Archaeology and war

32 snips

Jan 31, 2026

Guest

Hyojung Kim

Grigor Atanasyan, BBC Russian correspondent, on the controversy around archaeologist Alexander Butyagin and Crimean digs. Ashay Yegde, BBC India reporter, on the Kalbeliya nomadic community, their music, dance and battles for burial rights. Hyojung Kim, BBC Korean correspondent, on the viral 'Young 40' caricatures and what they reveal about generational tensions in South Korea.

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INSIGHT

Myrmikion's Deep Historical Layers

Myrmikion in Crimea is a multi-layered ancient site with Greek, Byzantine, Genoese and Ottoman remains spanning millennia.
Grigor Atanasyan explains the site's long history and its continuous archaeological importance since the 1980s.

ANECDOTE

A Lifelong Excavation Career

Alexander Butyagin began excavating at Myrmikion as a teenager and led the expedition since 1999.
Grigor Atanasyan notes Butyagin made the site his life's work, continuing through changing political eras.

INSIGHT

Legal Limits On Excavations During Occupation

The Hague Convention's Second Protocol bars occupiers from archaeological excavations except narrow exceptions like rescue digs for development.
Grigor Atanasyan highlights that Ukraine and most European states are party to it, while Russia is not.

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A top Russian archaeologist is currently under arrest in Poland. Alexander Butyagin is waiting for courts to decide on a request from Ukraine for him to be extradited. He is a scholar at the Hermitage, Russia's largest art museum in St Petersburg, and has been digging in an ancient site in Crimea since 1999. Ukrainian authorities claim that he is criminally damaging and looting the site, making the most of Russian occupation, Butyagin himself denies all charges. It is a story that Grigor Atenesian of BBC Russian has been looking into.

The Kalbeliya community is a nomadic tribe from Rajasthan in India, known for its distinctive folk music and the Kalbeliya dance form. Traditionally, Kalbeliya families have led a nomadic life, though some have settled permanently over the years. They follow a type of Hinduism in which burial, rather than cremation, is a religious requirement after death. Community members say that even those who are settled often do not have legal access to land for burial, leaving families struggling to perform last rites. Ashay Yegde, who reports for the BBC in India, recently travelled to meet the Kalbeliya to hear their story.

AI-generated caricatures of middle-aged men decked out in street wear, clutching an iPhone have gone viral on social media in South Korea. They are being called 'Young 40s' by younger generations. Teasing of an older person is very unusual in South Korea, where age difference, even by a year, forms the basis of social hierarchy. But the Young 40 memes also represent Korean youth's growing scepticism of this reverence for elders. Hyojung Kim of BBC Korean has been looking into the internet phenomenon, and shares what it tells us about South Korean society today.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.

Presented by Faranak Amidi

Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)