Jump to content
UNRV Ancient Roman Empire Forums
Sign in to follow this  
DecimusCaesar

Byzantium: The Lost Empire Documentary

Recommended Posts

Did anyone else used to watch the Byzantium: Lost Empire series that used to show on the Discovery channel (especially Discovery Civilisation) about 4 or 5 years ago? the one presented by John Romer (the famous archaeologist and Egyptologist).

 

It turns out that the series has fallen out of copyright (that is why they stopped showing it) and it can now be viewed for free on Google vidoes or any other site that hosts domain videos. You can watch it for free by just going to google videos and typing in Byzantium and selecting the video called Lost Civilisations-Byzantium (don't know why they called it that on the site).

 

The program runs for about an hour and forty minutes and gives a brief overview of early Byzantine history, with a lot of emphasis on its art history.

Unfortunately, there is only the first to shows to be seen, and the last two epsidoes of the series are missing. It would be great if they eventually put the whole series up on the site.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I was a good show. I don't know why but Byzantium still keeps the image the Latins painted it with during the Middle Ages and so sparks little interest. This show was a wondeful exception despite rarely going to any depth.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very good show. I love the buildings and the mosaics so much. :hammer:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
It turns out that the series has fallen out of copyright (that is why they stopped showing it) and it can now be viewed for free on Google vidoes or any other site that hosts domain videos.

 

I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of that series for years... thanks for the info.

 

Very good show. I love the buildings and the mosaics so much. :lol:

 

 

Indeed they are, but they are more breathtaking in person.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, it's more of an art/society show than a history one. You can't blame John Romer for doing it that way as I can't see how he would have fitted the whole narrative history of Byzantium into a four part show.

Still can't find the other two episodes, which is a shame.

 

Neo Dionysos, Have you been to Istanbul? got any good pictures there?

 

(I would have love to go there one day).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Neo Dionysos, Have you been to Istanbul? got any good pictures there?

 

(I would have love to go there one day).

 

Yes, I'll have to make an album in my blog sometime, the Church of Holy Wisdom is breathtaking and in the video I shot, I was doing narration for family back home and a little history on what I was filming and well, I just kept screwing up because I still couldn't believe I was there. It was disappointing though that the middle section of the church had this huge scaffolding and they were doing some work on the central dome so I couldn't get that picture where the sunlight streams in and it makes the dome "float".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Will you be posting any part of the vid on (say) youtube? Or is it a private item for your Family?

How did you find the light , was it really as golden as it seems in Romer's work?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is Istanbul really a very beautiful place? Books always say that but I do not think it is quite in the show. Is there any Christian church, or there are only mosques? In the show the buildings seem to be very "Islamic" or very "Middle East"...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Mnay of the churches have been convereted to Mosques and later re-decarated with Islamic patterns and style - like the Churxh of Sergius and Bacchus displayed in the documentary, even so there must be some Orthodox churches there somewhere, although whether these date to the Middle Ages is beyond me, but I'm sure that Mehmet II must have preserved many places of worship for the Christians after all he did make sure that Hagia Sophia remained a place of sanctuary to christians in times of trouble.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Will you be posting any part of the vid on (say) youtube? Or is it a private item for your Family?

How did you find the light , was it really as golden as it seems in Romer's work?

 

I have no idea how to post on youtube LoL. Otherwise I would...

 

Is Istanbul really a very beautiful place? Books always say that but I do not think it is quite in the show. Is there any Christian church, or there are only mosques? In the show the buildings seem to be very "Islamic" or very "Middle East"...

 

It is a very beatiful city, very touristic though of course. And there are about a dozen churches in the city. Mostly on the Galatia side than the old city. There is one major Catholic Cathedral which is Frankish in origin... built in the 1600 or 1700's I think and many churches around it. In the old city, there is one on the southern side near the old city walls along the highway, (Orthodox), one also just north of the Faith Mosque sitting on the grounds of the old "Church of Holy Apostles". And further north of that you have a collection of churches as well as the Greek Patriachate and the Bulgarian Patriachate. In reality almost all mosques in Turkey take after the Hagia Sophia which the idea of a central dome and then smaller domes. The Muslims loved it so much they copied it and many mosques in Turkey, (the smaller ones), are just converted churches from the Byzantines. If it wasn't for the minerats on the Blue Mosque for example, up close and and around it, it looks like a slightly different Chuch of Holy Wisdom so I'd say Turkey's mosques are more Christian looking than Islamic, not Frankish like the Gothic style churches etc, but like Eastern Christianity.

 

Mnay of the churches have been convereted to Mosques and later re-decarated with Islamic patterns and style - like the Churxh of Sergius and Bacchus displayed in the documentary, even so there must be some Orthodox churches there somewhere, although whether these date to the Middle Ages is beyond me, but I'm sure that Mehmet II must have preserved many places of worship for the Christians after all he did make sure that Hagia Sophia remained a place of sanctuary to christians in times of trouble.

 

That they did, infact inside the Hagia Sophia you can see where they took down huge crosses, removed stone pieces that were crosses and just left the middel section, painted over all the mosaic, (parts of them have been removed so you can see what it looks like underneath). There is actually I think only one place of worship for Christians that has survived since before Mehmet came, the rest have come up since then and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, where did you read it was a place of santuary for them after 1453?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't find the source for the Sultan making the Church a sanctuary to the christians in times of trouble ( I am now beginning to think I saw Romer mention it during the last episode of the series - hopefully the one they will put up eventually so we can see), but while searching through some of my books I rembered seeing in the Appendix II to Steven Runciman's Fall of Constantinople: 1453 a section about what happened to the churches in Constantinople after the Turkish takeover. The Church of the Holy Apostles did remain as a sanctuary to christians until it was handed over to the Sultan by the Patriarch at one time, and the Sultan did extend an area of sanctuary to the Christians hiding in some parts of the city.

 

The book is worth reading if you want more info on what happened to christian churches after the conquest. Another good book is Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 by Roger Crowley, which mentions that the Turks had already started building a wooden minaret by Hagia Sophia within a short while after the conquest.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I bought the VHS tapes of this show years ago, and still watch it once or twice a year. True, it doesn't go into any great depth, but it is an excellent primer for someone who is unfamiliar with the Byzantine Empire.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I bought the VHS tapes of this show years ago, and still watch it once or twice a year. True, it doesn't go into any great depth, but it is an excellent primer for someone who is unfamiliar with the Byzantine Empire.

That's cool. I like the Byzantine Empire. I especially like their military units, the Kataphractoi and the Varangian guard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Map of the Roman Empire

×