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0:01
<i> NARRATOR: The mysteries of ancient Egypt, and its hidden secrets.</i>
0:07
MATTHEW: These tombs represent the technology of resurrection.
0:13
STEVEN: They created monuments that make the mind boggle. <i> NARRATOR: Some of their greatest achievements,</i> <i> lost beneath the sand and water of the Nile valley...</i>
0:23
<i> until now.</i> <i> Imagine if we could empty oceans,</i>
0:30
<i> or drain the desert, and reveal the secrets beneath.</i>
0:36
<i> Now we can.</i> <i> Using the latest imaging technology to pierce sea and sand</i>
0:46
<i> and turn accurate data into 3D images.</i>
0:51
<i> Can scientists solve the mystery of Alexandria's Lighthouse</i> <i> and recreate one of the ancient wonders of the World?</i>
1:01
<i> Why did a Pharaoh build 15 mega-forts when none of them saw a major battle?</i> LAUREL: This is a forgotten age in Egyptian history because we have lost access to these monuments. <i> NARRATOR: And what does a fleet of boats, buried six miles from the Nile,</i> <i> reveal about Egypt's original 'Valley of the Kings'?</i>
1:30
♪ ♪ <i> NARRATOR: Ancient Egypt...</i> <i> One of the greatest civilizations on Earth.</i>
1:41
<i> It lasts for 3,000 years.</i> <i> Its people develop a remarkable written language using pictures and symbols.</i>
1:51
<i> They worship strange gods.</i>
1:58
<i> And they build two of the seven wonders of the ancient world.</i>
2:04
<i> The first, the great pyramids of Giza.</i>
2:09
-The ancients determined the seven wonders because they met certain criteria. It is the ingenuity of the design, but it had to be built on a super colossal, over the top scale. <i> NARRATOR: The Egyptians' second ancient wonder is the lighthouse of Alexandria.</i> <i> Known as the Pharos, it is built on a grand scale like the other wonders:</i> <i> The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes.</i>
2:41
<i> Of the seven wonders, only the pyramids now survive.</i>
2:49
<i> But as the waters of the Nile Delta drain away, can the architectural marvel</i> <i> of the Pharos be brought back to life from the seas around Alexandria Harbor?</i>
3:02
<i> And recreated accurately for the first time a sight that once dazzled the world.</i>
3:08
-The Pharos ranked as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world because it was something that had never been seen before.
3:17
Some people say um the beacon could be seen 30 miles out to sea.
3:24
<i> NARRATOR: Alexandria's lighthouse is a technological and architectural masterpiece.</i>
3:31
<i> Built in the third century BC, it's the crowning glory of a new capital city,</i> <i> founded by the conqueror of Ancient Egypt: Alexander the Great.</i>
3:42
-Alexandria was the be-all and end-all. Um you might think of the Champs Elysee in Paris or Times Square in New York. Alexandria was all of those things and more. Um it was the most beautiful city that the world had ever seen.
3:59
<i> NARRATOR: Egypt's new rulers want the Pharos to send a big and simple message.</i>
4:05
EMAD: They wanted to show how powerful is the city. So you'd need a sign, a big huge banner that says welcome to Alexandria.
4:15
The Pharos was created mainly as a landmark.
4:21
<i> NARRATOR: But once Egypt's power has faded,</i> <i> Alexandria's famous lighthouse falls into disrepair.</i>
4:29
<i> The land beneath it slowly subsides into the sea, and in the 14th century</i> <i> it finally collapses after it's struck by an earthquake.</i>
4:41
<i> The Pharos is thought to be lost here, beneath 23 feet of water,</i> <i> at the entrance of Alexandria harbor.</i>
4:55
<i> Now a French team of archaeologists is trying</i> <i> to rediscover its true magnificence.</i>
5:03
<i> Using the latest undersea imaging technology, they're scouring the seabed for clues.</i>
5:09
<i> Their aim is to digitally rebuild this lost Ancient Wonder of the World,</i> <i> for the first time.</i>
5:17
<i> Leading the investigation is architect and archaeologist Isabelle Hairy.</i>
5:22
<i> She's been searching for the truth about Alexandria's lighthouse</i> <i> for more than 20 years.</i> ISABELLE: It's always very rewarding to work on one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. I'd be lying if I said otherwise.
5:38
<i> NARRATOR: Isabelle's team is working in one of the largest</i> <i> underwater archaeological sites in the world.</i>
5:44
<i> They investigate some mysterious granite blocks.</i> <i> These remarkable remains are clearly man-made.</i> <i> Could they be from the missing ancient wonder?</i>
5:57
<i> Isabelle's task is to unlock the true dimensions and design of the Pharos.</i>
6:07
<i>But her job is made harder by the wildly conflicting accounts</i> <i>of what it actually looked lik.</i> -We came across these quite extraordinary images of the lighthouse. <i> NARRATOR: Different impressions from past travelers and artists shroud</i> <i> the true appearance of the lighthouse in mystery.</i> -It's depicted here as the Tower of Babylon. Here a very classical building with floors one above the other, with doors opening into mysterious rooms.
6:38
<i> NARRATOR: Over time, ideas about the Pharos grew even more fantastic.</i>
6:44
-One of the authors was speaking about the Pharos being so tall and so extensively high, if a stone was thrown from the top of the lighthouse it would reach land in 2 days or 3 days. It's not true but it is saying something about how those people saw the lighthouse.
7:00
<i> NARRATOR: Where does the truth lie?</i>
7:06
<i> Will the underwater granite blocks provide answers?</i>
7:12
<i> To find out, Isabelle's team uses a technique called photogrammetry capturing</i> <i> thousands of detailed images across the enormous site.</i> -This is closer view here on the map. This is block 1003. -Do you think we can go further, we can go more on the North?
7:33
<i> NARRATOR: After 28 weeks of diving and with 50,000 photographs,</i> <i> Isabelle has the data she needs to finally unlock the secrets of the Pharos.</i>
7:49
<i> Combining this unique data with cutting edge computer graphics means</i> <i> that for the first time, the waters around Alexandria harbor can be drained away.</i>
8:03
<i> As the Mediterranean begins to empty, surprising shapes come into view.</i>
8:12
<i> Nearly 3,000 granite blocks scattered across three acres of the seabed.</i>
8:20
<i> These are not natural rock formations, but clearly the work of human hands.</i>
8:26
<i> Statue bases, chunks of pillars.</i> <i> All from a building of monumental proportions.</i> <i> The drowned ruins of a genuine ancient wonder, The Pharos lighthouse.</i>
8:42
<i> Brought back into the light of day for the first time in 600 years.</i>
8:49
<i> Already Isabelle's work has delivered one revelation.</i> <i> Some of the blocks from the drained landscape are</i> <i> a crucial clue to the shape of the Pharos.</i>
9:00
-Draining the site has enabled us to see the lighthouse. We've even found blocks that might have formed the corner stones, but no blocks found underwater indicated the walls sloped.
9:12
The walls were straight.
9:15
<i> NARRATOR: This is the first physical proof of the lighthouse's design.</i> <i> A huge advance on all previous knowledge.</i> <i> But piecing together the rest of the underwater jigsaw remains an enormous challenge.</i>
9:29
-What we have here is a puzzle, basically it's a 3000 pieces puzzle that you have to try to fit things together. Will it fit or will it not fit?
9:39
<i> NARRATOR: And what's more, some crucial parts of the puzzle are missing,</i> <i> taken to museums by previous excavations.</i>
9:49
<i> But one important piece lies nearby, abandoned on the quayside.</i>
9:56
-This was probably the greatest discovery, found on the site.
10:03
<i> NARRATOR: But what is it?</i> -So, here we have a side part of a door frame. We know because this is the place where the door would have been fixed.
10:15
<i> NARRATOR: This groove is carefully carved as the frame for a gigantic door.</i>
10:21
<i> And incredibly, Isabelle can match the frame's distinctive</i> <i> shape to other stones lying underwater.</i>
10:29
<i> They must all be pieces from the same doorway.</i>
10:36
-By joining this huge fragment almost 12 meters long together with all the other fragments, we can reconstruct a door. It's one of the most important pieces of the site.
10:48
<i> NARRATOR: Now, for the first time, it's possible</i> <i> to recreate the door to the Pharos.</i> <i> The entrance to a Wonder of the Ancient World.</i> -So now we are able to connect it with the lintels. The upright, ah perfect. That's great. <i> NARRATOR: The drained site reveals the lost fragments of the giant doorframe.</i>
11:13
<i> Using the scanned images of the seabed, its huge blocks come into view.</i>
11:20
<i> Computer graphic technology reverses the centuries.</i>
11:25
<i> The pieces of the doorframe fit together perfectly.</i>
11:31
<i> And within the granite frame a vast wooden door was once fastened.</i>
11:37
<i> All of it reaching 41 feet high and weighing more than 200 tons!</i>
11:46
<i> The Pharos entrance is restored in the place where it fell.</i>
11:51
<i> A monumental piece of architecture dwarfing anyone who enters.</i>
11:58
<i> For the first time, a part of Alexandria's lighthouse is accurately reconstructed.</i>
12:06
<i> But what does the rest of the Pharos look like?</i> <i> And does it truly deserve its title as a wonder of the Ancient world?</i>
12:20
<i> NARRATOR: Archaeologist Isabelle Hairy continues to search for the truth about the</i> <i> Pharos lighthouse.</i>
12:30
<i> Historical reports are conflicting.</i> <i> But most agree on one thing, that the Pharos has three distinct levels,</i> <i> each shaped differently.</i>
12:43
<i> Isabelle heads to the place where the lighthouse is thought to have stood.</i> <i> Now the site of another grand building, Qaitbay Fort.</i>
12:53
<i> Built in 1477, just 42 years after the ruins of the Pharos are last reported visible.</i>
13:01
<i> Inside, an intriguing clue.</i>
13:07
<i> Isabelle believes that its mosque is a small-scale replica of the Pharos.</i>
13:14
ISABELLE: You really get the impression of being in the ancient lighthouse even though the scale isn't the same, but there's this sense of space, still present, which we can feel all around us. <i> NARRATOR: The main tower is square.</i> <i> Above, it's topped by an octagonal and then a circular section.</i>
13:34
<i> Isabelle's theory is that the Mosque's architects intended this to be a tribute to</i> <i> Alexandria's most famous building.</i> <i> So is the Pharos shaped like this?</i>
13:47
<i> To solve this mystery, Isabelle needs to compare her 3D data with historical</i> <i> reports and discover the true scale of the Pharos.</i>
13:59
<i> Some dimensions were recorded by Medieval travelers.</i>
14:04
<i> In 1166, Al-Balawi from Spain penned a precise description of the lighthouse,</i> <i> reporting it to be 300 cubits high.</i>
14:15
<i> Over a century later, Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta recorded</i> <i> the thickness of the Pharos walls as 10 spans.</i>
14:26
<i> The problem is these units are lost to history.</i>
14:32
<i> Until now.</i>
14:36
<i> The breakthrough comes from the Pharos' reconstructed door frame.</i>
14:41
<i> Its outside edge reveals the exact thickness of the lighthouse's exterior wall.</i>
14:48
<i> The dimension also recorded by Ibn Battuta, centuries earlier.</i>
14:55
<i> His 10 'spans' is equal to six feet ten inches.</i>
15:02
-It's a discovery that's incredibly rewarding. We are now able to decipher the texts of Ibn Battuta, and the texts of Al-Balawi.
15:13
<i> NARRATOR: It's a huge leap forward.</i> <i> Converting medieval units into accurate modern measurement</i> <i> unlocks the true scale of the Pharos for the first time.</i>
15:27
<i> Combining all the underwater evidence with Al-Balawi's descriptions</i> <i> solves a centuries old puzzle.</i> <i> Revealing three towers that match the design of the mosque,</i> <i> making it possible to reconstruct a lost ancient wonder in exact detail.</i>
15:47
<i> Statues from Alexandria's museums return to their original homes.</i>
15:54
<i> Believed to be clad in limestone, the Pharos reaches almost 330 feet into the sky.</i>
16:01
<i> The size of a 32 story building, it's one of</i> <i> the tallest structures in the Ancient World.</i>
16:11
<i> And all of it is thought to be crowned by a wonder of ancient technology,</i> <i> fires and iron mirrors reflecting the light and</i> <i> the glory of Egypt to the world beyond.</i>
16:24
-It could have looked like the first skyscrapers built in Chicago at the end of the 19th century. It's really a fabulous structure.
16:38
STEVEN: The ancients determined the seven wonders because they met certain criterias, and so the Pharos satisfies all of those ancient criteria of innovative design, that was actually built, that was actually towering.
17:00
<i> NARRATOR: Most importantly the Pharos marks the gateway to</i> <i> Ancient Egypt and the mighty river Nile.</i>
17:10
<i> More than 4,000 miles long, the Nile is the longest river in the world.</i>
17:18
JON: The Nile was absolutely central to Ancient Egypt.
17:24
It was the seasonal flood that brought this rich, black mineral mud and deposited it on the fields and made it fertile. It was actually that that drove Ancient Egyptian civilization. Without the Nile it wouldn't have happened. <i> NARRATOR: Six and a half thousand years ago farmers make these riverbanks their</i> <i> home, and a civilization is born.</i>
17:49
<i> Six miles west of the Nile, draining, not water, but sand,</i> <i> reveals an ancient mystery known as the Abydos boats.</i>
18:01
-It was completely unexpected to find a phantom flotilla in the middle of nowhere.
18:09
<i> NARRATOR: Why is there a fleet of boats beneath the sands of the Egyptian desert?</i>
18:17
<i>Egyptologist Matthew Adams has excavated Abydos' mysterious boats for 30 years.</i>
18:26
MATTHEW: One would never know by looking at this flat patch of desert that underneath the sand is one of the most remarkable discoveries ever made in Egyptian archaeology.
18:40
<i> NARRATOR: The boats he excavated have been reburied in the sand to help</i> <i> preserve them for the future.</i> <i> Before then, they'd been lying undisturbed for 5000 years.</i>
18:53
-Was this the result of some great flood of the river that they sailed here and were left stranded? It's a very strange setting for a group of boats like this. -You would think perhaps it was a dried up quay or it was perhaps an area where the Nile once ran.
19:12
<i> NARRATOR: Throughout its history the Nile has shifted course.</i> <i> But it never ran here.</i>
19:18
<i> Abydos lies on a desert plateau out of the river's reach.</i> <i> So if the Nile didn't bring these boats here, what did?</i>
19:29
<i> To find out, Matthew's team surveys the location of the</i> <i> boats and the surrounding terrain.</i>
19:37
<i> Accurate satellite mapping can reveal the extraordinary world beneath.</i>
19:44
<i> Combining this data with the latest computer imaging allows the Egyptian desert to be</i> <i> drained of sand, grain by grain</i>
19:54
<i> to solve an ancient mystery.</i>
20:01
<i> The desert begins to reveal its secrets.</i>
20:06
<i> Not one boat, Not two, but 14.</i>
20:14
<i> The surviving fragments of timber reveal they are 60 feet long.</i>
20:21
<i> All carefully lined up in parallel.</i>
20:28
<i> It's the oldest buried fleet ever discovered.</i>
20:35
<i> But who does it belong to?</i> <i> Reconstructing the boats immediately reveals a clue.</i>
20:44
<i> These are not simple dugout canoes nor are they boats made from reeds.</i>
20:50
<i> They're substantial rowing vessels, with space for up to 30 oarsmen.</i>
20:57
<i> More revealing still is the way they're made from carefully crafted wooden</i> <i> planks all stitched together with rope.</i>
21:07
-These are they earliest plank boats that we have in this area, as status symbols they're important. <i> NARRATOR: 5,000 years ago, this is cutting edge nautical technology.</i>
21:19
-It's almost like taking a sports car today and burying it in the desert somewhere.
21:26
<i> NARRATOR: And in Ancient Egypt only one person can afford such an immense investment.</i>
21:33
-Only the king could expend resources at this level and was in a position to dispose of a fleet a royal fleet in this way.
21:47
<i> NARRATOR: The 14 boats belong to a Pharaoh.</i> <i> But what are they doing abandoned in the desert?</i>
22:02
♪ ♪ <i> NARRATOR: To unravel the mystery of the Abydos Boats Egyptologist Matthew Adams</i> <i> hunts for clues above the sand.</i>
22:14
<i> Next to the buried fleet stands a huge mud brick ruin.</i>
22:21
<i> Here Matthew finds evidence of an ancient belief system that</i> <i> could help explain this desert secret.</i>
22:31
MATTHEW: These massive walls created a kind of religious space,
22:37
where one of Egypt's first kings was worshipped. <i> NARRATOR: Excavations here uncover ancient pots that once contained food and beer.</i>
22:50
-Ceremonies took place in here, focused on this king as a kind of divine figure. Somehow these boats are part of this religious expression and they're connected to the activities of these early kings.
23:08
<i> NARRATOR: This enclosure is built for the Ancient Egyptians to worship their</i> <i> pharaoh as a god, as long ago as 2700 BC,</i>
23:18
<i> 200 years before the great pyramids.</i> <i> And more than a thousand before Tutankhamun.</i>
23:33
<i> But what is the connection between this early worship</i> <i> of a Pharaoh and the mystery fleet?</i>
23:42
<i> A closer examination of the drained boats reveals the answer.</i>
23:48
<i> Surrounding each one is a curious mud-brick casing.</i>
23:54
<i> The brick walls follow the curve of the boats,</i> <i> completely covering them from stern to bow.</i>
24:02
<i> Returning them to their original state reveals more.</i>
24:08
<i> Built on the desert surface each brick 'case' completely encloses a single boat.</i>
24:16
<i> And all are covered in a layer of white plaster.</i> <i> Creating 14 boat graves.</i>
24:29
-When the boats were newly put in place, you wouldn't have seen the boats themselves, the wooden boat hulls, you would've seen these brick grave structures.
24:38
<i> NARRATOR: The boat tombs are designed to be highly visible.</i> JON: This plaster would have caught the light of the sun when they were first built.
24:48
-Seen from a distance they would have been glowing in the desert.
24:54
<i> NARRATOR: And all to honor a Pharaoh.</i> -Like the offerings that were delivered for his benefit inside the monument,
25:03
bread and beer and wine, the boats must represent a kind of offering to him.
25:16
<i> NARRATOR: What beliefs inspire the Ancient Egyptians to create all of this,</i>
25:20
<i> and to place it so far away from the Nile, where they actually live?</i>
25:27
<i> Just a mile away, there's another clue.</i>
25:32
<i> This strange subterranean architecture is built around the same time the boats are</i> <i> left in the desert.</i> <i> It's the last resting place of one of Egypt's earliest Pharaohs.</i>
25:50
-This is the spot where the king ended his life in this world and made the transition from here to the other world, where he would have his eternal life.
26:01
<i> NARRATOR: The tomb is designed to ensure the dead Pharaoh passes into another</i> <i> realm known as the afterlife provided with all the essential possessions he</i> <i> needs: food, drink, even his servants,</i> <i> ritually killed to serve their master beyond the grave.</i>
26:20
-These are the chambers in which the courtiers and retainers who were sacrificed to accompany the king into the next world were buried. And the, whole assemblage, the king in his burial chamber, his funerary enclosure and the boats that were buried next to it, the whole assemblage is being translated from this world to the next to be available to him there.
26:46
<i> NARRATOR: Just like the dead courtiers, the Royal fleet is</i> <i> there to serve the Pharaoh in the afterlife.</i>
26:53
<i> So he can navigate the celestial Nile for all eternity.</i>
27:00
<i> The Abydos boats mark the beginning of a belief in the afterlife that eventually</i> <i> creates the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings.</i> <i> And more signs of that connection still lie hidden beneath the sand.</i>
27:14
<i> So Matthew's team carries out what's called a 'magnetometry' survey.</i>
27:19
<i> It detects variations in the soil's magnetic field to reveal structures underground,</i> <i> not seen for thousands of years.</i>
27:28
ALEX: We walk over it every day, but what we don't see is all of this.
27:32
<i> NARRATOR: The data reveal the origin of Egypt's obsession with the afterlife.</i>
27:38
-All of these darks lines that we can see here, these are all walls from buried structures. Big ones, small ones. We can identify these as tombs, which makes this a gigantic vast desert cemetery.
27:59
<i> NARRATOR: It's an astonishing discovery.</i>
28:03
<i> Draining the sand from the rest of the plateau exposes</i> <i> Ancient Egypt's oldest Royal burial ground.</i>
28:11
<i> A landscape designed for one purpose: Resurrection.</i>
28:19
<i> Combining data from the surveys and excavations with computer generated imagery</i> <i> reveals the Pharaoh's tomb from below.</i>
28:29
<i> But now, drained of sand, another nine huge underground complexes appear.</i>
28:36
<i> At least ten royal tombs fill the valley floor.</i>
28:43
<i> Built more than a thousand years before the Valley of the Kings,</i> <i> this is Ancient Egypt's original city of the dead.</i>
28:53
<i> And nearby, more ritual enclosures where Pharaohs are worshipped</i> <i> and the tombs of the royal boats.</i>
29:04
<i> It's the landscape at Abydos that reveals the ultimate reason why all these</i> <i> structures are built so far from the Nile.</i> <i> It all sits at the entrance of a narrow gorge.</i>
29:18
<i> The gateway to the afterlife.</i>
29:23
-I think it's very likely that the Ancient Egyptians viewed this canyon as the road that led to the land of the dead. The sun set in the west, the west was where the dead were, that was the other world and this canyon leads directly in that direction.
29:42
<i> NARRATOR: The people who build this sacred site believe that everything placed here is</i> <i> destined to join the Pharaoh in the afterlife.</i> -Abydos is vital because it's the first area where we see Pharaohs being deposited into graves and treated in this specialized way with gifts for the afterlife and that carries on for millennia.
