Treasures with Bettany Hughes

-I'm traveling the world exploring secrets and wonders...

This is really tight!

[ Chuckles ] ...an adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places.

This is absolutely incredible.

I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures...

It's so tiny and absolutely unique.

...buried in ancient sites, extraordinary buildings, and glorious works of art... that help to explain the story of us.

Come with me as I reveal how the past has shaped our lives.

This time, the treasures of the Mediterranean.

This sea has been called the Great Sea, the White Sea, the Bitter Sea, the Encircling Sea, and it's been given all these different names because this body of water is a lifeblood of civilization.

A waterway that connects the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe... Whoa!

...which has seen more human journeys than anywhere else in the world.

It's left its mark in many cultures and many ways.

The Mediterranean has long fed the imaginations of travelers, writers, and artists, from the ancient Greek poet Homer, who described our desire to wander these waters, to the 19th-century painter Vincent van Gogh, who talked about the ever-changing palette of the Mediterranean, and I want to follow in the trail of their inspiration.

I'll be charting a course across this wonderful waterway from its western edge, discovering recent finds inside the Rock of Gibraltar.

Then, traveling east, I'll explore hidden treasures on three of my favorite islands, reached across the Mediterranean seas.

The riches of Malta, the magic of Italian Ischia, and finally, the Greek island of Delos, with its sacred mysteries.

An adventure of discovery in some pretty remarkable places that can help us understand the story of humanity.

The Strait of Gibraltar has been a superhighway for a least 4,000 years, navigated by sailors from the Middle East and Africa, Greece and Rome and beyond, all trading goods and ideas.

I'm right at the very mouth of the Mediterranean here at its western edge, and I'm heading close on 3,000 miles east.

But before I do that, there is something in here that I just have to show you.

My first treasure is a brand-new discovery hidden away within a cave inside the great Rock of Gibraltar itself.

This is the point where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, so you've got hot and cold water crashing together, which makes the sea a lot livelier, and frankly, pretty treacherous.

Oh!

For travelers from the east, it was no mean feat to make it here.

And in the caves of Gibraltar, sailors from the late Bronze Age onwards would take shelter before embarking on perilous journeys.

The sea level's risen so much that these days, you can only get in by clambering over the rocks.

This is not an easy cave to access.

I've long wanted to explore this intriguing place... Gorham's Cave.

This cave is packed with ancient artifacts which have been brought here over the centuries by sailors as an offering, because this isn't just a cave -- this is a shrine.

Precious finds from across the classical world have been uncovered here, but a brilliant, brand-new discovery has just been made.

Over the decades, archeologists have been piecing together fragments, and just in the last couple of weeks, they've identified this.

So, the original was made in the 5th century BCE, and we know it's a Medusa, who's a kind of ferocious female monster whose stare could literally petrify.

It could turn men to stone.

Now, we know this is a Medusa because she's got these snakes for hair and this terrible, menacing gash of a mouth.

Now, a Medusa could be a protector, but she could be a warning.

So basically, this is a 2,500-year-old sign saying, "Watch out."

The belief was that this cave was actually Medusa's home, where the Ancient Greek hero Perseus came to seek out and kill the goddess.

She was described by the Greek scholar Apollodorus as having wings of gold that gave her the power of flight, and if you made offerings to her, she'd protect you on your voyage.

Isn't it just incredible to think of those awestruck travelers beating a path to this cave to honor the goddess?

The remainder of the gifts left for the Medusa are now safely stored in the Gibraltar National Museum, under the care of archeologist Dr. Geraldine Finlayson.

Oh, my goodness.

This is actually a treasure chest.

So this is all stuff from the cave?

-This is all stuff from the caves.

-Oh, God, it's heavy, isn't it?

-It is heavy.

-[ Gasps ] I mean, what beautiful things.

They look like they're from all over.

-Some of them have been found in the 1950s, and then some of them have been found more recently.

-Yeah.

-But, of course, they all go much further back.

-I mean, this is like I am in a sweet shop, basically, because these are Egyptian scarabs, aren't they?

-That's right.

They weren't brought here by the Egyptians, though.

This was the Phoenicians, who were like the tradesmen and women of the Mediterranean, of the ancient Mediterranean, and they used to trade with the Egyptians.

