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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:03,086 --> 00:00:05,966 A giant stone monument rising from the sands of Egypt... 2 00:00:06,882 --> 00:00:09,132 a labyrinth of long-forgotten tunnels 3 00:00:09,218 --> 00:00:10,638 beneath the German countryside 4 00:00:10,719 --> 00:00:13,559 and the remains of an ancient pyramid 5 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:17,560 located in the heart of the United States. 6 00:00:20,979 --> 00:00:22,559 Ancient ruins fascinate us 7 00:00:22,648 --> 00:00:25,108 because they often reveal how much 8 00:00:25,234 --> 00:00:28,284 or how little we know about our past. 9 00:00:28,403 --> 00:00:30,573 The discovery of a lost city 10 00:00:30,697 --> 00:00:33,737 or the unearthing of a giant stone monument 11 00:00:33,825 --> 00:00:37,115 can suddenly challenge our understanding of human history. 12 00:00:37,246 --> 00:00:39,116 But is it possible that, 13 00:00:39,248 --> 00:00:41,958 by investigating ancient structures, 14 00:00:42,084 --> 00:00:45,304 we can uncover their long-held secrets? 15 00:00:45,420 --> 00:00:49,050 Or has the truth behind these mysterious ruins 16 00:00:49,132 --> 00:00:51,722 simply been lost to time? 17 00:00:51,802 --> 00:00:55,762 Well, that is what we’ll try and find out. 18 00:01:14,366 --> 00:01:17,196 While conducting research high in the Andes Mountains, 19 00:01:17,286 --> 00:01:20,866 archaeologist Dr. Ruth Shady notices 20 00:01:20,956 --> 00:01:25,126 a number of mounds and hills in the landscape 21 00:01:25,252 --> 00:01:29,302 that do not appear to have been made by Mother Nature. 22 00:01:31,341 --> 00:01:33,945 Most people had assumed that these great mounds were natural. 23 00:01:33,969 --> 00:01:35,049 But, nevertheless, 24 00:01:35,137 --> 00:01:38,347 when Ruth Shady arrived at the site in 1994, 25 00:01:38,473 --> 00:01:40,523 she realized that there was something here 26 00:01:40,642 --> 00:01:43,522 that was more than just natural hills. 27 00:01:44,730 --> 00:01:46,980 She had an instinct, really, a gut feeling, I think, 28 00:01:47,065 --> 00:01:49,105 which many archaeologists acquire, 29 00:01:49,192 --> 00:01:51,822 that this place was worth exploring. 30 00:01:51,903 --> 00:01:54,823 And, boy, she explored it and hit the jackpot. 31 00:01:56,658 --> 00:01:58,868 As they began excavating, 32 00:01:58,994 --> 00:02:01,124 Dr. Shady and her team discovered 33 00:02:01,204 --> 00:02:05,464 the ruins of a forgotten ancient city 34 00:02:05,542 --> 00:02:09,172 that has become known as Caral. 35 00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:12,090 Ruth Shady has spent 36 00:02:12,174 --> 00:02:15,514 years, now, working in Caral. 37 00:02:15,594 --> 00:02:19,184 Caral has, under her supervision, 38 00:02:19,306 --> 00:02:23,806 become part of the World Heritage List now. 39 00:02:23,894 --> 00:02:27,944 So that says this is one of those unique places 40 00:02:28,023 --> 00:02:32,613 that tells a story about civilization in the New World. 41 00:02:34,196 --> 00:02:38,066 According to experts, what is remarkable about Caral is that, 42 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:42,250 unlike other ancient ruins located in Peru 43 00:02:42,371 --> 00:02:44,081 such as Machu Picchu, 44 00:02:44,206 --> 00:02:46,076 Sacsayhuaman 45 00:02:46,208 --> 00:02:48,248 and Ollantaytambo, 46 00:02:48,377 --> 00:02:52,127 Caral was not built by the Incas. 47 00:02:52,214 --> 00:02:56,434 It was built by a previously unknown civilization 48 00:02:56,551 --> 00:02:59,431 that remains shrouded in mystery. 49 00:03:00,889 --> 00:03:02,075 Caral is one of the most impressive 50 00:03:02,099 --> 00:03:03,349 and so the most important sites 51 00:03:03,433 --> 00:03:04,483 in South America. 52 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,520 Certainly in terms of its size. 53 00:03:08,605 --> 00:03:12,395 Excavations revealed it covers a huge area 54 00:03:12,484 --> 00:03:15,614 and was clearly a great metropolis 55 00:03:15,737 --> 00:03:18,907 for prehistoric South America. 56 00:03:18,990 --> 00:03:21,780 You’ve got this incredible complex 57 00:03:21,910 --> 00:03:24,330 covering hundreds of acres, 58 00:03:24,413 --> 00:03:26,333 with an amphitheater... 59 00:03:27,582 --> 00:03:30,882 supplementary temples, 60 00:03:30,961 --> 00:03:33,881 all kinds of artifacts, 61 00:03:33,964 --> 00:03:37,224 suggesting a sophisticated civilization. 62 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:41,350 The Greater Pyramid in Caral, 63 00:03:41,430 --> 00:03:44,180 this is the biggest structure there is. 64 00:03:44,266 --> 00:03:45,976 It dominates the landscape. 65 00:03:46,977 --> 00:03:48,847 It is the center of the city. 66 00:03:48,937 --> 00:03:52,357 It is nearly 500 feet long, 67 00:03:52,441 --> 00:03:54,691 nearly 400 feet wide, 68 00:03:54,776 --> 00:03:57,526 60 feet tall. 69 00:03:57,612 --> 00:03:58,952 And on one side of it, 70 00:03:59,030 --> 00:04:02,530 it has this 30-foot-wide staircase 71 00:04:02,617 --> 00:04:05,157 that descends from the very top 72 00:04:05,287 --> 00:04:08,867 down to a sunken circular plaza. 73 00:04:09,958 --> 00:04:13,588 The whole structure itself has a stepped profile, 74 00:04:13,670 --> 00:04:20,340 which has a number of very large terraces built into the side. 75 00:04:20,469 --> 00:04:23,429 There’s a network of ceremonial rooms, some large rooms, 76 00:04:23,513 --> 00:04:25,973 some smaller rooms, 77 00:04:26,057 --> 00:04:29,187 built with stone and mortar. 78 00:04:29,311 --> 00:04:31,771 It’s a phenomenal structure. 79 00:04:33,690 --> 00:04:37,400 This was a culture with no wheels, with no metal tools. 80 00:04:37,486 --> 00:04:39,146 And so the building 81 00:04:39,237 --> 00:04:42,737 took an awful lot of people carrying earth and stones 82 00:04:42,824 --> 00:04:44,584 from wherever they got them from. 83 00:04:45,786 --> 00:04:48,446 You needed architects of some kind, maybe engineers, 84 00:04:48,538 --> 00:04:52,578 probably thousands and thousands of man-hours to erect that. 85 00:04:53,877 --> 00:04:56,587 The other thing that shows up in the Greater Pyramid 86 00:04:56,671 --> 00:05:00,011 that tells us something about the nature of... 87 00:05:00,091 --> 00:05:02,181 of Caral as a civilization 88 00:05:02,260 --> 00:05:05,850 are symbols of monkeys. 89 00:05:05,972 --> 00:05:08,642 So, in this part of Peru, 90 00:05:08,725 --> 00:05:10,135 there are no monkeys. 91 00:05:11,436 --> 00:05:14,396 Those actually come from the Amazon basin. 92 00:05:15,482 --> 00:05:18,742 Which means that the people of Caral had to 93 00:05:18,860 --> 00:05:22,530 basically go over the Andes 94 00:05:22,614 --> 00:05:26,994 and into another part of South America altogether. 95 00:05:28,203 --> 00:05:29,543 So why is this significant? 