30:08
<i> NARRATOR: The tradition that began with the Abydos boats can be seen 200 years later at</i> <i> the pyramid tomb of King Khufu.</i>
30:17
<i> His mummified body accompanied by a ceremonial boat.</i>
30:24
<i> Around 1,200 years later the boy King, Tutankhamun is entombed with 35 model boats.</i>
30:33
<i> Ensuring that in the afterlife each Pharaoh can navigate the all-important Nile.</i>
30:46
<i> The Ancient Egyptians are master builders.</i> <i> Their spectacular tombs and temples populate more than 900 miles of the Nile Valley.</i>
30:56
<i> But draining the waters behind the Aswan dam reveals something very different.</i> <i> One of the largest state building projects after the pyramids,</i> <i> a series of 15 massive forts.</i> LAUREL: When we think about ancient Egypt we think of a peaceful society we think about temples and tombs and we don't think about the military. <i> NARRATOR: And the forts that the Egyptian military build here are immense,</i> <i> as technologically advanced as the castles of Medieval Europe</i>
31:27
<i> that weren't built for another 3000 years.</i> <i> And yet there is little evidence that any of them saw a battle.</i> <i> Can draining the Nile reveal the true purpose of the mystery forts?</i>
31:46
<i> NARRATOR: For more than 50 years Ancient Egypt's forts</i> <i> are lost beneath the waters of Lake Nasser...</i> <i> their exact purpose, a mystery to archaeologists.</i>
31:58
<i> Viewing them on the lakebed is impossible.</i>
32:02
<i> Sediment makes the waters impenetrable to cameras.</i> <i> And diving here can be fatal.</i>
32:10
<i> But there is one clue.</i>
32:20
<i> Archaeologist Laurel Bestock is travelling to its remote location, deep in Sudan,</i> <i> near the Southern end of Lake Nasser.</i> <i> Fort Uronarti, one of the last surviving strongpoints</i> <i> from Ancient Egypt's southern frontier.</i>
32:38
<i> Laurel is fascinated by these forgotten forts and has been</i> <i> excavating Uronarti for six years.</i> -I had thought that I would never be able to see, let alone study personally, such a place. That I could potentially come here was a really a personally profound and a career changing discovery.
33:01
<i> NARRATOR: Laurel is searching for evidence to help her reveal the secrets of the</i> <i> forts that lie beneath the waters of Lake Nasser.</i>
33:12
<i> Fort Uronarti itself is built around 1850BC, during an era known as the Middle Kingdom.</i>
33:20
<i> It stands 200 miles south of Ancient Egyptian territory in what was once no man's land.</i>
33:31
-This represents the edge of the known world to the Egyptians. Egypt is behind me up the Nile, that's the familiar world, the world where the Egyptians felt at home, they knew how to behave in this place. It's a culture and a landscape together. Out there is the rest of ancient Africa, and that's very much a, a place that the Egyptians conceive of as terrifying, it's where they view the people and even the landscape itself as a threat to their order.
34:02
<i> NARRATOR: Beyond Egypt lies the land of Nubia...</i> <i> and the kingdom of the Kushites.</i>
34:10
<i> Their fearsome warriors raid Egypt from the south.</i> <i> So the Pharaohs need to secure their territory.</i> <i> Clues to how they do it can be found at Uronarti.</i> -Uronarti is really built for defense. It's hard to imagine a space that would be more difficult to attack and you come up this steep hill and you're met with this massive fortified gateway. We're standing in between the remains of what was two towers, even thicker than the walls of Uronarti itself.
34:39
You can see how massive the brickwork is here. It's even reinforced you can see there are, are the remains of beams coming through the walls that would have acted like rebar in reinforced concrete here.
34:53
<i> NARRATOR: Fort Uronarti is a powerful deterrent to the hostile Kushites.</i>
34:58
<i> But it's barely a fraction of the military might</i> <i> Ancient Egypt is about to unleash on its enemy.</i>
35:06
<i> Most of that military machine now lies beneath Lake Nasser,</i> <i> one of the largest reservoirs in the world.</i>
35:16
<i> The forts are lost forever when Egypt builds the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s,</i> <i> to produce hydroelectric power and control irrigation.</i>
35:27
<i> The rising waters threaten some of Egypt's greatest monuments.</i>
35:32
<i> So one of the world's largest archaeological salvage operations begins,</i> <i> involving 15 countries and more than $72 million.</i>
35:43
<i> Monuments that can't be moved are excavated and recorded</i>
35:49
<i> including Ancient Egypt's lost fortresses.</i>
35:56
<i> Today, one of the most complete sets of archaeological reports from</i> <i> that time is kept at the Egypt Exploration Society.</i>
36:05
CEDRIC: First of all you see how huge these forts were. <i> NARRATOR: And reveals some tantalizing clues.</i> CHRIS: And yet, since this was taken all of this is gone? -Completely flooded, yes unfortunately. -Incredible -So this is why we're all so thankful to the mission that has excavated and recorded all these forts.
36:26
<i> NARRATOR: Today investigators are analyzing the evidence to</i> <i> discover why the Egyptians need as many as 15 forts.</i>
36:38
<i> Using this data and the latest computer graphic technology</i> <i> it's possible to drain the waters from Lake Nasser.</i>
36:49
<i> 44 trillion gallons of water are unleashed into the Nile</i>
36:57
<i> slowly revealing a world that's 4000 years old.</i>
37:03
<i> Travelling south beyond Ancient Egypt, Fort Iken appears.</i>
37:12
<i> Then Fort Askut.</i> <i> Furthest south two more, Fort Kumma and Semna.</i>
37:22
<i> Altogether a total of 15 forts.</i>
37:27
<i> Spanning 200 miles, it's the longest fortified frontier in the world,</i> <i> along this strategically important stretch of the Nile.</i> STEVEN: Because the Nile river was the principal thoroughfare up, the forts were arranged north to south, stopping any invasion from the south into the north.
37:46
<i> NARRATOR: The wall of forts transforms the Nile into a</i> <i> formidable barrier against the Kushites.</i>
37:59
<i> But why do the Ancient Egyptians</i> <i> need to dominate territory so far beyond their heartlands?</i>
38:06
<i> A clue comes from a fort inscription.</i> <i> It reveals that much of the frontier is created to</i> <i> satisfy one Pharaoh's military ambition.</i>
38:17
PHARAOH: I have made my boundary further south than my fathers.
38:22
<i> NARRATOR: And how he boasts about crushing the Kushite enemy.</i> PHARAOH: They are not people one respects. They are wretches. I have captured their women, gone to their wells, killed their cattle, cut down their grain, set fire to it.
38:44
-They definitely claimed this territory for their own by building these fortresses and said 'this is Egypt's now'. JON: These forts are representing a sort of consolidation of power of the Pharaoh.
38:56
<i> NARRATOR: But why does Ancient Egypt need so many</i> <i> forts constructed on such a massive scale?</i>
39:05
<i> Could they have been built to protect something even more</i> <i> valuable than a Pharaoh's power?</i>
39:18
<i> NARRATOR: When Egypt's Aswan Dam is built in the 1960s the largest fort to disappear</i> <i> beneath Lake Nasser is Fort Buhen.</i>
39:27
<i> Hidden inside it is evidence of Ancient Egypt's military secrets.</i>
39:33
<i> Draining the water from Lake Nasser, reveals traces of Fort Buhen,</i> <i> not seen for more than 50 years.</i>
39:42
<i> By combining the archaeological data with 3D computer graphics</i> <i> Fort Buhen is reconstructed.</i> <i> Revealing the nerve center of Ancient Egypt's frontier for the first time.</i>
39:58
<i> And it's colossal!</i>
40:02
<i> Buhen's vast footprint covers an area 20 times larger than Fort Uronarti.</i>
40:10
<i> Its perimeter wall, almost a mile circuit.</i>
40:15
<i> The 36 foot high walls dominate the riverfront.</i>
40:22
<i> This is Fort Buhen in all its original glory.</i>
40:28
<i> And everything about it is designed to intimidate.</i>
40:35
LAUREL: It really shows the state power. It puts it outside so it's not just a symbol to the Egyptians, it's a symbol to other people. JON: These forts were clearly about military power. They were about domination. -One of the purposes of this monument is to be imposing.
40:50
<i> NARRATOR: The monumental scale of Buhen is designed to terrify the Kushite enemy and</i> <i> proudly display military architecture so advanced,</i> <i> that it makes any raid on it, futile.</i> STEVEN: What's unbelievable is if I told you, that all of the features that you find in mediaeval European forts were already in place in these mud brick forts 2000 to 1800 BC in Egypt, you would say no, you're wrong.
41:24
<i> NARRATOR: 3,000 years before the famous castles of Europe are built,</i> <i> Fort Buhen has a dry moat, a fortified gateway,</i>
41:35
<i> defensive battlements and sophisticated arrow loops</i> <i> with a firing arc of 180 degrees.</i>
41:44
-Basically, everything that you come to love about a mediaeval fort is already there in the Middle Kingdom forts in Egypt.
41:57
<i> NARRATOR: It seems the intimidating power of the forts achieves its aim.</i>
42:04
<i> Archaeological investigations here uncover almost no evidence of fighting.</i>
42:11
<i> Is this lack of violence, a clue that the Nile frontier has another,</i> <i> entirely different purpose?</i> <i> Evidence lies deep inside Fort Buhen.</i>
42:23
<i> Archaeologists believe that within the citadel lies a complex of enormous silos for</i> <i> storing precious grain.</i>
42:34
-The size of those granaries means that they could hold way more food than is necessary for the number of people who would have lived at Buhen and that's an important clue for us in terms of the economic activity that's going on.
42:46
<i> NARRATOR: Egypt is trading grain for gold.</i>
42:51
<i> The forts not only dominate Ancient Egypt's southern neighbors,</i> <i> they also guard the trade routes from the gold mines of Nubia.</i>
43:01
<i> To the Egyptians, gold is all important.</i> <i> And Nubia is the main source.</i> <i>The Pharaohs and their wealthiest subjects wear gold and cover their coffins with it</i> <i> as the ultimate symbol of power.</i>
43:16
-The building of the fortresses was an attempt to impose a trading monopoly on gold coming up from the south and to make sure that this is all happening through the Egyptian state. <i> NARRATOR: No one can pass through this 200-mile stretch of territory undetected.</i>
43:32
<i> Filled with soldiers, the forts form an effective surveillance system designed</i> <i> to trap thieves, smugglers and raiders.</i>
43:41
<i> By ensuring all trade happens inside the forts</i> <i> Egypt secures the best of the deals for itself.</i>
43:51
<i> These are the Fort Knoxes of the Ancient Egyptian world,</i> <i> trading gold and defending it from attack.</i>
44:00
<i> Inside both Fort Uronarti and Fort Buhen there are clues to the scale of that operation.</i>
44:09
-This space was a barracks house, and this is a pattern we see repeated throughout the fortress. <i> NARRATOR: Buhen reveals many similar barracks, divided into larger communal areas and</i> <i> smaller rooms that archaeologists identify as sleeping quarters.</i>
44:29
-We can calculate how many people might have been able to sleep in the fortress at any given time. From the space that's here it's a fairly decent space but if you think of soldiers lying close next to one another this could pack ten people in this room with no problem and if you think I'm relatively tall for an ancient Egyptian but if I lie here with my companions next to me you can get 10 of us in this room with no problem.
44:52
<i> NARRATOR: Scaling up, it's estimated that Uronarti could house 400 soldiers.</i>
44:58
<i> And Buhen thousands more.</i>
45:04
-So you're looking at a multi-functional, multi-purpose facility that was vibrant and alive and was like a little city contained within itself.
45:14
<i> NARRATOR: At full capacity the whole fortress system could be packed with 10,000 soldiers,</i> <i> scribes and officials.</i> <i> Operating such an advanced frontier in far-flung lands is the pinnacle of</i> <i> Ancient Egypt's military achievement.</i>
45:35
<i> An organizational feat on a scale that's similar to</i> <i> the building of the great pyramids.</i>
45:42
-You can see how this architecture enables this activity and really this bustling city on the edge of the Nile here at the edge of the world.
45:57
<i> NARRATOR: Ancient Egypt's forts protect its unique civilization from invasion and</i>
46:02
<i> enable it to control the gold trade.</i> <i> Bringing glorification to its Pharaohs for the centuries to come.</i>
46:19
<i> By the 1st Century BC the Ancient Egyptians are no more.</i>
46:26
<i> But the mysteries they leave behind beneath the Nile Valley are a permanent reminder of</i> <i> their extraordinary culture.</i>
46:36
<i> The legacy of Ancient Egypt lives on.</i> <i> Its architectural treasures, remarkable beliefs,</i>
46:46
<i> formidable state power,</i> <i> and its golden voyages between the worlds of the living and the dead.</i>
47:11
<i> NARRATOR: The wild seas of Europe's far north.</i> <i> For centuries, a global centre of trade.</i> <i> And home to wealthy, powerful nations.</i>
47:27
<i> Their success relies on one thing above all others:</i> <i> mastery of these storm-tossed waters.</i>
47:38
<i> Through astonishing seamanship,</i>
47:43
<i> and groundbreaking design,</i>
47:52
<i> it begins with a people</i>
47:56
<i> whose name strikes terror across all Europe:</i>
48:02
<i> The Vikings.</i>
48:06
<i> From their heartlands in Scandinavia, the Vikings build extraordinary</i> <i> sailing ships and use them to raid and conquer,</i> <i> reaching even the shores of North America.</i>
48:28
<i> So revered were these ships that the Vikings buried their great kings inside them.</i>
48:40
<i> What was the secret of their success?</i>
48:50
<i> This quiet field in Southern Norway may provide an answer.</i>
48:58
<i> A huge burial mound, hinting at a deeper history.</i>
49:04
DR PASSCHE: It's so exciting. It's one of the biggest we have in Scandinavia. And that's why we wanted to go into this area.
49:12
<i> NARRATOR: Previous excavations here have found little.</i> <i> Now, armed with the latest scanning technology, archaeologist Knut Paasche,</i> <i> and his team, probe the site.</i>
49:31
<i> As the ground starts giving up its secrets, they identify 11 more burial mounds.</i>
49:41
<i> And then the motherlode.</i>
49:47
DR PASSCHE: But there's no doubt what it is. We have the shape. It's definitely a ship.
50:01
<i> NARRATOR: Very little is known about the Viking Longships</i> <i> of the eighth and ninth centuries.</i>
50:10
<i> Just a few images past down, and a handful of archaeological relicts.</i>
50:19
DR PASSCHE: Our main problem today is that we have so few left, so we don't know what did they actually look like. <i> NARRATOR: Of the thousands of Viking ships that once sailed the oceans,</i> <i> just four have been found in Norway.</i>
50:38
<i> Knute hopes this could be another.</i>
50:41
DR PASSCHE: Well you don't find things like that every day. When we recognised, whoa, this is actually a ship, then it was wow!
50:51
<i> NARRATOR: And now armed with his scanning data, we can remove the soil,</i>
51:02
<i> peel back the sediments of time and reveal what lies beneath.</i>
51:13
<i> Hidden one and a half feet below ground, an unmistakable outline.</i>
51:24
<i> Almost 65 feet long.</i> <i> Large enough for a crew of 30 men.</i>
51:33
<i> Made up overlapping oak timbers, joined by nails.</i>
51:42
<i> And this a flat, rectangular structure towards the centre of the ship.</i>
51:54
<i> The burial mounds are in the south east of Norway,</i> <i> close to where other buried Viking ships have been found.</i>
52:05
<i> Those are roughly the same size and design.</i>
52:11
DR PASSCHE: It's very comparable to the others. Then you have the length, the width and the depth of the ship as well.
52:19
<i> NARRATOR: For Knut, it can mean only one thing.</i> DR PASSCHE: There's no doubt, it is a Viking ship.
52:31
<i> NARRATOR: Knut wants to learn more about this 1,000 year old vessel,</i> <i> to understand the secrets of Viking ship design,</i>
52:41
<i> and learn how this race of seafarers mastered the wild seas of Scandinavia.</i>
52:53
<i> First, he recognises the overlapping plant construction.</i>
53:02
<i> It's a style known as clinker built.</i> <i> Oak planks fastened together with iron rivets.</i>
53:12
<i> A design that's water proof, and gives Viking ships the flexibility they need</i> <i> to stand up to the power of the Northern seas.</i>
53:28
DR PASSCHE: This construction, first of all it's flexible. That's very, very important. It's not as stiff as you can see at other wooden boats or ships further south. Not fighting the weather, but actually go with it.
53:44
<i> NARRATOR: Knut turns his attention to the flat rectangular structure,</i> <i> sitting in the heart of the vessel.</i> <i> Its location at the centre of the ship is a clue.</i>
53:57
<i> It must have once supported a large mast and sail</i> <i> key breakthroughs in ship design.</i>
54:10
<i> A simple rowing boat could never traverse these seas.</i> <i> Knut also notes the shape and position of the flat structure,</i> <i> cleverly placed to distribute the huge forces on the sail</i> <i> down into the frame of the ship,</i>
54:28
<i> allowing Viking expeditions to withstand even gale force winds.</i>
54:38
DR PASSCHE: They have all these details in the ship that they have used hundreds of years to learn how to build them, and that's why they actually could survive out there.
54:56
<i> NARRATOR: But these details alone can't explain the Vikings legendary ability</i> <i> to navigate the stormiest oceans and even the wild Atlantic.</i>
55:10
<i> A piece of the puzzle is missing.</i>
55:15
<i> And to find what that is, Knut's come here</i>
55:22
<i> to study the most beautifully preserved Viking ship ever found.</i>
55:30
<i> Discovered close to the Oslo Fjord, at 70 feet long,</i> <i> it's similar in size and construction to his own discovery.</i>
55:44
DR PASSCHE: You have these beautiful lines going downwards. They're not only beautiful. This is actually really important. <i> NARRATOR: And beyond the strength and flexibility of the ship's unique</i> <i> wooden construction, there's something else.</i>
56:02
<i> Its hydrodynamic profile.</i>
56:07
<i> The Vikings were centuries ahead of their time</i> <i> in understanding the principles of streamlining</i> <i> and how to keep a ship riding on top of the waves.</i>
56:20
DR PASSCHE: When you meet the waves, the ship should actually swallow the waves with it. The water should go underneath and lift the ship in the middle and the water should be pushed out in the back.
56:35
<i> NARRATOR: The design that lies behind the Viking legend is now clear.</i>
56:44
<i> Brilliantly engineered to skim across the most violent waters.</i>
56:53
<i> A sleek, ocean raider built for exploration and conquest.</i>
57:05
<i> Capable of taming the wild oceans, wherever they may be.</i>
57:16
<i> Knut has cracked the DNA of his buried ship's design,</i> <i> but there is still one final puzzle.</i>
57:29
<i> Like the Ancient Egyptians before them, ship burial was an old Viking custom.</i> <i> Sending a dead king along with all his most treasured possessions</i> <i> on a final journey to the Afterlife.</i>
57:47
<i> Other burial ships have been found close to the sea, but this one is different.</i> DR PASSCHE: I mean we are more than a kilometre away the sea here. Why on earth have they brought the ship all the way in here?
58:12
<i> NARRATOR: Marine archaeologist Knut Passche wants to find out</i> <i> why a buried Viking ship has been found so far from the coast.</i>
58:22
DR PASSCHE: That has been a mystery. It's not easy to carry more than 2 tons maybe of oak in here. <i> NARRATOR: Norway's coastline of small inlets and deep Fjords is the result</i> <i> of millions of years of geological change,</i>
58:43
<i> especially the long Ice Age, when glaciers covered this land.</i>
58:51
<i> As Knut studies the pattern of that geological change,</i> <i> he makes a surprising discovery.</i>
59:02
<i> During the Viking era, the coastline here looked very different,</i> <i> with the sea much higher than it is today.</i>
59:15
<i> And that means these fields were part of the Fjord,</i> <i> and this narrow stream running all the way up</i> <i> towards the burial site,</i>
59:29
<i> was a river.</i>
59:33
<i> Norway's changing geology explains why Knut's vessel lies so far inland.</i>
59:42
DR PASSCHE: You could actually row it into the river and up the creek.
59:49
<i> NARRATOR: It's now possible to understand exactly</i> <i> what happened here 1,000 years ago, as the Vikings</i> <i> bring their most hallowed possession to be buried along with their fallen king.</i>
1:00:15
<i> With their Longships designed for raiding and crossing oceans,</i> <i> the Vikings reach ever further.</i>
1:00:27
<i> Could the discovery of these circular stones hold the key to the next chapter</i> <i> in the evolution of Viking society, and of their ships?</i>
1:00:43
<i> Here close to the Southern tip of Norway is an ancient shipping route</i> <i> used for centuries by seafarers to travel along the coast</i> <i> protected from the worst of the weather.</i>
1:01:00
DR PASSCHE: This landscape is quite dramatic. Something could have happened while they came in, because it's very narrow through this Sounds here.
1:01:13
<i> NARRATOR: It's here that the chance discovery of some strange looking stones</i> <i> could help explain how the Viking way of life began to change.</i>
1:01:27
PAL: A diver called and said yes, seen a lot of rounded stones with a hole in it. Yes, I think that we have to check this.
1:01:39
<i> NARRATOR: With the stones just a short distance from the harbour,</i>
1:01:46
<i> the archaeological team sets out to make a thorough investigation of the channel.</i>
1:01:54
DR SOREIDE: We are going to a really advanced scanning of the sea floor to look at the stones in more detail today.
1:02:05
<i> NARRATOR: Now, with those high resolution scans,</i> <i> we can drain the shore of Southern Norway</i>
1:02:16
<i> to discover for the first time what lies beneath these waters.</i>
1:02:28
<i> A cluster of at least 26 stones, each one is made of hard rock,</i> <i> is almost a foot in diameter and weighs around 75 pounds</i>
1:02:47
<i> Perfectly round and with a hole drilled in the middle.</i>
1:02:56
<i> The team soon realizes they must be grindstones.</i>
1:03:03
DR SOREIDE: They came in pairs. You have one on the bottom and you rotate the other one and you then can make flour.
