Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- Tonight, for many thousands of years,

humans have created rituals

to mark the transition from life to death.

- It's not just a matter of putting a body in the ground

and forgetting about it.

There is a whole complex set of practices

to ensure success.

- From famous burial sites

mentioned in the Bible's Old Testament...

- God reveals to him

that this is where Adam and Eve are buried.

- To mysterious practices followed by ancient Egyptians.

- There are spells

that turn saliva into a magical healing elixir.

- Another keeps your flesh from rotting.

- If you don't have the right spell

or know the answer to a question,

you could die permanently this time.

- To blazing fires meant to set the soul free.

- You've got boats, fire, weapons.

And eventually, your final resting place is in the ocean.

- These are some of the remarkable ceremonies

to commemorate the dead.

[dramatic music]

Burying the dead is a custom

marked by virtually every culture on Earth.

But of the many sites where the dead are honored,

one of the most significant is a simple cave,

and what was known as Canaan.

- There's a place in the Hebrew Bible

called the Cave of the Patriarchs.

And it may be the burial site of not one,

not two, not three,

but eight of the Bible's most famous people.

- The tale of the Cave of the Patriarchs

starts in the Book of Genesis with the story of Abraham.

Abraham is a figure who's connected

with three major religions.

All Jews, Christians, and Muslims are said to descend

from their ancestral father, Abraham.

- In Genesis, Abraham's wife Sarah

dies in a place called Kiriath Arba, in the land of Canaan.

The Bible also calls this place Hebron.

This isn't Abraham's homeland.

Previously God told him to move there.

And if he did, as he was told, God would bless him

and his descendants.

- So here he is in Canaan,

basically a stranger in the land,

and his wife dies.

So he needs a place to bury Sarah.

- Abraham has to negotiate with the locals to buy a tomb.

Fortunately, he's well-liked,

so they let him choose a cave called the Cave of Machpelah.

And Abraham pays 400 shekels of silver,

and it's all his.

- When Abraham finally passes, he's buried next to Sarah.

Next, Abraham's son, Isaac,

the son whom he famously almost sacrificed to God

is buried in the cave

and Isaac's wife, Rebecca, after that.

- Finally, Isaac's son Jacob and his wife Leah

are also buried in the cave.

Jacob, of course, is known for having 12 sons

who each become the heads

of the 12 different tribes of Israel.

- And when we read the Jewish Midrash,

we find that there are two other people

who may be buried in this tomb,

Adam and Eve.

- In this midrash, Abraham locates the cave

while chasing after a calf.

And he has what we might call a religious experience inside.

God reveals to him

that this is where Adam and Eve are buried.

He also sees the entrance to the Garden of Eden

right there in this cave.

- [Dennis] Incredibly, the site still exists today.

- The Bible very clearly says the cave is in Hebron

and Hebron is a real city.

It's located in the West Bank

about 18 miles south of Jerusalem.

In the oldest part of this ancient city,

there is a building known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs,

and it was built over the Cave of the Patriarchs.

- It's interesting to point out

that while multiple locations claim to be the place

where Jesus is buried or where Moses is buried,

there is only one place

that claims to be the Cave of the Patriarchs.

But whether this place actually holds the remains

of these biblical figures is not entirely clear.

- [Dennis] What is clear is that the cave was in use

many centuries ago,

perhaps by people honoring the patriarchs.

- In 2020, Archeologist David Ben-Shlomo

publishes a report on some vessels, some ceramic pieces

that were harvested from this burial cave

and dated them to about the 8th century BC.

- We haven't found any Judeo-Christian

places of worship older than this.

If people that long ago

believed the patriarchs were buried here,

it certainly adds credibility.

- Archeologists have found that by the reign of King Herod,

who lived around the time of Christ,

this cave is incredibly popular

as a pilgrimage site for Jews.

- There are so many people visiting that site

that Herod actually constructs a temple around the cave.

It has six-foot thick walls.

It's roughly 50 feet tall, so it's a substantial structure.

For a long stretch of the site's history,

it keeps changing hands.

When the Byzantine Christians take it over

around the Fourth century,

they build a basilica at one end

and they add a roof to the enclosure.

- Then in the 7th century,

the cave goes from Christian control to Muslim control.

