Original subtitles

NARRATOR: An extraordinary discovery of lost treasure,

revealed for the very first time.

24kg of gold, silver and precious stones,

one of the most valuable finds in history.

The number of objects, the size of the objects,

the state of preservation of these objects is amazing.

But what does this exquisite treasure reveal

about the society that made it?

Could it shed new light on the origins of the Khmer civilisation

that built the great medieval city of Angkor...

..home of the spectacular temple of Angkor Wat?

Now, a crack international team of experts

is using the latest technology

to find out how these priceless objects were made.

How can I help to unravel this big mystery?

And to discover who might once have used them.

Each process of metalworking

leaves a mark on the object, like a fingerprint.

By LiDAR-scanning the ancient landscape...

..the team find new targets for archaeological investigation,

where incredible new discoveries are unearthed...

..including more gold,

and human remains.

There are human bones. Maybe it was a king.

Their mission will take them from the depths of the jungle

and on a gruelling, once-in-a-lifetime expedition

into the spiritual heartland of the mighty Khmer warrior-kings

who built the wonders of Angkor Wat.

In the city of Savannakhet

in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos,

a priceless hoard of ancient treasure is being moved to a secret location

for scientific and historical analysis.

One of the most important archaeological finds ever made

is undergoing intense examination

by an elite team of international experts.

10 months ago, the team dated the treasure

to around the 8th century.

Now they're back again,

with new experts joining the investigation.

Over the next two weeks,

they'll analyse the treasure in meticulous detail,

using state-of-the-art technology

to find out how it was crafted

and what it might have been used for.

Aha!

Anticipation mounts,

as the new team members wait to see the treasure

for the very first time.

Finally, before them,

priceless artefacts of gold and silver

more than 1,000 years old.

MAN: The discovery of the treasure is major

for the history of not only Laos but Southeast Asia.

Archaeologist and goldsmith Barbara Armbruster

is seeing the treasure for the first time.

She's an expert in the crafting of metals and alloys.

Ah! OK. Yeah. You see?

This a base? Yeah, this is a base.

By concentrating on what metals were used

and the craftsman's tools and techniques,

the team hope to gain an understanding

of how and why the artefacts were made.

To begin with, there is intense focus

on one of the stars of the find...

..a kendi, or water jug.

It's so delicate.

It's really the most beautiful object I've seen in this treasure.

To reduce the handling of such a precious object,

it's being preserved digitally.

Pascal Mora is underway with the process of photogrammetry.

I use a turntable

to be able to take pictures on different angles.

He takes hundreds of overlapping photographs

which can be stitched together in a computer to create a 3D model.

I have to take pictures all around the object

to be able to get all the details.

But before a 3D model can be created,

there's another step in the process.

Laser scanning will capture details such as surface texture

that photographs can't.

So combining the two techniques,

we are able to produce the best possible 3D model,

with good geometry and good colour.

The kendi is now digitally preserved for the future.

The models created by this new scanning technology

are so incredibly accurate

that the team will use them

as their investigation

into the origins of the treasure progresses.

The team's hypothesis is that

the original home of such exquisite artefacts

could have been the area centred on the ancient Khmer temple site

of Vat Phou.

Vat Phou has always been -

in the Khmer inscriptions, in the Khmer history -

the most venerated place.

It's a very sacred place.

The Vat Phou Temple is located in southern Laos,

at the foot of Mt Phu Kao,

6km from the Mekong River.

In the 8th century,

the royal Khmer city of Kurukshetra

was located here on the riverbank,

walking distance from the temple.

Today, a small fishing village now occupies the site of Kurukshetra.

For the treasure team, this site -

once the administrative centre of the whole area -

is now of significant interest.

Finding out more about life here

may shed new light on the treasure.

One here, one here.

The team led by Christine

is beginning a major new excavation on the edge of Kurukshetra.

This ancient city and the temple of Vat Phou nearby

may have been powerful and wealthy enough

to have been where the treasure originated.

Yes. You can put here.

But to find out more, the team want to know who once lived here.

And LiDAR technology,

which can reveal lost structures hidden by vegetation,

is helping them open a window into this forgotten world.

