The disappearance and fate of the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria is among the most momentous and tantalising of all the mysteries we have inherited from the ancient world. Generations of scholars and historians have succumbed to the allure of the quest.
Now archaeologist Pepi Papakosta is on a mission to find Alexander the Great's lost tomb. Excavating in a public garden in the center of Alexandria, Egypt, the city he founded 2,300 years ago, she has discovered a rare marble statue of Alexander, Greek treasures and secret tunnels. But Pepi's biggest find is an extraordinary discovery even she was not expecting.

Andrew Marr tells the story of the first empires which laid the foundations for the modern world. From the Assyrians to Alexander the Great, conquerors rampaged across the Middle East and vicious wars were fought all the way from China to the Mediterranean. But this time of chaos and destruction also brought enormous progress and inspired human development. In the Middle East, the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and one of the most powerful ideas in world history emerged: the belief in just one God. In India, the Buddha offered a radical alternative to empire building - a way of living that had no place for violence or hierarchy and was open to everyone. Great thinkers from Socrates to Confucius proposed new ideas about how to rule more wisely and live in a better society. And in Greece, democracy was born - the greatest political experiment of all. But within just a few years, its future would be under threat from invasion by an empire in the east...

In 335 BC Alexander of Macedonia set off on an expedition to conqueror the world. The voyage of Alexander the Great covered more than 22,000 miles in ten years, from Greece to India and back, through some of the most difficult and unforgiving terrain. Michael Wood was hot on his trail, following, as closely as possible, in the footsteps of Alexander and the army that he drove to achieve the impossible. In this programme: the Lebanese city of Tyre, scene of Alexander's most desperate battle; the Palestinian legend of `Two-Horned Alexander'; and the Egyptian oasis of Siwa, where Alexander was proclaimed pharaoh and son of God.

Wood travels through war-torn Afghanistan, crossing the Oxus River into Central Asia and the Silk Road city of Samarkand where, in a drunken brawl, Alexander killed the friend who had previously saved his life.

The final leg takes him from the Khyber Pass through Pakistan to the Punjab, where Alexander's army mutinied and he was forced to return across the Makran Desert to Babylon, where he died at only 32 years of age.

Michael Wood’s epic series moves on to the revolutionary years after 500BC - the Age of the Buddha. Travelling by rail to the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, by army convoy through Northern Iraq, and on down the Khyber Pass, he shows how Alexander the Great’s invasion of India inspired her first empire.