all sport voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. i'm alice morrison, an adventurer and writer. i've cycled across africa and run across the sahara. now i'm on the trail of a mysterious and forgotten arabian civilisation — the nabataeans. are we standing in the birthplace of written arabic? i think i would say that, yes. they were nomads who forged a rich civilisation here in the harsh desert conditions of western arabia from the fourth century bce. they ruled for around three centuries until they were swallowed up by the roman empire. now all that's left are the enigmatic remains of their great desert cities of petra and hegra in modern dayjordan and saudi arabia. and this is where i have come to explore, to find out how they survived and thrived here, who they were, and even what they looked like. i want to search for clues about their world. i'll investigate their ancient sites, delving deep into their secret tombs and sanctuaries. oh, my goodness! indiana jones, eat your heart out. wait till you see this! i'm tracking down the leading experts doing new research, who will help me build up a picture of the nabataeans... they did not use slaves. it's a respectful job. the secret nabataeans possessed is the knowledge of the great deserts around them. ..and i'm going to meet the people who are living here now to try and understand what life was like then in this remarkable landscape. this is what enabled the nabataeans to trade, and they�* re beautiful. join me as i uncover the secrets of the nabataeans. i started myjourney in petra in modern dayjordan, learning about how the death—obsessed nabataeans forged a sophisticated civilisation by taking control of the lucrative incense trade route. this is so impressive. now i'm in north—west saudi arabia on my way to hegra to go further into their world. this is where, as the nabataeans' power grew, they established a second great city. unlike the close rocky valleys of petra, hegra has a much more open, expansive feel. butjust like at the capital, most of what they left behind are tombs. however, what makes this place especially important is its new discoveries. archaeologists from all over the world have been exploring the site for a couple of decades, but it's only been open to members of the public since 2019. and, right now, it feels like i'm the only person here. i mean, just look at this! i've walked in through this desert landscape with its bubbling mountains all around, and then it's like wham! boom! this incredible tomb. the impact is terrific. it's monumental, it's massive, it's immense — you run out of adjectives — and it's just here on its own. qasr al—farid — the lonely castle. can you imagine if you were a nabatean trader and you'd come up from the south and you'd cross the desert, and you were hungry and you were thirsty, and then with no reference whatsoever, with no internet, with no photographs, with no paintings, with nothing, you suddenly come across this in the middle of the desert. you must have felt that it came from something larger, something bigger, something divine. in the shadow of this towering monument, i'm meeting wedad yaseen, a new generation of local saudi guide. they greet in arabic at 22 metres tall, this is the largest tomb in hegra. but what clues does it give us about the people who built it? ok, so here we are. tell me about qasr al—farid. lihyan, son of kuza, who own this tomb, he chose this spot, and then they had very skilful stonemasons — they did not use slaves. it's a respectful job. we knew that their names were mentioned at the end we have families that might be worked at stonemasons for generations. so you're saying that we know this is the grave of... lihyan, son of kuza. uh-huh. yeah. and do we know anything about him? erm, the thing that is mystery about the tomb of lihyan is inside, it's empty. there are no burials. and they believe that his tomb was not used. what happened to lihyan was he ran out of money and he could not afford to finish? was he died or killed outside the border of hegra? these are all possibilities that people can imagine. how did they build this? the carving process usually starts from top to the bottom, which is very surprising for many people knowing that they had to climb way up there and then going down. because this tomb was never finished, it tells us about how the monuments were made. that immaculately clean—cut appearance of the facade was achieved through deliberate stages. what you can see here, this is the first stage. and then you can see the second stage. and then you have the third and the fourth. oh, yes! 0k? and then the stonemason have to chisel it down until then we have the final stage which is this more smoother facade. it's really clear here. this tomb is one of the great treasures of hegra, not least because it tells us something about the people who built it. i want to find out more about the structure of nabataean society. and to do that i've arranged to meet academic doctor solaiman al—theeb. he's a leading expert on one of the other things that makes this such an important site — revealing evidence left here by the nabataeans in the form of the written word. let's go to show you one of the famous ladies in nabataean society. her name is kamkam, daughterof wa'ilah. and is this her tomb here? yeah, yeah. that's her tomb, yes. she built this grave for her and for her daughter as well. this is a very famous inscription related to the nabataean period. the amazing thing is that