96 00:05:29,621 --> 00:05:33,881 It tells us that they are a central point 97 00:05:33,959 --> 00:05:36,249 for a vast trading network. 98 00:05:36,378 --> 00:05:39,208 And not just goods but ideas. 99 00:05:41,049 --> 00:05:44,679 The discovery of Caral’s ruins challenged everything we knew 100 00:05:44,761 --> 00:05:47,601 or thought we knew about the history of civilization 101 00:05:47,722 --> 00:05:50,102 in Central and South America. 102 00:05:51,184 --> 00:05:53,484 And not just because of its elaborate design 103 00:05:53,562 --> 00:05:56,652 but also because of what experts learned 104 00:05:56,731 --> 00:06:00,361 when they were able to begin carbon-dating its artifacts. 105 00:06:01,736 --> 00:06:04,276 Towards the bottom of the great mound, 106 00:06:04,406 --> 00:06:06,776 they found remains of what seemed to be 107 00:06:06,908 --> 00:06:08,488 reed bags or baskets 108 00:06:08,577 --> 00:06:11,077 in which the earth and stones 109 00:06:11,162 --> 00:06:13,002 would have been carried to make the mound. 110 00:06:13,081 --> 00:06:15,251 These are called "shicras." 111 00:06:16,418 --> 00:06:19,458 Of course, you can date reeds by the radiocarbon method. 112 00:06:20,589 --> 00:06:23,299 And so samples were sent off to various labs. 113 00:06:23,425 --> 00:06:24,935 And to everyone’s surprise, 114 00:06:25,010 --> 00:06:28,180 the answer was far earlier than anybody had expected. 115 00:06:29,139 --> 00:06:30,469 The dates came back 116 00:06:30,599 --> 00:06:34,269 to approximately 2600 BC and earlier. 117 00:06:35,437 --> 00:06:38,437 The same age as the pyramids in Egypt, 118 00:06:38,523 --> 00:06:42,153 much older than other civilizations 119 00:06:42,277 --> 00:06:44,897 that were known at the time in the New World. 120 00:06:45,947 --> 00:06:47,987 It’s very likely that Caral goes back 121 00:06:48,116 --> 00:06:50,026 at least to that kind of period. 122 00:06:50,118 --> 00:06:52,538 It is arguable that Caral 123 00:06:52,621 --> 00:06:54,661 is the kind of mother culture 124 00:06:54,789 --> 00:06:57,879 for what came later in South America, 125 00:06:57,959 --> 00:06:59,749 like the Inca civilizations. 126 00:06:59,836 --> 00:07:03,756 However, there are lower layers at Caral which have been dug. 127 00:07:03,840 --> 00:07:07,430 They may well find samples that can be dated far earlier 128 00:07:07,510 --> 00:07:09,970 than anybody expected, 129 00:07:10,096 --> 00:07:12,516 possibly at a period even several centuries 130 00:07:12,641 --> 00:07:14,061 before the pyramids of Giza, 131 00:07:14,142 --> 00:07:15,982 which will alter our view of the past. 132 00:07:17,479 --> 00:07:21,649 Is it possible that the ruins of Caral are actually older 133 00:07:21,733 --> 00:07:23,403 than the Egyptian pyramids, 134 00:07:23,485 --> 00:07:25,865 which were built almost 5,000 years ago? 135 00:07:25,987 --> 00:07:28,567 It’s an extraordinary possibility, 136 00:07:28,657 --> 00:07:32,487 and the discoveries at Caral are forcing archaeologists 137 00:07:32,619 --> 00:07:36,869 to redefine the timeline of human history. 138 00:07:36,998 --> 00:07:39,578 What was the old definition of civilization? 139 00:07:39,668 --> 00:07:43,708 It was extracted from the site of Mesopotamia, 140 00:07:43,838 --> 00:07:47,048 which is in Iraq, basically. 141 00:07:47,175 --> 00:07:51,845 Mesopotamia starts at 3500 BC. 142 00:07:51,930 --> 00:07:57,350 And then the idea was that all civilizations used Mesopotamia 143 00:07:57,477 --> 00:07:58,807 as the model. 144 00:07:58,895 --> 00:08:01,305 But, looking at Caral, 145 00:08:01,398 --> 00:08:06,488 we expect that Caral is gonna reach back to 3200 BC, 146 00:08:06,569 --> 00:08:09,699 which indicates an incredible possibility 147 00:08:09,781 --> 00:08:12,031 that faces the world of archaeology. 148 00:08:12,158 --> 00:08:17,958 So we have to start rethinking what we mean by "civilization." 149 00:08:19,124 --> 00:08:22,714 It’s incredible to think that, before Caral was discovered, 150 00:08:22,794 --> 00:08:25,764 we had no idea that such a massive civilization 151 00:08:25,880 --> 00:08:28,800 existed in South America that far back in history. 152 00:08:28,883 --> 00:08:33,053 And it also makes you wonder... Could there be other ruins 153 00:08:33,138 --> 00:08:35,968 around the world that are older than we ever thought possible? 154 00:08:36,057 --> 00:08:39,227 Perhaps the answer can be found by examining 155 00:08:39,310 --> 00:08:43,860 the most recognizable ancient ruin in the world today, 156 00:08:43,940 --> 00:08:45,400 the Sphinx. 157 00:08:52,490 --> 00:08:56,200 Sitting atop a plateau just a few miles west of the Nile River 158 00:08:56,286 --> 00:08:58,496 is the Giza Necropolis, 159 00:08:58,580 --> 00:09:01,170 perhaps the most famous collection of ruins 160 00:09:01,249 --> 00:09:02,669 in the entire world. 161 00:09:03,710 --> 00:09:04,840 Believed to be constructed 162 00:09:04,919 --> 00:09:06,919 during ancient Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty, 163 00:09:07,047 --> 00:09:10,047 around 2550 BC, 164 00:09:10,133 --> 00:09:12,683 these limestone monuments attract 165 00:09:12,761 --> 00:09:14,431 thousands of tourists every day 166 00:09:14,512 --> 00:09:18,772 who come to marvel at the immense pyramids, 167 00:09:18,850 --> 00:09:21,140 forbidding tombs 168 00:09:21,269 --> 00:09:25,399 and a mysterious stone sentinel known as... 169 00:09:25,482 --> 00:09:27,782 the Sphinx. 170 00:09:29,527 --> 00:09:31,607 I think you can argue that the Sphinx 171 00:09:31,696 --> 00:09:35,776 is the most recognizable statue anywhere in the world. 172 00:09:37,702 --> 00:09:40,372 Its scale is immense. 173 00:09:40,455 --> 00:09:43,965 It’s one single piece of stone. 174 00:09:44,959 --> 00:09:47,709 It is cut from the natural rock 175 00:09:47,796 --> 00:09:51,086 of the Giza Plateau. 176 00:09:51,174 --> 00:09:55,054 The Sphinx stands 240 feet long, 177 00:09:55,136 --> 00:09:59,886 66 feet tall and 62 feet wide. 178 00:10:00,975 --> 00:10:02,975 For thousands of years, this massive statue 179 00:10:03,061 --> 00:10:07,151 has been an object of both fascination and wonder. 180 00:10:07,232 --> 00:10:09,402 But even after centuries of study, 181 00:10:09,484 --> 00:10:12,654 the Sphinx holds many secrets 182 00:10:12,737 --> 00:10:16,987 that archaeologists are still trying to unravel. 183 00:10:17,075 --> 00:10:19,335 The Sphinx that we know today, 184 00:10:19,410 --> 00:10:21,290 the Sphinx from the Great Pyramids of Giza, 185 00:10:21,371 --> 00:10:24,671 is the most famous of all sphinxes. 186 00:10:24,749 --> 00:10:28,419 But there are sphinxes all over ancient Egypt. 187 00:10:28,503 --> 00:10:30,553 There are smaller sphinxes. 188 00:10:30,672 --> 00:10:35,052 There’s an avenue full of sphinxes between the temples. 189 00:10:36,344 --> 00:10:39,974 But the Great Sphinx at Giza is something very different. 190 00:10:40,056 --> 00:10:42,016 It’s a single sculpture. 