Terry Jones
in
Raiders of the Lost Arcticon
 
(4 x 1 hour for Channel 4)
                                                           
Terry Jones leads us on an historical detective story, searching for one of the most important books ever written. Shot on HD, with spectacular dramatic reconstructions, we inhabit the world of Drake, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Guy Fawkes  and the first English colonists to America.  It’s a swashbuckling tale of sea-faring bravado, political and religious turmoil and suspicion, brought to life as a 21st century television investigation.
 
If you thought Galileo pointed the first telescope at the heavens, you’d be wrong.  It was Thomas Harriot - once described as ‘The greatest mathematician Britain has ever produced’ but today almost unheard of.   Harriot was the father of Algebra and should be credited with the discoveries of Haley, Snell and Galileo. Most importantly, he wrote a crucial treatise which has never been found - Arcticon. 
 
Arcticon was the 16th Century navigation manual that revolutionised English sea captains’ control of the high seas by teaching them advanced observational astronomy.  It gave them the edge over the Spanish fleet and future captains the tools to build the Empire.  No copies of Arcticon have ever been found and it’s thought that none escaped the Great Fire of 1666.  But this book may be the principal reason Britannia ruled the waves - and then the world.  
 
Is it buried beneath the Bank of England, where Harriot’s grave was said to have been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666?
 
Was a copy hidden by the first English settlers Harriot sailed to Virginia with in 1585?  (Harriot returned home a year later with Francis Drake and tobacco and later died of nose cancer)   
 
Could the Arcticon  be buried in the Abbey of Molana in Ireland where Harriot spent a year studying lenses and the trajectory of bullets? 
 
Or in the Earl of Northumberland’s Estate of Syon, on the Isle of Isleworth in West London, where Harriot spent much of his later life?
 
With forensic detective work we follow in the footsteps of an unsung hero.  We are looking for the book that changed the world…