The New Testament names Bethsaida as a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee and the home of several of the apostles, but the shoreline has shifted over two thousand years and the identification of the site has never been settled. At the mound excavated in the estuary plain, archaeologists have uncovered a substantial fortified town of the Iron Age, with a monumental gateway and traces of later occupation; a second candidate site a short distance away has produced remains of its own, and each team defends its case. The programme presents the evidence without deciding it, filming the excavations, the landscape of reeds, basalt and water, and the way a shifting lake edge can displace a place name. Shot in 4K, it suits strands on biblical archaeology and on the methods and disputes of the discipline itself.