191 00:10:42,100 --> 00:10:44,690 It sits in a very particular place. 192 00:10:44,811 --> 00:10:46,151 It doesn’t seem to have performed 193 00:10:46,229 --> 00:10:47,519 the same function at all. 194 00:10:47,647 --> 00:10:49,147 What was it for? 195 00:10:49,232 --> 00:10:51,112 This is what we really want to know. 196 00:10:52,193 --> 00:10:55,453 No one has understood exactly what it means. 197 00:10:56,614 --> 00:10:59,204 Because, for literally thousands of years, 198 00:10:59,284 --> 00:11:03,544 the Sphinx was buried up to its neck in sand. 199 00:11:03,621 --> 00:11:06,871 So it’s only a head sticking out of the sand 200 00:11:06,958 --> 00:11:08,788 for much of its history. 201 00:11:08,877 --> 00:11:11,127 There is a very famous painting 202 00:11:11,212 --> 00:11:15,302 of Emperor Napoleon standing in front of the Sphinx, 203 00:11:15,383 --> 00:11:18,013 buried still, at this point, up to its shoulders. 204 00:11:18,094 --> 00:11:20,554 You might think, what has Napoleon got to do 205 00:11:20,638 --> 00:11:22,348 with Egypt and the Sphinx? Well, in fact, 206 00:11:22,432 --> 00:11:26,022 Napoleon led an invasion of Egypt in 1798, 207 00:11:26,102 --> 00:11:29,152 which had a big impact back in Europe 208 00:11:29,230 --> 00:11:33,570 in raising awareness and interest in ancient Egypt sites. 209 00:11:34,861 --> 00:11:38,701 It wasn’t until the 1920s that a team of archaeologists, 210 00:11:38,781 --> 00:11:41,661 led by engineer Emile Baraize, 211 00:11:41,743 --> 00:11:46,043 succeeded in unearthing the Sphinx from the desert sands. 212 00:11:46,122 --> 00:11:48,252 They were able to expose it 213 00:11:48,333 --> 00:11:51,593 and to... so to reveal for the first time in centuries 214 00:11:51,669 --> 00:11:53,879 that this was not just a head, a disembodied head, 215 00:11:53,963 --> 00:11:56,843 but a-a full sphinx sculpture. 216 00:11:57,842 --> 00:11:59,932 And this is a watershed moment 217 00:12:00,011 --> 00:12:02,561 for our understanding of the Sphinx. 218 00:12:03,598 --> 00:12:05,928 Archaeologists and Egyptologists like myself 219 00:12:06,017 --> 00:12:10,937 believe that the Sphinx was sculpted around 2500 BC 220 00:12:11,064 --> 00:12:13,904 by King Khephren 221 00:12:13,983 --> 00:12:16,743 as a part of his funerary complex. 222 00:12:16,819 --> 00:12:20,949 But a lot of scholars disagree about the Sphinx, 223 00:12:21,074 --> 00:12:24,084 and there’s a lot of mystery surrounding 224 00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:27,290 when was the Sphinx actually sculpted. 225 00:12:28,456 --> 00:12:31,076 One of the most important documents we have 226 00:12:31,167 --> 00:12:34,957 to deal with the dating of the Sphinx is the Inventory Stela. 227 00:12:36,297 --> 00:12:41,467 This is a commemorative stone that actually records details 228 00:12:41,594 --> 00:12:45,894 of how the Pharaoh Khufu repaired the Sphinx 229 00:12:45,974 --> 00:12:47,814 after it was struck by lightning. 230 00:12:50,687 --> 00:12:56,777 The significance of this is that Khufu came before Khafre, 231 00:12:56,859 --> 00:13:00,319 the pharaoh who is conventionally said 232 00:13:00,405 --> 00:13:02,915 to have constructed the Sphinx. 233 00:13:04,158 --> 00:13:07,658 The Inventory Stela has an inscription 234 00:13:07,745 --> 00:13:12,995 that goes back to about 4,600 years ago. 235 00:13:13,084 --> 00:13:14,844 And that inscription says 236 00:13:14,919 --> 00:13:18,709 that the Sphinx is a much older structure 237 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:20,970 that the Egyptians adopted 238 00:13:21,050 --> 00:13:24,350 and repaired and venerated. 239 00:13:25,680 --> 00:13:28,850 Based on the inscriptions on the Inventory Stela, 240 00:13:28,933 --> 00:13:30,773 there are some archaeologists who believe 241 00:13:30,852 --> 00:13:32,652 that the Sphinx is so ancient 242 00:13:32,729 --> 00:13:36,479 that it could predate any records in human history 243 00:13:36,566 --> 00:13:38,356 that are known to exist. 244 00:13:39,569 --> 00:13:41,859 And some researchers are convinced that physical evidence 245 00:13:41,946 --> 00:13:46,656 of the Sphinx’s true age can be found on the structure itself. 246 00:13:46,743 --> 00:13:49,703 The first time I visited the Sphinx 247 00:13:49,829 --> 00:13:52,119 was in the summer of 1990. 248 00:13:52,206 --> 00:13:54,456 My early studies of the Sphinx 249 00:13:54,542 --> 00:13:58,842 looked at the erosional features on the body of the Sphinx 250 00:13:58,921 --> 00:14:02,301 and comparing that to other erosional features 251 00:14:02,383 --> 00:14:03,933 right on the Giza Plateau. 252 00:14:04,052 --> 00:14:07,892 And what I found was the body of the Sphinx 253 00:14:07,972 --> 00:14:10,562 and the walls of the Sphinx enclosure 254 00:14:10,641 --> 00:14:12,391 are weathered differently 255 00:14:12,477 --> 00:14:15,057 than everything else on the Giza Plateau. 256 00:14:16,230 --> 00:14:21,650 The rest of the plateau shows classic wind erosion. 257 00:14:21,736 --> 00:14:26,236 But what is on the Sphinx is water weathering. 258 00:14:26,324 --> 00:14:29,584 It’s rainfall, precipitation, 259 00:14:29,702 --> 00:14:31,702 and this makes no sense 260 00:14:31,788 --> 00:14:35,998 when the Sphinx is sitting on the edge of the Sahara Desert 261 00:14:36,084 --> 00:14:38,174 that has been a bone-dry desert 262 00:14:38,252 --> 00:14:41,212 for literally thousands of years. 263 00:14:41,297 --> 00:14:45,087 So what I concluded is that the body of the Sphinx, 264 00:14:45,218 --> 00:14:47,758 and therefore the original statue, 265 00:14:47,887 --> 00:14:51,177 had to go back to pre-Sahara times, 266 00:14:51,265 --> 00:14:54,805 when there was a much more temperate climate, 267 00:14:54,936 --> 00:14:58,106 much more moisture, much more rainfall. 268 00:14:58,231 --> 00:15:01,901 And it has to go back not just a little bit into that period 269 00:15:01,984 --> 00:15:05,954 but quite far back, given that we have incredible amount 270 00:15:06,030 --> 00:15:08,950 of weathering and erosion on the Sphinx. 271 00:15:10,034 --> 00:15:12,244 I now think that it goes back 272 00:15:12,328 --> 00:15:15,118 to the end of the last ice age, 273 00:15:15,206 --> 00:15:17,286 circa 10,000 BC. 274 00:15:17,417 --> 00:15:22,457 I am convinced that it is a ruin from predynastic Egypt. 275 00:15:22,588 --> 00:15:25,258 Is it possible that the Sphinx was constructed 276 00:15:25,341 --> 00:15:27,591 more than 12,000 years ago, 277 00:15:27,677 --> 00:15:31,137 centuries before the ancient Egyptian civilization 278 00:15:31,222 --> 00:15:32,722 even existed? 279 00:15:33,808 --> 00:15:37,058 If so, who carved it? And for what purpose? 280 00:15:37,145 --> 00:15:40,155 Some researchers believe the answers to these questions 281 00:15:40,231 --> 00:15:45,781 will be found in a secret room hidden beneath the Sphinx. 