she didn't say that she is a daughter of her father. she said that she is the daughter of her mother. ah. so what can we learn about women in nabataean society? a woman wrote the inscription, she built the tomb for herself and her daughters. what does that tell us? as a matter of fact, the women at that time, they were free in trade and they were working in high positions, in religious positions. so they were really involved in nabataean society at that time, yeah. do we know if the women were involved in trade? were they merchants? oh, yes. yes. did they buy, did they sell? what did they do? yeah, i think they traded the same as men. and we have a very good example — it's kamkam. i think she's a rich lady and she has a lot of money, and therefore she was able to build her grave here, yeah. so is it too much to say that the nabataeans were feminists? i think it's too much, yeah, but... she laughs yeah, yeah, but... but we could rule, we could say that these ladies lived there, the women in the society, in nabataean society, to be free and to take a very important role in their life. this is a very, very clear inscription. this language — is it a forerunner of arabic? as a matter of fact, classical arabic script derived from the nabataean script itself. so are we standing in the birthplace of written arabic? yes, i think i would say that, yes. for an arabic scholar — i studied arabic for a long time — learning that i'm actually standing in the birthplace of the script is... is... it's thrilling. it's very exciting. i'm a script nerd. the hundreds of unique inscriptions at hegra are just one draw for academics who come here from all around the world looking for answers about this mysterious people, and there's a real push to find out as much as possible about how ordinary nabataea ns lived. i'm in north—west saudi arabia, where an international team is making exciting discoveries about the ancient civilisation of the nabataea ns. on the site of the lost second city of hegra, french archaeologist katia schaller has brought me to a viewpoint to explain what we can deduce from this choice of location. this place has the best view of the entire city, but it's also overlooking the trade routes, right? from here you would have seen the caravans full of spices and frankincense, but you also had a very good view of the jabal ithlib. this is where all the religious activities are happening. and you can see here too, like, the deep relationship between the city and the oasis. the city is strategically set right here because you would have had the wadi flowing, the writing near the water. and that's where we know that the earliest occupation would have been and the closest knit residential units would have been around this part of the city. as with petra in the north, a deep understanding of the geography of the desert was one of the elements that allowed the nabataeans to thrive here. but over the millennia, the shifting sands have devoured their city. katia has been working with innovative canadian geophysicist, jan francke, to develop a new approach that may shed light on what lies beneath. so, jan, whatare we doing here? tell me all about this. this is a ground penetrating radar system, and the idea here is that we're moving this back and forth over, over the ground in very close spaced lines. so if you were a human, would this be like, we're doing a full body scan? essentially much like an x—ray, to look at the whole site and find specific areas where they'd be interested in. katia, what are you hoping to find out from this site? right, so obviously we can't excavate the whole city, so it's much better to document it and then ask a very fine question, which is, how did this city develop? we know the nabataeans came here in the mid first century bc. now, when they came, did they do an urban plan that was what we call the hippodamian system, which is when you already lay out the cities in a very grid like system? did it develop in a much more organic way? i mean, this is like the two sides of the debate. and what kind of area here are you looking at? eventually, when this programme really kicks off, we're going to be doing the entire city of agra. so that involves walking about 2,000km, which is the distance from here to athens. you know, i want to have a go. absolutely. i know i want you to have a go because i'm tired. 0k! so much like a lawnmower. ijust want you to push it at whatever pace you want to go. just like mowing a lawn. and just dead straight if i can. now, of course, it's very bumpy. do what you can to keep it straight. so now we're collecting data, and what we're doing is essentially like taking a knife and cutting through the ground and seeing everything that's there. this manual unit is much less damaging than using a heavy vehicle, and the radar can collect more detailed data than air surveys. the painstaking legwork is the unglamorous side of archaeology, but it's all worth it if you find something. so as we go down deeper, we're going down through time. so it's like peeling back layers of the past. what's really interesting is as i go down deeper and deeper, can you start seeing that there's some linear features there that start popping out? yes, ican. so when we look at straight lines like that, that doesn't happen naturally in nature. those are man—made features. and then as we go down deeper, you'll see another square start turning up around here. so is that a previous generation civilisation? katia, what do you make of