1:03:14
<i> NARRATOR: Studying the site, the team notices something important.</i> <i> The stones are strewn in a definite pattern, lying the length of a narrow ditch</i> <i> at the bottom of the channel.</i>
1:03:31
PAL: The way it looks is it tells us quite obviously that this has to be a wrecked ship. <i> NARRATOR: A wreck whose wooden remains have completely rotted away.</i> DR SOREIDE: The total extent of the site is about 18 meters, probably something has shifted so but it indicates that this has been a fairly large ship.
1:03:55
<i> NARRATOR: The team now wants to discover what kind of ship it was.</i>
1:04:05
<i> With the hull missing, that's going to be difficult.</i>
1:04:17
<i> Then, they find something.</i>
1:04:29
<i> A reindeer antler, often traded from Norway and used to make combs or needles.</i>
1:04:39
<i> To the scientists, it's an important clue.</i>
1:04:47
PAL: This is the antler that we managed to pull out from the wreck site.
1:04:57
As we can see, it's the thickets part of the reindeer antler and this is chopped off in both ends.
1:05:07
<i> NARRATOR: By carbon dating the marrow inside the bone, they're able to date it</i>
1:05:16
<i> to the final decades of the Viking golden age.</i>
1:05:26
<i> You don't need grindstones for raiding and pillaging.</i>
1:05:31
<i> Why so many?</i>
1:05:36
<i> The team realizes they had to be some form of valuable cargo.</i>
1:05:44
DR SOREIDE: This was definitely a part of the cargo and probably an item that was for sale, that they were going to deliver to somewhere.
1:05:55
<i> NARRATOR: Using the footprints of the stones,</i> <i> as they reconstruct the shape of the vessel,</i> <i> it becomes clear this was wider than the traditional Viking Longship and deeper.</i>
1:06:10
<i> Large enough to carry those stones.</i>
1:06:16
<i> A new direction in Viking design: a Viking cargo ship.</i>
1:06:31
<i> So what can this cargo reveal about how the Vikings built</i> <i> and secured their long term success?</i>
1:06:46
<i> NARRATOR: After 1,000 years at the bottom of a channel in Southern Norway,</i> <i> this cargo of grindstones could reveal something new about Viking trade.</i>
1:07:02
DR SOREIDE: I find this site really exciting because it's the first sort of ocean going trade vessel that we have found in Norway underwater. So I'm really hoping to see where it had been, where it came from, where it was going.
1:07:18
<i> NARRATOR: Careful examination of the grindstones reveals they had been deliberately</i> <i> hewn from a very particular type of rock.</i>
1:07:29
<i> A kind of schist that carries a unique geological signature,</i> <i> and using that signature, the team is able to trace it back</i> <i> to here: Hyllestad, in Western Norway.</i>
1:07:49
<i> By sea, a journey of over 300 miles</i>
1:07:57
<i> A distance that only reinforces the theory</i> <i> that these had to be valuable items for trade</i>
1:08:09
<i> And by following where these and other Viking goods have been found</i>
1:08:17
<i> an extraordinary picture emerges.</i>
1:08:22
<i> The unmistakable footprint of a vast trading network.</i>
1:08:31
<i> From the North Sea towards Great Britain, Ireland and Iceland, south to France,</i> <i> Spain and into the Mediterranean Sea,</i> <i> even reaching across the Atlantic, as far west as North America</i> <i> and down the great rivers of Asia, as far east as the Black and Caspian Seas.</i>
1:08:55
DR SOREIDE: It shows that the Vikings were really opening up their world and being able to trade with areas they had never been to before. The ship also had to evolve and that interconnection is really what happened at that time.
1:09:14
<i> NARRATOR: Just a few decades after the sinking of the cargo ship,</i> <i> the spread of Christianity in the Nordic countries brings</i> <i> and end to the Viking way of life.</i>
1:09:29
<i> But over the coming centuries, the Viking seas continue</i> <i> to be a focus for trade and conflict.</i>
1:09:39
<i> How do the remains of a sunken giant reveal the battles</i> <i> to control these vital trading routes?</i>
1:09:51
<i> Sweden in the 16th century.</i> <i> An ambitious new king sits on the throne.</i>
1:10:03
<i> King Erik the 14th dreams of dominating the Baltic's lucrative trade routes.</i>
1:10:11
<i> But something stands in his way.</i>
1:10:16
<i> Sweden's sworn enemies in Denmark and Northern Germany.</i> DR RONNBY: He has the ambition to be a big European king really. I mean he tries to be one of the big players in Europe.
1:10:30
<i> NARRATOR: And so he commissions what in the 16th century</i> <i> is the ultimate symbol of power.</i> <i> A battleship, greater than anything the Baltic had ever seen.</i>
1:10:43
<i> Her name is The Mars.</i>
1:10:48
RICHARD: Think of Mars like the Death Star in Star Wars. It's a super ship. It has more cannons than ever before. It's more robust. It has more armour.
1:11:01
<i> NARRATOR: The Mars is built for a new kind of naval warfare</i>
1:11:09
<i> Instead of getting up close and boarding an enemy's ship,</i> <i> keep it at a distance and sink it with cannon fire.</i> RICHARD: That's the coming way of fighting and you're putting more and more guns and more and more gun decks.
1:11:29
<i> NARRATOR: King Erik's new super weapon is put to the test for the first time</i> <i> in May 1564</i>
1:11:41
<i> At the head of a fleet of 37,</i> <i> including 16 large warships, the Mars goes into battle off Sweden's eastern coast.</i>
1:11:57
<i> She damages the Danish flagship and sinks another enemy vessel in just minutes.</i>
1:12:04
RICHARD: Bang, bang, bang and the ship sinks and everybody's like "what happened here?"
1:12:11
<i> NARRATOR: But then on just the second day of her military career</i>
1:12:21
<i> the Mars disappears somewhere into the icy depths of the Baltic</i>
1:12:28
<i> with over 800 men on board, vanishing from history</i>
1:12:39
<i> How could this super weapon of the Baltic have simply disappeared?</i>
1:12:48
<i> For marine explorers like Richard Lundgren, finding her becomes an obsession.</i>
1:12:57
RICHARD: We spent the better part of our whole adult lives searching for this shipwreck and I can't tell you how many times people was telling you, Richard, you're crazy. Why don't you give it up? <i> NARRATOR: For over 20 years Richard's team scours the Swedish coast,</i> <i> searching for the missing ship.</i>
1:13:20
MEMBER 1: A few anomalies there, but that could be fish or something else. <i> NARRATOR: They find over 160 wrecks on the bottom of the Baltic.</i> <i> Not one of them is the Mars</i>
1:13:44
<i> Then one day, they detect something truly massive on the sea floor.</i>
1:13:53
RICHARD: I see up into the water, the only thing that tells you that you're actually falling through space and actually falling back into time, time travelling, is the fact that you see this line.
1:14:10
<i> NARRATOR: As they dive down to over 230 feet a vast shape begins to appear</i> <i> from the milky haze.</i>
1:14:31
<i> After searching for over 20 years,</i>
1:14:37
<i> Richard Lundgren has finally found what he hopes is the wreck of the Mars.</i> RICHARD: It's like a mist down there, a milky mist, like a ghostly mist and that hull appear in front of you.
1:14:56
<i> NARRATOR: With a wreck this large, a diver only ever sees part of the picture.</i>
1:15:05
RICHARD: You can't compare with anything you've seen before in the water. This is massive.
1:15:14
<i> NARRATOR: Now, using the data from Richard's detailed scan of the wreck</i>
1:15:23
<i> we can drain the oceans to reveal a vast ship on the floor of the Baltic</i>
1:15:38
<i> Scattered over an area the size of a football field</i>
1:15:49
<i> the bulk of the hull remains intact with gun ports running along its upper part.</i>
1:15:59
<i> But the bow is entirely missing the victim of some unknown cataclysm.</i>
1:16:08
<i> Cannon are strewn across the site along with the twisted remains of huge timbers.</i>
1:16:20
<i> Over 55 yards long, and 15 yards wide, the Baltic had never seen anything like her.</i>
1:16:33
RICHARD: The wreck site is a perfect time capsule. There is very few wrecks on this earth that are in such a pristine condition.
1:16:41
It's almost like it sank yesterday, right, even if it's more 450 years ago.
1:16:49
But is it the Mars? We didn't know.
1:16:54
<i> NARRATOR: To find out, the divers search for evidence.</i>
1:17:01
<i> And find a bronze canon over 15 feet long</i>
1:17:12
<i> with a unique marker.</i>
1:17:16
DR RONNBY: The real proof was when we saw the coat of arms on the guns. Then we were 100 percent sure that this was actually the Mars we had found.
1:17:30
<i> NARRATOR: The drained wreck site reveals that the Mars carried over</i> <i> 100 canon and other guns.</i>
1:17:37
<i> A huge number for a 16th century warship</i>
1:17:45
<i> Based on the evidence on the sea floor and from Swedish archives,</i> <i> it's now possible to reconstruct what the Mars must have looked like</i> <i> just before her final and fateful battle.</i>
1:18:06
<i> A true colossus.</i>
1:18:13
DR RONNBY: This is a very big ship. In the bow it was quite a high castle sticking up and the same in the stern of the ship, it was also quite a big castle sticking up.
1:18:27
<i> NARRATOR: To equip her for this new style of naval warfare,</i> <i> the Mars had both upper and lower gun decks,</i> <i> with canon ports spanning the length of the ship.</i>
1:18:42
<i> That kind of firepower demanded a crew of at least 600.</i>
1:18:49
<i> The population of a village.</i>
1:19:02
<i> Mars more than lives up to the myths surrounding her.</i>
1:19:08
<i> But for Richard and his crew, there is now a further question.</i>
1:19:16
<i> How does this invincible titan of the seas end up on the floor of the Baltic?</i>
1:19:30
PAL: Welcome back from the Mars dive and I think today it was a very successful day and very productive also. <i> NARRATOR: For the team, every piece of timber, every artefact on the sea floor</i> MEMBER 2: We have georeference of every single objet. <i> NARRATOR: is a clue to be deciphered in the quest to understand what sank the Mars.</i>
1:19:56
DR RONNBY: When you see Mars on the sea bottom, you can actually understand what happened on the surface.
1:20:05
<i> NARRATOR: Examining the drained wreck, the team begins to see</i> <i> what must have happened.</i>
1:20:12
RICHARD: When you get down to Mars, you can see that this is a battlefield. You can see that something powerful and very dramatic has happened here.
1:20:25
<i> NARRATOR: The bow is entirely missing and appears to have been blown clean off.</i>
1:20:36
<i> The hull is cracked open, while along the port side,</i> <i> these ballast stones have been blasted right out of the ship.</i> <i> And there is also evidence of a significant fire.</i>
1:20:53
RICHARD: You can actually smell the fire and that's really eerie. I've never experienced that before in my life.
1:21:07
<i> NARRATOR: The drained wreck reveals that somehow</i> <i> this impregnable ship has a weak spot.</i>
1:21:17
<i> What is it?</i>
1:21:22
<i> The team believes a grappling hook found on the side of the wreck</i> <i> could hold the answer.</i>
1:21:31
<i> Its location suggests it belongs not to the Mars,</i> <i> but to an enemy ship that has managed to get close enough to board her</i>
1:21:45
<i> After the success of the first day's battle, the Mars finds herself alone.</i>
1:21:54
<i> A change in wind direction leaves her vulnerable</i> <i> and isolated from the rest of the Swedish fleet.</i>
1:22:05
RICHARD: Mars alone is a giant, but it needs bodyguard. Without those bodyguards, the other ships can come very close and they can throw grappling hooks and they can tie themselves into the ship and then you simply overwhelm it. And that's exactly what happens. <i> NARRATOR: Incendiary bombs start fires on board the Mars,</i> <i> and soon the two sides are struggling in hand to hand combat.</i>
1:22:33
DR RONNBY: Just in that moment, there is an explosion on board.
1:22:40
RICHARD: One of the canons mid deck caught fire and exploded and then it went to the gunpowder and then boom (explosion) When she explodes she goes down quick.
1:22:59
<i> NARRATOR: The crew of the Mars and the enemy sailors</i> <i> who board her vanish to the bottom of the ocean.</i>
1:23:08
<i> Perhaps as many as 1,000 men.</i>
1:23:22
<i> King Erik's gambit to seize control over the Baltic sea has failed.</i>
1:23:31
<i> But the historic rivalry between Sweden and Denmark continues.</i>
1:23:41
<i> How does this pile of stones reveal the enormous stakes in another epic battle</i> <i> for control of these contested waters?</i>
1:23:54
<i> By the beginning of the 18th century, Sweden's King Charles the 12th is battling</i> <i> to dominate the great seas of the north, but he has many enemies.</i>
1:24:11
JENS: The suggestion that we have in 1714, 15, is that basically Sweden is facing a huge allied axis of Denmark, Prussia, Poland, Saxony and Russia. So Sweden against everybody else.
1:24:27
<i> NARRATOR: Charles is forced to retreat to his coastal stronghold in what</i> <i> is now Northern Germany.</i>
1:24:40
<i> The city of Stralsund.</i> JENS: This was one of the main fortresses the Swedes had along the coast here and this is where the king was, the Swedish king, Charles the 12th and this is what they wanted to protect most. <i> NARRATOR: Stralsund is very well defended.</i> <i> For the forces led by the Danish to reach it, there's only one way</i>
1:25:08
<i> through this bay to the East of the city.</i>
1:25:15
<i> And now a new gas pipeline being laid across that bay</i>
1:25:22
<i> is about to collide with the region's history</i>
1:25:29
<i> Maritime archaeologist Jens Auer is asked to investigate the proposed route.</i>
1:25:49
JENS: We found a number of anomalies. There were loads of places that looked suspiciously like manmade objects on the seabed. <i> NARRATOR: And then he finds something unusual</i>
1:26:04
<i> right in the proposed path of the pipeline.</i>
1:26:08
JENS: We see loads of rocks on the seabed, just a big mound. It looks a bit out of place.
1:26:20
<i> NARRATOR: Removing the waters of the Baltic,</i> <i> reveals the strange scene that confronts Jens and his diving team</i>
1:26:34
<i> At first, it appears to be no more than a pile of stones,</i>
1:26:41
<i> but it becomes clear there's more.</i>
1:26:47
<i> Timbers sticking out from beneath the stones.</i>
1:26:54
JENS: You think, okay this is a shipwreck. It's a shipwreck under a heap of stones, a mound of stones basically. <i> NARRATOR: How had a wrecked ship ended up at the bottom</i> <i> of the Baltic buried under those stones?</i> JENS: This is where the detective work starts.
1:27:13
<i> NARRATOR: Archaeologists in Germany are investigating</i> <i> a wreck buried under a pile of stones.</i>
1:27:22
<i> They begin by carefully recovering the timbers from the sunken vessel</i>
1:27:33
<i> Tree ring tests date them to the turn of the 18th century</i>
1:27:44
<i> The very moment when this bay was at the centre of the war between Denmark and Sweden.</i>
1:27:53
JENS: We're at the entrance to the Bay of Greifswald. This is the bay here. Between the island of Rugen and the mainland. <i> NARRATOR: The only way to reach Sweden's King Charles in his fortified city</i> <i> of Stralsund is via the bay.</i>
1:28:12
<i> For approaching enemy ships,</i>
1:28:17
<i> there's only one access channel deep enough and out of range of Swedish canon.</i>
1:28:26
JENS: That was the scary thing, the week spot, the one place where you could come through.
1:28:32
<i> NARRATOR: The buried wreck lies exactly on the weak spot,</i> <i> right in the middle of that vulnerable channel</i>
1:28:43
<i> For Jens, the wreck's position cannot be a coincidence.</i>
1:28:53
<i> And returning to the drained wreck reveals why</i>
1:28:59
<i> At first glance, the rocks covering the wreck appear to be stones used as ballast</i> <i> by the sunken ship, but there's something odd.</i>
1:29:11
JENS: Normal ballast stones are small and these were like massive rocks. <i> NARRATOR: And that isn't the only thing.</i>
1:29:22
<i> Instead of lying within the wreck, as you'd expect with ballast stones,</i> <i> these rocks were sitting on top of it.</i>
1:29:32
<i> There is one possible explanation.</i>
1:29:37
JENS: They looked like they were used for sinking it on purpose, intentionally. <i> NARRATOR: It means the ship must have been deliberately scuttled.</i>
1:29:50
<i> Then, Jens finds something else</i>
1:30:02
<i> The scuttled ship is not alone.</i>
1:30:07
<i> There are others lying in a straight line right across that narrow channel.</i>
1:30:17
<i> It had to be a deliberate barrier designed to block the channel to enemy ships.</i>
1:30:28
JENS: When you look in the area, you see that this is not the only ship. There's actually 15 mounds of stones over a distance of about 840 meters
1:30:40
stretching across the whole shallow entrance to the bay.
1:30:52
<i> NARRATOR: Strengthened with anchors and other debris between each ship,</i> <i> it was almost impossible to get through.</i>
1:31:01
JENS: They made a good job of really blocking this off.
1:31:05
<i> NARRATOR: And so, blocked by the barrier, and unable to invade via these forbidding</i> <i> cliffs, for almost two months, the Danish fleet remained stuck outside the bay</i>
1:31:25
<i> But then, in September of 1750 something happens</i>
1:31:32
<i> and the fleet makes it through.</i>
1:31:37
JENS: So you have to imagine 495 vessels, boats out here, so the whole water is covered with vessels coming to the shore taking soldiers, infantry, cavalry to the beach here.
1:31:51
<i> NARRATOR: This monument commemorates the moment when over 14,000 Danish</i> <i> and Allied soldiers surge onto the island.</i>
1:32:04
<i> A force three times the size of the Swedish army.</i> JENS: And that's really the turning point in this conflict.
1:32:13
<i> NARRATOR: By December, Stralsund has fallen</i>
1:32:22
<i> So how did they get through the barrier?</i>
1:32:26
<i> Only the Swedes know there's a secret entry point.</i>
1:32:31
JENS: They left an opening, but that opening was invisible from the surface. If you don't know where the opening is, it's very hard to get through.
1:32:40
<i> NARRATOR: But one man is ready to betray the location of the opening.</i>
1:32:46
JENS: A pilot in Swedish service ran away and joined the Danes and he knew everything about this barrier.
1:32:59
<i> NARRATOR: Going over to the Danish side,</i> <i> he shows them the way through the barrier</i>
1:33:11
<i> As for the scuttled ships,</i> <i> they remain for hundreds of years underwater and forgotten.</i> <i> Hidden ghosts from another battle to control the Baltic.</i>
1:33:25
<i> Today, Scandinavia is peaceful and still an important hub</i> <i> for international trade,</i>
1:33:35
<i> while thousands of shipwrecks silently recall the genius,</i> <i> the courage and the sacrifice of those who sought to tame</i> <i> the Viking seas.</i>
1:33:56
♪♪ Caves are super important to understand a civilization like the Maya. ♪♪ I'm going deeper and deeper and deeper. ♪♪ Before I knew, I was 35 meters below. ♪♪ I really wanted to stay on the bottom, then I realized I had to go up. 'Cause I was running out of air. Suddenly I hit my head. And I'm like, "What happened"? I found myself looking over a rocky ledge. The first thing I saw is this skull. ♪♪ It was staring at me. And I'm like, "How it got here"? What had happened in this place? ♪♪
1:34:51
GOLDEN:<i> Most people think of the ancient Maya</i> <i> as this single epic civilization</i> <i> that existed a thousand years ago</i> <i> and then collapsed almost overnight.</i> ♪♪ <i> Actually, though, new investigations</i> <i> are painting a much more diverse picture.</i> ♪♪ SCHRODER:<i> As soon as I walked in the room,</i> <i> I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.</i> ♪♪ That was incredible because this is one of those puzzle pieces. ♪♪
1:35:24
GOLDEN:<i> We're just starting to rewrite what we thought we knew</i> <i> about the ancient Maya.</i> <i> How they lived and died.</i> It was immediately clear that this was going to really change what we understood about the Maya world. ♪♪ DE ANDA:<i> Exploring this underwater cavern</i> <i> has revealed more about the ancient Maya</i> <i> than I ever dreamed.</i> ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ (rooster crows) ♪♪ ♪♪ SCHRODER:<i> I remember the day I met Abelino in 2014.</i>
1:36:18
<i> I was driving down the highway.</i> <i> And I was passing his carnitas restaurant stand.</i> ♪♪ <i> I pulled over in the middle of the highway,</i> and he began telling me about this stone that a friend of his had. (conversing in Spanish) ♪♪ <i> And that he wanted an archeologist's opinion</i> <i> to look at this stone and to interpret it for him.</i> ♪♪ I first started working in Mexico as a graduate student. My goal was to find a site that I could work at
1:36:56
that would be an interesting place to ask questions about Maya political systems. I really had no idea this chance meeting would lead to the most exciting discovery of my life. ♪♪ Abelino had an old flip phone, and he showed a low-resolution photo. It had a drawing on it. It had a Maya calendar on it. And even in the low resolution, it was clear that this was an exquisite work of art. (speaking Spanish) ♪♪ GOLDEN:<i> Whit Schroder's a really exciting, young archeologist.</i>
1:37:32
<i> He really connects with the communities.</i> He makes those friendship connections that we need to make as archeologists. Without those, we don't -- we don't find anything. ♪♪ (keys clacking) ♪♪ We got a phone call that there was this photo on a phone. ♪♪ It sounded promising enough that it was worth Whit going to take a look and see whether it was significant. In the newspapers, it's always "Archeologist finds this, archeologist finds that," but we don't find things, we are taught things.
1:38:16
We learn from the local communities.
1:38:24
SCHRODER:<i> After chatting with him for a while,</i> <i> the landowner, Jacinto,</i> <i> he finally turns to me and he says,</i> "So you want to see it, right?" So -- So he escorts me to the back of his workshop. ♪♪ And he points and he says, "There it is." ♪♪ -Wow. -Uh-huh.