282 00:15:47,113 --> 00:15:49,743 Something that there’s been a lot of speculation about 283 00:15:49,824 --> 00:15:51,494 regarding the Sphinx is that there is 284 00:15:51,617 --> 00:15:54,577 some kind of chamber hidden underneath it. 285 00:15:54,662 --> 00:15:58,672 A psychic named Edgar Cayce, 286 00:15:58,749 --> 00:16:00,669 in the first half of the 20th century, 287 00:16:00,751 --> 00:16:03,841 asserted that there would be such a chamber 288 00:16:03,921 --> 00:16:08,341 and that this was the legendary Hall of Records, 289 00:16:08,426 --> 00:16:11,096 which would reveal very great secrets 290 00:16:11,179 --> 00:16:13,599 relating to an ancient civilization 291 00:16:13,681 --> 00:16:15,811 responsible for creating the Sphinx 292 00:16:15,892 --> 00:16:18,272 and all these great wonders. 293 00:16:18,352 --> 00:16:21,112 He also suggested that this would be discovered 294 00:16:21,189 --> 00:16:23,019 by the end of the 20th century. 295 00:16:23,149 --> 00:16:28,029 It was only confirmed relatively recently 296 00:16:28,112 --> 00:16:34,122 that excavations discovered a passageway in the Sphinx. 297 00:16:35,870 --> 00:16:37,250 There is a tunnel 298 00:16:37,371 --> 00:16:40,291 that was found under the paw of the Sphinx, 299 00:16:40,374 --> 00:16:45,884 a tunnel that people believe connects to another structure. 300 00:16:46,964 --> 00:16:48,844 We have not discovered 301 00:16:48,925 --> 00:16:51,685 what happens at the end of that tunnel. 302 00:16:51,761 --> 00:16:54,931 Where does this tunnel lead to? 303 00:16:55,056 --> 00:16:57,726 Someday in the future, we might find a room 304 00:16:57,850 --> 00:16:59,480 that we’ve never heard of. 305 00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:01,900 So, the more we dig, the more we find 306 00:17:02,021 --> 00:17:05,691 about the secrets of ancient Egypt. 307 00:17:06,817 --> 00:17:09,737 Was the Sphinx built by a civilization 308 00:17:09,820 --> 00:17:12,240 that existed long before the ancient Egyptians? 309 00:17:12,323 --> 00:17:15,913 It seems hard to believe, but the truth is that archaeologists 310 00:17:16,035 --> 00:17:18,245 dig up unbelievable things all the time. 311 00:17:18,371 --> 00:17:20,251 For example, consider the discovery 312 00:17:20,331 --> 00:17:23,081 of a 100-foot-tall pyramid mound 313 00:17:23,209 --> 00:17:26,249 constructed more than a thousand years ago 314 00:17:26,337 --> 00:17:28,547 that is located in the heartland 315 00:17:28,631 --> 00:17:30,381 of the United States. 316 00:17:36,847 --> 00:17:38,492 In the heart of the downtown district 317 00:17:38,516 --> 00:17:41,266 stands the Wainwright Building. 318 00:17:41,394 --> 00:17:42,694 Built in 1891, 319 00:17:42,770 --> 00:17:44,060 this office building 320 00:17:44,146 --> 00:17:47,566 is one of the world’s first modern skyscrapers. 321 00:17:47,650 --> 00:17:49,570 But, as it turns out, 322 00:17:49,652 --> 00:17:52,822 there is a similarly sized structure in this region 323 00:17:52,947 --> 00:17:55,367 that is much, much older. 324 00:17:55,449 --> 00:17:58,789 Just ten miles east of the city 325 00:17:58,911 --> 00:18:02,291 stand the ruins of an ancient man-made pyramid mound 326 00:18:02,415 --> 00:18:06,095 that was built centuries ago 327 00:18:06,168 --> 00:18:09,878 and is as tall as a ten-story building. 328 00:18:11,257 --> 00:18:14,337 This is the largest prehistoric earthwork 329 00:18:14,468 --> 00:18:16,468 in the Western Hemisphere, 330 00:18:16,554 --> 00:18:18,604 the largest totally earthen mound built 331 00:18:18,681 --> 00:18:20,641 by ancient people in North or South America. 332 00:18:21,851 --> 00:18:24,981 Its base actually is bigger than the Great Pyramid in Egypt, 333 00:18:25,104 --> 00:18:27,314 and it stands 100 feet high. 334 00:18:27,398 --> 00:18:32,358 And it was built with about 22 million cubic feet of dirt 335 00:18:32,486 --> 00:18:35,606 that had to be carried in baskets on people’s backs 336 00:18:35,698 --> 00:18:37,238 and deposited. 337 00:18:37,325 --> 00:18:40,495 The fact that the ruins of a man-made pyramid 338 00:18:40,578 --> 00:18:42,828 sit in the middle of the United States 339 00:18:42,913 --> 00:18:45,923 might come as a surprise for some. 340 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,590 And yet this monumental earthen mound 341 00:18:49,670 --> 00:18:53,420 is merely one of more than a hundred similar structures 342 00:18:53,507 --> 00:18:55,427 that have been discovered in this area. 343 00:18:55,509 --> 00:19:00,849 They’re all part of a sprawling ancient city named Cahokia. 344 00:19:01,891 --> 00:19:05,811 Cahokia is arguably the most important 345 00:19:05,895 --> 00:19:09,865 of the ancient cities of North America. 346 00:19:11,067 --> 00:19:16,817 Constructed approximately between 700 and 1350 AD, 347 00:19:16,906 --> 00:19:20,276 it was an incredible metropolis. 348 00:19:21,285 --> 00:19:23,655 We have this idea of the first peoples 349 00:19:23,746 --> 00:19:25,616 as being hunter-gatherers 350 00:19:25,706 --> 00:19:28,666 and riding around on horses all the time, 351 00:19:28,751 --> 00:19:32,091 and that’s simply the wrong impression. 352 00:19:32,213 --> 00:19:33,963 They were an incredibly 353 00:19:34,048 --> 00:19:37,378 technologically sophisticated society. 354 00:19:39,178 --> 00:19:41,718 We don’t know what this place was called 355 00:19:41,806 --> 00:19:44,346 or what... the language that people spoke here. 356 00:19:44,433 --> 00:19:46,563 The name Cahokia comes from a later group 357 00:19:46,644 --> 00:19:49,984 of American Indians that moved into this area in the 1600s 358 00:19:50,064 --> 00:19:52,404 from further north, around the Great Lakes. 359 00:19:52,483 --> 00:19:55,073 They were here, but they did not build the mounds. 360 00:19:55,152 --> 00:19:57,862 They just later used it as part of their settlement. 361 00:19:59,073 --> 00:20:01,743 We often use the term "city" when we talk about Cahokia 362 00:20:01,867 --> 00:20:03,577 because of its magnitude. 363 00:20:03,661 --> 00:20:07,001 It covered nearly six square miles or about 4,000 acres. 364 00:20:07,998 --> 00:20:10,878 During its peak, between 1050 and 1150 AD, 365 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:12,210 there were probably, you know, 366 00:20:12,294 --> 00:20:15,094 40,000, 50,000 people living within this region. 367 00:20:15,172 --> 00:20:18,882 It would be larger than London was at that time. 368 00:20:19,885 --> 00:20:22,255 And yet, 200 years later, 369 00:20:22,346 --> 00:20:24,386 by 1350 AD, 370 00:20:24,473 --> 00:20:27,393 the whole place had been abandoned. 371 00:20:28,436 --> 00:20:31,016 And, indeed, there is a mystery 372 00:20:31,105 --> 00:20:34,235 of exactly what took place there. 373 00:20:35,526 --> 00:20:37,776 But if Cahokia was such a thriving metropolis, 374 00:20:37,903 --> 00:20:39,453 then it begs the question... 