Patinated

History - that venerable old clerk, with ink on its fingers and centuries of dust in its pockets - has preserved some matters with admirable care, and made a bewildering muddle of others.

Among the latter stand Gog and Magog, who have marched through scripture, legend, empire and map; and Dhul Qarnayn, whose identity has been settled beyond doubt by many learned gentlemen, none of whom agrees with the next.

PATINATED is an ongoing investigation into this old and unfinished business.

Each film summons one question and pursues it through ancient chronicles, sacred texts, ruined places, distant mountains and those stubborn fragments of evidence which refuse to behave as respectable theories require.

We may uncover an answer, expose an error, or discover that the question itself has stood the wrong way round for centuries. Whatever awaits, we shall know more at the end than we did at the beginning - which, in the investigation of ancient mysteries, is no small achievement.