And then they'd bring all these trade goods all the way to the western side of the Mediterranean.

-The Phoenicians originated in the near east and were active from the Bronze Age onwards.

The treasures they left show the vast distances they traveled right across the Mediterranean and the importance of respecting Medusa to secure safe crossing.

They're so -- I've got to put my specs on to have a look.

They're beautiful, and it's something that -- it connects us.

It's a body of water that connects you.

It's shared, and the incredible thing is that in this one cave, you've got all points of the Mediterranean represented.

So north, south, and east and west.

I mean, that looks like somebody of very distinctly African heritage.

-That's right.

The whole of the Mediterranean is represented, not just the northern shores of the Mediterranean, but also the southern shores.

And this is very clearly an African that's depicted in that scarab.

-And that -- I mean, that's a beautiful little thing.

Is it possible to pick up?

-Yes, I'm sure we can.

-Where is that from?

-Well, this is a glass amphoriskos.

It would have been used to contain perfume or a very expensive spice.

And this actually can be traced back to one single factory in Rhodes on the eastern Mediterranean.

-But that's incredible.

-Look at the amount of detail -- the tiny little handles, the beautiful little bead of glass in yellow at the base.

These are items that weren't lost in the cave.

They were left there with a purpose, and the person had all their hopes and aspirations attached to the offering that they were leaving for their deity, for their gods.

-That is so beautiful, isn't it?

Can I?

-Very carefully.

There we go.

-Isn't it a lovely thought that whoever left this 2,500 years ago, they would probably love the fact that we're cherishing it today.

-Yes.

I suppose they would be quite chuffed.

-And as you say, I mean, these aren't just random things that are being left.

They obviously have real value to the person who's leaving them.

-It would be something precious for them.

-Yeah.

However beautiful it is, can you take it off me now?

I'm slightly nervous of dropping it.

'Cause this is glass that is 2,500 years old.

-That's right.

-And all of this tells you that journeys really matter and that journeys are really dangerous, because they're trying to keep the gods onside, obviously, by leaving these things, but you also get a sense that these people, you know, they had a really active relationship with the Mediterranean.

It wasn't just water for them.

-It's sometimes referred to as the Mare Nostrum, "our sea."

They all referred to the sea.

The sea was like the common denominator of all these different cultures.

They're around the Mediterranean, but if there's one thing that they could all identify with, it was this sea, which was the source of all their trade routes.

It was very important to them, and as a person who lives on the Mediterranean, you feel that the sea is running in your blood, I think.

-Wow.

The Medusa head from Gorham's Cave is a treasure because it's a unique survivor from antiquity and it shows just how intrepid those early travelers were, venturing thousands of miles from their homes in incredibly perilous conditions.

And it also reminds us how, as a species, we seem driven to try to face our fears, and whatever the dangers, to explore beyond our horizons.

I'm following the trade routes of those ancient Phoenician travelers, heading east to a pivotal island which sits between the continents of Europe and Africa to explore exciting new finds which are testament to the lasting influence the Middle East has had on the Med.

My next treasure is a gem of the medieval world on the island of Malta.

Malta's strategic position right at the heart of the Mediterranean made it a crucial stepping stone between the continents of Africa and Europe.

The Ancient Greek historian Diodorus wrote that Malta provided a place of safe retreat, out in the open sea, but well-supplied with harbors, and how right he was.

From the Bronze Age onwards, Malta was a crossroads for cultures and ideas.

This place is a natural harbor, and it's been used for centuries.

It's called Marsaxlokk, and "Marsa" means harbor in Arabic and "Xlokk" means southerly wind, because over 1,000 years ago, travelers originally from North Africa came here and made Malta their home.

The historic harbor is still active.

70% of the island's fishing catch is landed here, often on traditional luzzu fishing boats, another inheritance from the Phoenicians.

Excuse me.

Can we lift your cloth so I can see the eyes?

Sorry.

[ Chuckles ] Thank you so much.

That's so sweet.

So, this nice fisherman has just lifted up his cloth so I could see these eyes.

I don't know if you can see them on the front of the boat.

I'm very excited about these because eyes like that have been painted on boats in this part of the Mediterranean for at least 3,500 years, because they're supposed to be like kind of lucky charms and keep the boats and the men inside them safe.

So, isn't that fantastic?

