All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S05E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH[EZTVx.to]

Tonight, an Aztec king's glittering
treasure, its whereabouts, unknown.

Montezuma had this big treasure.

Some of the most valuable jewels.

Gold, silver.

The value of that is almost
immeasurable. It must be in the hundreds

of dollars.

It's inspired a 500 -year search that
spans continents.

Spanish explorers started searching for
it, and were really willing to do

anything to get to it.

Now, we uncover the top theories behind
a fortune that vanished into thin air.

Someone's got it. Someone's hiding it.
And he believes that that map is a map

show where Montezuma's hidden gold is
contained.

And even today, treasure hunters are
looking for this lost pyramid with this

gold treasure inside it.

What really happened to Montezuma's lost
treasure, and where is it today?

November 1519, Tenochtitlan.

Aztec King Montezuma has spent 16 years
building the strongest nation in

Mesoamerica.

Montezuma II is the ninth Aztec emperor.

He was a great warrior. He was very much
respected.

His military units had conquered large
sections of Mesoamerica.

He was emperor when the Aztec empire was
at its cultural and geographic peak.

It was comprised of 500 city -states and
close to 6 million people. people.

And at the center of this empire was the
gleaming white city of Tenochtitlan,

modern Mexico City.

This was a time when the Aztec empire
stretched as far as present -day

and Guatemala.

Like any conqueror, Montezuma plunders
treasure from the land he captures.

He was looting from these other states
all kinds of treasures, gold bars and

mats, turquoise, jade, other precious
stones.

And they kept them there at
Tenochtitlan.

In the Aztec world, nothing is valued
like gold.

Among Aztecs, gold was seen as almost a
divine item. It had a connection to

divinity. In fact, it was essentially
called the excrement of the gods.

This means this is what comes from the
gods, and in a sense they're digesting

their power and turning it into a gift
for us, a gift of beauty, a gift of

color, a gift associated with the sun.

We don't know exactly how much wealth,
how much treasure, how much gold

Montezuma had. We know it was there, it
was represented in people's clothing, it

was represented in the art.

Estimations are a guess, but do go as
high as a billion.

But just as Montezuma reaches the height
of his power, a threat appears at the

edge of his empire.

After 1492, following the landing by
Christopher Columbus in what is today

Bahamas, the Spaniards established
colonies throughout the Western

In the 20 years or so after the
establishment of Spanish colonies,

were interested in finding gold, but
there was very little of it in the

Caribbean.

But at the same time, Spaniards begin to
hear stories from the mainland of

untold riches just over the horizon.

Gold is such a rare commodity in Europe.
It is extremely valuable.

So it makes sense that as soon as
Columbus and other Spanish explorers

to discover that this existed in what
they called the New World, they started

searching for it and were really willing
to do anything to get to it.

And they start to send expeditionary
trips into the east coast of what's now

Mexico, trying to contact this empire.

And that's where Hernan Cortes enters
the story.

Cortes had been an administrator on Cuba
for seven years.

And he had heard stories of the great
Aztec empire and the great city of

Tenochtitlan and the great treasure that
they had.

In February of 1519, Cortes set sail
from Cuba with over 500 men, 100

sailors, and 11 ships straight for the
Yucatan Peninsula.

He makes his way around the peninsula
and eventually makes the landfall at

becomes the important port of Veracruz.
They landed, and then Cortes burned the

ships, and he told his men.

You're not going back to Cuba. You're
going forward with me to conquer the

Empire.

Nine months later, they arrive into the
Aztec capital.

Imagine the scene. The Spaniards are
coming into Tenochtitlan.

They are so overwhelmed by the size, the
beauty, the organization, the wealth,

that later Hernan Cortes writes about
this city and he says, some of us have

been to Constantinople, some to Paris.

and that we've never seen anything as
fabulous as this.

So Cortes shows up at Tenochtitlan, and
Montezuma welcomes him. He's glad to see

Cortes and the conquistadors, and he
thinks that they are returning gods.

The Aztecs had a prophecy of a god named
Quetzalcoatl, and Quetzalcoatl was a

bearded man, and he was to come on a
certain year, and that was...

By coincidence, the exact same year that
Cortes was marching on Tenochtitlan.

And Cortes was also a bearded Spanish
conquistador.

Unbelievably, Cortes marches right into
Tenochtitlan.

Cortes and his men are allowed to stay
on the royal palace grounds.

