Few archaeological sites illustrate imperial ambition as directly as Caričin Grad. Justinian ordered a city built close to his own birthplace in the Balkan interior, endowed it with an archbishop, ramparts, a colonnaded street, baths and a striking concentration of churches - a capital in miniature, planned rather than grown. Within roughly a lifetime the frontier gave way, the population left, and the site was never resettled, which is precisely why it survives so legibly today. The film follows the excavated street grid from the acropolis with its episcopal basilica down through the upper and lower town, using aerial photography to reveal the plan and detailing the mosaic floors and carved capitals recovered from it. It also follows the archaeologists, whose long-running campaigns continue to redraw the map. A strong archaeology title for history strands and Late Antiquity programming.