That's history uninterrupted across the centuries.

Thank you, wherever you are.

Traders of fish and luxury goods have made the day-or-so sail from Tunisia in North Africa to Malta for centuries, and just a week before I arrived, a fabulous wonder came to light.

This was not on my schedule, but I've heard that there's a quite extraordinary discovery that's just been made.

These are waterworks, and when they were digging them out, archeologists were alerted that there was something a bit unexpected down here.

Debra, hi.

-Hi.

-Hi.

Bettany.

Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, as well.

-Archeologist Debra Camilleri and her team have uncovered an ancient burial ground left by explorers originally from Tunisia.

What an incredible find.

I mean, so this is a Phoenician or a Punic tomb, is that right?

-Yes.

Absolutely.

-How incredible.

So, I know that the finds have had to go to the lab because they're very delicate, but these are some of the things that were discovered, were they?

-Yes.

We found a beautiful glass beaker, a little glass vial, which probably held some kind of oil or perfume, a needle with an eyelet, just a number of things all completely laid out, never touched, as if it had been there and put there yesterday.

-So undisturbed?

-Undisturbed, never been touched for over 2,000 years.

-It goes right the way back, does it?

-Yes, it does.

It's approximately a meter inwards.

-So what's that?

It's kind of like a stepping hole, was it?

-Yes, it is.

It's a foothold so that you can put your foot in on either side and be able to get down into the tomb.

-This recent discovery offers new evidence of how these ancient travelers revered their dead.

Incredibly exciting.

It's exciting anyway when there's a new find, but, I don't know, it just feels so important because I think we can so often forget the history of Malta.

It's really connected to Africa, so these are people who've originally come from North Africa, presumably.

-Most likely.

I mean, definitely the Phoenicians, later called Punic, and they were traders and seafarers and came here and settled or perhaps used it as a trading post.

But we haven't found a lot of their settlements, of course, but we've found their burials, so this is a part of their culture that we're trying to understand.

-Sealed in the tomb were amphorae containing cremated human remains.

There where adult and adolescent bones and precious possessions used in ancient burial ceremonies.

-This area here also may have been where people were sitting, to just sit there, perhaps light a lamp... pay their respects to the dead before they moved on.

-I mean, there is something just so touching, isn't there, about places like this?

-Yes.

-You know, this is 2,300 years ago, but the people here, they're really wanting to do right by their dead relatives or the dead people from their community.

-Yes, absolutely, no different than what we would do today.

I think it shows how sophisticated they were in terms of wanting to have a place that was peaceful and serene for their loved ones.

-Amazing.

It's beautiful.

Thank you.

The Phoenicians, who also left those offerings in the caves in Gibraltar, settled in Malta for at least 500 years, and so began a sporadic flow of settlers from North Africa to the island.

In the 8th century, the city of Mdina, "the walled city" in Arabic, became the Maltese powerhouse of a new Arabic dynasty, the Aghlabids from Tunisia.

The arrival of these Arabs from North Africa was the beginning of a 200-year dominance that brought a new religion, Islam, to the island.

Islam was now a faith and a culture that spread from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, creating a network of Islamic scholars and artists and scientists and philosophers with Malta right at the very center.

This has been described as the Golden Age of Islam, but to find evidence of it here, you have to turn detective.

One place you can feel the Arabic influence is on the streets in the Maltese language.

[ Conversing in Maltese ] [ Conversing in Maltese ] Over time, with waves of immigration, the language evolved.

In the 12th century, Sicilian travelers brought, of course, Sicilian.

From the 16th century, crusader knights spoke a whole range of European languages, including Italian and French, and from the 19th century, it was the British and English, so Maltese is really a completely unique mix.

It's the only Semitic language that's written in the Latin script.

[ Conversing in Maltese ] There may be no surviving grand Islamic monuments, but to find another piece of the Arabic heritage puzzle, you can head to the fields.

Despite the punishing heat here, farmers manage to produce an astonishing three citrus crops a year.

But how?

This is the Valley of Wied il-Ghasel -- two words with Arabic origins -- and all the bounty that you can see around me is the result of pioneering medieval Arabic technology, an irrigation system delightfully called the invention of summer.

Malta's miracle worker is an extraordinary engineering treasure -- a system of underground water reservoirs cut into the rock, called qanats, Arabic for "lance" or "conduit."