This is the first ever LiDAR map

of the ancient city of Kurukshetra...

..from the largest features,

like the huge boundary canals...

..down to the mounds where buildings once stood.

This new survey allows the team to target their excavation.

And one site on the outskirts of the city stands out.

At ground level, there is little to see with the naked eye.

But the LiDAR data ensures that

the team can precisely map out the site for investigation.

16.

The length, width and depth of the area to be excavated

is carefully plotted.

So this is 4m by 4m.

It is the grid of our excavation.

The reason that the team are so intrigued by this particular site

is that they've seen this kind of layout before.

On the middle, a working area -

maybe for the servants.

On the south, a secret area.

So it's compatible with the palace we know in Angkor.

That the footprint of the dig site

resembles much-later palace sites in Angkor

is evidence of the strong connections between this early city

and the great capital that the Khmer people constructed

in the centuries that followed.

The excavation of this long-lost palace

may reveal the forgotten secrets of this ancient world.

Back at the treasure lab,

attention has returned to

one of the most significant pieces in the treasure -

the Golden Box.

Barbara is searching for clues as to how it was made

and what it might have been used for.

BARBARA: We are going step by step, very close to the object.

Each process of metalworking leaves a print, a mark on the object,

like a fingerprint.

And if you see that,

you can deduce how the thing was made.

The fingerprint reveals the box was made by a master craftsman.

The goldsmith uses a gold sheet,

which is hammered by striking with a hammer and on an anvil.

And starting from that,

he is creating a three-dimensional shape.

But the longer Barbara works with the box,

the more she questions what it's actually made of.

It's the first sight, to me, to be in gold,

but, having a closer look...

..um, I don't know.

Perhaps the golden box is not made from gold after all.

After painstakingly combing through

layer after layer of earth at the dig site,

finally, a breakthrough.

On the floor of the trench,

a clay pot is revealed.

There is a lot of small fragments.

Yeah, and you see, when we remove the...

Yeah. You take out the...

Yeah. Take out one part of the pot.

This discovery, after 24 days of digging,

suggests they're on the right track.

And you see the charcoal. They have charcoal everywhere. There's a lot of charcoal.

So it means that people live on this level.

There is a lot of things now.

Before, they found nothing, nothing, nothing.

And now we have the level where people live.

With all the charcoal,

it means that maybe it's a cooking area.

As the team dig down

further into the foundations of the structure...

Oh! I see something here.

They make a startling discovery,

revealing the wealth of this ancient site.

Here is yellow, yellow.

Unearthing the clay pot now pales in importance.

By the middle of the hiding place.

The team's incredible new find

is unlike anything ever seen before

in the history of archaeology in Southeast Asia.

Beneath the bricks, they have unearthed

nine exquisitely-crafted lotus flowers made of gold.

It is unique,

because it is the most earlier pre-Angkorian period we have.

On all the area of Vat Phou,

is the first time that we found some kind of thing like this.

It's very, very fragile because it's very thin.

Gold leaves is very thin.

You see? Less than one millimetre.

We have to keep it very carefully.

Is this is a lotus? I think it's a lotus flower. Yeah.

In Buddhist symbolism,

the lotus represents purity of the body, speech and mind.

The discovery of Buddhist artefacts here

provides an incredible snapshot of Khmer life in Kurukshetra

in the centuries before they founded the great Hindu city of Angkor.

So, in that time, it seems that Buddhism and Hinduism

can be close to each other without fighting

and without nothing problematic between the two religions.

The suggestion that Buddhists and Hindus lived harmoniously

is seen on the Golden Box,

which features iconography from both religions.

This new find of golden lotus flowers,

the oldest of its kind,

is yet more evidence that this ancient region

is where the treasure could have originated.

But there's much more to this discovery,

because the team quickly realise

that the lotus flowers are merely a decorative covering

for what lies beneath...

..cremated human remains.

I am sure that it is cremated bones,

because bones un-cremated and bones cremated

are totally different.

The local practice of cremation

and the impact of the region's hot, humid climate and acidic soils

means that few ancient human remains are ever found in the area.