They keep Herod's enclosure, but knock down the church

and build a mosque at the holy cave.

- [Dennis] 500 years later, in the 12th century,

Christians finally have a chance to get the cave back.

- European Christians embark on the crusades

to take back the holy land.

In the year 1100,

they succeed in seizing the Tomb of the Patriarchs

from Islamic control

and they convert the mosque back into a church.

During this time period, a monk named Arnoul,

who lives at this newly-reclaimed church,

makes a pretty amazing discovery.

- On a really warm June day in 1119,

he's chilling out on the floor of the church

because it's stone and it's cool.

But when he's lying there, he feels a breeze blowing up

between the cracks and the stone.

- So naturally, he starts to dig.

He reveals a shaft that's about 17-feet deep.

He grabs a rope and drops down to investigate,

- And at the bottom of the shaft, he finds a cave.

The walls of the cave are aligned with masonry,

which was similar to what was used

at the time of King Herod.

Arnoul starts banging around

and he finds what sounds like a hollow spot

behind one of the walls.

He knocks down this wall and he finds another corridor.

As best as we can tell, this might be the first person

inside the actual cave in over 1,000 years.

- Arnoul and his fellow monks dig around in the cave system

under the Tomb of the Patriarchs for weeks.

And lo and behold, they actually find bones.

They carefully wash the bones and put them on display

and believe that what they found

is what's left of the patriarchs.

- So they have this display,

obviously they want everybody to see it.

So they take that 17-foot shaft and build steps.

So now it's an access site

for any pilgrim that wants to come see

the Cave of the Patriarchs.

- In 1163, one of those pilgrims writes an account

of his visit to the caves.

He writes that after he walked through two empty caverns,

he encountered a third.

And inside, he found six actual tombs inscribed with names

that contained the bones of Abraham and Sarah,

Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.

- It's telling that he only sees six tombs.

Theoretically, if Adam and Eve also buried there,

there should be eight.

Maybe their graves are under the tombs

or in a part of the caves that hasn't been uncovered yet.

- [Dennis] Unfortunately, this question remains unanswered.

- In 1188, the Muslim sultan Saladin retakes the land.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs is converted back into a mosque.

and at some point after that,

a stone floor and walls are installed

that block the entrance to the cave.

- [Varun] Today, the structure

is called the Al Ibrahimi Mosque,

and it's one of the world's oldest religious buildings

that's still in use.

Pretty much all of Herod's original structure

is still there inside the mosque and it still draws a crowd.

In recent times, over a million pilgrims a year.

- But the cave isn't totally sealed this time.

There's a grate in the floor

where you can peer down into the shaft

that Arnoul uncovered.

But the tombs and bones, if they still exist,

are far out of view.

- Hopefully someday, the remains

at the Cave of the Patriarchs can be analyzed

with modern technology

and we can find out more about who they really were.

- Long before the Cave of the Patriarchs existed,

ancient Egyptians also buried their dead.

But in Egypt, death wasn't seen as an end,

but instead the start of a very long journey,

one that required a manual.

- For ancient Egyptians, the afterlife is a complicated

and difficult place to navigate.

It's not just a matter of putting a body in the ground

and forgetting about it,

there is a whole complex set of rituals

and burial practices to ensure success.

- [Dennis] The details are laid out in a guide

known as "The Book of the Dead."

- "The Book of the Dead" isn't an actual

traditional book with pages.

Instead, it's a collection of hieroglyphics

written in different places, on tombs,

on coffins, on papyrus scrolls.

- It's a hands-on, practical guide to the world of the dead

and the various incantations that will protect the deceased

against all sorts of perils in the afterlife.

- The earliest versions we found of the Book of the Dead

come from a pyramid at Saqqara.

And it's carved on the walls of a tomb of a Pharaoh

who lived in the 24th century BC, so that's 4,500 years ago.

- This early version of the Book of the Dead

is reserved strictly for Pharaohs

and the hieroglyphs in these texts depict Ra,

the sun God, coming to collect the king's soul.

Ra shows up in his golden barge.

He takes the soul of the king and transports it to paradise,

basically the ancient Egyptian idea of heaven,

which looks like a field of reeds.

- And along with the story,

there are various spells which historians believe would be

chanted by priests,

asking the gods to help the Pharaoh on his journey.