This channel's the clue to a 1,000-year-old system that runs for at least 30 miles underground across Malta.

These channels bring unfiltered groundwater and spring water into a series of tunnels using gravitational force.

I've got special access to the self-same network, as it directs water into the city of Rabat.

Running 30 feet below street level, it's evidence of the skill of the Arabs in controlling this vital, scarce resource.

I'm not a fan of small spaces, but I can't resist a special tour of this medieval labyrinth with archeologist Dr. Keith Buhagiar -- if I can find him.

To find the evidence, you've got to physically climb down through history.

Hello?

-Hi.

-Hi.

-How are you?

-I'm perfect.

It looks like I've come to the right place.

Do I have to come down?

-Yes, you need to come down.

-Okay.

Do you mind if I give you that?

-Yes, of course.

-Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

-Perfect.

-This is incredible.

-Watch your step.

There are some puddles.

-So the water is starting already.

-The water is starting already.

We're at the level of the water table.

Careful.

This is a tricky bit.

-Okay.

Thanks.

-Your hand.

-Yeah.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

God, the water is deep here, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

This is the start of the Mdina system.

Now, from here, things will get progressively easier.

-Easier?

Good.

I like easier.

Is there anything we need to look out for, please?

-There might be a couple of bats.

-Bats?

-Yes, so be warned.

-Okay.

When you said "easier," Keith, I'm not sure this is the easier bit.

-So here we are.

-Uh-huh.

-This is the first shaft.

You've got a sort of hollowed-out maze in here, which is now all silted up.

-Uh-huh.

-That's meant for water accumulation.

And up here, you've got your shaft, complete with handholds and footholds, enabling the... -God, yeah!

-...occupants of the above property to actually access the system when necessary.

-Yeah.

-Any occupant in the above dwelling could lower down their bucket, fill it up with water, and actually lift it back up.

And mind you, this is one of the proper qanat systems that we have in Malta.

It's probably roughly around 1,000 years old.

-So this water still feeds the town, does it?

-It does, it does, and even in agricultural estates.

-Amazing.

It's amazing.

I hate being underground in small spaces, so is it okay if we leave?

I'm delighted historically.

Can we go?

-But at least you've seen the system.

-At least I've seen the system.

Thank you.

The Arab expertise in controlling water on Malta was a stroke of genius that nurtured a burgeoning 15,000-strong Muslim population.

By the 11th century, there was a thriving Islamic community here with an Emir in charge, and I've just been invited to see something very special and very rare from that age.

My most precious Arabic treasure is a gleaming gem in the central bank of Malta's special collection that's recently been identified as a solid gold quarter Dinar coin.

This is such a beautiful thing.

It's so tiny and absolutely unique, and we know that it was minted here on Malta because written on the top there is "Malta" in Arabic.

And if you very carefully... turn it over, on the back, it says, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah."

Now, this was made in either 1080 AD or 1081 AD from gold that came all the way from Egypt, so it is a golden treasure from the Golden Age of Islam.

For me, the treasures from the Age of Islam on Malta show the fascinating mix and legacy of cultures, western and eastern, on the shores of the Mediterranean.

This is a beautiful poem written in Arabic 800 years ago by a man called Ibn al-Abbar, and he describes his Mediterranean sailing boat as if it's alive.

"Ride in the name of Allah on the back of your green mount that swims on the crest of great waves with the feathers of the fastest birds.

With wings that beat just like my heart is beating, ride on."

And I know exactly how he felt.

And I'm riding that wave 450 nautical miles on to my next Mediterranean treasure on one of the most magical islands of these waters just off the coast of Italy.

I've continued east across the Mediterranean to an enchanting island 20 miles from Naples called Ischia.

This volcanic island is the stuff of legends, and its treasures have inspired romances of all kinds.

This is not a bad way to arrive at a site.

Ciao.

The island of Ischia emerged from the sea, rather like the goddess Aphrodite, the result of an underwater volcanic eruption, and its mystique drew people here from antiquity onwards.

One of the most famous writers from the Roman world, Cicero, wrote about this place.

He said, "Here beneath the sand and the seabed burns the heat of the volcano."

As it still does.

The volcano may last have erupted in 1302, but the sand can still reach 150 degrees -- hot enough to cook on.

