Seven Ages Of Britain (Monday 1 February)

BBC

BBC One

David Dimbleby charts a landmark history of Britain's greatest art and artefacts over 2,000 years, in Seven Ages Of Britain.

One of the BBC's biggest-ever arts commissions in partnership with The Open University, and written and presented by David, Seven Ages Of Britain looks at our extraordinary past through the arts – both as treasures that have often played a decisive part in events and as marvels of their age.

From painted images and monuments of stone and gold to religious relics, weapons of war, instruments of science and works of art, often they are artefacts of great beauty and craftsmanship, but sometimes they are simple, everyday things, which have a powerful story to tell.

Over seven programmes, David roams far and wide, travelling to Italy, Germany, Turkey, India and America, tracking down astonishing artefacts that encapsulate events or originate from the UK and yet ended up leaving our shores.

In Britain or abroad, Seven Ages Of Britain takes viewers on a journey revealing treasures of great beauty and craftsmanship that tell who we were and are, and pay testament to the great events that formed the nation.

Programme one looks at the Age Of Conquest (AD 43-1066). For a thousand years, from Emperor Claudius to William the Conqueror, the British Isles were defined by invasion, each successive wave bringing something new to the mix. The Romans brought figurative art, the Anglo-Saxons epic poetry and the Normans monumental architecture. David travels through Britain and beyond – to France, Italy and Turkey – in search of the greatest creations of the age.

Items tracked down (and places visited) in the first programme include: a bronze bust of Hadrian (British Museum); a fragment of a triumphal arch commemorating Claudius's conquest of Britain (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome); a Roman coin of Britannia (Pantheon, Rome); a frieze of Britannia under the heel of Emperor Claudius (Aphrodisias, Turkey); a Roman gold brooch (Dolaucothi Gold Mine, Wales); an oceanus dish (British Museum); Roman mosaic work (Bignor Roman Villa); Beowulf; Sutton Hoo treasure (Sutton Hoo & British Museum); a Celtic Cross (Iona); Jarrow Monastery; Codex Amiatinus (Laurentian Library, Florence); Alfred Jewel (Ashmolean Museum); Alfred's translation of Pastoral Care (Bodleian Library); Caen Castle and the Abbaye-aux-Hommes (Normandy); Bayeux Tapestry (Normandy); and the Tower of London.