Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez

Janina Ramirez explores the surprise discovery in a Suffolk garden of the Sutton Hoo Hoard – an incredible Anglo-Saxon ship-burial dating from the early 7th century AD and the final resting place of a supremely wealthy warrior-king. The ship’s ruined burial chamber was packed with treasures: Byzantine silverware, sumptuous gold jewellery, a lavish feasting set and, most famously, an ornate iron helmet.

The Lion Man takes Nina deep into the dark heart of Nazi Germany, where in a remote cave in late August 1939, archaeologist Robert Wetzel came across the 40,000-year-old artwork now known as the Lion Man. Just a week later, WWII broke out, the excavation came to halt and, in one of the great mysteries of archaeology, Wetzel never mentioned his incredible find again. As Janina discovers, the Lion Man represents a revolution in the human story. Half-man and half-animal, it is the first artwork created from the human imagination, revealing the very origins of human art, religion and culture.

Janina Ramirez travels to Mexico, where, just before the outbreak of WWII, American husband-and-wife explorer team Matthew and Marion Stirling were lured into the jungle by the legend of a colossal stone head. They found the head – and a lot more than they bargained for – because it turned out to be the first clue in a trail that led to the discovery of a lost civilisation, now known as the Olmecs.