#history docs

I have to confess, I didn’t even realize Biography was still on the air. Apparently it is, and it is currently on a channel I have never heard of called “FYI”. This relatively recent episode of the series focuses not on just one person but on the entire Saudi royal family, from the founding of the country to the modern day. It does not gloss over the family’s love/hate relationship with with extremist Islam, while on the other side it finds several Western academics willing to say glowing things about the leadership of this Middle Eastern monarchy. Saudi Arabia is not a Western-style constitutional monarchy, the King definitely is running things. The episode makes the case that, while Saudi Arabia is a throw-back in many ways, it could be even less modern without the influence of its kings. One incident recounted involves when King Faisal insisted on allowing television into the country (in 1964), which resulted in riots because the religious old guard in the country insisted that no technology from after the time of Muhammad should be allowed. And these were some pretty serious riots... the King’s nephew was killed. Years later, that nephew’s brother would assassinate King Faisal, possibly in revenge. As ties between Saudi Arabia’s royal family and terrorism have been once again making headlines, this is worth a watch.

This National Geographic doc examines the excavation of the great city of Cahuachi, capital of the Nazca culture. They had no written language, which lends an air of mystery to the proceedings. This is a city that wasn’t simply abandoned by its people, but buried on purpose, and nobody has any idea why. From a form perspective, it suffers a little bit from the subject matter: today Cahuachi is in the middle of a monotonous, flat desert, and the archaeologists are all Italian or Spanish and none seem much interested in speaking English. There is one great scene, however, where the archaeologists lift up a piece of pottery and find out there’s a dead body underneath. Everybody just stares at it silently for like thirty seconds. Also featured, for those interested, are the mysterious Nazca lines, made by the same people, giant pictograms only visible from the air.

This episode of the excellent “Lost Kingdoms of Africa” with Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford looks at the rise of the Almoravid and Almohad Empires, which were based out of Morocco and at one time ruled all of Northwest Africa and Spain and were huge trading powers. He walks through the preserved Medieval casbahs and it in some ways feels like he’s hosting directly from the 1200s. Morocco is not that big of a place, but it has a huge variety of landscapes, and most of those are seen here. Casely-Hayford describes how the empire changed from a society based on military conquest to one based on trade and learning, and when he handles medieval gold coins and manuscripts the past feels very much alive.

This documentary series covers the full history of Ancient Egypt, but it does so in a somehow refreshingly unflashy way. Yes, there’s the occasional Z-list CGI recreation of the various locations (and when I say Z-list, I mean it), but this is a series that seems to share my assertion that if something is actually interesting further attempts to make it “more interesting” will just detract from what you’re trying to do. The heroes here are mainly archaeologists, and I don’t mean Indiana Jones but rather bookish types who are vaguely awkward on camera.

I wanted to watch something about Bosnia that wasn’t about the horrors of war, which proved somewhat difficult, despite the fact that the country seems to be making a strong recovery and becoming a vibrant part of Europe. I ended up halfway paying attention to a fifteen minute “short history” of Bosnia, which discussed the country’s attempts at multiculturalism and descent into bloodshed.

Also don’t feel bad or weird for knowing this tbh, I’m a fan of dinosaur documentaries so I know a handful of random information that I have no real reason for knowing. I think I’ve watched dino sex documentaries at least twice though I don’t remember most of either one since it was ages ago.