In this episode of the archeology series, presenter Mark Halliley narrates a journey to the Lambeyeque Valley of Peru, in search of the city of Tucume, an eerie place of 25 pyramids standing side by side.
Through a combination of reenactment plus testimony from a variety of academics, the program recreates the strange rituals of the people of the valley, revealing a civilization whose obsession to build pyramids eventually turned to horror, until Tucume finally vanished in a bloody frenzy of human sacrifice.
The program tells a stirring tale through a script that, to its credit, eschews too much photography in favor of plot-development. Some of the re-enactments look a little forced, but in general director Adam Laverty tells a coherent story of hubris and jealousy, as significant today as it was in ancient times.