- Few hundred years later,

we start to see these spells being painted on the coffins

of folks just below the Pharaohs on the social scale,

like priests, or other members of the royal family.

We also start to see some

of these passages being physically written

on the bandages of mummies.

- [Dennis] In 1842,

a German Egyptologist named Karl Lepsius

translates the Book of the Dead for the first time.

- It isn't until this really detailed translation

that we start to get a very clear picture

of the ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs

and how they evolved.

- [Dennis] One God in particular

plays a significant role in these texts:

Osiris.

- Is one of the most important of the Egyptian gods.

He is the God of life and fertility,

but at the same time, he is the God

of death in the underworld.

His backstory has a number of variations,

but it appears that Osiris was originally

one of the first rulers of Egypt.

- When Osiris dies,

it's said that he's made into the first ever mummy.

He's then resurrected to become the immortal God

of the underworld, and by about 2,400 BC,

the Egyptians are trying to recreate that process

with their own funerary rites.

- So to that end, the Egyptians developed

the most complex postmortem practices in ancient times,

maybe even of all time.

When you die, the ultimate goal

is to essentially get to Osiris,

in the hopes that you can become immortal yourself.

- [Dennis] Reaching the afterlife was one thing,

but surviving it, that was a whole different challenge.

- The text basically outlines four different sections

that each person needs to go through.

First, the deceased enters the underworld

and has to learn how to use their dead body.

Then they're resurrected, in a sense, with a mission

of finding their way into the underworld for judgment.

And if they pass, they become immortal.

- [Dennis] But maneuvering through the underworld

is no easy task.

- For ancient Egyptians,

the afterlife was a treacherous place.

In the afterlife, you can be eaten by a crocodile,

you can be poisoned by a snake,

you can be bitten by horrible insects.

So there are spells in the Book of the Dead

that you can cast to protect yourself

from all of these things.

- There are other spells

that literally keep you in one piece.

The Egyptians believe that the human being

is made up of a whole collection of substances,

and that upon death, those substances can go flying apart.

- One spell keeps your head attached to your torso.

Another ensures that your heart doesn't go wandering off.

Another keeps your flesh from rotting.

- There are spells that describe

how to make your body regain movement and speech,

or how to craft protective amulets,

or how to turn your saliva into a magical healing elixir.

- [Dennis] Physical survival was only part of the journey.

There's also a test.

- While you're making your way through the underworld,

you get asked a series of questions,

but it's an open-book exam.

If you've got your Book of the Dead near you,

you'll be fine.

- For example, part of your journey is made on a boat

or a barge, and so there's a spell in the book that you need

to summon this boat.

And when the boat arrives, it gives you a quiz.

The rudder asks you, "Tell me my name."

And you have to know

that the rudder's spiritual name is Aker.

- If you don't have the right spell

or know the answer to a question,

you could die permanently this time,

never to have your chance at immortality.

In other instances, you might lose your head

and be doomed to wander the afterlife

without a head, forever.

- One of the worst possible consequences

is that you get turned upside down

causing your digestive track to work in reverse.

That means you're going to spend eternity

drinking urine and eating feces.

So you better have that book.

- [Dennis] If you're lucky enough

to make it to the end of this arduous journey,

you come face to face with Osiris.

- He's the one that will determine

whether you achieve immortality.

The way he does this is by taking your heart

and weighing it against an ostrich feather.

- If you do everything according to the Book of the Dead,

any of the evil and darkness that weighed down your heart

will be washed away, making it lighter than a feather.

And you get to dwell happily ever after

in the afterlife.

- The Book of the Dead offers help for the soul,

but ancient Egyptians also took care of the body,

in a ritual we know today as mummification.

- We all know that mummification was very important

to the ancient Egyptians.

Even though the soul was off

on this epic quest in the underworld,

it was still linked to the body.

And they were afraid that if the body decomposed,

maybe the soul would too.

- The word mummy comes from the Arabic word mumiya,

which actually means tar.

That's because when the Arabs first encounter

Egyptian mummies in the Seventh century,

it looks to them like bodies covered in tar.

The mummies are actually covered in dark resins

from the bandaging process, but the name sticks anyways.

- It was originally thought that Egyptian mummification

started with the pharaohs and other royals around 2,600 BC.

