaoh on the scene. A team of top archaeologists and forensics experts revisits the story of Hatshepsut, the woman who snatched the throne dressed as a man and declared herself ruler. Despite her long and prosperous reign, her record was all but eradicated from Egyptian history in a mystery that has long puzzled scholars. But with the latest research effort captured in this program, history is about to change.

In the heart of a metropolitan city of 15 million people and among the construction of a new billion-dollar transportation network, an archaeological sensation has been discovered: the ancient harbour of Theodosious, lost from the history books for over 1000 years.