When Cortes and his men are given
accommodations in the palace, they

a fresh wall in the palace, freshly
bricked up. And so their curiosity

peaked. Break down that wall and find a
hidden room of treasure.

Treasure, the conquistadors intuit, that
Montezuma did not want them to see.

With his eyes on the gold, Cortes takes
Montezuma prisoner just days after

arriving.

Hernan Cortes orders his men to
basically rush Montezuma.

They essentially put him under house
arrest.

And this endures for seven months, where
Montezuma is effectively a puppet

emperor.

Cortes was essentially giving Montezuma
orders.

We now have descriptions of the
Spaniards forcing the Aztec smiths to

gold and to smelt it down.

The Spanish are just interested in the
gold. They don't care if it's a bracelet

or a mask.

They just want the gold. And so they
begin to melt it down into bars and

with the intent of sending back to
Spain.

The Spanish have a huge amount of gold,
not just the gold that they've gotten

from the treasure room, but all of the
gold that they have accumulated from the

point where they landed in Veracruz.

By June of 1520, the Aztec people reach
a breaking point.

One day, Montezuma is addressing the
crowd, and they've now really had it

the Spanish. And they feel that their
king is a puppet, and they kill him.

Spanish then retreat inside of the
palace.

There's about 500 conquistadors that are
there.

They are outnumbered by tens and tens of
thousands of Aztec warriors.

Hernan Cortes and the other Spaniards
now realize they got to go. This is not

tenable anymore for them to be in
Tenochtitlan.

On June 30th, 1520, Cortes makes the
faithful decision to flee Tenochtitlan.

Many historians estimate that Hernan
Cortes and his men had gathered up to

eight. tons of gold.

So they had to figure out a way to get
at least most of that gold out of

Tenochtitlan when they escaped.

So initially, Cortes gives direction to
take a specific amount of treasure. But

then after that, he tells his men that
they can take whatever else they can

carry. This is a seminal example of eyes
being too big for your stomach.

Getting all that gold out of
Tenochtitlan will be no easy feat.

The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was
like a Venice of the Americas.

It was a city that was built on an
island in the middle of this shallow

Lake Texcoco.

It's a maze of canals and causeways.

So they basically have to get boats.
Some people are going to swim next to

boats. It's a very complex process of
getting out a very dangerous one.

Nightfall comes, and they begin their
escape.

Now, the escape is going well, but then
they're spotted.

50 ,000 Aztecs descend upon Cortes' 500
conquistadors.

The Spanish remember what follows as the
Night of Sorrows.

You have these conquistadors who are not
light on their feet. They're weighed

down with gold, many of them falling
into the water.

Ultimately, only Cortez and about 50
conquistadors and indigenous allies made

out alive.

Hundreds of lives are lost, and
according to some, so is the gold.

So on the night of sorrows, many of the
Spanish soldiers who died sunk to the

bottom of the waters of Tenochtitlan,
along with the gold they were trying to

smuggle out.

A discovery more than 450 years later
adds weight to the theory that

treasure was lost in battle, sunk in the
Aztec canals.

In 1981, the president of Mexico, Miguel
Lopez Portillo, ordered the building of

a new bank near the Alameda, the great
park in downtown Mexico City.

The construction worker who's digging
about 15 feet under the ground happens

upon a gold bar.

He is absolutely amazed by what he has
found.

What it ends up being is a nearly 23
-carat gold bar.

11 inches long, 2 inches wide.

The story makes headlines around the
world.

Archaeologists say the location matches
up to one of Tenochtitlan's ancient

canal.

And one of Cortes' men may have also
left a clue in his memoirs. The

shape and proportion of the bar match
almost exactly to what one of Cortes'

lieutenants. described as the process by
which they melted down, with the help

of the Aztecs, their gold, their masks,
their jewelry, into these very

distinctive gold bars, 11 inches long, 2
inches wide.

Then, nearly 40 years later, new
technology may tell even more of the

In 2020, this gold bar is subjected to
fluorescent X -ray chemical analysis.

Based on the composition of the gold, as
analyzed by the chemists, they know

that this is gold. It comes from central
Mexico, and it was mined by the Aztecs.

They also were able to date the gold bar
to 1519 -1520, exactly the time

Cortes was in Tenochtitlan.

Experts believe it's likely the gold bar
is part of Montezuma's treasure.

But if so...

Finding that one gold bar in that one
spot implied that there must have been a

chaotic situation in which the gold was
basically spread out all over what would

have been Tenochtitlan.