375 00:20:39,530 --> 00:20:42,530 How did this civilization come to an end? 376 00:20:43,659 --> 00:20:46,119 It’s a mystery that has driven archaeologists 377 00:20:46,203 --> 00:20:49,873 to scour Cahokia’s ruins in search of an answer. 378 00:20:51,083 --> 00:20:54,463 There are a number of hypotheses about the decline of Cahokia. 379 00:20:55,504 --> 00:20:58,264 One involves evidence of a defensive wall 380 00:20:58,340 --> 00:21:00,760 that was built around the center of Cahokia. 381 00:21:00,843 --> 00:21:04,303 So that indicates that they had conflicts and warfare. 382 00:21:04,430 --> 00:21:06,520 And there’s been suggestions that maybe, 383 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:09,480 with the crowded conditions here, perhaps there was 384 00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:11,900 increases in-in disease. 385 00:21:13,105 --> 00:21:15,475 Did the threat of warfare or poor living conditions 386 00:21:15,566 --> 00:21:19,736 cause the inhabitants of Cahokia to abandon this thriving city? 387 00:21:19,820 --> 00:21:21,320 It’s hard to say. 388 00:21:21,405 --> 00:21:23,445 But in recent years 389 00:21:23,532 --> 00:21:25,742 another theory has emerged, 390 00:21:25,826 --> 00:21:28,996 one that suggests there may have been a more sinister reason 391 00:21:29,079 --> 00:21:31,959 behind Cahokia’s demise. 392 00:21:32,041 --> 00:21:34,921 So, one of the ideas that’s been put forward is 393 00:21:35,002 --> 00:21:37,002 that something quite dark took place there 394 00:21:37,129 --> 00:21:41,129 and this is why there’s little evidence in the oral tradition 395 00:21:41,217 --> 00:21:43,007 or the folklore of this area. 396 00:21:43,093 --> 00:21:45,853 And this could be ultimately why the site was abandoned. 397 00:21:47,515 --> 00:21:50,025 Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, 398 00:21:50,142 --> 00:21:51,392 there was an excavation 399 00:21:51,519 --> 00:21:54,309 at a small mound here on the site called Mound 72. 400 00:21:54,396 --> 00:21:56,766 As we dug further into the mound, 401 00:21:56,857 --> 00:21:58,897 there was a burial pit about five feet deep. 402 00:21:59,026 --> 00:22:01,606 And at the bottom of that they found 403 00:22:01,695 --> 00:22:04,865 53 mostly young women, 404 00:22:04,990 --> 00:22:06,490 all buried at the same time, 405 00:22:06,575 --> 00:22:09,445 laid out in two rows and piled in there two deep. 406 00:22:10,454 --> 00:22:12,164 Next to them were four men 407 00:22:12,248 --> 00:22:13,958 with their heads and their hands cut off, 408 00:22:14,041 --> 00:22:15,381 apparently, in some ritual. 409 00:22:17,044 --> 00:22:20,344 The burials that came out of Mound 72 410 00:22:20,422 --> 00:22:24,632 quite clearly showed evidence of mass sacrifice. 411 00:22:25,636 --> 00:22:27,176 We have to ask ourselves 412 00:22:27,263 --> 00:22:30,063 whether this would have had any kind of impact 413 00:22:30,182 --> 00:22:33,562 upon the society as a whole at Cahokia. 414 00:22:34,645 --> 00:22:35,905 Did the vast majority 415 00:22:35,980 --> 00:22:39,570 of Cahokia’s inhabitants abandon their city 416 00:22:39,650 --> 00:22:41,820 because its leaders were engaging in the practice 417 00:22:41,902 --> 00:22:43,992 of human sacrifice? 418 00:22:44,071 --> 00:22:47,241 And if so, then where did they go? 419 00:22:47,366 --> 00:22:49,366 Is this tragedy enough to explain 420 00:22:49,451 --> 00:22:51,201 why there is no written record 421 00:22:51,287 --> 00:22:53,497 that this civilization ever existed? 422 00:22:53,581 --> 00:22:58,091 For now, experts remain collectively baffled 423 00:22:58,168 --> 00:23:02,128 and worry that we may never know for sure. 424 00:23:02,256 --> 00:23:04,836 We really must question, you know, what really happened, 425 00:23:04,925 --> 00:23:08,045 because it could have been something much more mysterious 426 00:23:08,137 --> 00:23:09,847 that we just don’t know about. 427 00:23:10,848 --> 00:23:14,228 It’s remarkable to think that, centuries ago, 428 00:23:14,310 --> 00:23:17,440 there was a massive civilization that built large structures 429 00:23:17,563 --> 00:23:20,943 in what is now Southern Illinois. 430 00:23:21,025 --> 00:23:25,035 But not all ancient ruins are hiding in plain sight. 431 00:23:25,112 --> 00:23:29,162 Some were designed to remain secret and are hidden 432 00:23:29,283 --> 00:23:31,203 right beneath our feet. 433 00:23:38,459 --> 00:23:40,789 In this quiet rural town, 434 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:43,460 a Bavarian dairy farmer watches in horror 435 00:23:43,589 --> 00:23:48,259 as one of her cows falls into what appears to be a sinkhole. 436 00:23:50,054 --> 00:23:53,104 But after thankfully rescuing the animal, 437 00:23:53,182 --> 00:23:56,022 the farmer discovers that her cow hadn’t stumbled 438 00:23:56,143 --> 00:23:57,693 into a sinkhole 439 00:23:57,811 --> 00:24:02,071 but rather a mysterious subterranean ruin 440 00:24:02,149 --> 00:24:05,439 known as an erdstall. 441 00:24:06,403 --> 00:24:10,123 Erdstall are human-carved tunnels 442 00:24:10,199 --> 00:24:12,329 that extend into the ground. 443 00:24:12,451 --> 00:24:14,661 You know, they’re-they’re chiseled out of stone. 444 00:24:15,913 --> 00:24:18,333 They are like mini labyrinths, 445 00:24:18,415 --> 00:24:20,455 mini underground cities, 446 00:24:20,542 --> 00:24:26,302 and the erdstalls consisted of a series of chambers and tunnels 447 00:24:26,382 --> 00:24:29,262 and stretched for about 125 feet 448 00:24:29,343 --> 00:24:31,013 and was on different levels. 449 00:24:31,095 --> 00:24:34,435 And archaeologists have investigated it 450 00:24:34,515 --> 00:24:38,695 and have suggested that there was activity there 451 00:24:38,769 --> 00:24:40,939 as much as a thousand years ago. 452 00:24:42,189 --> 00:24:45,819 But this isn’t the only erdstall that’s been discovered. 453 00:24:45,901 --> 00:24:49,861 In fact, similar man-made tunnels have been found hidden 454 00:24:49,947 --> 00:24:54,197 all across southeastern Germany and Austria. 455 00:24:55,494 --> 00:24:58,374 Many of them are found just in the middle of nowhere, 456 00:24:58,455 --> 00:25:01,705 um, you know, out in somebody’s field or something like that. 457 00:25:02,710 --> 00:25:04,380 Or within the cellar areas 458 00:25:04,461 --> 00:25:08,171 or foundations of old houses, old structures. 459 00:25:09,216 --> 00:25:12,046 Some of them may be very limited. 460 00:25:12,136 --> 00:25:13,716 You go in and it’s just sort of 461 00:25:13,846 --> 00:25:16,216 one little chamber, two little interconnected chambers. 462 00:25:16,306 --> 00:25:19,976 And some of them extend hundreds of feet 463 00:25:20,060 --> 00:25:21,770 in many different directions with, 464 00:25:21,895 --> 00:25:23,455 you know, all sorts of different little, 465 00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,070 sort of, side chambers and passages. 