Projects

Oxus- Riddles of an Ancient River

Deep in the mountains of war-torn Afghanistan lies a secret water source that has created life and delivered death for millennia. Once, this river shaped civilizations that rivalled Babylon and Ancient Egypt. But it brought cataclysm too. When climate-change caused floods, this legendary river destroyed what it created and its fabulous cities were washed away from the historical record. Now for the first time on television, explorer David Adams leads an expedition to the roof of the world to learn how climate change shaped civilization.

For six months David travels through the most forbidden and inhospitable parts of Afghanistan and Central Asia, looking for proof that climate change and natural disaster decide the true future of humankind. From the Caspian Sea in the West to the remote Pamir Mountains in the East, he traces the course of the river of life and death, known to the ancient Greeks as OXUS, right to its source.

Today, in the deserts of Turkmenistan, the river disappears into the wastes, the location of its fabled mouth remains a mystery, and all around are the remains of great cities, buried for millennia by the sands of time. But what can their broken defences tell us? Are earth's climatic changes far more radical than we have ever thought?

On his journey, David travels back in time to re-visit forgotten civilizations that flowered before the time of Ancient Egypt. With CGI, we restore and rebuild each incredible civilization. As he explores the riddles of the Oxus, CGI will see seas will rise and fall to show a very different world, rivers will twist and writhe as they wipe away cities. Meteors and volcanoes will wreak havoc on earth as we explore the possibility that a cataclysmic event may have caused massive climate change destroying civilization 2200 years before the time of Christ.

But many great questions remain. Was the OXUS the true Garden of Eden?

Did Noah's flood surge out of these riverbanks to destroy the known world?

Were the great cataclysms of the Torah, Bible and Koran the result of violent climate change?

Were the Caspian and Aral Seas once joined, as the Ancient Greeks tell us.

Did the first Greeks explore a watery world rather than today's fierce deserts?

What can we learn from this ancient land to help us deal with the looming disaster of climate change that threatens us today?

Join David on an epic adventure into the lost and mysterious past, as he unravels the secrets of the Oxus in a world where few would dare to tread.

EPISODE 1 - ACROSS THE ANCIENT SEA

Were the ancient Greeks right? Could they sail all the way from the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) to ancient Bactria in Afghanistan? As David travels across Turkmenistan's forbidding Kara Kum Desert in search of evidence to support the Greek account, he discovers that climate change may have caused dramatic sea level changes in the Caspian and Aral Sea. Guided by desert dwellers and local horsemen along the old course of the Oxus River, he discovers ancient fortresses that hold a vital clue. Then, on the shores of the shrinking Aral, he finds startling evidence to suggest that earth's climate was radically different to today and the Greeks' account is based on fact.

EPISODE 2 - THE RIVER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Did a great cataclysm bring civilization to its knees 4200 years ago? David begins his journey up the Oxus River exploring its ancient civilizations and what has become of their peoples today, spending time with a fishing family and attending a local festival with its customs rooted in the ancient past. As these incredible cities are brought to life, David discovers evidence to suggest that the course of the Oxus may have been changed by a single cataclysmic event. As he travels deep into the deserts to explore a unique culture that flourished long before that of ancient Egypt, he finds evidence that the ancient world very likely did received a hammer blow, from either a meteor strike or series of volcanic eruptions. But the cities rose again. In a drying climate, they were built closer to water and embraced a culture that appears more racially and religiously tolerant than we are today.

EPISODE 3 - LAND OF A THOUSAND CITIES

Did the Oxus flow from the Garden of Eden into a world climatically different from today? Was the valley of the Oxus the cradle of civilization? David enters ancient Bactria (present day Afghanistan), once called "the land of a thousand cities", to explore the legends and the possible biblical connections to Eden and Noah's flood. At the spring festival of Nav Roz he finds a ritual that has its roots in the first religion to worship a single God. As he searches for "the mother of all cities" - ancient Balkh, he seeks advice from Mullahs and Generals, Buzkashi players and local archaeologists and on the edge of an ancient delta, discovers what may have been man's first great city.

EPISODE 4 - THE ONE HORNED WARRIOR

To this timeless land came one man who would change it forever, they called him Iskander, the one horned warrior. We know him as Alexander the Great. Did Alexander really build cities and create a Greek civilization in Asia, or was he the destroyer of the first great civilization? David goes in search of the facts and the cities buried in time to unlock their secrets. With local tribesmen and their Bactrian horses, David heads out from the walls of Balkh across the deserts that almost defeated Alexander's army. Then he takes on the Oxus in the same manner as Alexander's men, building a goatskin raft to ford the vast river. In search of Alexander's fabled cities, David travels along his route of conquest through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to unearth them. At Ai Khanoum on the Oxus, a whole Greek city lies in the dust. With the help of the local General, he explores, this Hellenistic jewel comes back to life. How could an army of conquest find time to build such a city and defend it? David discovers the real story of Alexander in Afghanistan.

EPISODE 5 - TUTANKHAMEN'S MINES

Leaving the Oxus valley, David begins his journey to the source of the Oxus - high in the Pamir Mountains on Afghanistan's border with China. But to reach his goal, he first has to cross the remote wilds of Badakshan and here he finds evidence of ancient connections to Egypt and the West. Deep in the Hindu Kush on the borders of hostile Nuristan, David reaches the legendary Lapis Lazulae mines that supplied the precious blue stone for Tutankhamen's funeral mask. For 7000 years they have given up their riches and are living proof of an ancient world connected by trade. In Afghanistan's forgotten corner, David stays with the fabled "Children of Alexander". When the road turns to river and rubble, he finds the remains of other invaders and their unexplored citadel - Chinese and Tibetans who once fought for control of the river in an epic battle of 20,000 men.

EPISODE 6 - THE SOURCE

The Oxus remains an enigma, and the debate continues as to the location of its source. With a caravan of twenty-five yaks, horses and handles, David begins the final leg of his quest, trekking to the roof of the world. At 4000 metres David enters one of the least visited places on earth, the Wakhan Corridor. In an intrepid exploration of the true source, David seeks out the debated sources of the river, measuring their flow and volumes, with the nomadic Kirghiz as guides. Before making the final push to the place he believes is the source, David is invited to a Kirghiz wedding on the high plains, where he plays Buzkashi (goat polo) and learns of their precarious existence. A short walk from the pass that took Marco Polo to China, he reaches an ice cave at the base of a glacier from which springs the Oxus - the river that has shaped our earliest civilization.

"Her waters tell of forgotten peoples and secrets of unknown lands, and are believed to have rocked the cradle of our race."