These fantastical features became legendary.

This is a whole canyon of volcanic material, so what you're looking at is millions of years' worth of pumice and ash from the inside of the volcano.

Pilgrims from the Greek world flooded here.

I'm following their footsteps to my first treasure on the island, Cavascura, to explore the source of some fabulous tales.

They believed it was sacred, that it had kind of special magic powers, and that's because of the boiling water that comes out of this cave.

Isn't that amazing?

The Ancients told the fantastic story about this place.

They said that Zeus, the king of the gods, went into battle with the monster Typhon, and as punishment, Zeus then buried Typhon under the island of Ischia.

Every now and again, the monster would turn over in agony, and as he did, flames would spurt from his mouth and eyes, he'd hurl rocks into the air, and his hot fury would heat the water until it boiled.

And still, thousands of years later, it is still boiling.

By the late 2nd century BCE, the Romans had dug in, creating simple thermal baths.

Well, since I'm here, it seems rude not to have a go.

The Ancients knew that these waters didn't just have spiritual properties, but physical benefits, too.

Even Hippocrates, who was the father of medicine, wrote that the minerals in the waters could cure all kinds of ills and ailments.

Potassium and magnesium to this day are known to relieve muscle and joint problems.

[ Chuckles ] That's really hot!

That's really hot, but incredibly silky.

They said it would feel like I had oil on my skin, and it does.

It's good!

The volcanic nature of the island gives it a rare beauty that's drawn people and fired the imagination.

This castle was the home of one of the greatest literary figures of the Italian Renaissance, an extraordinary 16th-century noblewoman called Vittoria Colonna.

Here, she was motivated to write trend-setting, passionate poetry.

And I've been granted access to a fresco, hidden inside Sant Antonio di Padova, of the poet herself.

Oh, I'm so lucky that the nuns have let me in to see this 'cause it's a most fantastic painting.

That's Vittoria on the right and her aunt here on the left, and obviously, it's a religious theme.

It's called the Madonna of Mercy, and there's a whole lot of kind of hell fire stuff happening.

But, actually, there are clues here that it's celebrating the literary and artistic salons that Vittoria and her aunt used to hold.

So, she's got a book.

You can see the angels up at the top are playing musical instruments, and it's kind of telling us that art and culture and poetry is the thing that makes life worth living.

Vittoria would become one of the world's first published female poets.

She started writing here at the enchantingly beautiful Castello Aragonese.

After her marriage in 1509 to the high-ranking military leader the Marquis of Pescara, this was the newlyweds' first home.

She wrote all about love.

She was inspired by this to talk of desire leading you to the stars and to the sun, about the respiration of the seas and the caresses of the air.

But in 1525, at the age of 35, Vittoria was widowed, leaving her alone on the island.

Her husband, dying of his wounds on the battlefield, and she was devastated.

She said she only wrote to pour out the innermost suffering that fed her heart, but do you know what?

In some ways, this was the making of her, because suddenly, Vittoria was in charge of all of this, and she dedicated her life to the creation of art.

Vittoria produced an astonishing number of poems, enough to fill 13 published volumes.

She also wrote on philosophy and religion, and this remarkable woman attracted one of the most famous artists of all time.

Vittoria Colonna was the talk of the town, and no less than a now-world-famous Michelangelo asked to be introduced to her.

Once the two met, they became inseparable.

They exchanged gifts and wrote letters and shared poetry, and the sonnets that he composed for her were said to be full of sweet longing.

The two became one another's muses.

In fact, Vittoria might well be the inspiration for the figure of Mary in the Sistine Chapel's "Last Judgment," which Michelangelo was painting in the Vatican at the time.

Hi!

-Oh, hello!

-Joining me at the castle is co-author of Vittoria's biography, Serena Sapegno, from the University of Rome.

You can see why this place was inspiring to Vittoria.

-She must have felt that this was paradise because it was, and it still is.

-She was incredibly popular in her day, wasn't she?

-Very popular.

She is extraordinary.

She is extraordinary.

She comes across as extraordinary if you actually read what she writes in her poems and in her letters.

This is sonnet number 17 in this ancient edition, lovely small edition that I have here.

[ Speaking Italian ] "When, from the dear rock, I look around earth and sky in the red dawn, all the mists that were borne in my heart are swept away by the beautiful views and the clear day."