We're starting to find partial burial practices,

like the removal of organs

and wrapping portions of the bodies

and some earlier Egyptian sites,

perhaps as early as 3,500 BC.

- [Dennis] Just as surprising,

mummification isn't exclusive to the Egyptians.

- Cultures all over the world have practiced mummification.

Mummies have been found on every single continent,

except for Antarctica.

- Mummies have been discovered in Australia.

There are mummies in China.

South Africa has mummies.

- The Capuchin monks on the island of Sicily

mummify some of their citizens.

Their first is Frate Silvestro da Gubbio,

who's been on display since 1599,

and you can still go see him today.

And he's surrounded by a whole bunch

of other mummified Catholic priests and monks

as well as general townspeople.

- These mummies come long after the Egyptians of course.

And for centuries, people assumed

that the Egyptians were the first ones

to come up with mummification.

- [Dennis] But thousands of miles away,

a startling discovery challenges this idea.

- In Northern Chile, near the port city of Arica,

archeologists have found remnants

of an indigenous culture known as the Chinchorro people.

They're predominantly fishermen,

and they have a long tradition of mummifying their dead.

- The Chinchorro mummies are first documented

by a German archeologist in 1917.

After more than two decades exploring in South America,

he finds these really well-preserved human corpses

just lying near a beach in the Atacama desert.

It's the driest desert on Earth.

The arid conditions have preserved the bodies so well

that they've been okay lying out in the open

for what seems like quite a while.

- Test results reveal that some of them date to 5,000 BC,

making them over 7,000 years old.

This means that these mummies were created

more than 2,000 years

before Egyptians started mummifying their Pharaohs.

- Much like Egyptian mummies,

the Chinchorro mummies also had their organs removed

and their insides stuffed.

But it's incredible to consider that these two practices

developed independently of each other,

thousands of miles and thousands of years apart.

- [Dennis] There are, however, striking differences

between the two rituals.

- The Egyptian mummification procedures evolve over time.

But for the most part,

the first step is removal of most of the organs.

Next, they dry out the body

with a type of salt called natron

that would remove all the moisture in the flesh

so that the corpse doesn't decompose.

- Then, the body cavity is stuffed

with things like sawdust, sand, or straw.

And finally, come the linen bandages

wrapped all around the body.

The whole process takes about 70 days.

- The Chinchorro mummies had their skin completely removed

and the skeleton totally de-fleshed.

- They used sticks to reinforce the bones,

and they packed mud onto the corpse

to stand in for the muscle that had been discarded.

Finally, they put the skin back on,

stretching it over the reconstructed body,

kind of like reupholstering a piece of furniture.

- [Dennis] For almost 30 years, the Chinchorro mummies

are thought to be the world's oldest,

until two archeologists

discover something unexpected in 1940.

- A husband and wife archeological team,

Georgia and Sydney Wheeler, are surveying a cavern

called the Spirit Cave near Fallon, Nevada.

Inside, they find the remains of four people.

Three of the bodies are just partial remains

and not very well-preserved,

but one body is in exceptional condition.

It's actually partially mummified.

- This body belongs to a 40-year-old male

who has very clearly

and intentionally been placed in this cave.

It's a body that's wrapped in rabbit skins

and then draped over by a woven reed mat.

It is not as complex a ritual

as with the Egyptians or the Chinchorros,

but it's still a very well thought-out,

ancient burial practice.

- The bodies are found

with various artifacts like knives and baskets.

Carbon dating doesn't exist yet,

so just looking at the artifacts,

comparing them to other fines,

they estimate the Mummy to be about 1,500-2,000 years old.

- [Dennis] 50 years later,

an anthropology professor named Ervin Taylor

takes an even closer look at the mummy.

- In 1996, the Nevada State Museum is collaborating

with the University of California Riverside,

where Ervin Taylor radiocarbon-dates a hair sample

from the Spirit Cave mummy.

And she gets a result that is so far out there,

they have to do more tests

because they're sure there's been some kind of a mistake,

- But the tests are conclusive.

The show that this person likely died

10,600 years ago.

It's easily the oldest mummy in North America,

and it might even be the oldest mummy in the world.

- Surprisingly, the Spirit Cave mummy

is very closely-related to native people

who still live locally.