1:38:48
The landowner had recently found this monument in the rubble, probably just after looters had been there, and they probably missed it. And he was able to recover it and bring it safely back to his house. ♪♪ Even as someone who's not an expert in Maya writing systems, there are specific glyphs that I can recognize. (camera shutter clicking) And I immediately recognized a specific hieroglyph that refers to literally "white dog"... ♪♪ ...is the literal translation.
1:39:26
And the glyph contains an image of a dog. As I examined it, I asked myself, "What did it refer to? What was the significance of this inscription?" I was excited to get back to share the photos with Charles. (keys clacking) And he started to share some of these images with epigraphers, who then were also chiming in with their own interpretations. ♪♪ GOLDEN:<i> Not only was it so clearly an important object,</i> it was -- it was just beautiful. The -- The art was stunning. The text was stunning.
1:40:06
The central engraving was of a ruler from the 8th century, dressed as a thundering storm god standing over a captive. ♪♪ And the hieroglyphics spoke of the creation of a kingdom called Sak Tz'i, or white dog. It was a name we'd seen mentioned in the past. ♪♪ Sak Tz'i is a kingdom, a dynasty that we knew of from inscriptions found at other ancient cities in the region. But we had never been able to pin down exactly where the place was. We're talking about a 20-year search based on texts,
1:40:45
and then for the first time, a text appears from a site in the right region that can probably lead us to the heart of this kingdom. ♪♪ So we had to know, could the stone be a vital clue? Could it somehow lead us to the capital city of the lost kingdom of Sak Tz'i? ♪♪ To investigate, we needed to explore the place where the landowner had found the carving. ♪♪ With the first visit to this site in the middle of a cow pasture, it was clear that one point of exit to the site
1:41:27
was defined by this deep river channel. As we crossed to the other side, what we immediately saw was a line of masonry walls. ♪♪ So we were thinking, "Could they be the walls of a city?" It was obviously a settlement. ♪♪ Could they be something to do with the kingdom inscribed on the stone? First, we needed to know if it really was the ancient Maya who built them. ♪♪ SCHRODER: I think I see some artifacts here. This is some surface scatter.
1:42:02
Some pottery, some shell. SCHRODER: These are bits and pieces of pottery. Seems pretty typical late classic. So maybe 700 AD or thereabouts? Just from the surface decoration, from the form of the pot, we're able to, at the very least, give a century to that fragment of the past. That's interesting. These may have just come out of the surface here. These are ceramics that date to very different periods. This sort of thick, black, waxy kind of paste -- before the 3rd century. You know, even older.
1:42:43
-GOLDEN: BC. -SCHRODER: Yes. GOLDEN:<i> The pottery showed people had lived here</i> <i> for more than a thousand years.</i> <i> And the dates confirmed that it really was a Maya site.</i> ♪♪ <i> The ancient Maya civilization existed for up to 3,000 years</i> <i> and stretched all the way from the Pacific coast</i> <i> to the Gulf Coast of Mexico.</i> ♪♪ <i> You had these great city kingdoms</i> <i> known for their incredible architecture</i> <i> and sophisticated art and writing.</i>
1:43:18
<i> And they flourished here,</i> <i> in this area, beginning around 250 AD.</i> <i> And then, around 800 AD, they started to disappear.</i> ♪♪ <i> So, how did this fit the picture?</i> <i> The Maya had been here.</i> <i> But what was this place, exactly?</i> <i> We'd seen a couple of walls, some scraps of pottery.</i> <i> What else was here?</i> <i> So next we decided we wanted to get a bird's-eye view.</i> ♪♪ GOLDEN: So we've taken the 2-D photos from the drone,
1:43:51
we've put them on the computer, and we've made a photogrammetry model that is a 3-D model from those 2-D photos. All the different colors mean different heights, different elevations of these buildings or trees. ♪♪ It's really neat here. So on one side, you can see the river, the creek that would have protected that side of the site, and on the other side, we're seeing the wall. It could even be defensive, maybe? Could be keeping people out? ♪♪
1:44:19
<i> The photogrammetry revealed defensive walls,</i> <i> and we could see signs of large buildings.</i> ♪♪ <i> And the site covered over 60 acres.</i> <i> This was way more than just a small village.</i> <i> It just had to be the layout of an ancient Maya city.</i> ♪♪ That large square down on the southwest looks -- looks pretty interesting. What do you make of that? It's about 70 meters on a side, and it has this patio in the middle.
1:44:52
It tells us that the site may be something really important. <i> A square foundation this large was so tantalizing.</i> <i> Was it some kind of pyramid or palace?</i> <i> Could it offer clues to the lost capital city</i> of Sak Tz'i itself? ♪♪ ♪♪ <i> The photogrammetry showed a large square structure.</i> <i> That alone was strong evidence</i> <i> that this was a significant Maya settlement.</i> <i> But was it an important part</i> <i> of the lost kingdom of Sak Tz'i?</i> ♪♪
1:45:34
<i> When we investigated the site itself,</i> <i> there was a lot more that we hadn't expected.</i> ♪♪
1:45:51
GOLDEN: Muy bien.
1:46:15
♪♪ <i> The collapsed pyramid suggested status.</i> <i> It was the first real clue</i> <i> that a royal kingdom could have existed here.</i> SCHRODER: We have a standing structure and a doorway here. <i> As we're making our way through</i> <i> this tumbled-down complex of ruined buildings...</i> <i> it began to become clear to us the square structure</i> <i> we had seen in the photogrammetry</i> might be the residence of the rulers of this place. So we're up on top of this structure now.
1:46:49
It's got a large courtyard in the middle. Structures on all sides. I can see that we have a quadrangle. As we were approaching, it felt like we were getting into a more domestic area, but with the houses increasing in size. Yeah, first we came in through that group in the trees over there where we had the pyramid up above it. That looked like maybe some houses for members of the nobles, the royal court. And then as we got closer, there were more and more of these collapsed room spaces we saw.
1:47:19
And here we are at the largest one yet. GOLDEN: Yeah. <i> Only major Maya city kingdoms</i> <i> had structures of this size and scale.</i> <i> The problem was, it was impossible to work out more</i> <i> about what had once been here</i> <i> because it was so ruined and covered over.</i> We didn't have standing walls here. We didn't have the soaring roofs here. We needed, then, to have something to compare it to, and so we thought of places like Palenque,
1:47:50
where these buildings still are preserved. ♪♪ ♪♪ This place is just astounding. Very impressive. ♪♪ We know that Palenque was the closest major kingdom to the north of the kingdom of Sak Tz'i. ♪♪ It existed at the same time. And so anything that we find at Palenque might be a clue for us to understand Sak Tz'i. ♪♪ Wow. Look at this. So We're entering one of the courtyards now. GOLDEN: Yeah, this is the very heart of the palace. So I think this gives us a good example
1:48:32
of what we might be looking at at Sak Tz'i. Just walking around this place with the standing buildings really begins to fill in a lot of blanks. SCHRODER: I agree. I can see a lot of really interesting parallels, just from here even.
1:48:47
♪♪ They have similar dimensions. Palenque is a little larger. We're on this kind of elevated platform, and we have that exact same type of design at Lacanjá Tzeltal. ♪♪ What we see in Palenque is actually there are several courtyards. And we have the houses sort of oriented along the sides of the courtyards. It's a pretty complex architectural area. There are several different courtyards -all within this enclosure. -GOLDEN: Right. Do you think Lacanjá Tzeltal might have more courtyards,
1:49:31
or is it just that single courtyard? GOLDEN: The scale of Lacanjá Tzeltal is a little bit smaller than this, so it probably wasn't quite as complex. But it seems probable that the kings of Sak Tz'i were looking to the kings of Palenque, you know, to model their own palace. ♪♪ <i> By comparing our photogrammetry</i> <i> with the architecture at Palenque,</i> <i> we could finally unearth what the giant square structure</i> <i> at Lacanjá Tzeltal had once been.</i> ♪♪
1:50:06
<i> It was clearly a monument that matched</i> <i> the typical design of a Maya palace --</i> <i> a quadrangle of huge halls on a raised platform.</i> <i> Fit for rulers of great status and power.</i> ♪♪ <i> This was a kingdom...</i> <i> a kingdom with a palace.</i> <i> But was it Sak Tz'i?</i> ♪♪ <i> How could we be sure?</i> ♪♪
1:50:39
♪♪ <i> A thorough excavation of the whole site</i> <i> could prove conclusively that this settlement was once</i> <i> the capital city of the lost kingdom of Sak Tz'i.</i> ♪♪ <i> The trouble was, it was badly damaged,</i> <i> and digging it could cause further destruction.</i> Yeah, there's a lot of collapse here. You got to be careful through all this. These types of worked stones... <i> To make matters worse,</i> <i> much of the settlement was overgrown with dense jungle.</i> ♪♪
1:51:12
<i> Thankfully, modern technology allows archeologists</i> <i> to work in a way that's less invasive and quicker.</i> ♪♪ <i> Lidar is a laser sensor flown on an airplane.</i> ♪♪ <i> And it shoots thousands of these lasers</i> <i> through the canopy...</i> ♪♪ <i> ...through the leaves on the trees and the bushes</i> <i> that bounce off the ground</i> <i> and make a picture of the Earth without the trees.</i> So we're able to virtually peel back the forest, peel back the vegetation,
1:51:50
and see the ancient buildings beneath. ♪♪ SCHRODER: I can see much more detail, especially some of those buildings that were completely covered with vegetation. In fact, we weren't even sure there was anything there. But now we can see it. Yeah, we can zoom right in and see this up close. ♪♪ <i> Lidar showed that there was more than just a palace here.</i> ♪♪ <i> There was whole string of other foundations</i> <i> culminating in a huge structure</i> <i> at the opposite end of the city.</i> ♪♪
1:52:21
<i> What was it?</i> <i> Could understanding this new structure</i> <i> help our investigation?</i> ♪♪ This is the original wall. You can even see this decorative molding here. <i> First of all, we found some giant walls,</i> <i> bigger than anything else we'd seen so far.</i> This is really great original masonry with that really neat molding right there. SCHRODER: So this was a decorative feature with these kind of outset cornices. GOLDEN: But it also would have provided
1:52:56
maybe more surface above there for carvings and stucco. So this is pretty incredible this is still pretty well preserved. Yeah, and there is still some plaster under here under this moss. This really gives us an idea of the form of the architecture that was here. ♪♪ <i> Then at the top of what seemed like an old ruined staircase,</i> <i> we found a telltale clue</i> <i> of what the structure might have been used for.</i> So it's pretty clear we can see three walls here.
1:53:30
This is the wall where the doorway would have been. So I'm getting about 1.7 meters for the width of the building. GOLDEN: Okay. SCHRODER: I think have a smaller inner chamber here. Yeah, what I wonder is if this is like the inner sanctum of a temple like we might see at Palenque, where there's an outer room and then an inner room that's the place where the god would have been kept here. SCHRODER: That makes sense to me. <i> Could this be a sign of ceremonial use?</i>
1:53:58
<i> Perhaps some kind of religious monument?</i> ♪♪ (conversing in Spanish) ♪♪ <i> Jacinto described seeing the top of the ruin</i> <i> when he was younger.</i> <i> He remembered a building with five doorways.</i> ♪♪ The buildings would have been oriented looking that way, with the doorways facing that way. So that's the ritual plaza down there? Yes, I think that's the focal point of the core of the site. ♪♪ <i> The fact that the building was facing towards a large plaza</i>
1:54:35
<i> was a further indication</i> <i> that we had uncovered a significant temple.</i> ♪♪ <i> Having been hidden by undergrowth for centuries,</i> <i> we were finally getting a sense of the buildings underneath.</i> ♪♪ ♪♪ <i> The building at the top of the hill</i> <i> wasn't a singular structure,</i> <i> but rather a large platform</i> <i> of buildings strewn along a ridge.</i> ♪♪ <i> The evidence on the ground proved</i> <i> this was a monumental Maya building</i>
1:55:22
<i> known as an acropolis.</i> ♪♪ <i> And it was on the flank of this monument, this acropolis,</i> <i> that the stone panel had been found.</i> ♪♪ <i> It was one of many carvings that decorated the acropolis,</i> <i> telling the story of the creation of the kingdom.</i> ♪♪ So after decades of trying to figure out where the center of this kingdom that was mentioned in so many texts might be, working with this local community, we had confirmed that this was the place.
1:56:00
This was the heart of the Sak Tz'i kingdom. ♪♪ <i> It made sense.</i> <i> An acropolis was a huge, elevated temple complex</i> <i> that the ancient Maya built</i> <i> at the heart of their most important cities,</i> <i> where royals and nobles visited for rituals</i> <i> and political and religious affairs.</i> ♪♪ <i> Standing up on top of that acropolis,</i> <i> one could really imagine what it must have been like</i> <i> for the ancient Maya rulers</i>
1:56:32
<i> who looked out on their subjects below.</i> ♪♪ ♪♪ <i> Basically, we're talking about</i> <i> a 20-year search for this kingdom,</i> <i> and here it was.</i> That was tremendously satisfying and exciting. ♪♪ <i> We'd uncovered the entire capital</i> <i> of the Sak Tz'i kingdom.</i> ♪♪ <i> But after such a long search, we now faced a big question.</i> ♪♪ Well, this is clearly a large stone that's been carved. <i> The artifacts we'd found had told us</i>
1:57:16
<i> the site had only been occupied until the 9th century AD.</i> <i> So how and why did people abandon it?</i>
1:57:26
♪♪ <i> There's a popular story of the so-called Maya collapse</i> <i> where the civilization is supposed to</i> <i> have disappeared suddenly and catastrophically</i> <i> in the 8th and 9th centuries AD.</i> ♪♪ <i> The evidence showed us</i> <i> this was exactly when Sak Tz'i was abandoned.</i> ♪♪ <i> So what happened here?</i> ♪♪ We can't understand any city by itself. We have to understand how people lived in the surrounding landscape and how they interacted with these royal dynasties. ♪♪
1:58:03
And to do that, we have to pull back from the cityscape to a much larger picture of the landscape. ♪♪ The lidar is a great way to do just that. ♪♪ So we can see the settlement all around the very center, but what's really interesting is, when we pull back a little bit, we're just not seeing houses around it. Why isn't there so much ancient settlement around this? ♪♪ I would expect a site like Sak Tz'i that is mentioned so often in the inscriptions to be on par with sites like Palenque,
1:58:41
to be densely populated. ♪♪ Can you zoom out some more? ♪♪ I'm not seeing a whole lot outside of a kilometer from the main core of the site. No, but what we can see, just on these hills to the south of the site, are these what look like large buildings on a flattened mountaintop. Now, exactly what's going on there, I'm not sure, but could be a refuge. ♪♪ These buildings are way beyond the city limits. That's really unusual. SCHRODER: Perhaps this is a place for people to retreat in times of war.
1:59:24
♪♪ If we move south from those hilltop retreats, whatever is going on up there, there are these long channels running down into the creeks. And what you can pick out are walls along the edges. It's clearly a form of irrigation that people have built. What's really interesting is, if those are ancient channeled fields, the people could have had some sort of resilience to drought or floods. So you think this could have been a strategy to support people in times of crisis? ♪♪
2:00:03
During the dry season, they could manipulate these drainages to hold extra moisture, and so by doing that, people in this area would have been able to have multiple harvests during the year. ♪♪ <i> Evidence like this suggests people</i> <i> were adapting where and how they lived</i> <i> to deal with a climate that was changing.</i> ♪♪ <i> And there was something else the ruins at Sak Tz'i</i> <i> told us about its downfall.</i> ♪♪ There is some evidence that monuments
2:00:34
were intentionally destroyed, especially when we find a monument broken or certain images, especially the face, of a royal individual scratched out or the nose knocked off. That's when we can begin to think that maybe these were intentional acts of destruction. ♪♪ I do think there was a change by the 9th century, with people choosing no longer to accept royalty as defining their way of life by voting with their feet. ♪♪ GOLDEN: What we think we are seeing is not collapse
2:01:12
resulting from warfare or a change in the environment alone, but a real loss of trust between the communities and their government. ♪♪ SCHRODER:<i> I think that what we're seeing</i> <i> points to that as a probable factor</i> <i> with the abandonment of the capital of Sak Tz'i.</i> ♪♪ GOLDEN:<i> Our investigations helped show Maya communities</i> <i> didn't completely collapse.</i> ♪♪ <i> Like the capital of Sak Tz'i,</i> <i> other cities and their people adapted</i>
2:01:50
<i> and survived after the 9th century AD.</i> ♪♪ <i> And the political center of power</i> <i> shifted to the Yucatán region.</i> ♪♪ <i> And that's where for us, as archeologists,</i> <i> things get really interesting,</i> <i> because more evidence of the survival</i> <i> of the ancient Maya has been found there</i> <i> in some of the most spectacular</i> <i> underwater caverns in the world.</i> ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ DE ANDA:<i> I have that dream quite often.</i> ♪♪ <i> That my house got flooded.</i>
2:02:46
♪♪ <i> I think I was 4,</i> <i> and in Mexico City, we have this old house.</i> <i> I remember I could see the bathroom down there.</i> <i> And I'm diving on top of it.</i> ♪♪ Then I knew I wanted to be a diver. ♪♪ It's only through diving that I have been able to explore these great mysteries of the Maya... of how they lived and died. ♪♪ Chichén Itzá is a spectacular Maya city in the same region as Cancún. ♪♪ When you're right in front of El Castillo, it's such an amazing sensation,
2:03:37
and you realize its power and the architectural talent of the ancient Maya. People live here several hundred years after the cities of the south had fallen. Beneath these great monuments, there's a hidden world of underwater caverns called cenotes, and the Yucatán has thousands of them. ♪♪ Caves are super important to understand a civilization like the Maya. ♪♪ I was asked to look at a particular cave called cenote Holtún and be the very first to dive it. ♪♪ Many cenotes have natural entrances.
2:04:24
This one had a man-made opening. This perfectly square hole that look like it has been carved. Instantly I was intrigued about what might be inside. I take a look into the water some 25 meters below, and the sun was shining on the surface. ♪♪ I had a privilege to go there -- down there by myself. ♪♪ As I was going down on the rope, it was so beautiful. There was stalactites all over and then the sunbeam going in. ♪♪ I'm going deeper and deeper and deeper. Before I knew, I was 35 meters below. ♪♪
2:05:16
Suddenly, at the bottom of the cenote, at 40 meters, I could see what looked like a sculpture looming out the darkness, a head with fangs. I was stunned. How did this get here? Did someone throw it in? Did it fall? I really wanted to stay on the bottom, then I realized I had to go up. 'Cause I was running out of air. ♪♪ Suddenly something wake me up. It was this ceiling that I hit with my head, and I'm going to the edge of this ceiling. And as I go up, that ceiling was a big platform. ♪♪
2:06:03
As I looked over the ledge, nothing could quite prepare me for what I saw. ♪♪ I saw this skull. And I'm like, "Wow! What a beautiful skull!" ♪♪ I could see the shelf was littered with lots of other items which indicated human activity. ♪♪ There's so many ceramic vases. And there's charcoal. ♪♪ There is bones -- human, animal. There's a dog cranium. ♪♪ There's flint knives. It's, "Wow! What is this? How it got here?" Then I thought, what are these artifacts doing here so deep underwater?
2:06:56
I knew I had to come back to investigate in more detail. ♪♪ So after this first actually shocking dive... ♪♪ ...I really wanted to go there again. ♪♪ I continued my journey into this shelf, and I located this beautiful skull which I believe it's a female, a young female, early 20s.
2:07:33
And I started looking much, much closer. And I saw this big hole on the back part of the skull, and that's so intriguing because that can give us clues on how this person probably died. ♪♪ We start examining it, and then I knew we needed more information, but we are always trying not to disturb places, not to take anything out or even move. That's a big responsibility, as well, for us. We got to be super careful. ♪♪ New technology can help us understand places and the artifacts. ♪♪
2:08:21
We started doing photogrammetry, a photographic technique which constructs a 3-D model. And we wanted that particular piece, this skull. So we take it very carefully into this turntable, turn it around, take pictures from every possible angle. Hundreds of pictures. And then that's the easy part, because the hard part is to put it back just as it was originally. ♪♪ ♪♪ This was a very, very successful photogrammetry, because we learned much more about this skull.
2:09:14
We used it to create a 3-D printed skull, an exact replica of the skull in the cenote. ♪♪ When you see a 3-D scan you see things that you cannot see underwater, even though you have it right here. It's a super aid for archeology. It enabled me to look really in detail at the shape of the hole in the skull, and what I could see is that it was too deep and angular to have just been caused by the impact of a fall. ♪♪ It looked much more like the result of an injury caused by a man-made object.
2:09:55
So it made me wonder, could she have been killed? ♪♪ On my next dive, I found another skull. We found that it has a very similar injury in the same area on the right-hand side, and it has this big fracture.
2:10:21
This could not be a coincidence. We might be looking at a pattern of doing rituals and sacrifices in this area. ♪♪ The ancient Maya believed that human sacrifice would please their gods and prevent chaos and disaster. Could we find out the reason for the sacrifices here at Chichén Itzá? ♪♪ ♪♪ There was something that really puzzled me about cenote Holtún. ♪♪ It's so many meters to the entrance. There's no current here. There's no way these elements had been tossed from the surface. ♪♪
2:11:11
We had signs of sacrifice in the subjects here. But surely, the Maya could not dive all the way here. How did they get over to this shelf of the far side of the cenote? I needed to find out what was happening when the Maya had come here. We analyzed samples of the ceramics, which give a date of around the 9th century AD. Definitely Maya. ♪♪ What we believe happened is that during the 9th century, end of 9th century, beginning of 10th, there was a huge drought that paleoclimatologists
2:11:52
have been telling us about in the Maya lowlands. There's lot of speculations on -- on how long it was, but I think it was a long one, enough to make the aquifer level go down a few meters. ♪♪ The thing about the cenotes is that the Maya use them for water supply. So this could have caused a real problem for them. ♪♪ I mean, they still have water to drink, but they don't have water for agriculture, so they must have been desperate. ♪♪ And then I found something that confirmed it. ♪♪
2:12:44
I saw one element that I didn't know what it was in the beginning. And looking closer, this is a stingray spine. ♪♪ The priests used them to... perform a ritual related with rain producing. What they did is that they used the stingray spines and they pass them through their penis. Fortunately, I was not a Maya priest, or maybe I was in another life, but anyway. That must have been painful. And this is a very important ceremony because, of course, there's a lot of blood.