-Beautiful.

Is it true that Michelangelo sought her out?

-Yes.

-They have such a passionate relationship.

Are they soul mates?

Is it a meeting of minds?

-It is probably more than that.

Michelangelo is gay.

She is chaste.

It is a kind of platonic love, so the body is not involved.

But that doesn't mean that the feeling is less strong or important.

In fact, maybe it is even more.

-For a decade, Vittoria and Michelangelo visited each other daily, feeding an intense relationship of mutual respect and admiration.

In 1547, Vittoria died with Michelangelo at her bedside.

He said he had never seen a face so fair, and he was obviously utterly despairing to have lost her.

But then, in 2018, a discovery was made.

In this beautiful sketch that he did of her at the height of their friendship, he's written himself into her story.

If you look down, you can see that he's actually drawn himself into the folds of her clothes.

So here are his legs.

He's leaning over.

That's his face, and he's reaching out to paint her belly.

So even if they couldn't be together in life, he made sure that they were together forever in a work of art.

There's something about this place that motivates deep emotions, because just over 400 years later, the idyllic castle on the rock was also the setting for one of the greatest and most infamous love stories of the 20th century between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The castle here stood in for the ancient city of Actium during the filming of the 1960s version of "Cleopatra."

The couple stayed on the island of Ischia for weeks and, famously, their on-screen romance bled over into a very steamy on-set love affair.

Then they got married.

So clearly, it was the magic of Ischia working once again.

Perhaps it's this heady combination of a dramatic, volatile landscape, steamy seas, and the isolation of an island that stirs body and soul.

Ischia's remarkable romantic landscape has nourished some pretty intense human narratives through the centuries.

It's inspired myths and legends, fairytales and fantasies, and the whole place is pretty much like a story book.

I love it for that and because it remind us that as a species, we are creatures of imagination and that we love to understand the world by telling stories about it.

My next treasure is on a Greek island with such a magnetic pull, it became a hotbed of cultural exchange and fabulous wealth, where ancient civilizations partied by the light of the moon.

I'm continuing my journey east to discover a mysterious treasure on a Greek island where the Aegean and the Mediterranean merge, the sacred island of Delos.

It's a mystical, hallowed sanctuary said to be the birthplace of two of the most potent ancient Greek gods.

Delos is an island that's attracted power players and pirates and pilgrims from across the Mediterranean across the centuries, and for the Ancients, it was considered to be one of the most sacred islands on Earth.

So I am incredibly privileged to have been invited to explore it, and I should admit, like a child, I'm so excited, I couldn't sleep last night.

Delos is so sacred that tourists are only permitted during the day.

No one's usually allowed to sleep here, but I've been given the great honor of staying both day and night to explore the remains of hundreds of palatial houses and fabulous temples, some of the very finest inspired by one particular legend.

The story goes that Zeus, the king of the gods, had an affair with a divine creature called Leto, getting her pregnant with twins.

Now, Zeus' wife, Hera, was not best pleased with this, and she condemned Leto to wander across the Mediterranean from island to island.

Eventually consumed by the pain of childbirth, the island of Delos took her in, and Leto gave birth right here in this grove to a boy and a girl.

The boy was the god Apollo, the god of sun and light and reason, and the girl was Artemis, the goddess of the moon and hunting and female power.

Artemis is one of my favorite goddesses.

She's fiercely independent, a genuine Wonder Woman of the classical world, both a hunter and a protector of wild animals.

Her name, Artemis, according to the ancient Greek historian Strabo, comes from the word "artemes," which means "safe and sound."

When you walk through sites like this, you should always imagine them buzzing with color and life.

Oh, morning.

Very appropriate.

[ Chuckles ] I'm just thinking about Artemis, who was the mistress of animals, so how lovely to be sharing the site at dawn with this beautiful cat.

[ Cat meows ] Yes, good morning.

Good morning.

Archeologists are doing this brilliant bit of work at the moment, analyzing tiny, tiny fragments of paint on her body.

This is her and a deer, and this is what she'd have looked like originally.

Isn't it brilliant?

So her tunic is painted in Egyptian blue, which was a very highly prized, very expensive pigment, and a kind of fantastic pink swirling cloak.

So walk through sites like this, and you should really be thinking of them as being fairground bright with color.