These are the oldest bones like this

ever discovered from the Khmer era.

And the golden petals placed on top of them

suggest WHO this person might have been.

They want to give more importance to these bones.

Otherwise they will not put gold on those bones.

So this is very interesting.

Maybe it was a king.

The suggestion that the remains are of a king

supports the theory that the dig site is an ancient royal palace.

If what I think is correct,

that the big building was the palace,

you have a funerary area.

And it could be the place where they put the king after dying.

And that's why they put also gold leaves on the bones,

to never forget that it was a very important person.

It's an incredible thought -

the remains discovered here could be one of the first Khmer kings.

Christine believes the find could date from as early as 450 AD -

the very beginning of the Khmer Dynasty,

around 2-300 years before the treasure was likely made,

and about 700 years before Angkor reached its peak.

The discovery of gold and the possible remains of a king

suggests that this ancient palace site

was once a location of major wealth and power.

Could this be the kind of place

where the treasure might once have belonged?

There would have been few places in the ancient Khmer world

capable of crafting the elaborate objects found in the treasure.

Discovering the exact composition of the metals used

might help reveal exactly where the raw materials came from -

a critical clue in piecing together the origins of the treasure.

Here comes the masterpiece.

David Bourgarit is an archaeometallurgist,

an expert in ancient metal-making techniques.

He will examine the box, seeking an understanding of the metals used.

So you see a very high relief,

which is nearly three-dimensional here.

This is really something special.

And we find it also on the kendi.

And Barbara has a new theory to share.

The original assumption was that the box is made from solid gold,

but Barbara isn't so sure.

In the first look I thought, this must be plain gold.

But now I'm wondering if it's made of gilded silver.

And so it would be very good

if you could show us that this also is gilded,

or the contrary.

Gilding is a technique where

a thin layer of gold is coated onto another surface,

usually another metal.

David's mission is to find out

what metal or metals the box is really made of.

So I have the light here, and I have also a camera

which enables me to focus on the place I want to be.

The X-ray fluorescence scanner

analyses what elements are present in an object,

creating an elemental fingerprint.

It doesn't take long to reveal something surprising.

So, yes, there's a lot of silver,

which shows that this cannot be gold.

So we have one answer.

But David's X-ray scanner has limitations.

The apparatus we have is not able to distinguish

between a massive gold, a solid gold,

and gilded silver - a layer of gold on silver.

To help solve the mystery,

the team now turned to the 3D-scanning.

By precisely measuring the dimensions of the box,

they can calculate its volume.

This allows them to estimate what its weight should be

if it was solid gold,

one of the heaviest precious metals of all.

It quickly becomes clear that it's not heavy enough.

It seems that Barbara's hunch is correct.

The box is not 100% gold.

Because of the volume and the weight,

it can only be made of silver.

Silver with a gilded layer,

but the gold layer is so thin

that it does not impact the total weight.

So, yes, that's where we arrived to.

So your hypothesis was good.

So it looks like gilded silver. Well, it's what we expected.

But as the cover is so well gilded,

at the first look, it seemed to be gold, yeah.

But where might these metals have come from?

Silver is relatively abundant throughout Asia,

making it hard to pinpoint its origins.

But gold is rare,

and can have distinguishing characteristics.

Could it have come from the Vat Phou area

where the team think the treasure could have been made?

Gold comes in a myriad of varying shades of yellow.

To an experienced eye,

those shades can reveal where the gold originated.

Pasitsay Syphakdy is a local goldsmith,

casting his learned eye over the box.

He has astonishing news.

(SPEAKS LAO)

According to his experience,

this gold may belong to Attapeu,

one province in the south of Laos.

Attapeu Province is located in southern Laos,

about 40km from Vat Phou.

People still pan for gold here to this day.

The revelation that Attapeu gold was used on the box

is the strongest evidence yet

that the major artefacts in the treasure

might have come from the Vat Phou area.

Could the same source of gold have been used

for both the box and the kendi?

(BOTH SPEAK LAO)

So he says that the colour...

..the composition of this kendi,

it's exactly the same as the box.