2:13:22
It's a bloodletting ritual.
2:13:26
And this bloodletting is trying to make some empathetic magic to produce, to provoke rain. ♪♪ The evidence of the stingray spine used for rainmaking rituals in its location below the current waterline told me these offerings were placed here intentionally when the water level was lower, during a period of drought, to bring rain. ♪♪ Their world was ending. If it was a drought and there's no agriculture, that's it. There's no way you can feed the population. ♪♪
2:14:14
My feeling is, they started doing rituals. They bring offerings, human victims of sacrifice. ♪♪ But despite long periods of drought, I knew Chichén had survived for several hundred years after. ♪♪ How? ♪♪ Then I remembered what I'd seen on my very first dive deep in the cenote. ♪♪ The sculpture I found was an important key. It wasn't Maya. It was from a completely different civilization. Probably Aztec. This is Tlaloc, Central Mexico water god. How this sculpture got here?
2:15:07
When you think about Chichén Itzá having a port 90 kilometers to the north, probably it came from Central Mexico, which is a fascinating idea.
2:15:20
We know it was an important trade place. Merchandise from all over Mesoamerica got there -- jade, feathers, ceramics, and probably Tlaloc sculptures. ♪♪ This relationship with other areas, such as Central Mexico, through trade, I think it was very important part of the surviving strategy of Chichén Itzá after this terrible drought. It's possible the Maya started to farm crops that were more resistant to drought, small subsistence farming. But ongoing trade was also very important
2:16:11
to the survival of Chichén Itzá, allowing it to grow and thrive, even after an environmental crisis. ♪♪ There's some people that still say that, well, yeah, they throw them in the cenote as a sacrifice for the gods. And that's it. Let's close that page. No, no, no, this could be much more sophisticated. They must have come all the way here, the ancient Maya, and place all this evidence. ♪♪ That makes it unique. This is why we are so in love with Holtún cenote. ♪♪
2:16:55
We are still investigating this site. ♪♪ This is just the beginning of the story. ♪♪ ♪♪ SCHRODER:<i> I think there isn't just one single story</i> <i> for the rise and fall of the ancient Maya.</i> <i> They were not just a single civilization.</i> ♪♪ <i> And their fate depended on where they were</i> in space and time. ♪♪ GOLDEN:<i> Beyond the soaring architecture,</i> <i> the people lived in very different landscapes</i> <i> and responded to their rulers and their environments</i>
2:17:39
<i> by adapting in unique ways.</i> ♪♪ <i> I believe that actually they were great survivors.</i> <i> They were not erased, but their lives were transformed.</i> <i> We know that from the many millions of descendants</i> <i> who are very much alive and thriving today.</i>
2:18:02
♪ ♪ DOUGAL: My first impressions of when I arrived at Pompeii was surprise at the scale of the city.
2:18:19
You can see streets, columns, statues. It really was clearly a vibrant place. And yet you look to one side, and it stares you in the face;
2:18:36
there's the volcano, Mount Vesuvius, shadowing over the whole area.
2:18:44
These people were living by this mountain, and this mountain ended up being their doom.
2:18:53
(explosion) (shattering) The destruction at Pompeii has really captured people's imagination, particularly with the preserved bodies. Thousands frozen in time at the very moment of a horrifying death. But what's really quite surprising is when they uncovered the town of Herculaneum, a town much closer to the volcano than Pompeii, they found very, very few bodies, and that's a really intriguing question. Why so few bodies in Herculaneum, and why so many in Pompeii?
2:19:40
LUANA: It was not just an excavation, but something like a detective story. It was real incredible.
2:19:51
PIER: I saw hundreds of skeletons. Who were these people, and how did they die?
2:20:00
DOUGAL: On the flanks of this fearsome volcano, what really was the key to life and death?
2:20:07
(theme music playing).
2:20:18
♪ ♪ <i> REPORTER (over radio): Pompeii archaeologists made</i> <i>the discovery of what they term as an exceptionally rare find.</i> <i> REPORTER 2 (over radio): This is the latest in a series of</i> <i> fascinating discoveries that excavations at Pompeii have</i> <i> revealed in recent years.</i>
2:21:37
GABRIEL: What's special in Pompeii is that you're looking not at single works of art, or not even single monuments; that it's all part of a city. And a city that was inhabited by people.
2:22:00
I started to study archaeology because I was interested not so much in ancient art, but in history. So how did people live? There was one discovery that sparked interest around the world. It was really something very, very extraordinary.
2:22:28
It all started with the police discovering an underground network of tunnels.
2:22:36
Tomb raiders broke through the wall searching for precious objects and wall paintings to take away and sell them on the illegal market for antiquities.
2:22:49
But they were caught in action and the excavation started.
2:22:56
Outside the city of Pompeii, there are many villas, but many of them had been excavated illegally. So this is a great opportunity to do a scientific excavation of such a site.
2:23:13
The villa was first excavated in the early 20th century, but we had an extremely fragmented view of this site and actually didn't really know the importance of the villa until 2017.
2:23:35
Nothing prepared us for what we would discover.
2:24:40
(shattering)
2:25:38
GABRIEL: While the organic material were dissolving, the imprints remained in the soil, and now as we as archaeologists come across this, we know it's important to stop excavating, and we fill it with plaster. The technique of the plaster cast allows us to reconstruct that which is not there anymore. Then we get the imprint of animals and sometimes, also, humans.
2:26:20
(rumbling)
2:27:08
GABRIEL: The new excavations continued there and started to bring to life something we'd never seen before.
2:27:29
It was of an extraordinary luxury, with decoration in gold and silver and, and bronze.
2:27:43
It was a really incredible chariot.
2:27:50
It was really a great surprise.
2:27:55
But right next to it, there was a room which really, for me, is maybe the most touching and moving discovery I've made as an archaeologist.
2:28:13
This was a part of the villa which was formerly totally unknown.
2:28:21
There's no treasury here in terms of gold and silver and precious vases. But what is really special about this room is that we have the plaster casts of three beds, but they are really simple, simple beds, very ordinary.
2:28:54
SOPHIE: When I heard about the discovery of that room in the villa, I knew it was something special. Nothing like this has been found before.
2:29:04
When I arrived in Pompeii, I'd obviously seen photographs, but there's nothing quite like arriving on site. It felt about as close as you could to, to time travel.
2:29:24
So this is a really unusual scene to witness. This is the small room, just near the stable. Um, and you can see how cramped it is. We expect there to be great wealth in these suburban villas, and here we see a room with bare walls, a bit of white plaster, very simple.
2:29:47
There's no mosaics on the floor, it sort of seems like it's just packed Earth. So, it's sort of a little bit of a mystery as to what this room was because it's, uh, doesn't really fit our, our picture of a lavish suburban villa.
2:30:07
Not the elite part of the house at all. We're looking at very much a sort of, a working room, a service room if you like.
2:30:17
GABRIEL: They brought amphoras, and this is a steering mechanism, probably from the chariot found in front of the door. And then you have all kinds of, of materials from the bridle and things linked to the horses. So it was a workplace, but it was also a living place.
2:30:41
What we see here is really the most humble level of society.
2:30:49
So it probably was a slave room, and there were at least three slaves living here, sleeping here.
2:31:01
SOPHIE: It's an absolutely incredible find. These are the invisible people in the Roman period.
2:31:09
It's quite emotional looking at and seeing, feeling so close to, to their lives.
2:31:16
One third of the population were probably enslaved people. Their jobs would range from shopkeeping to sex work, so we've got a lot of range here. But then suddenly we get this magnifying glass of their lives at this villa.
2:31:35
There's three beds in the room. One of the beds is slightly smaller than the other two, suggesting maybe there was a child. So it could have been a family unit of, of enslaved people.
2:31:49
At this point, the excavation hadn't found any bodies, so everyone is wondering what happened to the inhabitants.
2:32:37
♪ ♪
2:35:04
♪ ♪ SOPHIE: This villa really presents us with a sort of detective story, which is essentially what archaeology is. So this image is, is really important 'cause it gives you a real sense of the context in which these two people were found.
2:35:23
They'd basically gone down to the lowest point they could in the villa, in the cryptoporticus, so it's an underground passage.
2:35:34
It shows how desperate they must have been at the time to, to take shelter and cover from, from the eruption.
2:35:44
Clearly, sheltering here provided no protection, so the big question is, how did they die?
2:35:55
DOUGAL: The only way to find out what happened in the villa is to work out how the volcanic eruption unfolded.
2:36:07
Witnessing an eruptive volcano is really an assault on the senses. (rumbling) It's terrifying, but also mesmerizing.
2:36:24
When I first went to Vesuvius, I was really hooked from day one.
2:36:33
It turns out there's some really tantalizing details in one letter. Written by a man called Pliny the Younger, a Roman, to an historian friend of his, he witnessed the eruption. And according to Pliny's letters, the eruption started around midday.
2:36:49
You can almost get a picture of what it must have been like just seconds before; And bang, he says, "Tall, broad flames blazed from several places on Vesuvius, and glared out through the darkness. It was daylight everywhere else, but it was blacker and denser than any night. After a while, the darkness paled into smoke, but the sun shone as wanly as during an eclipse."
2:37:25
What we've been realizing, particularly from the way Pliny described it, it was almost sort of 20, 24 hours' worth of process that went on.
2:37:38
The very first stage was this big explosive phase. (explosion) And that immediately sent up this strange cloud, as Pliny described it. Big column of material that went high up into the atmosphere.
2:38:01
What Pliny doesn't tell us is exactly what happened next inside Pompeii, and also the other towns around Vesuvius.
2:38:11
But luckily, the volcano has left its own detailed record of the events on that day, and I'm gonna dig into it.
2:38:19
(shattering)
2:38:24
♪ ♪
2:38:35
DOUGAL: I really wanted to see whether the eyewitness accounts actually match up with the deposits and the debris that we see that buried the towns. And it's by doing this that we can hopefully start to pinpoint what happened during the eruption hour by hour.
2:38:55
At the southern tip of Pompeii, this spot is one of the few places left where you can still see some of the layers of volcanic deposit.
2:39:05
When people think of volcanoes, they often think of the sort of mesmerizing red lava flows making their way down the mountain. But actually that didn't happen with the Mount Vesuvius eruption. What we see in the different parts of the layers tell us something about how the eruption took place. And when we start to look at the, the deposit, I mean you can see the first sort of couple of meters here, things aren't really being destroyed.
2:39:33
All of these pots are totally as they were standing around at the time. And that's because all of this deposit here is what we call the fall deposit; it's stuff that was coming out of the sky. It first started with this, what we call white pumice. So this very, very light material was raining out of the sky from this big cloud, this big eruptive cloud that Pliny described.
2:40:03
And when we try and sort of unravel the timeline here, essentially from where my feet are up until this change from the sort of white pumice to the, to the grey pumice, this represents that the volcano sort of starting about 1:00 in the afternoon, up until round about midnight.
2:40:31
(rumbling) Clearly it's a very strange environment to be in. It's like a snowstorm, but it would be really dark, you've got ash floating around in the air, there may be fires started by some of the hotter material that's landing. Quite a terrifying experience.
2:40:54
It's difficult to imagine what it would be like being caught up in this. How do you survive it?
2:41:01
GABRIEL: When it starts raining these pumice stones, the natural reaction is just to search cover somewhere.
2:41:12
This becomes a deadly trap. People can't get out of the doors anymore because they're blocked by pumice stones.
2:41:23
(shattering)
2:42:17
LUANA: They contracted the hands like that.
2:42:40
DOUGAL: One of the things that's really striking is just the, the visual difference between the layers here.
2:42:48
You can actually see one on top of another, some of them almost like a stack of cards showing you that there's, there's a sideways movement, there's a current, there's a turbulent current that's deposited this here.
2:43:03
It tells us that something back at the volcano was changing. This huge column of rock and ash that was bursting its way up into the sky has now collapsed.
2:43:17
And you've got a dense, turbulent current of rocks, hot pumice and ash, hot gases, all rolling over each other and barreling down the side of the mountain. These things can be hundreds of degrees in heat and they can travel hundreds of miles an hour. It's engulfing things as it goes along. This is a pyroclastic flow.
2:43:41
The whole thing is chaotic. (rumbling) It's a kind of angry stage in the eruption from this stuff falling out of the sky to all of a sudden the pyroclastic flow coming in, and essentially just taking everything in its wake.
2:44:02
GABRIEL: So many stories; people trying to escape outside Pompeii, some hiding. And so those who did what seemed probably the wrong thing in the first moment, to go through the rain of stones, had probably the, the biggest chance to survive.
2:44:26
Those who stayed behind went right to their death because there was no escape from the pyroclastic flow.
2:44:38
DOUGAL: The devastation that was seen at Pompeii has really captured people's imaginations, particularly with the body molds that were preserved; thousands of people dying.
2:44:49
One of the things that's really puzzling is that you've got lots of bodies preserved at Pompeii, but closer to Mount Vesuvius in Herculaneum, another place smothered by the eruption, when they uncovered the city, they found very, very few bodies. So the big question is why was it so different there?
2:45:27
PIER: Pompeii's very famous all over the world, but in the '90s, I had opportunity to excavate victims in Herculaneum.
2:45:40
Mostly, anthropologists like me are used to just excavate graves from, uh, the graveyards, but in this case was completely different. It was the first time that I could study and excavate just the victims of natural disaster, in that case, an eruption.
2:46:02
Working on them, it's very, very important, it's very unique, because within the town, we found just few victims, some 20, 30 victims.
2:46:25
We thought that the large part of the inhabitants of Herculaneum just they escaped.
2:46:34
But that was an open question for decades. Why just very few people were there.
2:46:46
In the '80s, the director of Herculaneum started an open-air excavation in the town. The excavators wanted to find victims, they were asking themselves; where are people?
2:47:04
They just start the excavation in the suburban area, and 1981 they reached the beach.
2:47:17
They start to excavate on the beach area, and suddenly they found something extraordinary.
2:47:35
During the excavation, they just start to see that there were several chambers.
2:47:44
And later they, they saw that this boat chambers were just facing the sea.
2:47:52
And the finding within the boat chambers was something very surprising and also exceptional.
2:48:01
There inside they found a lot of victims.
2:48:07
In one room you had maybe 40 skeletons.
2:48:13
They start to excavate on the beach area, and then they found 30, 40 victims just laying on the beach.
2:48:27
Altogether, the victims found within the boat chambers and on the beach are around ten times more victims than in the town.
2:48:39
So, we wanted to know, who were these people, and how did they die?
2:48:48
The excavation and the study of the victims was a very complicated job.
2:48:55
So imagine that you have altogether 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 bodies.
2:49:07
So, the first part of the job was just to recognize the single individual and then to start to remove the ash.
2:49:18
That job we did with water.
2:49:23
And in that way we could just see all the skeletons all together and make a documentation for each individual.
2:49:33
In Herculaneum, in the, in the first deposit, there are no big pumice like in Pompeii, so this is quite different in the two towns, in the two sites.
2:49:47
The ash is very fine. So, it was very easy to excavate the victims.
2:49:59
But we don't know who were these people.
2:50:05
In this case, we have found these two female, just close to each others, and between the legs of these two women, there were found two small children.
2:50:22
And also what is interesting, that through the analysis of DNA of these people, we know that most of women, they are just local. But many of males are coming from other localities like, for instance, the Mediterranean area, Middle East, or Central Europe and so on.
2:50:48
So we wanted to know why there is a mix of nationalities here in Herculaneum.
2:50:55
There was an intriguing clue. This is chamber number ten and here this individual is a male, 35 years old about, and we found a, a metal ring around the ankle.
2:51:17
And he was not the only one. So it's sure they were slaves, and also we know that a lot of them, a lot of people came from other countries. So very probably they came at least as slaves.
2:51:39
Big question is, how did they die?
2:51:44
I saw hundreds of skeletons and victims, but never something like this.
2:51:54
♪ ♪ PIER: Archaeologists, from long time, they always said and thought that the people died all over, and all around Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum and so on, they died of suffocation because of the hot gases.
2:52:22
In some cases, they were found on one side with hands on their faces to try to do the last breathe.
2:52:32
But I found in the boat chambers evidence that didn't fit with this theory.
2:52:43
This is the skull of a victim found within a boat chamber, and we have some reddish brown mineral residual within this skull, so the brain was very rapidly boiling and that caused the skulls to explode.
2:53:07
So now we know that people in the boat chambers were not suffocated by ash and gas. The temperatures was high enough to kill them instantly.
2:53:26
But bodies in Pompeii looks different to the ones in Herculaneum. So, does it mean that our gas flow was different here?
2:53:38
In Pompeii, many people show this kind of pugilistic attitude. So it seems that you are preparing yourself, just try to defend yourself, but it's not true, it is something after you die.
2:53:55
You see that the bodies were just kept complete, full of bones, flesh, everything.
2:54:07
In Herculaneum, you don't have this kind of attitude, and that's due to the rapid disappearing of the flesh.
2:54:17
All evidence show that the temperature of the pyroclastic surge was much higher in Herculaneum than in Pompeii.
2:54:34
When I saw the corpses of victims in Herculaneum, I, I felt it was really a terrible situation at that time. To see all these people; young people, children and so on, all together, that was really something very unbelievable.
2:54:58
Very probably they didn't know that Vesuvius was a volcano, but they knew very well earthquakes. That's why they were just within the boat chambers, because that was very safe from earthquakes, but not in case of an eruption.
2:55:21
DOUGAL: What is still puzzling to me is the difference between both towns. Why so few bodies in Herculaneum, and why so many in Pompeii?
2:55:33
You can see that there's this huge wall of volcanic debris that came down off the volcano, some 60 plus feet of debris lying above my head.
2:55:46
But that just didn't happen in an instant. When you look a bit closer, and I can see here, you can actually see changes in the layers.
2:55:56
What it shows is not just one pyroclastic flow, but a whole succession of them.
2:56:06
And what we can do is we can walk up through this layer cake of rock and work out exactly how many of these pyroclastic flows came down during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
2:56:20
The evidence here in this wall shows us that there was at least six different pyroclastic flows.
2:56:29
And it's the first two that bury Herculaneum. But they don't entirely reach Pompeii.
2:56:37
And that is a big clue as to what happened. It was one volcano and one eruption, but two different sequences of events in each city.
2:56:47
So what determined whether you lived or died? And if you died, how you died?
2:56:55
(rumbling)
2:57:03
♪ ♪ DOUGAL: Now I can fully unravel the timeline of what happened in the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
2:57:24
(explosion)
2:57:33
At around midday, the volcano erupted.
2:57:39
It's explosive and it's more powerful than anything you can imagine. Millions of tons of rock, pumice and ash are ejected, forming a giant column of ash and debris towering 20 miles into the sky. And it's by sheer bad luck that these stratospheric winds take the debris, carry the debris over, and drop it onto Pompeii. Ash and pumice would continue to rain down for the next 18 to 20 hours, trapping people inside their homes like the two people found together at the villa.
2:58:17
The first buildings start to collapse under the weight of the debris.
2:58:24
PIER: While people were just dying in Pompeii, we know, actually, that most of Herculaneum was just evacuated. They escaped in north direction through Naples. DOUGAL: Sadly, some stayed behind in Herculaneum and sheltered in the boat chambers.
2:58:46
Some 12 hours after the eruption, the ash column collapses. The first pyroclastic flow travels at over 100 miles per hour in the direction of Herculaneum.
2:59:02
PIER: So we know that the first pyroclastic surge came into the city, went into the buildings, killed the people here in the town, reached rapidly the beach, and the temperature is at least 500 degrees Celsius.
2:59:24
(rumbling)
2:59:32
They died just in a fraction of second, they had no time to react. So the people didn't feel anything.
2:59:44
DOUGAL: Over in Pompeii, things played out differently. It's spared the first pyroclastic flow. Instead the city is pelted by a shower of pumice.
3:00:04
After 18 hours, the pumice fall starts to ease.
3:00:26
DOUGAL: But it's a short-lived period of calm before Mount Vesuvius launches another pyroclastic flow.
3:00:40
DOUGAL: This pyroclastic flow does reach Pompeii. It travelled further than the ones that hit Herculaneum, so it was slightly cooler, but still lethal.
3:00:52
(rumbling)
3:01:04
LUANA: They didn't know what was happening, and they died.
3:01:09
I worked in Pompeii for many years, but this was very unique because here you really have a very important and particular picture of 79 AD. And this clearly was terrible.
3:01:29
DOUGAL: It's the fourth and the fifth, and eventually the sixth, that completely cover the area. And it is, I mean even this preserved bit here, is a harrowing scene. Absolute chaos.