[ Chuckles ] You're so beautiful.

This is just one of the examples of the riches on Delos, so rammed, it's taking archeologists decades to analyze all that's here.

The only people actually allowed to sleep on the island now are archeologists and the guards of the museum and the site, and brilliantly, I've been asked to go and stay with one up here, Helene, who's been working here for well over 15 years.

Hello, Helene?

-Yes?

-Hello!

-Bettany!

How lovely to see you here.

-Hi!

-How are you?

-I'm very good.

How beautiful is this?

-Welcome to the dig house.

-Head of the excavations, Helene Wurmser, invited me to a remote corner of the island to her own dig site, a luxury two-story home that was built here to protect its riches in a kind of sacred force field that surrounded Delos.

This is all basically one house complex, is it?

-Yes, it's about 3,000 meters square, so it's a very large house.

-Talk about a grand entrance!

This is fantastic, isn't it?

-Yes.

This is a grand entrance, very monumental, and it's very well-painted, decorated, with furniture, paintings, mosaics.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And what is great in this house is also the view, which is really great.

-Yeah.

It's so splendid, isn't it?

It's definitely saying, "I've arrived, me and my family."

-Yes.

Here you come to the central room of the house, the biggest one... -Wow!

It's really handsome, isn't it?

-Yes, where the owners were entertaining their guests.

-Yeah.

-And here, you have a very special feature of the house, which is a kind of artificial grotto, which was very spectacular for the guests to be entertained by the owners.

-A grotto is a small cave cut in a rock, sometimes filled with water.

It's really interesting.

So it's almost like it's trying to bring nature into the home.

I've not seen something like this before.

-Yes, it's odd because it's probably an Alexandrian influence.

-A-ha.

So, the whole house feels to me like it's the owner going, "Look at me.

I'm well-connected.

I understand the Mediterranean world.

I've got influence from Egypt, from maybe as far afield as Gaul, from Italy, all in one place."

-Yes.

I don't know whether the owner was Italian or Greek or from Alexandria, but what I can feel is that he had seen many things in the Mediterranean area, and that's very characteristic of the Delian way of life, a cosmopolitan way of life.

-Do you think the people who lived here kind of had a sense of its specialness?

Do you think that they actually believed it was magical in some way?

-This island had always this sacred spirit.

It has something magical, as you can see.

Delos, fueled by its status as a free international trading port, became renowned for its extravagant festivals honoring gods like Apollo and Artemis -- celebrations so spectacular, they were immortalized in poems and in song.

So, this is a Homeric Hymn which was written really early in the Greek world.

"In your heart, think of the charm at Delos, when they celebrate games with dancing and singing and boxing, with ageless, graceful, beautiful maidens singing and singing again."

Many of these ceremonies involving sacrifices and circular dances were held at night, drawing travelers from across the ancient world.

And continuing this tradition, I've been invited to witness the full moon here tonight when it's closest to Earth and so at its brightest.

Not only am I incredibly honored to be invited to actually stay here on the island, but it's the summer solstice.

And tonight is the night of the super moon, so this is a unique experience in a myriad of ways.

With the sun setting over the island, you can just imagine thousands of visitors and islanders waiting in anticipation for the dancing girls in their saffron robes celebrating the moon goddess Artemis.

For the Ancients, who navigated by the stars and hunted by the light of the moon, the night time was sacred, powerful, magical.

The goddess was worshiped here with night-time festivals, with moonlit dances and torch-light races and little offerings of moon-shaped cakes lit by tiny flames, which some people think give us our tradition of a birthday cake lit by candles.

For me, sacred Delos is a treasure, not just because here, you can walk in the footsteps of thousands who've worshiped Apollo and Artemis through time, but because it's a reminder that we are creatures of day and night.

We're not all about reason and rationale, but also about emotion and feeling.

And that if we don't embrace both, we can only ever be a half of ourselves.

Voyaging across this great sea from its western edge at Gibraltar, visiting those strategic stepping stones between Africa and Europe, I've seen how this super highway has transported cultures and created them.

The Mediterranean and its islands are truly things of wonder.

It's a body of water that's seen more human interaction than anywhere else on the planet, more exchange of treasures and ideas, so the Mediterranean isn't just a reflection of our story.

It is the story of all of us.