So this is a type of gold from Attapeu region?

Yes, according to his expertise.

Confirmation that the gold in the treasure's main artefacts

originated near Vat Phou

further supports the team's theory

that these objects could have been made locally

for use in the Vat Phou temple.

But why might Vat Phou have been worthy of such precious treasure?

Inscriptions reveal that the temple here

remains significant to the Khmer kings

long after the decline of nearby royal Kurukshetra

and the foundation of a new capital in Angkor to the south.

Why was Vat Phou so important to the Angkor kings?

Christophe and David are heading into the countryside,

searching for evidence of a lost highway

from Angkor to Vat Phou,

mentioned in ancient inscriptions.

Understanding the connections between these great sites

could explain why Khmer kings valued this area so highly,

and may shed new light on the treasure itself.

So, here we go on the on the left.

They use satellite signals to match their current location

with the LiDAR map of the historic landscape.

I switch from satellite to LiDAR.

We have 3...400m to go.

We are more or less on it.

Leaving the car behind,

they take to footpaths across the fields.

At ground level, there's nothing to suggest that

this might have been a significant location in the distant past.

But mapping the LiDAR data onto the modern landscape

for the very first time...

provides an astonishingly different view.

Christophe and David's footpath is no ordinary footpath.

From Vat Phou, it stretches away to the southwest...

..and continues on for 280km...

..a vast highway leading all the way to Angkor.

It is strange how this road looks amazing on the LiDAR itself,

but, on the ground, it looks like nothing.

This ancient highway was once a major trade route,

with raw gold from Attapeu being transported from Vat Phou to Angkor,

with vast quantities used to adorn the city's great temples.

The road was linking settlements, was linking cities

and also other types of shrines, settlements, probably hamlets

built along the road.

The original road surface is long gone,

but evidence of this vibrant, lost world

can sometimes be found in what is now just farmland.

Wait, ceramics.

Good, good, good.

The antefix on the on the edge of the roof,

with lotus petal with different flames around.

So, that was making the rim of the roof quite beautiful.

The lotus leaf design on the tiles

suggests it could date from the time that Angkor was flourishing.

But this was much more than just a bustling trade route.

The LiDAR scans reveal that the highway was 10m wide,

far bigger and grander

than would have been needed for simply moving goods.

This was a royal highway, made for kings.

And by using the LiDAR map

to position themselves looking towards Vat Phou,

Christophe and David can see the reason

why the kings travelled on this carefully-planned ancient road.

If we just take a some steps aside,

we can really see this alignment.

There, framed ahead,

greeting any traveller from Angkor on this last section of the highway

and towering over Vat Phou

is the sacred mountain of Phou Kao.

Gold would have been travelling from Vat Phou to Angkor,

but heading the other way on this grand highway

were Angkor's great Hindu kings.

And this mountain was the reason they came.

It is no accident that the Hindu temple site of Vat Phou

was constructed over many centuries at the foot of Mt Phou Kao.

Hinduism and Buddhism had long coexisted throughout the region.

But Hinduism was the main religion,

with the god Shiva considered the supreme being,

as seen on the temple's walls,

Devotees worshipped phallic-shaped objects called lingas,

earthly representations of Shiva himself.

But the most sacred lingas weren't manmade.

They occurred naturally in the landscape,

and Mt Phou Kao,

topped with a natural 18m sandstone pinnacle,

was the most sacred linga of all...

..the home of Shiva.

The temple of Vat Phou

and the neighbouring city of Kurukshetra

were built in its sacred shadow.

From the ninth century onwards, the Khmer Empire expanded...

..reaching its zenith with the construction of Angkor Wat

in the city of Angkor.

Inscriptions reveal that the kings of Angkor

often travelled the highway to the Vat Phou temple,

despite the neighbouring city of Kurukshetra's eventual decline.

Such a royal procession must have been a stunning sight.

Depicted on one beautiful bas relief in Angkor Wat,

we see actually cavalries, you see generals, the troops,

the priests, musicians,

the king, his guards,

his courtesans and the princes and all the rest.

And so it's a very long procession.

It would have been quite spectacular.