In 2016, the Spirit Cave mummy is repatriated

to the Paiute-Shoshone Tribe in Nevada.

The tribe opts to rebury it according to their customs.

- The mummy is given a casket.

Singing and prayers are offered,

and people are invited

to place farewell gifts with the body.

It's a fitting second sendoff for someone

who was given such great care 10,000 years ago.

- Some cultures choose not to preserve

the bodies of their dead.

They believe the soul can be freed

only if the physical shell is destroyed.

For Hindus, this job is performed by a sacred flame

known as the funeral pyre.

- Hindus have been burning bodies

almost as long as Egyptians have been embalming them.

It's believed that the Hindu funeral pyre custom

dates back at least 4,000 years.

One of the earliest written records comes from the Rigveda,

the oldest sacred Hindu text composed around 1500 BC.

- According to the Rigveda,

when a person is cremated on the funeral pyre,

the fire deity, Agni,

carries their soul to Yama, the God of death,

who judges them and determines whether or not

they get a favorable rebirth.

- The ritual starts with stacking large piles of wood

and various religious customs are performed

depending on which sect of Hinduism you belong to.

- First, the dead body is washed.

And then sprinkled and anointed

with various herbs, roots, and oils.

- The body is wrapped in white cloth and mourners chant

and pray for the deceased.

And the idea is to comfort the soul

as it's sent on its transition,

- And then the body is placed on a stretcher

and carried to the pyre.

Once at that site,

the mourners walk the body three times counterclockwise

around the unlit pyre.

And then they place the body on top of the wooden structure

and make the offerings of incense.

And they cover the body in ghee, which is clarified butter.

Both are considered sacred.

Then they light the pyre,

reducing the body to ashes over several hours.

- [Dennis] While most ceremonies follow a similar path,

some have a shocking additional step.

- There's a rather disturbing practice

associated with Hindu funeral pyres called sati or suttee.

It's an ancient tradition

where a widow of a deceased man

willingly sits or throws herself onto the pyre,

killing herself in the process.

- In 1987, under the government of Rajiv Gandhi,

a law criminalizing the practice is passed.

And as far as we know,

that's the end of a terribly sad practice.

- [Dennis] As laws change,

the spiritual significance remains just as profound.

- Cremation is very important to Hindus

because they believe the body is made up of five elements:

water, fire, earth, space, and air.

This process of cremation called Mukhagni

returns all these bodily elements to their origins.

- Who gets cremated according to Hindu tradition?

Well, almost everyone, except for people

who are considered to be pure enough

to not need the fire to cleanse them.

Those are priests, enlightened sages,

children, and pregnant women.

- [Dennis] Among those laid to rest in this tradition,

few were mourned as widely as Mahatma Gandhi.

- One of the biggest Hindu funerals of all time

was that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi was instrumental in freeing India from British rule.

And on January 30th, 1948,

he pays the ultimate price when he's assassinated.

It's estimated that over a million mourners

lined the streets to witness this epic and tragic event.

- A small portion of Gandhi's ashes are enshrined

at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune,

and also at the Lake Shrine

in Pacific Palisades, California.

- But the majority of his ashes are sprinkled into a river

near the city of Allahabad.

After a funeral pyre,

it's tradition to pour the ashes into a body of water,

like the ocean, or a river.

- This is a final act of purifying the soul

by quite literally washing away the remnants

of what Christians might call earthly sins

or what Hindus would call karmic attachments.

And so the journey of the ashes down the river

is emblematic of the soul's journey towards liberation.

- [Dennis] For Hindus, one river is considered sacred

above all others.

- [Nicola] The Ganges starts in the Himalayas

and winds its way over 1,500 miles

through northern India, to the Bay of Bengal.

- The river is considered the personification

of the goddess Ganga.

And since it's so revered,

Hindus travel from around the world

to spread their deceased relative's ashes into the water.

- The City of Varanasi sits on the banks

of the Ganges River in northern India,

and it's really become a hub

of getting ashes into the river.

- Every year, nearly 20,000 sick

and dying people make a pilgrimage to Varanasi

just to wait to die.

The city cremates nearly 100 bodies a day

or over 35,000 a year.

- [Dennis] Although funeral pyres

remain an important religious ritual,

today, the practice is changing.

- Indian funeral pyres consume

about 50 million trees every year.