this? we have two different buildings at two different depths. so that is very exciting. i mean, do we have two different phases, two different timelines of the city? that's very exciting. so did we basically hit gold as we lawn mowed? absolutely, yeah. we did. unlike the grand rock cut tombs built for the rich, these foundations could be a single story, flat roofed home of a regular nabatean. it's been assumed that the tombs were built to face the city of the living, but i've heard of research just about to be published that may turn this idea on its head. i'm using a wonder of the modern age to talk tojuan antonio belmonte, a world leader in the science of archeoastronomy, currently hard at work elsewhere on the planet. juan, hello. how are you? fine, thank you. it's a pleasure to meet you. i'm standing in tomb 21, in hegra. actually, you are now in the tomb which is disorientated to equinox sunset on the one side. but most important, it belongs to a group of tombs that are orientated to the first crescent of the month of nisan, which was the first month of the nabataean calendar. ah, so it must be deliberate. it must be deliberate. we knew that the nabataeans are fantastic builders and architects. yes. so they must have also been good astronomers. they should have been. i mean, for generations, the arabs had been marvellous astronomers. i mean, to cross the deserts of arabia to the coast of the mediterranean, to bring the incense, you need to travel basically by night. and the best way to orientate by night is by the stars. so they were excellent astronomers, i'm sure of that. one important thing is that before we have thought that tombs in agra had been orientated, mostly looking at the centre of the city, but we have found is that there is actually a combination between land and skyscape. so they chose the location of their tombs in part because of the skyscape? this is what we believe, actually in front of the gate of the tomb where you are, there is an inscription where the month of nisan is mentioned, and there are a lot of tombs at the necropolis, with such an inscription. ok, so, i'm just going to move outside and look at the facade. here it is. if you walk a little bit more. perfect, you are looking out to the facade of tomb 21. it has a peculiar decoration with two jars over the pediment and then one eagle. yeah. this eagle is possibly associated in the sun god, dushara. dushara was born in the winter solstice, but he was conceived at the spring equinox. and then you have the astronomical alignment. so there is a whole connection in which the bodies of the dead were in some way connected to immortality and to the sky. oh, that's so fascinating. thank you. it's extraordinary, really, talking to one of the world's top astro archaeologists about a civilisation that's 2,000 years old, standing outside a tomb, using satellite technology to find out that they didn't orient towards the city. and, you know, the temporal life. actually, they were building for their spiritual life. they were joining themselves to the sky for eternity. i keep getting closer to what made these ancient people tick. and my final stop promises to be as up close as it gets. i'm meeting the royal commission for al—ula's head of collections, jonathan wilson, who said he can finally bring me face—to—face with an actual nabataean. so, these came out of tomb 117. yeah. which is significant because it is our largest collection of nabataean remains. they vary in age and sex. so, men and women are both represented, adults, children. these are actual nabataean skulls. by studying these bones, jonathan and his colleagues have pieced together what a nabataean may have looked like. this skull went away for ct scanning. and then this is a 3d print of the skull. and these pegs are to give the depth of your skin. your skin would go right up to the top of these pegs? yes. with almost no nabataean images to refer to, the team have had to infer what they might have worn from other artefacts such as these coins. so if you want to hold your hand out, you can have this in your hand. this is queen huldu, who was the wife of aratus iv. and if you can see her headdress. it's very clear. it's kind of straight down like that. and she has a beautiful aquiline profile. yes. moving on from queen huldu, we have our next queen. and this one is slightly different. 0h, there's two people on the coin. there's two people on there, showing that the queens and the kings appear to have equal status in their society. but the last coin i have for you is this one. so again, this is a double profile coin, but this is the daughter now who is now reigning in the place of her mother. so the line of succession has passed through the mother's line. goodness me! this is quite a thrill, you know. we've been looking at these massive tombs, which are awe inspiring, and the landscape is breathtaking. but these tiny, tiny coins that we've had to use the magnifying glass to see have taught us so much about the position of women, the trade routes. and it's that feeling ofjust having history in your hand. and it's a beautiful coin, too. it is a beautiful coin, it's so clear. from these puzzle pieces, they've seemingly done the impossible. conjured up what a nabataean may have looked like. this is hinat. it's like something out of a detective series on tv, isn't it? like remaking a face from a skull. how accurate do you think this could be? so they took the skull, and then they built up the layers for the soft