A royal pilgrimage like this,

covering 280km,

was a major enterprise...

..evidence of the ongoing importance of Vat Phou to the Khmer kings.

Further proof of the enduring connection

between Angkor and Vat Phou

is seen in the buildings themselves.

Some of the most impressive structures at Vat Phou

were commissioned by the king who constructed Angkor Wat

in the 12th century.

And earlier Khmer kings also made significant donations.

Pre-Angkorian structures can be found across the site,

dating right back to the time that the treasure was made.

And the team's analysis of the treasure itself

reveals how lavish and varied royal gifts to a temple could be.

So, Dominique, I will show you something very interesting for you,

and beautiful, and one of the major pieces of the treasure.

Look.

As you can see, it is the shape of a boat.

And you see there is a beautiful inscription.

Dominique Soutif is an expert in ancient inscriptions.

To decipher the words on the fragile bowl,

he makes a mould of the inscription

by easing damp rice paper into the delicate relief of the text.

Actually, it's a bit like when you're a kid

and you put some pencil on a coin.

Adding ink onto the damp paper

creates a highly accurate copy of the inscription.

Do you want another piece?

Let's see if it works or not.

It's a long and delicate process.

But finally, the meaning of the inscription is revealed.

The silver vessel mentions the large donation

of vases, lands

and everything you need for the temple.

The detail is astounding.

Gardens,

male and female slaves,

fields and shapely lambs

and dishes for the daily worship of Shiva.

It is a list of objects which were given to this god.

It's a big royal donation made by a king.

This donation was incredibly generous.

The discovery that the silver bowl lists royal gifts to a temple

is of enormous significance.

The team now believe that the other objects in the treasure

once served a sacred purpose.

Because the inscription proves that they are directly dedicated to God,

we can be sure that all the objects of the treasure

were coming from sacred temples.

But if the treasure collection itself was a royal donation to a temple,

what might it have been used for?

Dominique's expert knowledge

of the rituals performed in ancient Khmer temples

provides a clue.

The daily ritual of a god

is comparable to the service of a king.

You are offering to the god

exactly what you would offer to the King in his palace.

And you have to wake him up,

to bath him,

to offer him food, incense,

and to sing for him, to dance for him, and so on.

The god, represented by a linga

housed in the central sanctuary of the temple,

would have been tended to by high priests.

The treasure could have played a key role in these sacred rituals.

With the treasures that have been discovered,

there are at least four objects which were offered to gods.

The boxes were probably used to store incense.

The plates were dedicated to serve food.

The kendi, probably for the bath.

Bathing the god in the central sanctuary

would have been one of

the most deeply significant parts of the ritual...

..one which required the most exquisite of artefacts.

So kendi is a very rare discovery in gold.

I think the only one which has ever been discovered

for the pre-Angkorian period.

This is quite exceptional, actually.

It was probably used to pour water,

especially if it's for the bath of the god.

In Khmer mythology, water was sacred,

and rainwater falling on the natural linga on Mt Phou Kao

was considered the most sacred of all.

It flowed down the mountainside to a holy spring

where the Vat Phou temple complex was constructed.

Christine is exploring the site

to see how these sacred waters

were channelled right through the temple itself.

Come through here.

I would like to show you the main place of the sanctuary.

It was on this brick area that the main linga, the Shiva, was.

From the sacred spring coming from the top of the mountain,

the water was coming by some channel in sandstone,

from the spring until here,

and going... Through this?

..through the wall on this way,

to bath Shiva permanently,

by the holy water of the spring.

The exquisite golden kendi

could have been used for these sacred ceremonies...

..possibly in the presence of the king himself.

But having worshipped at the temple,

would the Khmer king's journey have ended here?

Or might they have ascended the sacred mountain

to worship the holiest linga of all?

Ancient writings suggest that the kings of Kurukshetra

might have done this long before Angkor was founded.

A Chinese text from around the 6th century

tells of a temple to Shiva

guarded by 1,000 soldiers at the summit...

..where human sacrifices were made in the presence of a king.