466 00:25:26,150 --> 00:25:28,530 We don’t know who carved them. 467 00:25:28,610 --> 00:25:30,990 We don’t know when they were carved. 468 00:25:31,071 --> 00:25:33,821 We don’t know their original purpose. 469 00:25:34,867 --> 00:25:36,027 Because of this, 470 00:25:36,118 --> 00:25:40,658 the erdstall tunnels are incredibly mysterious. 471 00:25:42,082 --> 00:25:45,752 One investigator driven to solve the mystery of the erdstalls 472 00:25:45,878 --> 00:25:48,588 is Dieter Ahlborn. 473 00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,720 He has been exploring these tunnels for more than 20 years. 474 00:25:57,222 --> 00:25:58,222 Mm. 475 00:26:20,662 --> 00:26:21,712 And, uh... 476 00:26:33,425 --> 00:26:36,385 To date, more than 1,200 long-abandoned erdstalls 477 00:26:36,470 --> 00:26:40,600 have been found beneath the German and Austrian soil. 478 00:26:40,682 --> 00:26:44,942 But why would anyone go to such lengths to carve 479 00:26:45,020 --> 00:26:48,820 these bizarre underground structures in the first place? 480 00:26:49,817 --> 00:26:51,987 Normally, if you’ve got tunnels 481 00:26:52,111 --> 00:26:53,901 or caves, you will find 482 00:26:53,987 --> 00:26:56,947 bones or-or artifacts or something inside them. 483 00:26:57,032 --> 00:27:00,662 There is nothing in these erdstalls, 484 00:27:00,744 --> 00:27:02,584 and that has made it very, very difficult 485 00:27:02,663 --> 00:27:04,833 to know what they were for. 486 00:27:04,957 --> 00:27:07,787 They’re obviously completely dark, 487 00:27:07,876 --> 00:27:09,956 and, interestingly, you don’t see areas 488 00:27:10,045 --> 00:27:13,165 where there were, like, hearths or, um, fires. 489 00:27:13,257 --> 00:27:14,837 You don’t have, you know, charcoal. 490 00:27:14,925 --> 00:27:18,185 But there are also these tiny little areas 491 00:27:18,262 --> 00:27:21,222 carved out for a place where, like, a lamp would be placed 492 00:27:21,348 --> 00:27:23,701 so that people who are actually building would be able to see. 493 00:27:23,725 --> 00:27:26,185 So it’s clearly... it was very well-planned 494 00:27:26,311 --> 00:27:28,151 and designed and executed, 495 00:27:28,230 --> 00:27:30,860 and yet we don’t know what they were built for. 496 00:27:45,747 --> 00:27:46,787 And, um... 497 00:28:08,103 --> 00:28:11,363 If the erdstalls weren’t made for any practical purpose, 498 00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,020 then why were they built? 499 00:28:13,108 --> 00:28:16,818 Well, some people believe that they weren’t created 500 00:28:16,904 --> 00:28:19,074 to be used by the living 501 00:28:19,156 --> 00:28:23,076 but, rather, they were designed to be a resting place 502 00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:25,450 for the souls of the dead. 503 00:28:25,579 --> 00:28:30,669 A very unique theory, uh, about erdstalls 504 00:28:30,751 --> 00:28:33,921 was that there was a lot of Christian ideas 505 00:28:34,004 --> 00:28:36,764 as to their function. 506 00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:41,890 And they would have been used to collect the souls of the dead, 507 00:28:41,970 --> 00:28:46,560 where they would remain until the Day of Judgment 508 00:28:46,642 --> 00:28:50,272 and then they would rise to go to heaven. 509 00:28:51,647 --> 00:28:54,607 Is it possible that the erdstalls were constructed 510 00:28:54,691 --> 00:28:57,441 by Christians throughout Central Europe 511 00:28:57,527 --> 00:29:02,027 to be holding chambers for people’s souls 512 00:29:02,115 --> 00:29:04,445 as they waited to get into heaven? 513 00:29:04,576 --> 00:29:06,076 Perhaps. 514 00:29:07,537 --> 00:29:08,617 But, on the other hand, 515 00:29:08,747 --> 00:29:11,247 there are some archaeologists who believe 516 00:29:11,333 --> 00:29:14,463 that explanation isn’t quite good enough. 517 00:29:14,544 --> 00:29:17,804 And one reason is that, as it turns out, 518 00:29:17,881 --> 00:29:23,301 erdstalls aren’t only being found in Germany and Austria. 519 00:29:23,428 --> 00:29:28,598 People are discovering them all over Europe. 520 00:29:28,684 --> 00:29:32,314 There are similar tunnels in many parts of Europe. 521 00:29:32,437 --> 00:29:35,477 Even Israel has some, but it’s very, very difficult 522 00:29:35,607 --> 00:29:39,357 to see any kind of linking, uh, phenomenon between them. 523 00:29:39,486 --> 00:29:42,736 Perhaps there was some widespread belief 524 00:29:42,823 --> 00:29:44,413 that we know nothing about, 525 00:29:44,491 --> 00:29:48,081 because they were clearly of great importance. 526 00:29:48,161 --> 00:29:49,881 Humans have been able to-to chisel 527 00:29:49,955 --> 00:29:52,675 into stone for thousands of years. 528 00:29:52,749 --> 00:29:56,339 There’s probably countless structures 529 00:29:56,420 --> 00:30:00,130 throughout the ancient world that are in places 530 00:30:00,215 --> 00:30:03,425 where we just don’t know that they exist. 531 00:30:04,886 --> 00:30:07,136 The discovery of ancient underground tunnels 532 00:30:07,222 --> 00:30:11,142 beneath buildings and even people’s homes all over Europe 533 00:30:11,226 --> 00:30:14,846 is proof that ruins can be found in unexpected places. 534 00:30:14,980 --> 00:30:16,690 In fact, there are those who believe 535 00:30:16,773 --> 00:30:19,193 that there are ancient structures 536 00:30:19,276 --> 00:30:23,026 located in areas that you might never imagine, 537 00:30:23,113 --> 00:30:27,873 including the least hospitable place on Earth: Antarctica. 538 00:30:31,872 --> 00:30:33,292 On the bottom of our planet 539 00:30:33,373 --> 00:30:35,883 lies the frigid land of Antarctica, 540 00:30:36,001 --> 00:30:39,051 the coldest and most inhospitable continent 541 00:30:39,171 --> 00:30:40,461 in the world. 542 00:30:40,547 --> 00:30:43,677 Stretching over five million square miles, 543 00:30:43,759 --> 00:30:46,259 Antarctica is covered in ice sheets 544 00:30:46,386 --> 00:30:48,676 that reach more than a mile deep. 545 00:30:48,764 --> 00:30:53,354 The average daily temperature is -49 degrees Fahrenheit, 546 00:30:53,435 --> 00:30:57,235 and wind speeds can reach over 100 miles per hour. 547 00:30:57,314 --> 00:31:01,194 Today, the only inhabitants of this barren landscape 548 00:31:01,276 --> 00:31:04,646 are scientists who work in research stations 549 00:31:04,738 --> 00:31:07,198 scattered across the continent. 550 00:31:07,282 --> 00:31:10,872 Mainstream geologists have long believed that ancient humans 551 00:31:10,952 --> 00:31:15,502 never settled on Antarctica because of its hostile climate. 552 00:31:15,582 --> 00:31:19,252 But incredibly, in 2016, 553 00:31:19,378 --> 00:31:22,258 satellite images revealed a curious formation 554 00:31:22,339 --> 00:31:25,339 emerging from the ice 555 00:31:25,425 --> 00:31:27,885 that some researchers believe could be 556 00:31:27,969 --> 00:31:31,509 a man-made pyramid. 