TREASURE SEEKERS

Famed for its wealth, cultural treasures, and spirituality, India has for centuries beckoned the outsider. Many have vied for control of this fabled and diverse land. Two great empires established by the invading Moguls and the British, flourished on this vast sub-continent.

Lord Carnarvon died after discovering King Tutankhamun's tomb, was it the Curse of the Pharaoh? Now, his great-grandson retraces his foot steps.

A breathtaking 200-square-mile expanse of stone temples, the Cambodian city of Angkor was abandoned in the 14th century. Its greatest temple, Angkor Wat, is the city's crowning jewel, a vast stone map of the cosmos and one of mankind's most remarkable creations. In 1856, a young French naturalist, Henri Mouhot, set out to discover new animal species in Southeast Asia. Instead, he stumbled on the lost city of Angkor. Uncovering temple after temple hidden by jungle, Mouhot wrote a stirring account of Asia's most bewitching and romantic ruins, sparking an explosion of interest around the world. Fifty years more would pass before a written record of Camobida's lost civilization came to light. Scholars discovered a journal written by a Chinese envoy in the 13th century. This remarkable document described Angkor at its zenith - a teeming metropolis of dazzling riches, beautiful princes, and exotic customs. It's author, Zhou Dagoun, was a diplomat sent by the Chinese Khan to investigate the mysterious Khmer kingdom and plan a Mongol invasion.

Deep in the heart of southern Africa, in present-day Zimbabwe a great civilization rose and flourished in the 9th century. Its magnificent walled city stood as testament to a thriving, sophisticated culture called Great Zimbabwe. It was larger than medieval London 500 years later, and rich in gold and ivory. But in the 14th century, this society abruptly passed into oblivion. Obsessed by rumors of mysterious ruins north of the Limpopo River, German geologist Carl Mauch survived kidnapping and robbery to rediscover Great Zimbabwe in 1871. Over whelmed by what he beheld, Mauch was certain he'd found the Queen of Sheba's palaces and King Solomon's mines. Mauch's theories stood as fact until 1929, when the formidable archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson excavated the site with her all-female team. She unearthed proof that Great Zimbabwe was a native African creation, confirming that high civilization could arise in black Africa. Her findings turned racist preconceptions about Africa on their head, definitively refuting the myth of white racial superiority.

Shrouded in mystery since the dawn of recorded history, Tibet has seemed one of the most remote and inaccessible kingdoms on Earth. In the 19th century, as it became aware of the colonial designs of European power on central Asia, Tibet expelled westerners and closed its frontiers. As its isolation deepened, so did Tibet's allure and mystique. By the middle of the 19th century the western world was fascinated by Tibet and obsessed with its strategic importance in "The Great Game" for control of Central Asia. In 1865, the British sent an unassuming Indian hillman into the forbidden land to map its treacherous mountain passes. Disguised as Buddhist pilgrim, Nain Singh spent a year and a half in Tibet, emerging with an astonishingly accurate survey of the mysterious land. His is one of the great and unknown stories in the history of adventure. Forty years later, using the very same maps that Nain Singh created, it was Francis Younghusband, a British colonialist, who finally managed to penetrate the hidden city of Lhasa and bring to an end the country's years of isolation.

The legend of the Holy Grail, written in 1185, seized the European imagination and maintains its hold to the present day. It was the most sacred of relics, the vessel alleged to have both the wine of the Last Supper as well as the blood of the crucified Christ. The legendary quest for the grail became the ultimate treasure hunt. Into the legend were woven many of the experiences of one of the most extraordinary characters of the Medieval era, Richard the Lionheart, King of England. His crusade to the Holy Land - and his passionate search for redemption - would both find their way into the story of The Grail. Over the centuries, others seeking salvation, took up the guest for the grail in a more literal way. More than 700 years later, a 20th century German would take the search for the Grail all too seriously. Otto Rahn was convinced the Grail really existed and devoted his life to a bizarre and tragic quest for it. Both he and the Grail became swept up in the Nazi obsession with blood and purity. Rahn's strange story inspired Steven Spielberg's tale of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." After a thousand years the Holy Grail remains one of the mysterious and powerful symbols to have been created by the human imagination.

Famed for its wealth, cultural treasures, and spirituality, India has for centuries beckoned the outsider. Many have vied for control of this fabled and diverse land. Two great empires established by the invading Moguls and the British, flourished on this vast sub-continent.

rge part due to French-born Austen Henry Layard. Journeying to the upper Tigris valley, Layard gained the right to excavate along the banks of the river, and discovered the most fantastic artwork and architectural remains found anywhere outside of Egypt. Great palaces appeared, containing some of the largest works of art ever known to have been created, some of which Layard carted off with him to England, where they stand today at the British Museum. Unlike Layard, Gertrude Bell believed that ancient remains belong in their native setting. A great traveler and mountaineer who served as an intelligence officer at the turn of the 19th century, she participated in excavations that included one in southern Turkey at a site believed to be the most likely landing for Noah’s ark. Bell’s legacy is the National Museum in Baghdad, where the treasures of ancient Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria are preserved close to their original sites

Wealthier and more powerful than any other ancient civilization, the Roman Empire enjoyed a long period of prosperity known as the Pax Romana. But perhaps the greatest treasure of this period is not its riches, but its myth. The abstract image of this extraordinary empire has inspired dreamers and dictators throughout the ages, luring some to return to Rome to fuel their own dreams of power. In the middle of the 14th century, the son of a Roman tavern keeper put his life on the line to rekindle the days of his city¿s former glory. Cola di Rienzo fought the power of the Catholic church and a clique of local aristocrats to proclaim a new Roman Republic. Although his efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful, he fueled the Renaissance with his notion that Rome could rise again. Seven hundred years later, Benito Mussolini rose to power in Italy, and became increasingly obsessed with reestablishing its imperial past. He embarked on an ambitious plan to recreate the glories of ancient Rome. Like Cola di Rienzo, Mussolini died pursuing his fantasy, but his story lives on in the annals of history.

The epic poet Homer wrote of the great walled city of Troy, immortalizing its destruction in the Trojan War. But by the 19th century, most people thought of the tale as fiction. Except for one man, Heinrich Schliemann, a German industrialist who followed the clues in Homer and uncovered the ruins of the great ancient cities of Troy and Mycenae, complete with fabulous treasures. A generation later, an Englishman named Arthur Evans pushed back the frontiers of European history even farther, with his spectacular discovery of the ancient palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. In a controversial move, Evans reconstructed parts of the palace, blending his own theories of the people he called the "Minoans" with the archaeological record.