People were sinking under the water.
People were getting killed everywhere.

So the implication is that there may be
more gold sitting under Mexico.

But we're dealing with 500 years worth
of construction on top of what was...

Initially, an ancient city and an island
in the middle of a lake.

Who knows what remains to be found?

June 30th, 1520.

In a bloody battle between the Aztecs
and Spanish conquistadors in what's now

Mexico City...

Most of the Spanish soldiers are killed,
and Montezuma's gold is supposedly

dropped in the city's canal.

But Hernan Cortes survives.

Cortes is eventually able to escape back
to another city, Tlaxcala, where he

spends months rebuilding his army. And
it's with this enlarged army, hundreds

more conquistadors, thousands more
Mesoamerican allies, that he...

determines to return for the last time
to Tenochtitlan.

When the Spaniards come into the Aztec
capital, they're accompanied by over 20

,000 Tlaxcalan warriors.

Tlaxcala is a kingdom that the Aztecs
have never been able to defeat.

And so they're the enemies of the
Aztecs.

During nearly a three -month siege,

during which Cortes is able to cut off
the causeways isolating Tenochtitlán,

Aztecs finally give up. And when Cortes
and his Tlaxcalan allies march into the

city, they are ruthless.

The Aztec empire, which had existed for
over a hundred years, is over.

Cortes is determined to take back any
gold that wasn't lost.

during his previous escape.

But whatever gold Cortes does find, he
can't keep all of it.

One -fifth of all gold and treasure that
was taken by conquistadors was to go

back to Spain and to the king.

It was basically a 20 % tax on all the
treasure they found.

After coming to the New World, Spain
takes unprecedented quantities of gold

the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

It's thought that about 181 tons of gold
was brought back to Spain,

and that the value of that would have
been around $4 billion.

It made the king of Spain incredibly
wealthy, and Spain at that time was the

most powerful country in Europe. They
had tremendous amounts of money.

The Spanish established a series of
ports in the Caribbean and along the

Mexico for gathering all of the Aztec
treasure, then sending it back to

Spain in massive fleets of ships.

Much of the gold shipped from Mexico to
Spain left from the port of Veracruz.

Could Montezuma's treasure have taken
the same route?

Even though we know that most Aztec gold
was melted down into bars, some

artifacts did make it back to Spain.

The great painter Albert Durer describes
in one of his diary entries seeing

treasures coming from Montezuma's world
sent by Cortes.

He describes a great circular silver
object as well as a golden sun that is

being shown to the royal families of
Europe.

450 years later, fisherman Raúl Hurtado
is working near Veracruz when he makes

an astonishing discovery.

It's a small gold ingot, which Jartaro
doesn't think too much of at this

particular moment in time. It's just a
trinket.

But he at least has it in the back of
his mind for a while that where there's

one piece of treasure, there might be
more.

So about a year later, Raul Hurtado
returns to the same spot looking for

gold. This time he discovers 42 pre
-Columbian items in the water, which

amounted to about 15 pounds of gold,
which would have been about $300 ,000 in

today's money.

Raul's discovery becomes known as La
Joyas del Pescador, or the Fisherman's

Jewels.

Tellingly, Some of the items are stamped
with a C, C for Carlos,

King Charles V, King of Spain, Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire.

At the time, Cortes was in the New
World.

Some of the gold was marked with Carlos
V's stamp because he was owed a 20 % tax

on what was collected. So to make things
easier and more clear -cut, simply mark

his portion with his name.

So a lot of people believe that this was
a sign that this was Montezuma's gold

being returned to Spain.

But if so, how might the fisherman's
gold have ended up in the water?

Well, if it was on a boat making its way
to Spain, it's very likely that at

least a few of those boats would have
sunk or some of it would have fallen off

the boat. It's not likely that every
single piece of gold would have made it

from Mexico back to Spain.

Today, these ingots and the rest of the
fishermen's jewels are exhibited in a

museum in Veracruz.

But is there proof that this gold was
part of Montezuma's stolen treasure?

en route for Spain.

It's a great story, but what it would
need is the type of verification we have

in other cases, where we have x -ray or
chemical analysis, and that has yet to

be conducted.

So the mystery remains unsolved until
that kind of testing is done.

While some historians believe... Cortez
likely got the bulk of Montezuma's gold.

Others suspect that might not be true.

The Spanish records tell us that they
took and plundered every piece of gold

they could find.