(METALLIC CLANGING)

Legends of human sacrifice on Mt Phou Kao might just be a myth,

but they hint that kings might indeed have made it to the top.

There is no doubt people went there for worshipping in ancient times.

To find out more,

the team are preparing an ascent of their own.

On their journey to the summit,

they will be searching for evidence of religious ceremonies

from the pre-Angkorian era,

when the treasure was made.

The climb will take them two days.

Even today, the holy mountain is considered sacred.

Access is restricted, with strict rules in place.

Bad thoughts are not to be taken on the ascent.

Over time, landslides and erosion

have buried sections of the ancient track.

But this climb would never have been easy.

Inscriptions from the time

decree that no-one could be carried up the mountain.

That means everybody had to walk the same way we did.

Kings, commoners - whoever actually had to come

and worship the god on top of the mountain had to go that way.

So, uh... No, it's good to share that feeling anyway.

After a whole day of hard climbing through the jungle,

the team have covered less than 8km.

But their ascent has brought them to just 200m below the summit,

within striking distance

of the holiest site in the ancient Khmer world.

DAVID: Maybe we will understand more tomorrow

about why the king needed to come here.

At first light, the team leave camp.

The sacred summit looms high above.

It's really beautiful, but...

..it's going to be really steep at the end.

A final scramble takes them to the foot

of the huge natural linga crowning the mountain.

Finally, evidence of those who have gone before them.

The style of that linga suggests it's a pre-Angkorian one.

Clearly, people have been worshipping here -

priests, pilgrims.

And so, why not the kings?

If they even made the climb too. Why not?

Being in that sacred forest, that sacred mountains is...

..it's something very touching.

On the sandstone wall of the linga itself,

the team spots something that ties in with the treasure.

Evidence of Buddhism on this sacred Hindu mountain.

You see the wheel here?

It's a very common Buddhist symbol,

which has been long found,

for thousands of years in Buddhist shrines.

But what is really interesting

is to see how this place remained sacred through different religions,

by different pilgrims, worshipping different gods.

Evidence of Buddhist and Hindu worship on the mountain

corresponds with the treasure,

which displays iconography from both religions.

Perhaps sacred artefacts from the treasure

were used in ceremonies here at the foot of the linga.

But might any of the treasure have made it to the very top?

Only 18m remain,

but these are the hardest of all.

MAN: Now you've got to take all that slack through.

No, just stop climbing.

That's it. Get your knee on up there. You're doing great.

Oh, wow!

Can we see Vat Phou? Right there?

That's amazing.

DAVID: They can clearly understand the feeling of the people

to be on the top of the top, to make a link with the god.

I can feel this.

Any king that made it up here

would have looked out across the vast expanse of his empire.

The ancient road is quite visible from the city here.

Going down, down and lost in the haze,

for over 200km going to Angkor.

But there's far more here than just the epic view.

I'm surprised actually. There was a kind of a pedestal of some sort.

Probably another very small linga.

But only these small fragments are the witnesses

of all the ceremonies which would have taken place here.

Christophe had no idea that these relics were here

and thinks that they predate Angkor.

Who would have come here?

Kings. Priests? Commoners? We don't really know.

But clearly, people who may have come here full of devotion.

Whether objects from the treasure made it up here with them

will never be known.

But it's possible that they did.

Performing a ritual here,

you would need various objects - candles or incense sticks.

The golden kendi is a perfect example

of the kind of object which could have been brought in

to be used for the rituals to worship.

You are really on the top, the closest to the god,

where are your prayers and the rituals you will perform

will be the strongest.

This mountain and the sacred landscape in its shadow

could well be the place where the treasure truly belonged.

This was where some of the first Khmer kings

constructed their earliest temples.

And, over successive generations,

even after the capital city had moved to Angkor,

Khmer kings returned here on their great highway

to the cradle of their civilisation,

so they could venerate the god who gave them the power to rule.

By opening a new window into the rise of this great civilisation,

the investigation into the treasure

highlights how the epic story of the mighty Khmer Empire

didn't begin in Angkor.

Long before Angkor,

Khmer society was already flourishing around this sacred mountain

at the time the treasure was made.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2024