3:01:49
♪ ♪
3:02:10
<i> NARRATOR: Beneath the clear blue waters</i> <i> of the Mediterranean lie treasures of ancient empires,</i> <i> relics of their bloody wars,</i> <i> and secrets of the seismic forces that shaped them,</i> <i> lost beneath the waves...</i> <i> until now.</i> <i> Imagine if we could empty the oceans,</i> <i> letting the water drain away</i> <i> to reveal the secrets of the seafloor.</i> <i> Now, we can.</i>
3:02:49
<i> Using the latest underwater scanning technology,</i> <i> piercing the deep oceans,</i> <i> and turning accurate data into 3D images.</i>
3:03:01
<i> This time, what apocalyptic disaster</i> <i> triggered the collapse of Europe's first civilization?</i> <i> Can an extraordinary 2,500-year-old shipwreck</i> <i> unlock the secrets of Ancient Greece?</i> <i> How did these deadly objects</i> <i> turn Ancient Rome into a superpower?</i> <i> And why does the Sin City of the Roman Empire</i> <i> lie abandoned beneath the waves?</i>
3:03:33
(music) (music) (music) <i> Ancient people call it the Middle Sea,</i> <i> the center of the known world.</i> <i> The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans</i> <i> build mighty civilizations upon its shores.</i> <i> Empires battle for supremacy across its waters.</i> <i> Cities grow rich and powerful through trade.</i> <i> The Mediterranean becomes a superhighway,</i> <i> connecting cultures that will shape the modern world.</i> <i> But only by draining the sea can we reveal</i>
3:04:22
<i> its biggest and most terrifying secret.</i> <i> What happened on this spectacular Greek island</i> <i> to doom an entire civilization?</i>
3:04:36
COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: They must have thought this was it, the end of the world. <i> NARRATOR: 3,600 years ago.</i> <i> 15 centuries before the Roman Empire.</i> <i> A mysterious people dominate the Mediterranean.</i> <i> We call them the Minoans.</i> <i> Their home is on Crete.</i> <i> Here they build magnificent temples and palaces,</i> <i> and decorate them with stunning frescoes.</i> <i> Celebrating their love of life and of nature.</i>
3:05:17
<i> But there's a darker side, too.</i> <i> The Minoan royal palace at Knossos</i> <i> is said to contain a labyrinth.</i> <i> Home to the Minotaur.</i> <i> A fearsome creature...</i> <i> part man, part bull,</i> <i> with a terrible appetite for human flesh.</i>
3:05:39
<i> But apart from a grisly myth,</i> <i> much about the Minoan world still remains a mystery.</i> MICHAEL SCOTT: We can't decipher their language. We only have their archaeological remains, but what that tells us, I think, is that they were extremely imaginative, they were extremely adventurous, and that they developed a sophisticated hierarchical society that was capable of producing elements of art and architecture which still astound us today.
3:06:10
<i> NARRATOR: Historians do know that the Minoans spread</i> <i> across the Mediterranean,</i> <i> trading olive oil and pottery for gold and ivory,</i> <i> growing ever richer and more powerful.</i> <i> And then, in the 15th century BC,</i> <i> their ancient civilization begins to fade</i> <i> from the pages of history.</i>
3:06:35
<i> For centuries, no one knows why.</i>
3:06:41
<i> Until scientists start to look closely</i> <i> at the nearby island of Santorini.</i>
3:06:50
SYNOLAKIS: Santorini, it has this very, very calm water. It's almost like it plays with you and deceives you. Looking at this view, you would never imagine how dangerous it once was and how dangerous it is. <i> NARRATOR: The island is famous</i> <i> for its spectacular, jagged cliffs,</i> <i> which tower above a beautiful natural harbor.</i> <i> But what created them?</i> <i> And can they help explain the downfall of the Minoans?</i>
3:07:28
<i> Marine geologist Evi Nomikou believes that crucial clues</i> <i> may lie deep beneath Santorini's tranquil waters.</i> EVI NOMIKOU: As I was born in Santorini, I wanted to study the area to reveal their secret. Being a marine geologist means that you're having access to the mystic world of the seafloor, so you can see features that nobody else can see.
3:07:57
<i> NARRATOR: She harnesses the latest</i> <i> multi-beam sonar technology</i> <i> to scan the depths of the huge bay.</i> <i> By transforming her data into powerful computer imagery,</i> <i> it's possible to drain away the waters of the Mediterranean...</i> (music) <i> ...and reveal Santorini's terrifying secret.</i> <i> The sheer cliffs tower 1,000 feet above sea level</i> <i> and drop a further 1,000 feet to the seafloor.</i> <i> Framing a vast basin</i>
3:08:36
<i> large enough to hold 10,000 Olympic stadiums.</i> <i> The basin is a huge crater,</i> <i> and Santorini itself is the remnant of a gigantic volcano.</i> (music) <i> But that's not all.</i> <i> On the rim of the crater,</i> <i> more evidence of Santorini's violent past.</i> (music) (screams) <i> Undiscovered until 1967,</i> <i> these shattered ruins are all that remain</i> <i> of a once-thriving city,</i> <i> known today as Akrotiri.</i> <i> It was destroyed when the volcano erupted,</i>
3:09:26
<i> and buried under so much ash that it remained hidden</i> <i> for 3,500 years.</i> LEFTERIS ZORZOS: It's almost like a window back in time, where you can see how it was when it was destroyed. <i> NARRATOR: And deep in the ruins</i> <i> archaeologists discover something remarkable.</i>
3:09:47
(rumbling) <i> These stone steps were not broken</i> <i> by the ash and lava from a volcano.</i> (rumbling) <i> They were shattered by an earthquake.</i> ZORZOS: When the earthquake happened, everyone fled their town, but then they came back to start rebuilding their homes, and this is exactly what we're seeing here.
3:10:19
<i> NARRATOR: Believing the danger over,</i> <i> people move furniture into the streets,</i> <i> so they can start repairing their houses.</i> ZORZOS: We're seeing the beds placed outside of their homes, we're seeing the stones and mud getting ready to be used to rebuild these homes. <i> NARRATOR: But then they are struck by an apocalypse.</i> (rumbling) (explosion)
3:10:49
<i> The first stage of the eruption is so powerful</i> <i> that it engulfs Akrotiri</i> <i> and suffocates the whole island in a thick layer of debris.</i>
3:11:03
<i> And the date of this cataclysmic eruption?</i> <i> Around 1625 BC, the same time as the Minoans</i> <i> begin to disappear from the pages of history.</i> <i> But how could a single eruption trigger the collapse</i> <i> of a great civilization based on an island 70 miles away?</i> <i> Until recently most scientists have focused</i> <i> only on the evidence above ground.</i> <i> But Evi Nomikou believes that once again</i> <i> the real clues lie underwater.</i>
3:11:41
EVI NOMIKOU: Scientists have been occupied studying only the on-land geology, so we are starting mapping the seafloor, in order to find out the total volume of that big, destructive eruption.
3:11:55
<i> NARRATOR: Evi heads outside the great crater</i> <i> to hunt for new evidence on the seabed.</i>
3:12:03
<i> And what she finds is extraordinary.</i> <i> Proof of the sheer scale of this eruption.</i>
3:12:13
<i> As the waters of the Mediterranean recede</i> <i> still further, they reveal wide stone terraces,</i> <i> fanning out from the mouth of the volcano...</i> <i> the size of 20-story buildings.</i>
3:12:31
<i> They point to one cause.</i>
3:12:39
<i> They're called pyroclastic flows:</i> <i> torrents of superheated gas and molten rock.</i> NOMIKOU: The pyroclastic flow can cover everything. They travel like a hurricane. They can destroy everything on their path because of the high temperature, up to 1,000 Celsius.
3:13:04
<i> NARRATOR: When they hit the sea,</i> <i> the pyroclastic flows cool and become solid ramparts of rock.</i> <i> Around Santorini, they stretch for a staggering 20 miles</i> <i> in every direction.</i> <i> Evidence of multiple eruptions lasting for days.</i>
3:13:27
<i> By measuring the stone terraces,</i> <i> scientists calculate that the volcano throws out</i> <i> 14 cubic miles of debris.</i> <i> An eruption far more powerful than they had ever imagined.</i> <i> It's one of the biggest volcanic explosions</i> <i> in the history of the planet.</i> (explosion)
3:13:54
SYNOLAKIS: Let's try to imagine what this eruption looked like. If you were sitting somewhere in any of the neighboring islands, it would have appeared like the end of the world. <i> NARRATOR: At first the volcano blasts out</i> <i> a column of superheated debris more than 20 miles high.</i> SYNOLAKIS: This huge funnel of black ash and cloud could have been seen going all the way to the sky. <i> NARRATOR: Some of the volcanic plume falls to Earth</i> <i> many miles from Santorini.</i>
3:14:28
SYNOLAKIS: It would have been raining pumice on the surrounding islands. <i> NARRATOR: But now the volcano unleashes</i> <i> its most devastating surprise,</i> <i> and in its path lies Crete, the center of the Minoan world.</i>
3:14:45
<i> NARRATOR: 70 miles from Santorini,</i> <i> the Minoans on Crete see the soaring column of ash and smoke</i> <i> from the erupting volcano.</i> <i> But they have no idea of the disaster to come.</i> <i> The volcano blasts millions of tons of lava into the sea.</i> <i> Triggering wave after wave of powerful tsunamis.</i>
3:15:11
SYNOLAKIS: When the tsunami arrived in Crete, they were probably taken totally by surprise. Imagine seeing this wall of water, in some places ten meters high, advancing in. It must have looked like this was the end of the world. Totally unexpected. The wrath of the gods. <i> NARRATOR: Entire coastal communities are swept away</i> <i> by waves up to 30 feet tall.</i> <i> Ports are destroyed and ships smashed to pieces.</i>
3:15:50
<i> And the gods aren't finished yet.</i> <i> After the eruption and the tsunamis,</i> <i> another disaster is looming.</i> <i> Clouds of volcanic ash cast a deadly pall</i> <i> over the whole Mediterranean, dramatically cooling the Earth.</i>
3:16:11
SCOTT: There were a series of effects from the eruption that together fatally weakened the Minoan civilization. A tsunami event, a divine event. The destabilization of their economy, the failure of harvests over several years. That was the moment when Minoan civilization started to die.
3:16:34
<i> NARRATOR: Without their ports and ships,</i> <i> the Minoans lose their mastery over the Mediterranean.</i>
3:16:43
<i> Invaders challenge their power.</i>
3:16:49
<i> And as the sun sets on the collapsing Minoan civilization,</i> <i> new powers arise.</i> <i> 500 miles from Crete, just off the coast of Cyprus,</i> <i> the draining waters of the Mediterranean</i> <i> reveal a remarkable discovery almost 2,500 years old.</i>
3:17:12
<i> What can it tell us about the lives, the power,</i> <i> and the pleasures of the Ancient Greeks?</i> <i> In the centuries after the fall of the Minoans,</i> <i> the city-states of Greece</i> <i> produce dazzling art and architecture.</i> <i> Forging ideas in mathematics, democracy and theater</i> <i> that still shape our world.</i> <i> The Greeks take to the sea in their wooden sailing ships</i> <i> risking their lives to explore, colonize,</i> <i> and trade with each other.</i>
3:17:50
<i> Hundreds of boats shuttle across the Mediterranean,</i> <i> linking settlements in Africa, Asia and Europe.</i> <i> They are the lifeblood of Greek civilization.</i>
3:18:04
<i> But these ships are a mystery.</i> <i> Only a few remnants have survived to offer a glimpse</i> <i> into how they worked and what they carried...</i> <i> until now.</i> <i> A shipwreck, recently discovered</i> <i> in the seas off Cyprus,</i> <i> is helping to bring this lost world back to life.</i>
3:18:29
<i> Archaeologist Stella Demesticha and her team</i> <i> are unlocking the wreck's secrets.</i>
3:18:37
<i> Where did it come from?</i> <i> What was it carrying?</i>
3:18:45
<i> And why did it sink?</i> STELLA DEMESTICHA: It's pretty deep, so it takes a while when you're diving before you can see the sea bottom.
3:18:58
SCOTT: It looks all very higgledy-piggledy, it looks like, well, someone's dropped a whole load of garbage in the ocean. <i> NARRATOR: But this apparent chaos is packed with clues</i> <i> about the lost world of the Ancient Greeks.</i> DEMESTICHA: This is really fantastic for an archaeologist. <i> NARRATOR: Exploring such a deep and complex site</i> <i> is challenging.</i>
3:19:27
DEMESTICHA: Diving at 45 meters has several constraints, and time is one of them. The maximum we can stay per day is 20 minutes. <i> NARRATOR: It's almost impossible to work effectively</i> <i> at such depths.</i> <i> So the team explores the site</i> <i> using a technique called photogrammetry,</i> <i> taking hundreds of pictures of the wreck</i> <i> from different angles.</i>
3:19:58
DEMESTICHA: So instead of trying to make decisions at 45 meters where your brain doesn't work properly, taking the pictures allows us to have the luxury of diving through the screen of our computer as long as we wanted.
3:20:19
<i> NARRATOR: Using the unique photogrammetry data,</i> <i> it's possible for the first time</i> <i> to drain the Mediterranean...</i> <i> allowing sunshine to illuminate a site that's been in darkness</i> <i> for 2,500 years.</i> (music) <i> The debris lies in the shape of a ship.</i>
3:20:46
<i> Much of the timber hull has rotted away,</i> <i> leaving only its ancient cargo.</i>
3:20:55
<i> Hundreds of earthenware jars, known as amphorae,</i> <i> piled neatly on top of each other,</i> <i> many of them still intact.</i> (music) SCOTT: Amphorae look very odd. They look very ungainly and not very well designed to be storage jars or certainly container jars on a sea vessel. But they are a design that's evolved over centuries. And actually if you stack them all really neatly together, they do all make sense, and they were the way that you transported things
3:21:29
around the ancient world. <i> NARRATOR: Amphorae like this</i> <i> give the archaeologists some vital clues.</i> <i> Their distinctive shape varies,</i> <i> depending on where and when they were made.</i> <i> This one dates from the 4th century BC</i> <i> and comes from the Greek island of Chios,</i> <i> 500 miles from the wreck site.</i> <i> So what was in it?</i> <i> Although the amphorae are all now empty,</i> <i> they offer intriguing clues about what they once contained.</i>
3:22:08
DEMESTICHA: In this case we have the opportunity to see evidence. This dark coating inside the amphora, we have to imagine that it was all over the inside walls, and it was pitch, or resin, so it was a kind of sealant to make these walls waterproof. So we are sure that these are Chian wine containers. <i> NARRATOR: Wine from the island of Chios is highly prized</i> <i> throughout the Ancient Mediterranean.</i> <i> The wrecked ship is loaded with the equivalent</i>
3:22:41
<i> of more than 10,000 modern-sized bottles.</i> <i> A hugely valuable cargo and a telling insight</i> <i> into the Ancient Greek trade in luxury goods.</i> SCOTT: The Greeks loved their wine. This little wreck off Cyprus is the tip of the iceberg of the wine trade. It was an absolutely fundamental part of their society and of all their cultural experiences, whether that be religious or whether it be letting their hair down and having a really good time.
3:23:16
DEMESTICHA: The greatest thing about Ancient Greeks is their love for life. They like to talk, to think, to discuss, to drink, to party. SCOTT: There was a great profit to be made in making sure that the rich around the Mediterranean world had a good supply of very good wine to drink.
3:23:38
<i> NARRATOR: Trading in wine and other luxury items</i> <i> makes good money for the Greek city-states.</i> <i> But their ships carry an even more precious cargo,</i> <i> as they traverse the Mediterranean and beyond,</i> <i> from Egypt to Southern France,</i> <i> they spread Greek ideas and culture</i> <i> that influence Western civilization</i> <i> to the present day.</i> <i> But this cargo never reaches its destination.</i> DEMESTICHA: One of the most important questions that we ask
3:24:11
in shipwreck archaeology is why this ship sunk.
3:24:18
<i> NARRATOR: The biggest clue is the shape of the debris.</i> <i> The way that the jars lie grouped together</i> <i> rather than scattered about</i> <i> proves that the vessel didn't capsize.</i>
3:24:33
<i> So what did happen?</i> DEMESTICHA: The ships in antiquity were open-decked. The hold was not covered with a deck, so when the waves were very high, or we have a storm, then the water was coming in.
3:24:53
<i> NARRATOR: The ship is most likely overwhelmed by a wave.</i>
3:25:00
<i> Pulled down by the weight of all the expensive wine</i> <i> to a watery grave.</i> (music) (music) (music) <i> As the waters of the Mediterranean</i> <i> continue to drain away,</i> <i> they uncover unique evidence of a titanic clash</i> <i> between two ancient superpowers.</i> <i> This is the site of a battle</i> <i> that would change the course of history.</i> WILLIAM M. MURRAY: When they saw the Romans in front of them, they had one of these 'Oh, no!' moments.
3:25:48
<i> NARRATOR: What can these bizarre objects on the seabed</i> <i> tell us about the merciless rise of the Romans?</i>
3:25:59
<i> NARRATOR: The third century BC.</i> <i> Rome already controls mainland Italy,</i> <i> and has ambitions to expand across the whole Mediterranean.</i> <i> But its navy is weak.</i> JON HENDERSON: Rome was known as being a terrestrial power, not a maritime power, it was not known for fighting sea battles, but they were set on a militaristic path of maritime control. <i> NARRATOR: This brings them into conflict</i> <i> with another superpower of the Mediterranean:</i>
3:26:27
<i> the Carthaginians.</i> SCOTT: The Carthaginians were great traders, great seafarers, controlling most of the west and central Mediterranean, and it was that fact that brought them into conflict with Rome. <i> NARRATOR: Carthage, from its position</i> <i> on the north coast of Africa,</i> <i> commands the most powerful navy in the region.</i> <i> To challenge Carthage,</i> <i> Rome must first learn a new kind of naval warfare.</i>
3:27:00
<i> So begins a titanic struggle</i> <i> that will last for more than 100 years.</i> <i> The winner will dominate the Mediterranean</i> <i> for the next seven centuries.</i>
3:27:15
<i> Its first truly decisive encounter happens</i> <i> somewhere off the west coast of Sicily,</i> <i> near the Egadi Islands.</i> <i> Here, according to ancient historian Polybius,</i> <i> the mighty navies of Rome and Carthage</i> <i> go head-to-head in an epic battle.</i> <i> He describes the clash of two huge fleets</i> <i> involving 400 ships, and at least 100,000 men...</i> <i> turning the waters of the Mediterranean blood-red.</i>
3:27:55
<i> But Polybius writes his history</i> <i> at least half a century after the battle</i> <i> and for a Roman audience.</i> <i> So how reliable is his account?</i> <i> However huge this battle may have been,</i> <i> no one has ever been able to find any trace of it.</i> MURRAY: Taking the description from an ancient historian and actually pointing to the exact place on the surface of the globe where the battle took place is extremely difficult.
3:28:27
<i> NARRATOR: Bill Murray and a team of marine archaeologists</i> <i> are on the trail of some extraordinary finds</i> <i> reported by local fishermen.</i> <i> But the area they need to survey is huge,</i> <i> many miles across.</i> <i> So first, they sonar scan the seabed.</i>
3:28:52
<i> Then they launch a remotely operated vehicle</i> <i> to investigate the finds.</i> (music) (music) PETER CAMPBELL: As you're watching the live feed of the video from the ROV, and it's going across the seafloor, the shapes suddenly pop into view, and it's incredibly distinctive. So there's a great moment of excitement as these objects are first seen. <i> NARRATOR: They discover a truly astonishing shape</i> <i> 300 feet down.</i>
3:29:28
CAMPBELL: These are the rarest artifacts we have from antiquity.
3:29:35
<i> NARRATOR: So what is it?</i>
3:29:40
<i> Using the data gathered by the expedition,</i> <i> it's possible to pull the plug on the Mediterranean,</i> <i> emptying the waters from around the coast of Sicily.</i> <i> The mysterious object on the seabed comes clearly into view.</i> <i> It's three feet wide and made of metal.</i> <i> Its jagged edges suggest a deadly purpose.</i> SCOTT: So these are bronze battering rams. They would have been attached to the front of a ship, and this was the main method
3:30:12
of attacking and destroying ships in antiquity. <i> NARRATOR: Rams are the superweapons</i> <i> of ancient naval warfare.</i> <i> The large vertical fin is like a splitting axe,</i> <i> and the horizontal fins are like blades,</i> <i> to slice through an enemy ship's timbers.</i> SCOTT: You didn't have cannon fire, there were no kind of guns a la Pirates of the Caribbean or anything like that. The only way to take down the enemy ship was to smash a massive hole in the middle of it
3:30:42
and let it sink to the bottom, and the only way of doing that was to ram it. (crashing) <i> NARRATOR: A closer look reveals</i> <i> that this ram is battle-damaged,</i> <i> its metal edges broken and distorted</i> <i> by a violent collision.</i>
3:31:02
MURRAY: In one episode we're told that the men up in a forward tower were literally catapulted out of the tower and into the sea after a ram strike.
3:31:16
And we're told that it was an effective ram strike, because as the ancient author wrote, 'Bronze hit bronze.'
3:31:29
<i> NARRATOR: And this isn't the only discovery.</i> <i> Based on data from the survey,</i> <i> draining away more of the Mediterranean</i> <i> reveals a remarkable pattern.</i> <i> Ten more rams, scattered</i> <i> across two square miles.</i> <i> More than enough to convince historians</i> <i> that an important naval battle took place here.</i>
3:31:55
<i> But is it the legendary Battle of the Egadi Islands</i> <i> described by Polybius?</i>
3:32:04
<i> An unlikely piece of evidence may hold the answer.</i>
3:32:10
<i> A single amphora storage jar, found near one of the rams.</i>
3:32:17
<i> By analyzing its shape</i> <i> archaeologists can narrow down when and where it was made.</i> <i> It's like finding a black box recorder.</i> <i> The team believes the amphora is Carthaginian</i> <i> and dates to the 3rd century BC,</i> <i> the same period as the Battle of the Egadi Islands.</i> <i> The historian Polybius describes how the Carthaginians</i> <i> are carrying supplies for their soldiers in Sicily.</i> <i> Could this amphora be part of that cargo?</i>
3:32:55
POLYBIUS: The plan was to cross to Mount Erice, unobserved by the enemy, and offload the stores. Then take on soldiers in the lightened ships and engage the enemy.
3:33:08
<i> NARRATOR: But the Carthaginians never make it.</i> <i> Compelling evidence from the drained seabed</i> <i> now indicates this is where it all happened.</i> MURRAY: A number of rams line up and give us a bearing that makes some sense, and that's fascinating, that is exciting. <i> NARRATOR: The words of an ancient historian</i> <i> and the evidence of modern technology</i> <i> both point to the same conclusion:</i> <i> this is the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands.</i>
3:33:42
MURRAY: It was an important enough event for the Romans that they remembered the date. It was actually written down in a calendar somewhere, and we know that it occurred on 10 March, 241 BC.