But one of the other theories about what
happened to Montezuma's gold is quite

interesting. What if they stashed away
the gold before the Spanish could

actually steal it?

They understood that Cortez and the
Spanish were coming for one thing.

So there is a scenario in which
Montezuma decided, I need to get this

of Tenochtitlan.

A man named John Carmichael believed
that's exactly what happened.

The explorer's story was recorded in a
20th century American newspaper.

John Carmichael was a British officer
who was working in British Honduras in

1868, which is today Belize.

So when he was there, he was told a
story by a father and son, local

family, about gold that was stashed by
the Aztecs in a temple in Guatemala

called Tikal.

The local legend is that Montezuma
ordered the gold to be stashed there

the Spanish showed up.

And it's not crazy to think that
Montezuma would have sent some of the

he had.

south to what's now Guatemala, because
he must have understood on some level

that Hernan Cortes was dangerous.

Intrigued with the story, Carmichael
convinces the father and son to guide

to the site.

It was an arduous three -day journey,
but they finally arrived at Tikal.

Tikal is a fabulous Mayan city, but it
was already ruined at the time of the

Aztecs. So Tikal itself...

had very steep high pyramids but the
jungle had taken over this entire city

was completely deserted when they arrive
in front of the temple they realize oh

my gosh this temple was sealed shut
perhaps intentionally sealed so shut

would have needed modern equipment to
break it open which they did not have so

they had to leave and return with that
modern equipment to do it

Before Carmichael can arrange another
expedition, he gets transferred

Carmichael basically accepts that he's
just going to have to let this one go.

So he returns to England. He gets busy
with life.

But more than 20 years later, a chance
discovery inspires him to pick up the

search once more.

He gets an assignment in his job and
returns to Mexico City.

And while he's there, he goes to a
library, and he's just reading up on

local kind of legend.

He says that he happens upon an account
from a priest that says that Aztec gold

was dashed at a temple in Tikal.

Almost a confirmation of what the father
and son had told him 20 years earlier.

And that sets him off on another
obsessive mission to go back and find

gold.

In 1903,

Carmichael embarks on his second
expedition.

He tries to find the father and son
unsuccessfully.

He has to rely on his old notes, but
he's determined to find this temple.

And he makes his way back to Guatemala,
back into the jungle to go back to the

temple in Tikal.

Carmichael leaves with his new guide,
but they return several weeks later

without Carmichael and said that he died
of malaria while they were trying to

find the temple.

And one story is that the guys that were
taking him had no choice but to bury

his body on the side of a road.

Carmichael may be gone, but that's not
the end of his quest.

And then some years go by, and in 1926,
a British archaeologist named Thomas

Gann then takes up the quest again.

And he tries to follow Carmichael's
expedition to find this pyramid with the

lost treasure in it, but he also fails.

That the Victorian explorers didn't find
any gold in Guatemala doesn't prove

that it was never brought there. Could
it have been there? Could it have been

moved? We don't know.

After 500 years, the quest for
Montezuma's lost treasure has turned up

incredible finds, but hardly the entire
hoard of gold rumored to exist.

Is that because there's more to the
story of Spain's Aztec conquest than

been told?

Could it be that no one's found
Montezuma's lost treasure because

looking in the wrong place?

When the Aztecs came to central Mexico
and founded the capital city of

Tenochtitlan in 1325, it was the
culmination of an epic journey.

The story goes about the Aztecs' origins
are very murky.

The official tale made by the Aztecs is
that they came from a place called

Aztlan.

Aztlan is the place of origin of the
Aztec people.

The story being that a priest received
in a dream a message from the deity who

told him, you need to move out of Aztlan
and go south to find a new homeland.

You will finally see my image as a giant
eagle on a cactus blooming

in the middle of a lake.

And that is to where your home should
be.

The sign.

Happens to be on a small island in Lake
Texcoco.

And that is where the legend of
Tishnocheslan begins.

But the Aztecs continued to have a deep
connection to Aztlan.

It's in their art, it's in the stories
of their migration, and the written

codices.

But where was Aztlan?

Scholars believe the Aztec language may
be a clue.

The language that the Aztecs speak is
Nahuatl.

It is a similar language to the Paiutes
and to the Zunis and the

Hopis. So here we have a linguistic link
between the Aztecs

and tribes that are in northern Arizona
and in southern Utah.

This suggests that Aztlan is somewhere
in northern Mexico

or in the southwest United States.