And the problems here aren't just about deforestation.

They also produce about a half a million tons of ashes,

much of which ends up in the Ganges.

- A Delhi-based environmental group called Mokshda

has developed a more eco-friendly pyre

that consumes less than 1/4 of the wood

of a traditional pyre.

- That said, the importance of this holy ceremony

hasn't changed, but as our culture and technology evolve,

it's nice to see these ancient traditions evolve as well.

- Fire plays a role in another funeral rite,

one performed by the Vikings for those with high status.

- A Viking funeral is one of those epic soul-stirring events

that seem to fly right off the silver screen

in a blockbuster movie.

- As dramatized in fiction, we've all seen it.

The beloved king dies,

the whole village mournfully joins in an evening procession

down to the seaside to pay their last respects.

They load the monarch's body

into one of those famed Viking long boats,

and push it out to sea.

- Then just when the boat

seems like it will disappear into the darkness,

one heroic archer steps forward.

He lights the tip of an arrow with a torch

and he fires it toward the boat.

The arrow traces this beautiful arc in the night sky

before perfectly hitting its mark,

and then the boat,

with its dead king's body, bursts into flame.

- It seems like the perfect sendoff

for an adventurous, seafaring people.

You've got boats, fire, weapons,

and eventually, your final resting place is in the ocean.

- [Dennis] But the reality of a Viking funeral

is much different than the movies.

- So the first thing you need to know about the Vikings

is they're not one homogenous people.

There are multiple clans, multiple groups,

and they all have their own variations of funerary rites.

- Some groups don't burn their dead at all,

but bury them instead.

There have been thousands of Viking burial mounds found

throughout Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,

which are the Viking homelands.

- The Vikings that do cremate, similar to Hindus,

believe that smoke carries the dead person's soul

into the afterlife.

- Another thing we don't know for sure

is how often the boats were really set on fire

and pushed out to sea,

and this is obviously because any evidence of that practice

would've burned and sank.

- [Dennis] Fortunately, there are boats

that have survived.

- Archeologists have uncovered a lot of Viking burial sites

where the deceased were placed in a boat

and the whole thing gets buried

instead of being put into the water.

- In 1903, researchers digging in Vestfold County, Norway

unearthed a ship called the Oseberg ship,

which they determined was buried in 834 AD.

And it contains two bodies, women.

They just don't know who they were.

- Onboard, archeologists find tapestries.

They find silk and expensive fabrics.

They find tools, kitchen utensils.

They even find some animal sacrifices,

all presumably meant to help the deceased in the afterlife.

- Vikings didn't leave behind them

any kinda written record

of how they did their funeral practices.

So when archeologists come on the scene,

they mostly have to speculate.

- [Dennis] But there's one eyewitness account

that is written down.

- A 10th-century Arab writer named Ahmad Ibn Fadlan

claims to witness a Viking funeral with his own eyes.

Like the classic Hollywood portrayal,

it involves fire in a boat,

but it also involves a whole lot more.

- Ibn Fadlan is a Muslim missionary

who encounters a group of Vikings

camp out on the Volga River

near what is modern day Kazan in Russia.

He gets an invite to the funeral

of an important Viking chieftain.

- Ibn Fadlan writes that first, the men in the village

pull the chieftain's boat up out of the water.

Then they ask for a volunteer

from the chieftain's slave girls.

- The young girl who volunteers

is to become the chieftain's bride in death.

Part of her duties involves having sexual intercourse

with many of the men participating in the funeral,

who are mostly the chieftain's family members.

- The chieftain's body is placed on the boat.

And lots of food and drink and spices

are also placed all around

for him to enjoy in the afterlife.

Mourners then use a ceremonial sword

to slice a dog in half and place it on the boat.

They also kill and butcher two horses, two cows,

a couple of chickens,

and they place their meat on the ship too.

- Finally, the slave girl is brought forward

and she sings a farewell song.

She quickly drinks a couple glasses of alcohol,

and then she's pulled onto the ship

by six men from the chieftain's family.

They strangle and stab her to death.

The men leave the dead girl's body on the boat

with the chieftain.

They light the boat on fire

and everything is consumed by the flames.

- What Ibn Fadlan describes

is an absolutely barbaric ritual.

We don't know how often it occurred

because we only have this one account from Ibn Fadlan.