3:33:56
This is not your typical naval battle where both sides prepare. This was a battle of opportunity.
3:34:04
<i> NARRATOR: The Carthaginians, still laden with supplies,</i> <i> head for shore believing the coast is clear.</i>
3:34:14
<i> But the Romans keep dozens of their ships hidden</i> <i> behind one of the islands.</i> <i> It's a huge ambush.</i> MURRAY: The lookouts spied the Carthaginian ships coming in, and as the Carthaginians saw the Romans in front of them, they had one of these 'Oh, no!' moments. CAMPBELL: So we're talking about tens of thousands of men on board these ships, and they would have lined up across from each other in lines of battle, headed toward each other at a great rate,
3:34:42
and smashed into each other head-to-head.
3:34:47
(crashing) (men yelling)
3:34:57
<i> NARRATOR: Polybius describes what happened next.</i> POLYBIUS: Before long, they were defeated. 50 of the Carthaginians' ships were sunk, and 70 captured with their crews, while the prisoners numbered almost 10,000. <i> NARRATOR: Another discovery on the seabed is a stark reminder</i> <i> that this epic victory came at a high price in human life.</i>
3:35:29
<i> This is the last resting place of thousands of brave men.</i>
3:35:37
<i> And it has been judged so important</i> <i> that its exact location must remain secret.</i> CAMPBELL: There's nothing else really like this. It's the first ancient battle site that's ever been discovered. It's just an incredible debris field. SCOTT: The Battle of the Egadi Islands was the turning point, when a Roman fleet managed to absolutely trounce a Carthaginian fleet at sea. CAMPBELL: This was the defining battle where Rome went from a regional power to a superpower.
3:36:11
<i> NARRATOR: The struggle between Rome and Carthage</i> <i> would last for another century.</i> <i> But victory here set Rome on a path</i> <i> to shaping the destiny of Europe for the next 700 years.</i> <i> As the last of its water runs away,</i> <i> the Mediterranean reveals a final secret.</i> <i> What can draining the Bay of Naples teach us</i> <i> about the glory and the decadence of the Roman Empire?</i>
3:36:46
<i> NARRATOR: 2,000 years ago</i> <i> Rome has grown far beyond its Italian homeland.</i> <i> Its legions control a vast area</i> <i> from North Africa to Northern Europe,</i> <i> from Spain to the Black Sea,</i> <i> and the Roman navy dominates the Mediterranean,</i> <i> from its port next to the city of Baiae</i> <i> in the shadow of mighty Vesuvius.</i>
3:37:15
<i> Baiae earns a reputation as the Sin City of Ancient Rome.</i> <i> It's famous for debauchery and excess.</i>
3:37:27
<i> But what really went on in this seaside party town?</i> <i> And why does so much of it lie abandoned beneath the waves?</i>
3:37:40
<i> Now, marine archaeologist Jon Henderson is exploring</i> <i> the secrets of this sunken city.</i>
3:37:49
<i> Starting with the huge harbor walls</i> <i> that once surrounded the city's port.</i>
3:37:57
HENDERSON: These are built by the Romans. They were incredible engineers. You can still see the artificial construction of this very clearly. You can see the brickwork, overlapping bricks. Amazing!
3:38:16
<i> NARRATOR: Beyond the port walls lie magnificent villas</i> <i> where Roman emperors host lavish parties.</i> HENDERSON: Look at this. This is a mosaic floor of one of the bath houses. Looks like it was just done yesterday. It's phenomenal! Absolutely amazing!
3:38:41
This is called the nymphaeum. It's actually an elaborate dining room for the Emperor Claudius. You can imagine people eating food surrounded by these water nymphs. It was built to entertain the emperor's most honored guests.
3:38:58
Well, one of the things I'm interested in is actually the scale of the site. Much of the focus has been on the resort area of Baiae itself. But on the margins of the site there are constantly new areas coming up. (music) That's it, slow it down.
3:39:19
There's a lot down there.
3:39:23
<i> NARRATOR: So why did the Romans lavish so much wealth</i> <i> on building a pleasure city here?</i> HENDERSON: The Romans came to Baiae because of the lovely maritime climate and the thermal springs. But Baiae was also a very important port, it's a natural port, it's one of the best ports on the western coast of Italy at the time. <i> NARRATOR: Wealth brought pleasure and excess</i> <i> to this Las Vegas of the Roman world.</i> HENDERSON: There were parties, there was drinking,
3:39:54
it was a place to get prostitutes, and writers at the time referred to it as 'a harbor of vice' or 'a vortex of luxury.' <i> NARRATOR: The famous Roman philosopher Seneca</i> <i> is appalled by what he finds.</i> SENECA: Baiae is a place to be avoided. People wandering drunk along the beach, the riotous reveling of sailing parties, the lakes noisy with singing. <i> NARRATOR: But time is running out for this party town.</i>
3:40:30
<i> Gradually many of its most impressive public buildings</i> <i> and private villas are lost beneath the waves.</i>
3:40:41
<i> What happened?</i> <i> Based on detailed sonar scanning,</i> <i> draining away the Mediterranean begins to reveal the real story</i> <i> of the rise and fall of Baiae.</i> <i> It exposes just how much of the city fell under the waves.</i> <i> 430 acres of streets, shops,</i> <i> warehouses, and luxury villas.</i>
3:41:11
<i> Draining beyond the town uncovers the reason--</i> <i> an extraordinary landscape,</i> <i> shaped by powerful underground forces.</i> <i> The whole town sits inside the shallow crater</i> <i> of a giant volcano.</i> HENDERSON: You hear about Naples, people talk about Vesuvius, they don't seem to realize that the whole western Bay of Naples itself is a massive volcano. We're actually standing in a volcano now. <i> NARRATOR: The people of Baiae may not understand</i>
3:41:47
<i> the unpredictable forces stirring beneath them.</i> DOUGAL JERRAM: And we know we're sat on a volcano. But it's not your normal volcano. It's this much larger and much more complex volcanic system. <i> NARRATOR: There's remarkable evidence of its restless power</i> <i> three miles away, across the bay in the Temple of Serapis.</i>
3:42:13
JERRAM: It's really when you get into the Roman ruins that you can see what's going on. You have to look closely, though. If you look up at the column behind me, you'll see in the middle part it's got this strange texture to it. Lots and lots of holes in it. There's even bits of shell on this. This is a stone-boring marine mollusk. That tells me that this stuff has been under the sea. Time enough for those mollusks to get to grips with the columns. But look now, these columns are in place,
3:42:41
and look where those marker horizons are now. That's like a tide on the side of a bath telling you where the sea level was. So we know that this has been dropped under the sea, and it's now risen above. <i> NARRATOR: Can draining the waters of the bay</i> <i> even further explain why this ancient landscape</i> <i> is constantly rising and falling,</i> <i> and finally show why the Romans lost their Sin City?</i>
3:43:16
<i> NARRATOR: Baiae, once a major Roman port,</i> <i> lies half-submerged amid a volcanic landscape.</i> (music) <i> Jon Henderson has been exploring the area</i> <i> beneath the waves,</i> <i> and he finds a telltale sign of the power at work here.</i> HENDERSON: So we've got all these bubbles are coming out of the ground, all this hot air coming up from the seabed.
3:43:52
You really get a sense here of the power that's underneath, waiting to burst out. Hot water piling out of the ground under the sea.
3:44:04
I've never seen anything like this. <i> NARRATOR: These underwater vents are superheated</i> <i> by molten rock from the volcano below,</i> <i> evidence that the forces stirring under Baiae</i> <i> are highly active.</i> <i> Locals call the area Campi Flegri,</i> <i> the Fields of Fire.</i> <i> Now, for the first time, draining the water</i> <i> from the entire bay exposes an extraordinary site.</i> <i> 24 separate volcanoes nesting inside the crater.</i>
3:44:43
<i> It spans an incredible 38 square miles.</i>
3:44:49
<i> But geologists here have been mapping</i> <i> deep inside the Earth itself.</i> <i> Now, draining not only the Mediterranean,</i> <i> but looking deep into the layers of rock below it,</i> <i> reveals a fantastical sight.</i> <i> Giant cauldrons of superheated molten rock,</i> <i> known as a magma chambers,</i> <i> that slowly empty and fill over centuries.</i> <i> Evidence that this huge volcanic system</i> <i> is still very much alive.</i>
3:45:23
HENDERSON: Basically you've got magma chambers sitting under the sea, which operate almost like bellows. When they fill full of lava, the ground goes up, and then when they empty again the ground goes down, and this process is going on constantly. <i> NARRATOR: It's as if the land within the Campi Flegri crater</i> <i> itself is breathing.</i>
3:45:44
SCOTT: You feel like you're standing on some kind of giant's chest. You feel minute compared to the giant tectonic forces that are creating the world around you. <i> NARRATOR: The damage caused</i> <i> by these breathing chambers of magma</i> <i> coincides with the decline of the Roman Empire.</i> <i> As part of the city slides beneath the Mediterranean,</i> <i> the population shrinks and the parties end;</i> <i> Sin City is no more.</i>
3:46:21
<i> Today, the scientists studying the landscape here</i> <i> believe that pressures in the magma chambers</i> <i> are increasing once again,</i> <i> and that could have catastrophic consequences</i> <i> for the millions of people living close by.</i> JERRAM: We know it's an active system. So one of the interesting problems we have with something the size of Campi Flegri is, is it going to erupt big or is it going to erupt small? <i> NARRATOR: Big could mean very big.</i>
3:46:54
<i> In AD 79, nearby Vesuvius erupts.</i> <i> It destroys the city of Pompeii.</i> <i> Thousands of people burn to death or choke on volcanic ash.</i>
3:47:11
<i> But scientists know the volcanic system</i> <i> feeding the Fields of Fire is far larger</i> <i> and far more powerful than Vesuvius.</i> <i> And with so many people living nearby,</i> <i> it's vital to keep a close eye</i> <i> on the breathing giant beneath them.</i> JERRAM: It's even more critical that we monitor volcanoes like this, and that's because we're verging on the side of what we call a supervolcano. <i> NARRATOR: Even the smallest changes in the ground level,</i>
3:47:43
<i> or its temperature, could be a vital warning sign</i> <i> that the unstoppable forces of nature are about to turn ugly.</i>
3:47:53
JERRAM: If we had an eruption where these multiple craters evacuated, it would be devastating. It would essentially flatten this area. <i> NARRATOR: The eruption could be almost ten times more powerful</i> <i> than the one at Santorini that shattered the Minoan world.</i> (music) <i> Vast amounts of volcanic material</i> <i> would be ejected into the atmosphere,</i> <i> blocking out the sunlight.</i> <i> Global temperatures would plummet</i> <i> with devastating consequences.</i>
3:48:37
<i> New scanning technology reveals remarkable evidence</i> <i> lying hidden beneath the waters of the Mediterranean.</i> <i> The raw forces of nature</i> <i> still shaping this volcanic landscape.</i>
3:48:52
<i> Priceless evidence of the trade that drove the ancient world,</i> <i> and an epic battle that changed the course of history.</i>
3:49:14
<i> NARRATOR: Where emperors reign.</i> <i> And gladiators entertain.</i> <i>Site of luxury, excess and the ever-present danger of the mob.</i>
3:49:28
<i> For five centuries, Rome dominates the western world,</i> <i>but the real secret of the empire's power lies elsewhere,</i> <i> beneath the seas it once commanded.</i> JON: Without the sea and without controlling the trade routes of the sea, there would have been no empire.
3:49:47
<i> NARRATOR: Imagine if we could empty the oceans,</i> <i> letting the water drain away,</i> <i> to reveal the secrets of the seafloor.</i>
3:49:58
<i> Now, we can.</i> <i> Using accurate data and astonishing technology to</i> <i> bring light once again to a lost world.</i>
3:50:14
<i> This time, how does a mysterious lake,</i> <i> miles from the city,</i> <i> explain Rome's mastery of the Mediterranean.</i>
3:50:23
PETER: It was built on a scale unlike anything else, only the Roman emperors were this ambitious. <i> NARRATOR: What can a maritime graveyard unearthed in an</i> <i> Italian field tell us of Rome's one great weakness?</i>
3:50:38
<i> And how does a lost marvel on a distant Mediterranean shore</i> <i> explain Rome's greatest ever feat of engineering.</i>
3:50:47
BEVERLY: The Romans took technology to a whole 'nother level.
3:50:52
(theme music plays),
3:51:05
<i> NARRATOR: When the great historian, Livy,</i> <i> sets out to write the story of his city,</i>
3:51:13
<i> he knows it all comes down to location.</i>
3:51:21
LIVY: Gods and men together chose this place.
3:51:25
Hills with pure air.
3:51:29
A convenient river. A sea, handy for our needs. All these advantages marked us out for glory.
3:51:43
<i> NARRATOR: Rome is the world's first superpower,</i> <i>but it doesn't start that way.</i>
3:51:52
<i> Over the course of 500 years,</i> <i> it grows from a fortified settlement</i> <i> to a powerful republic and finally,</i> <i> an empire.</i> <i> Demanding the allegiance of over 16 million people,</i> <i> from Britain in the north, down the coast of Africa</i> <i> and into the Middle East.</i>
3:52:15
<i> Rome's power rests on the unrivalled might of its army.</i>
3:52:21
<i> And engineering skills that astonish its rivals.</i> <i> But that's not all.</i> JON: So everyone thinks they know the story of the Roman Empire, it's a story of legions and of roads and of building massive structures. But the key really was control of the sea.
3:52:40
<i> NARRATOR: Controlling the seas is essential,</i> <i> because Rome struggles to feed its people.</i> <i> By the first century AD, the population of the capital</i> <i> swells to one million.</i>
3:52:54
<i> The largest city the world has ever seen.</i>
3:53:02
<i> And if those people go hungry, they riot.</i>
3:53:10
JON: What Rome is dependent on, obtaining about 150 to 300 million tons of grain annually to keep the population fed, if you were an emperor, you wanted to be seen as someone who was providing for the population. So really, without that grain coming in, they couldn't hold on to power. <i> NARRATOR: How the emperors managed this has long puzzled historians.</i>
3:53:34
<i> But now, buried underground and miles inland,</i> <i> an extraordinary discovery could unlock the mystery.</i>
3:53:45
<i>Rome's challenge isn't shipping grain from the Empire.</i>
3:53:50
<i> It's getting it to the city itself.</i>
3:53:56
<i> 15 miles from the sea.</i>
3:54:01
<i> There must have been a huge port somewhere on the coast,</i> <i>or inland, up the River Tiber.</i>
3:54:08
<i> But its whereabouts are a mystery.</i>
3:54:17
<i>Today, international teams are trying to piece together the</i> <i> puzzle of the lost port.</i>
3:54:24
<i>Archaeologist, Peter Campbell, is determined to discovery how</i> <i> Rome handled its biggest problem.</i> PETER: Feeding nearly a million people would have been an incredible task. The ability to get that material from around the Mediterranean up to the city took just an incredible amount of human willpower and labor.
3:54:47
SIMON: You need anchorage space, you need harbor facilities. <i> NARRATOR: Simon Kay leads a group of experts</i> <i> who are studying the lost port.</i> SIMON: You need the infrastructure to support them and you need the administrative framework indeed, to enable them to function.
3:55:08
<i> NARRATOR: Clues, first unearthed over a century ago,</i> <i> are tantalizing.</i> SIMON: The early sources are very very important. They saw things, they recorded them.
3:55:21
<i>NARRATOR: Historical texts refer to a port without equal.</i> <i> Somewhere on the coast, near the mouth of the Tiber.</i>
3:55:31
<i> Established by the Emperor Claudius by 46 AD.</i> <i> And extended by the Emperor Trajan, over 60 years later.</i>
3:55:43
<i> The Romans call it Portus.</i> <i> A single carved relief,</i> <i> dating from the late second century AD</i> <i> hints at its magnificence.</i> <i> But gives no sense of its true scale, or how it worked.</i>
3:56:04
<i> Other sources speak of a hexagonal basin at the center</i> <i> of a vast complex, called the Portus Traiani.</i>
3:56:14
<i> Could evidence of it still survive, 2,000 years later?</i>
3:56:23
<i> Simon is convinced that it does,</i> <i>about 15 miles south of Rome, where he's come to investigate</i> <i> strange ruins and a mysterious lake.</i>
3:56:36
<i> It has six clearly defined sites and looks manmade.</i>
3:56:42
<i> It covers almost 80 acres,</i> <i> as large as 13 Roman coliseums joined together.</i>
3:56:50
<i> But there's a problem.</i> <i> It's two miles from the Mediterranean coast.</i> <i>Could the heart of the legendary Portus lie so far in land.</i>
3:57:03
<i> And where is the rest of it?</i> SIMON: So little is known about the layout of the ancient port. It's very, very hard to understand how it all fits together.
3:57:18
<i> NARRATOR: Archaeologists survey close to the lake.</i> MAN: Through here, then you just get in the different phases, running down through there. <i> NARRATOR: Probing beneath the surface for any evidence.</i>
3:57:34
MAN: About a meter, a meter and a half or so, four meters you start hitting the water table.
3:57:43
<i> NARRATOR: Combining discoveries made here during</i> <i> past construction work.</i>
3:57:50
<i> And these new archaeological investigations.</i>
3:57:56
<i> It's now possible to produce a new window into the past.</i>
3:58:03
<i> The mud and silt of 2,000 years drains away.</i>
3:58:10
<i> And six feet below the surface,</i> <i> buried archaeological treasure.</i>
3:58:18
<i> The remains, not of a port.</i>
3:58:24
<i> But something that might have used it.</i>
3:58:28
<i> A boat.</i> <i> From this field, two miles from the coast,</i> <i> four other vessels emerge into the light.</i>
3:58:39
<i> It's an extraordinary discovery.</i>
3:58:47
<i> The archaeologists pour over the evidence.</i> <i> And realize they are some of the most complete</i> <i> Roman vessels ever discovered.</i> <i> It's even possible to date one of them.</i> PETER: Based on the construction features, we can estimate that it dates to the second century AD.
3:59:08
<i> NARRATOR: In the second century,</i> <i> the Roman Empire is at its height.</i> <i> If it ever needed a truly grand port,</i> <i> this is the moment.</i>
3:59:21
<i> But if these beautifully preserved boats used this port,</i> <i> why are they so far inland?</i>
3:59:32
<i> Peter Campbell finds more evidence.</i>
3:59:36
<i> Not far from the wooden boats,</i> <i> the remains of what looks like a long, low wall.</i>
3:59:44
<i> And it's definitely Roman.</i>
3:59:54
<i> More surveys reveal this is just one section of an early</i> <i> 6,000 foot long structure.</i> <i> Now, mostly hidden beneath the ground.</i>
4:00:07
<i> Further archaeological work unearths a second wall,</i> <i> curling back towards the first.</i>
4:00:16
<i> And deposits on the walls give a further clue.</i>
4:00:22
PETER: If you walk along the structure, you can actually see calcium deposits at a certain level and it creates this white line along the length of it and those are actually marine concretions.
4:00:32
<i> NARRATOR: Marine concretions are sediments that cling to</i> <i> structures at seawater level, leaving a white mark.</i>
4:00:41
<i> This whole area, close to the hexagonal basin,</i> <i> was once under water.</i>
4:00:50
<i>It's another astonishing find.</i>
4:00:58
<i> In Roman days, this is where the coast was.</i> <i>And the curving structures make up a huge protective harbor.</i>
4:01:08
<i> This must be Portus.</i>
4:01:14
<i> But one big question remains.</i>
4:01:19
<i> The city is 15 miles further inland.</i>
4:01:25
<i> Connected to the sea by the River Tiber and the mouth of</i> <i> the river is nearly two miles from Portus.</i>
4:01:35
<i> So how did food ever get to Rome?</i>
4:01:44
<i> NARRATOR: The architects who designed Portus faced one key</i> <i> challenge, feeding Rome's million strong population.</i>
4:01:53
<i>So how does the harbor connect to the city, 15 miles away?</i>
4:01:59
<i> Moving huge volumes of cargo by existing roads</i> <i> would have been costly.</i>
4:02:07
<i> And the most obvious route to Rome, the River Tiber,</i> <i> is too shallow for merchant vessels.</i>
4:02:18
<i> Studying the ancient boats dug up nearby,</i> <i> Peter Campbell finds an important clue.</i>
4:02:30
PETER: Rather than having a V shape, as you would have with a seagoing ship, this actually has a relatively flat bottom, which would have allowed it to travel in much shallower waters. It was used within the harbor and up the Tiber.
4:02:43
This vessel's an important piece of the puzzle in the network that connected the ocean to the city.
4:02:51
<i> NARRATOR: The harbor lies more than a mile from the banks of the Tiber.</i>
4:02:56
<i> How could a cargo carrying vessel reach the river?</i>
4:03:02
<i> Peter consults the archaeological surveys.</i> <i>And spots a set of parallel lines near the hexagonal basin.</i>
4:03:12
<i> They look like the remains of a manmade channel.</i>
4:03:18
<i> The data reveals a major canal system connected</i> <i> Portus Harbor to the Tiber.</i>
4:03:28
<i> An astonishing feat of Roman engineering.</i>
4:03:34
PETER: If you look at the landscape of the river today, there's the main channel that we're in right now. But in the past, there would have been multiple other canals, and we've only recently discovered those others through geoarchaeology.