Aztlan is something that the Aztecs were
obsessed about. And that obsession

eventually led one of their emperors,
Montezuma I, to send a large expedition

north to try to find it.

Is it possible that after the Spanish
invaded Mexico searching for gold,

Montezuma II enacted a similar plan?

The story that is being passed down or
leaked from generation to generation,

idea is that seven caravans were sent
out from Tenochtitlan to the north.

And each of these caravans had a
considerable amount of gold.

There is some evidence to suggest that
the Aztecs did make it as far as present

-day Arizona.

We found some evidence in the form of
cocoa beans.

in the form of a rubber ball that was
used in an Aztec ball game that suggests

that maybe some may have made it that
far north.

After the long journey, a legend says
the Aztecs supposedly placed the

in a cave.

Half of the Aztecs stayed with the
treasure while the other half returned.

to Tenochtitlan.

And the hope was that they would
eventually go back north to the hidden

and bring it back to Tenochtitlan, but
that wasn't to happen.

And therefore, the remaining people up
in northern Arizona, they were just

integrated into the local population,
and ultimately the treasures were

forgotten.

Five hundred years later.

A legend emerges of a prospector named
Jake Johnson.

There really is only one written version
of Jake Johnson's story, and that comes

from a miner's newspaper printed in
1903.

In 1902, Johnson is alone in the Arizona
desert when he breaks his leg.

And he's then nursed back to health by a
piute named Rabbit Tail, and his wife

helps him recover from his broken leg.

And in the process of healing, Rabbit
Tail and Johnson will get into

conversations over a fire. And Rabbit
Tail tells them this story about gold

made its way north by Aztecs and was
there in Arizona.

But then comes the bombshell.

Rabbit Tail tells Johnson that the tribe
still knows where the gold is.

And, of course, Johnson becomes
extremely interested.

begs rabbit tail to take him and show
him rabbit tail says no initially that

was a secret and he would not reveal it
to him then as the story goes johnson

gets his opportunity while jake johnson
is recuperating a mountain lion comes

into their camp and is about to attack
rabbit tail's wife

johnson has a rifle with him

And he has essentially saved her life.

And Johnson, realizing how grateful
Rabbit Tail is, asks him, can you please

show me where the gold is?

So Rabbit Tail agrees.

But he blindfolds Johnson so Johnson
would not see where the gold was.

And so they enter this series of caves
they climb through with their blindfolds

on.

They take him to a secret place, and
then they take the blindfold off.

And he sees this fantastic gold treasure
that is being kept in the cave by the

pirates.

So he gives them a couple minutes to
gather as much gold as possible.

Johnson puts the blindfold back on, and
they leave.

After Rabbit Tail is on his way, greed
kicks in, and Johnson tries to relocate

the cave, but he never finds it.

Johnson is able to sell his gold for
about $15 ,000.

It's the equivalent of about $450 ,000
today.

It's quite a treasure in 1902.

But as for the location of this treasure
cave, it remains a mystery.

For well over 100 years, legends have
persisted of Montezuma's gold being sent

thousands of miles north.

There are a lot of stories.

about how Montezuma's gold might have
made its way to northern Mexico, to the

southern United States, states like
Utah, California, or Arizona.

You can't necessarily ignore a story
because it's a legend.

There's oftentimes a kernel of truth in
the story if it's been passed down for

so many years between so many people.

One enduring tale involves an American
prospector from Utah named Freddy

Crystal. In the early 1900s, Freddy
Crystal was in Mexico, and there was a

monastery that was being demolished at
the time.

Supposedly, Crystal is able to gain
access to this ancient monastery, and he

finds old documents, documents dating
back to the time of Cortez.

supposedly some of which even describe
how Cortes tortured some of the priests

of Tichinoche's land after he retook the
city, asking them where the treasure

was.

And then, according to the legend, he
makes an even bigger discovery.

He finds a map that looks like the stump
of a tree with branches hanging out of

it that contains petroglyphs. And to
him, it looks like he recognizes this

The landscape draws Crystal's attention.

Freddy Crystal recognizes a mountain
range on these maps has a mountain

range near Canab, Utah, which is where
he's from.

Crystal is convinced that this map is
going to lead him to treasure, a

that has a connection that goes all the
way back to Cortez and Montezuma.

So he then goes up to Kanab, Utah, with
his map, and he finds three caves that

are unusual.

And he thinks that these caves are the
location of Montezuma's treasure.

