NHK - Eurasia East and West (2004) Part 2 Quest for the Forgotten Alexandria

Eurasia - 2500 years of history and conquests. A magical voyage through time and space, exploring the history, culture and religions that link East and West from the Persian Empire of Alexander the Great to the huge Mongolian Empire of Kublai Khan, the destinies of highly developed civilizations intermingled until they converged to take the shape of a Eurasian civilization shared by all of us. Babylon, Persepolis, Ai-Khanoum, Baghdad, Rome are virtually recreated with incomparable realism by computer generated images.

Part 2 Quest for the Forgotten Alexandriad

Is it myth or reality ? It has always been said that Alexander left a string of some seventy cities in the wake of his conquests all named Alexandria in his honour. However, none of these legendary cities was ever found, except for Alexandria in Egypt and, naturally, generations of archaeologists have been searching for them

In 1961, Mohamed Zahir Shah, who was then King of Afghanistan, discovered a Corinthian capital while he was out hunting. It was the first evidence of a yet unknown archaeological site Ai-Khanoum. Ceramics and fragments were unearthed as well as hundreds of coins marked with names of Greek kings and Greek inscriptions. Gradually, it became evident that this city separated from the Mediterranean world since the 3rd century BC had been colonised by Greeks who continued to speak their own language, use their own scriptures. They had lived in harmony with the peoples of Central Asia the Bactrians, Scytes Sogdians and Tokharians.

It was like entering the Greek universe 5000 km from Greece A virtual reconstruction of Ai-Khanoum takes us back through time and history to the forgotten Alexandria.

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