She is 'the face that launched a thousand ships'; the woman blamed for the Trojan War - a conflict that caused countless deaths - but who was the real Helen of Troy?
Bettany Hughes travels across the eastern Mediterranean to disentangle myth from reality and find the truth about the most beautiful woman on earth.
Helen's story is a dark and very human drama, interweaving pleasure and pain, sex and violence, love and hate: a tale that started with a messy love affair and ended with a bloody and disastrous conflict.
Hughes argues that many images of the mythic Helen, from Hollywood movies to romantic paintings, have got her all wrong: Helen was the original sex goddess. And the film reveals just how a pre-historic princess in Bronze Age Greece - a real Helen - would have looked.
The feature-length documentary takes in some of the most beautiful scenery of the ancient world, from the magnificent citadel at Mycenae and the spectacular shrine to Helen in Sparta, to the archaeological site in modern Turkey that will be forever linked with the war fought in Helen's name: Troy.
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Helen of Troy
Wed 14 Apr 2010
She is 'the face that launched a thousand ships'; the woman blamed for the Trojan War - a conflict that caused…
- This programme has episodes with subtitles available.
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Athens: The Truth about Democracy (Part 2 of 2)
Sat 28 Jul 2007
In the second part of her exploration of ancient Athens, Bettany Hughes examines how, as Athenian democracy progressed…
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Athens: The Truth about Democracy (Part 1 of 2)
Sat 21 Jul 2007
Bettany Hughes searches for the truth about the 'Golden Age' of Ancient Athens, investigating how a barren rock wedged…
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When the Moors Ruled in Europe
Sat 05 Nov 2005
Bettany Hughes traces the story of the mysterious and misunderstood Moors, the Islamic society that ruled in Spain for…
- This programme has episodes with subtitles available.
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The Minoans
Sat 23 Oct 2004
Bettany Hughes visits Crete to recount the story one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever made.
- This programme has episodes with subtitles available.
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