The first episode looks at Nubia, in what is now northern Sudan, a kingdom that dominated a vast area of the eastern Sahara for thousands of years. Its people were described as barbarians and mercenaries, and yet Nubia has left us with some of the most spectacular monuments in the world.

Art historian Gus Casely-Hayford explores the history of the old African kingdom of Ethiopia, which ended when Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed by the military in 1974.

Gus Casely-Hayford travels to Nigeria and Mali to explore the story behind a series of magnificent 16th-century bronzes made in the ancient kingdom of Benin.