Maybe that's for the best.

- [Dennis] What we do know is that Viking funerals

eventually die out.

- Ultimately, the Vikings start to become Christians.

By about the year 1050 AD,

most Vikings have converted to this new religion,

which means they're baptized.

They go to church.

And when they die, they're buried as Christians.

The Viking funeral is no more.

- When it comes to honoring the dead,

there is one famous site known the world over,

a stunning monument built in the name of love.

- The Taj Mahal is the ultimate tomb.

It's one of the most spectacular places

you could ever go to.

It's named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World,

and it absolutely deserves that title.

- The story behind the construction

of this epic mausoleum starts in 1631,

when the Muslim Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's wife, Mumtaz,

tragically dies while giving birth to their 14th child.

- Jahan and his wife had been inseparable

since their marriage in 1612.

Jahan is completely devastated by her death.

In his grief, he stops listening to music.

He starts dressing badly.

He even pulls back from his royal duties.

- In order to honor their love story,

he chooses a beautiful spot for her mausoleum

on the sacred Yamuna River in the north Indian city of Agra.

And he sets out to build her a tomb for the ages

to show the entire world how much he loved her,

how much he misses her.

- Jahan hires more than 20,000 artisans and workers

from his territory and beyond,

including the Ottoman Empire in Europe.

And it's also said that 1,000 elephants are brought in

to do the heavy lifting.

- The Taj Mahal is considered one of the finest examples

of Mughal architecture,

which blends Indian, Persian and Islamic styles.

It sits on 42 acres of land

and isn't just a single building,

there's the main gateway known as the Darwaza-i-Rauza,

which kind of frames the Taj Mahal for visitors.

- The whole complex has been precisely situated.

So when you stand at the center of the garden

on the summer and winter solstices,

you can actually see the sun align

with the corners of the building.

- And then there's the iconic mausoleum itself.

It has four nearly identical sides,

each with these massive, central, 108-foot arches.

It's covered in luminescent white marble

that was brought in from quarries in Makrana, Rajasthan,

over 250 miles away.

- All around the marble facade,

there is this stone-inlaid calligraphy

featuring passages from the Quran.

There are four, over 130-foot tall minarets

on each corner of the main building.

The iconic central onion-shaped dome

comes in at 240 feet tall.

- The inside of the mausoleum

is an eight-sided, ornate marble chamber.

There are carvings and semi-precious stones everywhere.

- You just start to run out of superlative words

to describe the Taj Mahal.

The whole thing is unprecedented,

and it's never really been duplicated either.

- [Dennis] According to legend,

Shah Jahan goes to great lengths

to ensure that Taj Mahal is unique.

- There's actually a rumor that circulates for centuries

that in 1647, Jahan rounds up all the workers

who helped build the Taj Mahal and cuts off their arms,

supposedly so they would never be able

to work on a similar structure ever again.

The story is not true.

But such a spectacular building

inspires an equally spectacular story.

- What isn't exaggerated

is the amount of money Jahan spends,

well over 3/4 of a billion dollars, in today's money.

No expense was spared to honor the love of his life.

- [Dennis] Despite all the careful construction,

one notable detail has long puzzled visitors.

- When Shah Jahan dies in 1666,

he's also buried at the Taj Mahal.

But his tomb, or cenotaph, is off to the side,

and it actually sticks out like a sore thumb.

- With the entire complex

so intricately-planned around symmetry,

how could this be?

Why is this tomb in such an unusual spot?

- Well, some scholars speculate that Shah Jahan

had no intention of being buried there at all.

And instead, he wanted to build his own mausoleum

across the river from the Taj Mahal.

So they essentially have a his and hers tomb,

his being a near copy of the Taj Mahal

in black marble instead of white.

- We don't have any solid evidence

that this was the actual plan though.

And after Jahan is deposed by his own son in 1658,

we know that such a building was never built.

- Today, between 5 and 6 million people

visit this stunning, timeless monument every year,

making it one of the most popular tombs in the world.

If Shah Jahan wanted his wife to be remembered,

it certainly worked.

- No matter the ritual, one thing is clear:

Throughout time, humans have gone to extraordinary lengths

to help the dead rest in peace.

I'm Dennis Quaid, and thank you for watching Holy Marvels.