557 00:31:31,598 --> 00:31:34,888 Recently, there have been a number of reports 558 00:31:34,976 --> 00:31:39,936 of pyramids, huge, great pyramids, in Antarctica. 559 00:31:40,023 --> 00:31:43,073 They jut out of the ice and snow, 560 00:31:43,151 --> 00:31:47,361 and they look perfect, just like those in Egypt. 561 00:31:47,447 --> 00:31:52,367 But they dwarf those in Egypt, like the Great Pyramid. 562 00:31:52,452 --> 00:31:55,872 One has a perfectly square base 563 00:31:55,956 --> 00:31:59,536 that is two kilometers square in each direction. 564 00:31:59,626 --> 00:32:03,796 Is it possible, therefore, that our ancestors 565 00:32:03,922 --> 00:32:07,932 did actually reach the Antarctic continent 566 00:32:08,009 --> 00:32:10,219 and perhaps even settle there? 567 00:32:10,303 --> 00:32:15,103 A man-made pyramid beneath the Antarctic ice? 568 00:32:15,183 --> 00:32:18,443 If such an incredible notion is true, 569 00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,270 then it naturally begs some questions. 570 00:32:21,356 --> 00:32:26,486 How was such a massive structure built on Antarctica? 571 00:32:26,570 --> 00:32:29,570 When was it done? And by whom? 572 00:32:29,656 --> 00:32:33,656 Antarctica, we have been told from the geologists, 573 00:32:33,743 --> 00:32:37,963 has been under ice for many millions of years. 574 00:32:38,039 --> 00:32:41,669 However, there is evidence that it could have been 575 00:32:41,793 --> 00:32:46,013 free of ice, certainly in certain areas, 576 00:32:46,089 --> 00:32:49,589 until, perhaps, 4000 BC. 577 00:32:51,678 --> 00:32:55,638 There are a large number of stories from Polynesia 578 00:32:55,724 --> 00:32:58,524 of so-called "culture heroes," 579 00:32:58,602 --> 00:33:01,522 who reached the Antarctic continent. 580 00:33:01,605 --> 00:33:05,945 A French academic by the name of Argod 581 00:33:06,026 --> 00:33:08,396 put together all of these different stories 582 00:33:08,528 --> 00:33:12,198 in a book titled Out of Antarctica. 583 00:33:12,282 --> 00:33:16,542 The Polynesian peoples’ stories describe 584 00:33:16,661 --> 00:33:19,711 this strange land, with these white rocks 585 00:33:19,789 --> 00:33:22,289 that come out of the water, which are icebergs, 586 00:33:22,375 --> 00:33:27,545 and other creatures, such as seals and penguins, 587 00:33:27,672 --> 00:33:30,172 and seem to describe an area that we now know 588 00:33:30,258 --> 00:33:31,718 as Antarctica. 589 00:33:31,801 --> 00:33:35,511 The Polynesian peoples believed 590 00:33:35,597 --> 00:33:38,137 this was the place of the ancestors. 591 00:33:38,225 --> 00:33:41,445 And they said, this is where, uh, we came from originally. 592 00:33:41,561 --> 00:33:46,111 Why did they believe this if this was untrue? 593 00:33:46,233 --> 00:33:51,323 Is it really possible that the coldest place on Earth 594 00:33:51,404 --> 00:33:54,494 was once warm enough to be inhabited by humans? 595 00:33:54,574 --> 00:33:55,914 Well, 596 00:33:55,992 --> 00:34:00,542 in 2017, German geologists collected core samples 597 00:34:00,622 --> 00:34:03,832 from deep within the frozen Antarctic seafloor 598 00:34:03,917 --> 00:34:06,497 in order to analyze what the continent’s climate 599 00:34:06,586 --> 00:34:09,876 might have been like thousands of years ago. 600 00:34:09,965 --> 00:34:14,515 What they discovered was astonishing. 601 00:34:14,594 --> 00:34:19,724 In the case of that expedition in early 2017, 602 00:34:19,808 --> 00:34:22,938 we used a very special seafloor drill rig 603 00:34:23,019 --> 00:34:26,359 that, uh, hasn’t been used before in Antarctica. 604 00:34:26,439 --> 00:34:30,189 So when we used this special drill rig 605 00:34:30,277 --> 00:34:34,027 and the sediments came up, we saw immediately 606 00:34:34,114 --> 00:34:38,914 more than 60 different taxa of plants. 607 00:34:38,994 --> 00:34:43,164 Similar to something that you would find in a rain forest, 608 00:34:43,290 --> 00:34:47,790 in a temperature regime that was similar 609 00:34:47,877 --> 00:34:51,797 to what we today know from Northern Italy. 610 00:34:51,923 --> 00:34:57,473 And finding that on the Antarctic continent... 611 00:34:57,596 --> 00:34:59,636 That was the most exciting thing. 612 00:34:59,723 --> 00:35:02,983 Because the climatic conditions 613 00:35:03,101 --> 00:35:06,061 doesn’t today allow any vegetation 614 00:35:06,146 --> 00:35:08,106 to survive under those conditions. 615 00:35:08,189 --> 00:35:13,149 So, based on that location and the environment we found, 616 00:35:13,278 --> 00:35:17,158 I think that the Antarctic continent and the secrets 617 00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:19,660 that still need to be recovered 618 00:35:19,743 --> 00:35:23,503 will tell us a lot about planet Earth. 619 00:35:23,622 --> 00:35:28,422 Was Antarctica once a tropical rain forest 620 00:35:28,501 --> 00:35:31,001 where people lived? 621 00:35:31,087 --> 00:35:32,837 It may sound impossible, 622 00:35:32,964 --> 00:35:35,474 but some scientists have suggested a theory 623 00:35:35,550 --> 00:35:38,140 that might offer an explanation. 624 00:35:38,219 --> 00:35:42,309 They claim that it’s possible that the continent of Antarctica 625 00:35:42,390 --> 00:35:44,850 wasn’t always at the South Pole, 626 00:35:44,934 --> 00:35:48,694 but rather that it shifted there over time. 627 00:35:48,813 --> 00:35:50,583 The idea of pole shifts was proposed 628 00:35:50,607 --> 00:35:53,857 by Charles Hapgood in the 1950s. 629 00:35:53,943 --> 00:35:57,493 Hapgood was a science teacher, a professor in New Hampshire, 630 00:35:57,572 --> 00:36:01,702 and he published a book called the Earth’s Shifting Crust 631 00:36:01,826 --> 00:36:03,236 in the 1950s. 632 00:36:03,370 --> 00:36:05,870 And what Hapgood proposed 633 00:36:05,955 --> 00:36:08,615 was that the geographic pole will change. 634 00:36:08,708 --> 00:36:10,588 In Hapgood’s research, 635 00:36:10,710 --> 00:36:15,210 he proposed that the poles shifted 18,000 years ago. 636 00:36:15,298 --> 00:36:16,968 And the way it changes is that 637 00:36:17,050 --> 00:36:19,390 the whole crust of the Earth changes. 638 00:36:19,469 --> 00:36:24,469 It slips, sort of like an orange skin over an orange. 639 00:36:24,557 --> 00:36:26,477 If Hapgood’s theory is correct, 640 00:36:26,559 --> 00:36:29,899 Antarctica would have been not at the South Pole 641 00:36:30,021 --> 00:36:32,901 but would have been shifted to a much more temperate climate, 642 00:36:32,982 --> 00:36:36,032 like New Zealand or South Africa. 643 00:36:36,111 --> 00:36:38,741 It’s possible that there could have been 644 00:36:38,822 --> 00:36:42,832 an ancient civilization long ago when Antarctica 645 00:36:42,909 --> 00:36:47,289 was in a more temperate, uh, climate and was habitable. 646 00:36:47,414 --> 00:36:49,674 Is it possible 647 00:36:49,749 --> 00:36:54,629 that such a pyramid could actually be in Antarctica? 