tissue. and then the things like the skin pigmentation, the hair, the eye colours. it's as accurate as we can make it. and do we know anything about what she would have eaten, what her health was like? there are certain things we can tell from her health, particularly in the kind ofjawbone and the teeth. we can see a lot of grinding down of molars. molars missing. i mean, she's a beautiful woman. you can see an expression in her eyes and herface, and i think it gives you that connection with the nabataeans. it's quite hard to find because, you know, they didn't leave much to help us. and yet you've managed to reconstruct this whole, what feels like, living woman with a soul and a story. so i find it very moving. hinat is as close as i can get to an actual nabataean. so for now, this is the end of myjourney. it's been a true voyage of discovery through the nabataean world, from their great capital of petra to here at their second city in the hegra. finding out who they were, what they believed, and how their civilisation was run. and i've been impressed by what i've discovered about them. we may be 2,000 years apart, but i think i would have liked the nabataea ns. they seem to have been very resourceful people. they built a sophisticated society in the middle of the desert sands. one of the things that surprised me about the nabataeans is the prominent role of women. they held some of the most important positions in society. priestesses, traders, and in fact, the most important role in society, which is as queens. the crown passed from mother to daughter. i find that amazing. it's an intoxicating era of discovery, with experts from so many disciplines coming together to try and understand this remarkable culture. one of the great things about coming to hegra is this was the centre of trade. now there's a completely different kind of trade going on. it's a knowledge trade. there are experts here from all over the world, all coming to this place to learn more about the civilisation, which in turn rounds up our knowledge of where we all are in the world. i can't wait to see what nabatean secrets are uncovered next. hello. a real mix of weather this weekend but there will be no remedy. the warmest weather on friday was on the east and southeast of england. 21 is about right for this time of year. 12 in the north of scotland, but below par and will keep generally speaking parts of the uk. 0n will keep generally speaking parts of the uk. on saturday morning we start off with a fair amount morning we start off with a fairamount of morning we start off with a fair amount of cloud across england and wales and splashes of rain and much of that is clearing southwards. skies frightening, sunny spells and the odd shower into the afternoon. weather systems just break down into a mix of sunny spells and showers. below average temperatures for most. we'll see cloud and showery rain pushing into scotland, perhaps into northern ireland, much of england and wales holding onto clear skies. and it is going to be a rather chilly night, five degrees there in the centre of cardiff, for example. some spots in the countryside will see temperatures fairly close to freezing, i suspect, for sunday morning. now, on sunday, this little frontal system in the north bringing some showers. this next weather front just easing its way in towards northern ireland. a spell of more persistent rain as it pushes across south west scotland into northern england. north of that it is sunny spells and showers to the south of that wales, the midlands down towards the south of england, a decent amount of dry weather, some sunshine, perhaps highs of 19 degrees, whereas further north, just 1a, for example, there in glasgow. sunday night and into monday, this little frontal system here is expected to ease its way southwards at east with some uncertainty aboutjust how much rain it will bring and how long that will linger across central and eastern parts of england. if rain does linger for any length of time on monday, it really will feel very disappointing indeed. even if you get some sunshine with a scattering of showers, temperatures at best 10 to 17 degrees. we stick with those rather cool conditions for much of the coming week. and there will be further outbreaks of rain at times. live from washington, this is a bbc news special report on the us—eu relationship. president biden defends democracy in a speech marking the d—day anniversary in normandy comparing the threats posed by nazi germany then to those posed by authoritarians now. they're asking us to do ourjob — to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up to aggression abroad and at home. and as people in 27 european union countries vote in parliamentary elections, we look at what the outcome could mean for us relations within europe. hello. i'm caitriona perry. you're very welcome. in a week where world leaders gathered to remember the sacrificies of those who fought in the second world war, us presidentjoe biden spoke about how the lessons of the past apply to today. in a passionate speech at normandy, in northern france, he delivered a defence of democracy. he spoke at the pointe du hoc where, on d—day, us army rangers scaled 100—foot cliffs to storm a nazi stronghold. it's the same place where us president ronald reagan delivered an address in 1984, capturing his nation's attention, and helping him secure a second term. in a dig atjoe biden�*s presidential rival, donald trump, mr biden flatly rejected isolationism.