4:03:51
<i> NARRATOR: The archaeologists now understand the full scale</i> <i> of the Portus complex and how it connects to Rome.</i>
4:03:59
<i> But there is still a mystery.</i> <i> At the heart of the port, beyond the vast main harbor,</i> <i> lies the huge enclosed hexagonal basin.</i> <i> Apparently, unique in the ancient world.</i> <i> But what was it for?</i>
4:04:18
<i> Today, from the surface, it seems like an ordinary lake.</i> <i> But by using the latest computer visualization</i> <i> techniques, we can look deeper.</i>
4:04:35
<i> As the water seeps away, it exposes,</i> <i> not the muddy banks of a natural lake,</i> <i> but a crumbling brick wall.</i>
4:04:46
<i> Similar walls support the other sides of the hexagon</i> <i> and then something startling.</i>
4:04:55
<i> A white block, with a hole through the center.</i> <i> One of dozens protruding from the brickwork.</i> <i> Close by, the remains of a column.</i>
4:05:09
<i> And just visible on it, Roman symbols for the number 23.</i>
4:05:22
<i>Can ruins scattered nearby help reveal the hexagon's purpose?</i>
4:05:28
<i> Simon Keay thinks so.</i>
4:05:33
<i> To his expert eye, they are Roman and important.</i>
4:05:41
SIMON: I'm currently standing on one of the largest surviving buildings from Portus. <i> NARRATOR: The thick walls, large enclosed space and a</i> <i> wide opening all point to one thing.</i>
4:05:54
<i> These are warehouses.</i> <i> Warehouses designed to store the most important commodity</i> <i> in the Roman Empire, grain for the people of Rome.</i> SIMON: They are the largest place of grain storage in the whole Portus complex, making them the largest grain warehouses in the Roman Empire.
4:06:19
<i> NARRATOR: It's now clear what the drained hexagonal lake is for.</i>
4:06:27
<i> Mooring rings for ships to unload,</i> <i> a broad quayside surrounding the lake.</i>
4:06:35
<i> And the numbered column docking station,</i> <i> one of dozens in the whole complex.</i> <i> The hexagon is the heart of Portus.</i>
4:06:47
<i> A purpose built facility to manage dozens of cargo ships at a time.</i>
4:06:55
<i>Decades of archaeological work haven't simply found some</i> <i> ancient docks and warehouse.</i> <i>They've uncovered the secret to the success of Rome itself,</i> <i> allowing us to understand exactly how the emperors</i> <i> fed a million people.</i>
4:07:14
<i> Now, for the first time in almost two millennia,</i> <i>the true scale and brilliance of Portus is revealed in full.</i>
4:07:26
<i> Approaching ships arrive at the outer harbor.</i> <i> Some moor here.</i>
4:07:35
<i> Others head further into the port.</i> <i> To dock at numbered mooring rings.</i>
4:07:48
<i> The great basin can hold over 100 vessels.</i>
4:07:56
<i> Surrounding them, another engineering marvel and a hint</i> <i> of the majesty of Rome.</i>
4:08:06
<i> Not only warehouses and harbor offices,</i> <i> but giant temples and statues too.</i>
4:08:15
<i> The sheer volume of goods passing through Portus is</i> <i> beyond anything the world has ever seen.</i>
4:08:24
<i>While a host of smaller barges wait to ferry cargo through</i> <i> the canals, to the river Tiber and onto Rome.</i>
4:08:34
<i> The hexagonal basin at Portus is the final crucial link in</i> <i> the supply chain from the Empire to Rome itself.</i>
4:08:47
<i> The ultimate symbol of Rome's mastery of the seas.</i>
4:08:53
JON: In Portus, we're seeing the Roman Empire at its height, we're seeing the first and second centuries AD, they're building a massive port. And it's the most advanced, it's the most monumental, it's the most spectacular port and it's actually making a statement about Rome.
4:09:08
<i> NARRATOR: Vessels from across the Empire flock</i> <i> to this engineering marvel.</i> <i> Can the surprising cargo of one ship destined for Portus</i> <i>explain how Rome survives one of its greatest ever disasters?</i>
4:09:30
<i> NARRATOR: The Mediterranean,</i> <i> superhighway of the Roman Empire.</i>
4:09:36
<i> For five centuries, it's crisscrossed by merchant</i> <i> ships, many carrying grain to Portus.</i>
4:09:46
<i>Very few have ever been found.</i>
4:09:51
<i> But off the coast of Spain, near the city of Alicante,</i> <i> an ancient shipwreck is discovered by two amateur</i> <i> divers, Jose Bou and Antoine Ferrer.</i>
4:10:05
<i>Maritime archaeologists name it after them, the Bou Ferrer.</i>
4:10:13
<i> When Carols De Juan hears about it,</i> <i> he sets out to discover more.</i>
4:10:25
CARLOS: We have seen everything, so a sea break from Roman period, right underneath where we are right now.
4:10:33
It is absolutely emotional. Emotional moment.
4:10:40
And I felt that it was the beginning of something.
4:10:52
<i> NARRATOR: 80 feet below the surface,</i> <i> something rare and precious.</i>
4:10:59
<i> The bones of the Bou Ferrer and the remains of her cargo.</i>
4:11:05
<i> Carlos thinks its Roman, but is he right?</i>
4:11:10
<i> And what was she carrying?</i>
4:11:21
<i> The Mediterranean empties.</i>
4:11:27
<i> And light pours once again onto this ancient and</i> <i> mysterious ship.</i>
4:11:34
<i> Spread across the seafloor, a mountain of amphorae,</i> <i>many completely intact, despite lying at the bottom of</i> <i> the Mediterranean for many centuries.</i>
4:11:48
<i> The storage jars are used to carry food,</i> <i> oil and wine in the ancient world.</i>
4:11:57
<i> Clear evidence that this is a Roman wreck.</i>
4:12:04
<i> The sheer number of amphorae suggests she was an unusually</i> <i> large cargo ship, but little of her frame remains.</i>
4:12:14
<i> Just a few timbers from the hull have survived the ravages of time.</i>
4:12:23
CARLOS: It is a great opportunity for the archaeology to learn more about those big vessels, those merchant vessels of Roman period.
4:12:36
<i> NARRATOR: The fully drained remains reveal a shape that's</i> <i> typical of a Roman merchant ship,</i> <i> but much bigger than most.</i>
4:12:50
<i> Pulling her skeleton together from the bottom of the sea,</i> <i> we can recreate the Bou Ferrer as she was</i> <i> on the day she sank.</i>
4:13:02
<i> 30 feet wide and almost 100 feet long,</i> <i> she's larger than a tennis court.</i>
4:13:12
<i> Capable of carrying over 200 tons of cargo.</i>
4:13:22
CARLOS: We have other questions, so we have to investigate inside of the shipwreck.
4:13:33
<i> NARRATOR: So little remains of the ship.</i>
4:13:37
<i> Carlos must look to the cargo, to learn more.</i>
4:13:44
<i> The team raise some of the jars to the surface.</i>
4:13:57
<i>Each weighs nearly 140 pounds.</i>
4:14:08
<i> On land, they're handled delicately and examined</i> <i> in minute detail.</i>
4:14:26
CARLOS: We have set to discover some pottery fragments that have a waterproof resin inside.
4:14:35
<i> NARRATOR: Waterproof resin is a key clue.</i> <i> It means the amphorae carried liquid.</i> <i> And in some of them, ancient sediment from that liquid</i> <i> reveals something else.</i>
4:14:51
<i> Fish bones.</i> <i> The amphorae carry one of the most popular products of the</i> <i> Roman economy, the super food of the ancient world.</i>
4:15:04
<i> Fish sauce, known as garum.</i>
4:15:09
JON: Well, garum, or fish sauce is basically a condiment that you would add to food to enhance its flavor, as you would today, as you would do with soy sauce, or something like that.
4:15:19
And that's because Roman food really was a bit bland. <i> NARRATOR: And this is before they had tomatoes,</i> <i> before they had pizza, before they had, you know,</i> <i> the things we think of in terms of Italian food.</i>
4:15:31
<i> So the Bou Ferrer was carrying fish sauce.</i> <i> But where had it come from?</i>
4:15:41
<i> The shape of the amphorae gives Carlos a clue.</i>
4:15:46
CARLOS: We knew that that kind of amphoras are related to the fisheries from the South of Spain.
4:15:58
<i> NARRATOR: But where was the Bou Ferrer taking them?</i>
4:16:03
<i>Returning to the drained wreck and removing layers of the</i> <i> amphorae reveals further evidence.</i>
4:16:14
<i> A secret cargo hidden for centuries.</i>
4:16:19
<i> On either side of the keel, strange metal ingots.</i>
4:16:33
<i> The team prizes 22 of them from the wreck.</i>
4:16:47
<i> Each weighs 140 pounds.</i>
4:17:01
<i> In the laboratory, careful examination of the ingots</i> <i> reveals something unexpected.</i>
4:17:09
<i> The hidden cargo is not gold, or silver, it's lead.</i>
4:17:17
<i> And there's something else.</i>
4:17:22
<i> All the ingots found on Bou Ferrer are stamped with the letters, IMP.</i>
4:17:32
<i> It's the mark of the Imperator,</i> <i> the Latin word for emperor.</i>
4:17:40
CARLOS: Those marks are telling us that this ingots belongs to the emperor and that was like, "Wow."
4:17:50
That was just the moment where the Bou Ferrer changed from such a large big Roman vessel, to something absolutely different. A vessel that has been able to link in the story of Rome. <i>NARRATOR: The Bou Ferrer isn't just another cargo ship.</i> <i>It's taking at least a ton of metal to the most powerful man</i> <i> in the world.</i> <i> So which emperor could it be destined for and why does he</i> <i> need a boatload of lead?</i>
4:18:29
<i> NARRATOR: Off the coast of Spain,</i> <i> a remarkable Roman shipwreck, called the Bou Ferrer,</i> <i> conceals a secret cargo.</i>
4:18:38
<i> A fortune in lead,</i> <i> possibly destined for the emperor of Rome himself.</i>
4:18:47
<i> The drained wreck holds clues that could reveal which emperor.</i>
4:18:54
<i> Hidden amongst the amphorae are two weathered coins.</i>
4:19:10
<i> The coins are made of bronze.</i>
4:19:15
<i> On one side, a faint image.</i> <i> Almost invisible marks prove the coins were stamped around</i> <i> AD 66, during the reign of one of the most infamous</i> <i> emperors of them all.</i>
4:19:33
<i> Nero.</i>
4:19:40
<i>The information from the coins allows Carlos to do something</i> <i> even more remarkable.</i>
4:19:48
<i> Date the sinking of the Bou Ferrer to the time of one of</i> <i> Rome's greatest disasters.</i>
4:19:59
<i> In 64 AD, an inferno ravages the city for six days.</i>
4:20:05
<i> According to legend, Nero plays his fiddle,</i> <i> while his capital burns.</i>
4:20:14
<i> Whether that's true or not, the huge damage gives him the</i> <i> chance to rebuild the city in his own image.</i> JON: The great fire of Rome destroyed about two thirds of the city and there was a massive rebuilding campaign in the years that followed and they obviously, needed the raw materials to do that. Lead was a very important part of that.
4:20:33
<i>NARRATOR: Lead lines pipes, in all kinds of Roman plumbing.</i> <i> Like the luxurious bathhouses enjoyed by the wealthy elite.</i>
4:20:44
<i> Carlos believes the emperor's mark is evidence that this</i> <i> cargo is destined for Nero's very own palace,</i> <i> the lavish Domus Aurea, the Golden House.</i>
4:21:05
<i> This means the ingots belonged to Nero himself.</i>
4:21:11
<i> And the Bou Ferrer is sailing for Portus.</i>
4:21:16
<i> So she likely sinks before Nero's death in 68AD.</i>
4:21:27
<i> But there's one final question.</i>
4:21:31
<i> Why did the Bou Ferrer and her imperial cargo</i> <i> fail to make it to Portus?</i>
4:21:41
<i> The drained wreck offers some clues.</i>
4:21:45
<i> The amphorae are off center,</i> <i> they've shifted towards the port side.</i> <i> Such a heavy cargo would never be loaded like this.</i>
4:21:57
<i> So what could cause some 5,000 amphorae to move?</i>
4:22:10
<i> Carlos believes that the Bou Ferrer runs into a storm.</i>
4:22:16
<i>A large wave strikes the hull, causing the cargo to shift,</i>
4:22:23
<i> the vessel to list to her port side,</i> <i> making her impossible to steer.</i>
4:22:31
<i> And allowing more waves to come over her decks</i> <i> and slowly fill her hold.</i>
4:22:40
CARLOS: And there you are done, it's a matter of time, maybe 20 minutes, maybe one hour, but you are done.
4:22:59
<i> NARRATOR: As Rome masters the seas,</i> <i> ships like Bou Ferrer are the Empire's lifeblood,</i> <i> carrying precious metals, slaves and especially grain,</i> <i>to and from Portus and harbors all across the Mediterranean.</i>
4:23:15
<i> Spreading the power and influence of Rome.</i>
4:23:20
<i> Including a strategic base in modern day Israel,</i> <i> what the Romans called Judea.</i> <i> Its capital, Caesarea Maritima,</i> <i> stands at the crossroads of Africa and Asia.</i>
4:23:35
<i> To the Romans, it's the gateway to the riches of the</i> <i> East, an important source of grain and exotic spices.</i>
4:23:45
<i> Transporting these treasures to Rome requires a harbor.</i>
4:23:51
<i> But there are major problems.</i> <i> No natural inlets protect from waves.</i>
4:23:59
<i>A sandy coastline offers no solid footing for building and</i> <i> there's a constant threat of earthquakes.</i>
4:24:10
<i> But according to historical records,</i> <i> two decades before the birth of Jesus,</i> <i> Roman engineers defy nature here.</i>
4:24:20
<i> They construct a grand offshore harbor,</i> <i> transforming Caesarea into a wealthy trade hub.</i>
4:24:28
<i> It's a remarkable feat of engineering, yet today,</i> <i> it's nowhere to be seen.</i>
4:24:39
<i> For decades, investigators</i> <i> like National Geographic explorer Beverly Goodman,</i> <i> have been trying to find evidence.</i>
4:24:50
BEVERLY: We have a pretty good idea of what the harbor might have looked like, because the historian, Flavius Josephus, left us a record.
4:24:59
The entrance of the harbor had towers and statues.
4:25:03
You can kind of picture it being this monumental harbor, comparable to something you would see in Rome.
4:25:11
<i> NARRATOR: But over the centuries,</i> <i> the harbor disappears.</i>
4:25:18
<i> Only traces of this great Roman outpost remain,</i> <i> scattered on dry land.</i>
4:25:26
<i> As for what's left of the harbor itself,</i> <i>the focus of Beverly's investigation must be offshore.</i>
4:25:37
<i>What she finds underwater is promising, but far from clear.</i>
4:25:43
BEVERLY: There's a lot of uncertainty about which parts of the harbor are natural and which of them are the artificial features.
4:25:51
<i> NARRATOR: There are shapes that could be natural or manmade.</i>
4:25:57
<i>Meticulous investigation reveals they're resting on sand.</i>
4:26:04
<i> There's no natural bedrock underneath.</i>
4:26:09
<i> It's a sure sign they're all manmade and could be</i> <i> part of the lost harbor.</i> BEVERLY: Everything that you look at, you realize it was put there, it was placed there and then you start to think about that, you start to really understand the scale of what this place was like.
4:26:30
<i>NARRATOR: To work out the size and orientation of the ancient</i> <i> harbor, the team must first create a comprehensive</i> <i> sonar map of the seafloor.</i>
4:26:42
BEVERLY: So this kind of survey is getting our baseline maps, our basic information, that from that, we can go and find targets.
4:26:52
<i> NARRATOR: Combining years of diving surveys with these</i> <i> latest scans, it's possible to drain the waters from the</i> <i> Eastern Mediterranean and expose what's left of the</i> <i> ancient harbor of Caesarea Maritima,</i>
4:27:09
<i> for the first time in almost 2,000 years.</i>
4:27:15
<i> As the water recedes, it lays bare a strangely shaped</i> <i> structure on the seafloor.</i> <i> This long jagged mass of rock resembling a natural reef</i> <i> stretches into the empty basin.</i>
4:27:33
<i> Opposite, another wider mass reaches out,</i> <i> almost a third of a mile.</i>
4:27:43
<i>These are the remains of the breakwaters of a massive port,</i> <i> that spanned over 40 acres,</i> <i> the harbor of Caesarea Maritima.</i>
4:27:57
<i> So how did the Romans build something so monumental on</i> <i> nothing more than sand?</i>
4:28:08
<i> NARRATOR: Over 2,000 years ago in Judea,</i> <i> Romans perform an engineering miracle at a place called</i> <i> Caesarea Maritima.</i>
4:28:22
<i> They construct the largest artificial harbor in the</i> <i> ancient world.</i>
4:28:29
<i> Revealed for the first time in centuries,</i> <i> the foundations of the huge harbor walls had to be built</i> <i> on shifting sand.</i> <i> It seems an impossible task.</i>
4:28:44
<i> Beverly Goodman has come to the site of the ancient harbor,</i> <i> to take samples from its underwater remains.</i>
4:28:59
<i> The team insert a pipe deep into the seafloor.</i> <i> To draw up traces from the past.</i>
4:29:12
(mechanical clicking).
4:29:20
BEVERLY: So, we managed to get a core in very deep. Next up, is to open it, see what we have inside, see what surprises wait for us.
4:29:33
Oh good. Alright, we got quite a few changes we need to log here and take a look at.
4:29:42
Wow, this is kind of surprising, I didn't think it was gonna have quite so much variation.
4:29:48
On the upper part of the core, we have this natural sediment. We really have this period where the site is nearly abandoned for many, many years. Then as we go down the core and we start to get periods where there's actually people around, we start to see more pottery, we start to see rubble, we start to see changes that relate to the fact that people were there and they were influencing the environment, they were building. <i> NARRATOR: The sediment layer from the time of the harbor</i>
4:30:14
<i> reveals a clue.</i>
4:30:20
<i> The rubble contains an unusual mineral.</i>
4:30:25
<i> A particular type of volcanic ash, called pozzolana.</i>
4:30:31
<i> It's not natural to this region.</i> <i> The source is over 1,000 miles to the west,</i> <i> the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Italy.</i>
4:30:47
<i> Why bring pozzolana all this way?</i>
4:30:54
<i>The reason still lies on the seafloor of Caesarea Maritima.</i>
4:31:02
<i> Traces of a revolutionary Roman invention.</i>
4:31:06
<i> A new kind of concrete.</i>
4:31:12
BEVERLY: We could actually see those elements of the concrete and know that this is the fingerprint of the presence of the Romans.
4:31:21
<i> NARRATOR: Historical records reveal that Roman engineers</i> <i> ferry tons of pozzolana to Caesarea.</i> BEVERLY: To imagine that they are shipping across the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago, essentially barges that have volcanic ash coming from Italy, all the way across the Mediterranean to the Eastern Mediterranean is really something phenomenal.
4:31:43
<i> NARRATOR: The Romans use concrete to build on land,</i> <i> throughout their Empire, but then they realize that by</i> <i> adding the pozzolana ash to their concrete mix,</i> <i> they can use it underwater too.</i> JON: So they're bringing this volcanic ash in, then mixing it with the stone rubble and the lime to create concrete, but it only hardens when you pour water on it. So if you take it into the sea, once it hits the water, it hardens.
4:32:10
<i> NARRATOR: It's known as hydraulic concrete.</i> <i> And it's a huge milestone in the history of construction.</i>
4:32:22
<i>For years, how the Romans used this modern building material</i> <i> to create this harbor remains a mystery.</i>
4:32:33
<i> But finds on the seabed provide a clue.</i>
4:32:39
BEVERLY: So one of the findings in Caesarea is preserved wood, wood from 2,000 years ago that was used to create the framework for them to pour the concrete, to create these large structures of the harbor.
4:32:53
<i>NARRATOR: 2,000 years ago, the Romans work with concrete,</i> <i> just like we do today.</i>
4:33:02
<i> They build wooden structures, known as caissons, that hold</i> <i> liquid concrete in place and then drop them into the sea.</i>
4:33:12
<i> Flooded with seawater, the mixture solidifies,</i> <i> creating solid concrete blocks.</i> <i> Manmade bedrock, on which to build the first artificial</i> <i> harbor in the world.</i>
4:33:32
<i> We now know how Caesarea Maritima was constructed.</i>
4:33:38
<i> But there's one mystery left.</i> <i> Contemporary accounts suggest the harbor disappears,</i> <i> barely a century after its construction.</i>
4:33:52
<i> Amongst the drained ruins,</i> <i> there's a clue to what happened.</i>
4:33:59
<i> All the elements of the harbor still remain,</i> <i> but they lie shattered on the seafloor.</i>
4:34:16
<i> So what might have led to the collapse of the harbor?</i>
4:34:23
<i> In the core samples,</i> <i>layers of sediment from after the construction of the harbor,</i> <i>help build a picture of events.</i> BEVERLY: When we find these layers and when we see it's not like the deposits that are above or below it, so we can see that it's in fact an isolated incident.
4:34:44
<i>NARRATOR: These layers suggest that something cataclysmic</i> <i> churned up the sediment.</i>
4:34:50
BEVERLY: There is a reference that talks about a possible tsunami in the year 115 AD.
4:35:04
Maybe that's the event, maybe not, it does coincide nicely with the finds that we have and the ages that we see. <i>NARRATOR: It seems likely that this great artificial harbor</i> <i> is reduced to a fraction of its former glory,</i> <i>just as Rome tightens its grip on the Mediterranean world.</i> <i> But Caesarea's part in the history of the Roman Empire is not over.</i>
4:35:28
<i> The Romans apply the power of their wondrous concrete</i> <i> everywhere, establishing ports and harbors across the</i> <i> Mediterranean wherever they need.</i> JON: This is the first and last time the Mediterranean was under the control of one power. It wasn't a space where wars were fought, it was a place where trade took place and that's why the Romans have this kind of relationship with the sea, it's our sea, Mare Nostrum.
4:35:57
<i> NARRATOR: 1,000 years will pass before other nations,</i> <i> Portugal and Spain, come close to matching</i> <i> what the Romans achieve.</i> <i> Domination of the known world, through an empire of the seas.</i>
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