So he gets some of the local townspeople
to help him.

And they go into these caves, and they
figure that the Aztecs have walled

up the treasure.

By creating piles of rocks and plaster.

And behind these walls will be the
treasure.

They break it down.

Freddy goes inside.

And what does he find?

And there behind that little wall is a
tunnel into the mountain.

Freddy thinks he's hit the jackpot.

Freddy Crystal and his friends, they're
extremely excited.

They spend weeks tunneling and tearing
down walls inside these tunnels.

They find some chambers. They find some
other kind of clues.

They find, in the cave, chisel marks.
They find some animal bones and things

like that.

But there's no treasure at all.

So after months of digging, after months
of frustration,

Eventually, most of the town just gives
up and returns home.

And eventually, Freddy Crystal decides
that, well, he's going to give up his

quest for the lost treasure, and he
leaves town, and he's never seen again.

But that Freddy Crystal never found any
of the rumored treasure has had no

effect in terms of dissuading future
treasure hunters.

Every year, every season, there is a new
batch of treasure hunters. There are

returning treasure hunters who think
that they have finally found the missing

piece that will ultimately lead them to
Montezuma's missing treasure.

And they will probably continue for many
years to come.

When Montezuma became king in 1502, The
Aztecs had been ruling what's now

central Mexico for over 130 years.

We know that Montezuma enjoyed a lavish
lifestyle that would have been the envy

of any monarch of Europe or sultan of
the Middle East.

Montezuma was living large.

He had his own zoo, which had a plethora
of birds. He had jaguars,

other kinds of wild animals.

As the story goes, in the palace of
Axiakitol was Montezuma's treasure room,

where he stored all manner of jewels,
gold, silver,

such that when the conquistadors said
that they saw it, they were simply

dumbfounded.

Cortes and his men likely raided that
room just before escaping on the night

sorrow.

There's really no way of knowing how
much gold the Spanish got.

We know that they took some portion of
it. Did the Aztecs hide caches of gold

multiple locations?

And how much of the gold was hidden?

How much of the gold may have been left
behind?

Is it possible the Aztecs hid the
treasure in another part of the palace

Cortes and the Spanish returned to
conquer the city?

Uncovering the palace's remains to find
the proof is a challenge.

After retaking the city, Cortez and his
men begin a process of dismantling it.

All of this progress, all of this
technology, all of this human

brought down to rubble.

They begin erecting new structures, they
begin to drain the lake, and thus

begins a process that leads us from
Tichinochitlan to present -day Mexico

But then, in 2017, a stunning discovery.

In 2017, construction on the Nacional
Monte de Piedad, a historic pawn shop in

Mexico City, revealed 10 feet down.

a basalt floor that dated back to the
time of Montezuma.

Experts looked at the pattern of the
stones, and because of the way they were

laid, believe it was some kind of patio
or outdoor space.

Maybe even a courtyard from the palace
of Asayacatl.

As the archaeologists continue to dig,
they uncover an adjacent room that may

provide a clue.

They find embedded in the corner of the
room two large Aztec stones.

with carvings on them.

One of the stones depicted Quetzalcoatl,
who was the serpent god and the creator

of the world and humanity.

And the other was a carving of a feather
headdress.

Archaeologists confirm only a king's
home would have such intricately carved

stones. Concluding, this courtyard and
room were sections of the long -lost

palace of Ashiah.

The same palace Cortes and his men were
brought to when they arrived in

Tenochtitlan. This may have been the
same stone floor that Cortes and his men

would have walked across upon first
meeting Montezuma.

The palace is where Cortes and his men
lived, where Montezuma might have put

treasures that have been lost.

But the truth is, there's no hard
evidence that this is where it was all

Could there still be an underground
vault nearby, filled with Treasure

and his men, didn't say?

Is it possible that there is a room full
of gold somewhere beneath Mexico

City today?

It's a fantastic thought, but...

If the treasure is still in downtown
Mexico City, which has cathedrals and

buildings around it, they're not going
to be tearing that up to find some

room full of gold.

To me, the most interesting part of the
search for Montezuma's lost treasure is

that to find it, we have to not only
peel back layers of cities, but we have

go back through an entire change in the
historical context of the world.

After 500 years, the legends about what
really happened to Montezuma's treasure

live on.

Did it disappear entirely after the
Spanish conquest?

Or was it hidden somewhere from future
threats, just waiting to be found?

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching History's Greatest Mysteries.