648 00:36:54,754 --> 00:36:59,094 We are now getting slim pieces of evidence that are telling us 649 00:36:59,217 --> 00:37:03,757 that it was occupied in the past. 650 00:37:03,847 --> 00:37:07,597 All of these are clues that will give us more information 651 00:37:07,684 --> 00:37:09,894 about the people of the past, 652 00:37:09,978 --> 00:37:14,068 and the greater antiquity of the human race. 653 00:37:14,149 --> 00:37:18,439 If it was ever proven that there really is an ancient pyramid 654 00:37:18,528 --> 00:37:21,908 on Antarctica, that could very well be 655 00:37:21,990 --> 00:37:24,830 the most extraordinary structure ever found. 656 00:37:24,951 --> 00:37:26,871 But there are other ruins 657 00:37:26,953 --> 00:37:29,253 that, while they may seem more ordinary, 658 00:37:29,330 --> 00:37:31,040 are no less baffling. 659 00:37:31,124 --> 00:37:34,004 For instance, a seemingly unremarkable series 660 00:37:34,127 --> 00:37:37,257 of stone buildings off the coast of Scotland 661 00:37:37,338 --> 00:37:41,298 that left behind a mystery we may never be able to solve. 662 00:37:45,180 --> 00:37:48,310 The Orkney Islands, Scotland. 663 00:37:49,392 --> 00:37:51,602 This rocky archipelago 664 00:37:51,686 --> 00:37:53,396 off the coast of Great Britain 665 00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,480 is home to well-preserved Stone Age ruins 666 00:37:56,566 --> 00:38:00,436 known as Skara Brae. 667 00:38:00,528 --> 00:38:03,318 Skara Brae was discovered in 1850, 668 00:38:03,406 --> 00:38:08,826 after a storm revealed these ancient ruins. 669 00:38:08,912 --> 00:38:11,662 This storm moved a whole load of sand 670 00:38:11,748 --> 00:38:14,628 away from a location, 671 00:38:14,709 --> 00:38:19,919 revealing an entire Neolithic village 672 00:38:20,006 --> 00:38:21,626 perfectly preserved, 673 00:38:21,716 --> 00:38:26,296 as if this is how it was left 5,000 years ago. 674 00:38:26,387 --> 00:38:30,847 It was like something out of The Flintstones, 675 00:38:30,934 --> 00:38:35,944 with these rooms containing stone chairs, 676 00:38:36,022 --> 00:38:40,652 stone beds, stone cupboards and mantelpieces. 677 00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:45,105 Constructed around the year 3000 BC, 678 00:38:45,198 --> 00:38:47,948 Skara Brae is believed to be older 679 00:38:48,034 --> 00:38:50,164 than the Great Pyramid of Giza. 680 00:38:50,245 --> 00:38:54,625 However, further excavations showed an astonishing connection 681 00:38:54,707 --> 00:39:00,457 between Skara Brae and the mysterious ancient stone circles 682 00:39:00,547 --> 00:39:04,377 that can be found throughout Great Britain and Ireland. 683 00:39:04,467 --> 00:39:08,007 The culture responsible for Skara Brae 684 00:39:08,096 --> 00:39:10,056 are known as the Grooved ware people, 685 00:39:10,139 --> 00:39:15,059 due to a very specific type of pottery that they created. 686 00:39:15,186 --> 00:39:19,066 And if you go to somewhere like Stonehenge, 687 00:39:19,148 --> 00:39:23,818 they found examples of ceramics that are identical 688 00:39:23,903 --> 00:39:27,573 to those that were found at Skara Brae. 689 00:39:27,699 --> 00:39:29,529 And that in itself is significant, 690 00:39:29,617 --> 00:39:32,157 because it’s very clear 691 00:39:32,245 --> 00:39:36,005 that the people on Orkney were gradually spreading out 692 00:39:36,082 --> 00:39:38,172 to cover the whole of Britain, 693 00:39:38,251 --> 00:39:41,171 building stone circles all over the country. 694 00:39:41,254 --> 00:39:45,054 Stonehenge, Avebury, 695 00:39:45,133 --> 00:39:47,893 Anglesey, Newgrange in Ireland... 696 00:39:47,969 --> 00:39:52,389 All of these were the product of the culture 697 00:39:52,473 --> 00:39:55,563 that originally started with Skara Brae. 698 00:39:57,020 --> 00:39:58,650 These huge stone circles 699 00:39:58,771 --> 00:40:01,611 obviously had some sort 700 00:40:01,733 --> 00:40:05,113 of special significance to the builders. 701 00:40:05,194 --> 00:40:07,914 But they didn’t have any form of writing to tell us 702 00:40:07,989 --> 00:40:10,239 why they were building stone circles. 703 00:40:10,325 --> 00:40:12,585 And so, the only way that we can 704 00:40:12,660 --> 00:40:16,750 reconstruct what these people were doing 705 00:40:16,831 --> 00:40:21,461 and the thinking behind it is by what they left behind. 706 00:40:21,544 --> 00:40:25,634 These big megalithic complexes that were built 707 00:40:25,757 --> 00:40:29,467 to exactly the same formula, and it all began 708 00:40:29,552 --> 00:40:34,142 on the Orkney Isles, and we don’t know why. 709 00:40:34,223 --> 00:40:37,353 Will we ever learn what motivated the inhabitants 710 00:40:37,477 --> 00:40:42,187 of Skara Brae to build such elaborate stone circles? 711 00:40:42,315 --> 00:40:44,325 It’s questions like these 712 00:40:44,442 --> 00:40:47,992 that keep archaeologists digging all over the world, 713 00:40:48,112 --> 00:40:51,572 in order to learn more about our ancestors 714 00:40:51,658 --> 00:40:56,998 and the mysterious structures they left behind. 715 00:40:57,121 --> 00:40:59,001 There are vast areas of the world, 716 00:40:59,123 --> 00:41:01,963 vast parts of Asia and Africa, for example, 717 00:41:02,043 --> 00:41:04,843 that are barely touched by archaeology even now. 718 00:41:04,963 --> 00:41:08,473 And there will certainly be all kinds of surprises, 719 00:41:08,549 --> 00:41:12,009 and endless strange things coming out of these areas 720 00:41:12,136 --> 00:41:16,176 which will completely change our view of that period of the past. 721 00:41:16,265 --> 00:41:18,015 It does seem that 722 00:41:18,101 --> 00:41:20,271 the deeper we dig into our past, 723 00:41:20,353 --> 00:41:23,153 we are finding things that we can’t explain. 724 00:41:23,231 --> 00:41:28,151 Sites and temples that shouldn’t have been around at that time. 725 00:41:28,236 --> 00:41:30,776 And the further we explore, the mystery just gets 726 00:41:30,863 --> 00:41:33,123 deeper and deeper. 727 00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:37,159 Whether it’s lost pyramids or abandoned tunnels 728 00:41:37,245 --> 00:41:39,545 or baffling stone artifacts, 729 00:41:39,622 --> 00:41:41,792 ancient structures have the uncanny power 730 00:41:41,874 --> 00:41:45,714 to capture our curiosity, and keep us wondering 731 00:41:45,795 --> 00:41:48,135 what secrets they might reveal. 732 00:41:48,214 --> 00:41:50,674 But no matter how much time or effort 733 00:41:50,758 --> 00:41:52,338 we spend trying to find and study 734 00:41:52,427 --> 00:41:56,307 and understand mysterious ruins, 735 00:41:56,389 --> 00:41:58,519 like many things from our past, they remain... 736 00:41:58,599 --> 00:42:01,059 unexplained. 737 00:42:01,185 --> 00:42:03,405 >>>>oakislandtk<<<<< www.opensubtitles.org 58835

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