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Narrator: A ghost ship discovered off the coast

of the Azores in 1872, leads to wild speculation

as to how the entire crew disappeared.

James Ellis: It could've been a mutiny.

Ships were isolated worlds,

and tensions could easily flare up

in such confined quarters.

Narrator: A treasured Russian art installation

seemingly vanished during World War II.

Adam Bunch: The entire room!

Where in the world had the Nazis taken it?

Narrator: Great Victorian explorer, Percy Fawcett

embarked on an expedition into the Amazon

in search of a lost city,

never to be seen again.

Dr. Agbedor: It's possible that he felt he was close

to finding his lost city and wanted to make sure

others couldn't follow him.

♪♪

Narrator: The chain of history has many missing links.

Prominent people.

Priceless treasures.

Extraordinary artifacts.

Their locations still unknown.

Lost to the fog of time.

What happens when stories in the past become

Vanished History?

♪♪

Narrator: On December 4, 1872,

Captain David Morehouse of the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia

was navigating the warm waters

between the Azores Islands and Portugal,

when he came across a strange site.

On the horizon, the ghostly silhouette of a merchant ship,

lifeless and adrift,

swaying eerily in the calm.

Alison Leonard: It was an extraordinary sight.

A ship drifting aimlessly, its sails in tatters

and slightly out of control.

Morehouse immediately sensed something was amiss.

James Ellis: The Dei Gratia was about 6 nautical miles

away at this point.

Morehouse hailed the ship multiple times without response

and then realized

there was no one at the wheel

and not a sign of life on deck.

As he got closer, his confusion turned to anxiety:

he recognized it as the Mary Celeste.

Adam Bunch: Morehouse seems to have known the Captain

of the Mary Celeste, Benjamin Spooner Briggs.

Some accounts even suggest they

had dinner together in New York

the night before the ship set sail.

Alison Leonard: Ten people were onboard - a crew of seven men,

Captain Briggs, and his wife and daughter.

The ship was supposed to be headed to Genoa, Italy

to deliver a load of alcohol.

So what was it doing drifting aimlessly 400 nautical miles

off the coast of the Azores?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Originally named Amazon,

the Mary Celeste was constructed in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Anthea Nardi: When the ship launched on May 18, 1861,

things didn't start off smoothly.

In fact, its early years were pretty rough.

Its Captain passed away from pneumonia

on the very first voyage,

and over the next few years, it faced more bad luck,

including running aground on Cape Breton Island,

in October of 1867.

Adam Bunch: The ship was renamed the Mary Celeste in 1868

and underwent some significant renovations

and was sold to a group that included Captain Briggs.

And soon after that, the ship was moved to its new home port

in New York City.

And then on November 7, 1872,

the Mary Celeste set sail for Genoa.

It was less than a month later that it was discovered

floating adrift by the crew of the Dei Gratia.

Narrator: His fears growing,

Captain Morehouse sent his Chief Mate Oliver Deveau

and several crew members to investigate the Mary Celeste.

And what they uncovered would become

one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time.

Anthea Nardi: It was a chilling scene.

On the deck, there were signs of disarray but no obvious chaos.

A piece of the railing had been removed.

One sail was intact, and others were blown away

or missing altogether.

And ropes were strewn haphazardly over the sides.

Adam Bunch: The ship had three hatches.

The main one was securely fastened, but the other two,

the fore and lazarette, they were left wide open.

Narrator: The mystery of the Mary Celeste deepened,

as the boarding party investigated below deck.

Alison Leonard: There was no sign of Captain Briggs,

his wife Sarah Elizabeth, his 2-year-old daughter, Sophia,

or any of the other 7 crew members.

All 10 had seemingly vanished.

James Ellis: There was about three feet of water

in the bilges. Not ideal,

but definitely not enough to sink a 282-ton ship,

and the cargo of over 1,700 barrels of industrial alcohol

remained almost entirely intact.

Anthea Nardi: The only lifeboat was missing,

along with the bill of landing, the navigation book,

and interestingly, the navigational instruments,

including the ship's sextant and chronometer.

Alison Leonard: What's puzzling is what the crew left behind.

Petty cash, tobacco, even oil- skin raincoats, all still there.

So something happened on that ship that made everyone leave,

without so much as collecting their personal effects.

Even small items that could easily be carried.

But what was it?

Narrator: Upon the discovery of the Mary Celeste,

many observers' first instinct was that Captain Briggs

was the victim of a sinister plot.

James Ellis: It could've been a mutiny.

Ships were isolated worlds, and tensions could easily flare up

in such confined quarters.

They had been at sea for nearly a month...

It's not hard to imagine the crew turning against

Captain Briggs, perhaps driven by fear or greed.

Anthea Nardi: But Captain Briggs was well liked.

He was known to be firm but fair.

He was a religious man and a staunch teetotaller

and hand-picked the crew personally.

By all accounts, the men were described as peaceful,

professional sailors.

Narrator: An inquiry into what transpired on the Mary Celeste

was held, and despite the lack of physical evidence,

the idea of mutiny lingered in the minds of investigators.

Adam Bunch: The hearings were led by the Attorney General

of Gibraltar, Frederick Solly-Flood.

He speculated wildly about a mutiny

fueled by all that alcohol on board.

His theory was that the crew had been driven

into a drunken frenzy

and killed the captain and his family.

But that might have been impossible.

Many historians think the alcohol was toxic, denatured,

so no one would have been able to drink it at all.

James Ellis: Denatured alcohol is a type of ethanol

with additives put into the barrels

to make it not only unappetizing, but poisonous.

This was to prevent anyone from becoming tempted

to imbibe the cargo on the voyage,

and was a common practice among manufacturers at the time.

Narrator: This denatured alcohol was destined for industrial use,

often in the production of perfumes,

solvents and cleaning fluids.

Anthea Nardi: They found some pretty unsettling stuff

on board - a broken, stained sword,

strange stains on the deck,

and a deep mark in the timber that looked like

it was made by an axe.

Flood thought this pointed to a violent struggle.

But when they tested the evidence,

there was no blood at all.

So, if it wasn't a violent clash,

then what else could've happened?

♪♪

Narrator: With no evidence of mutiny,

wild conspiracy theories emerged and spread far and wide

as legends of the ghost ship proliferated.

But the explanation could be a simple, natural one

that has plagued seafarers, since humans took to the seas.

James Ellis: The year the Mary Celeste was found

had the worst weather since records began.

Hundreds of vessels were lost or abandoned

in the Atlantic that year.

We know from the log book that after setting sail,

the crew contended with "heavy weather".

But there's no indication of danger in the final entry.

In his last log from November 25,

Captain Briggs describes having made it through a storm

the night before and settling in calm seas.

Adam Bunch: Plus, the cabin's skylight was left propped open,

which obviously would've let water in.

So if they were preparing for a terrible storm,

why leave that open?

Narrator: A deeper look into the Mary Celeste's history

led some to believe that the ship suffered

some sort of mechanical failure.

Alison Leonard: Before the Mary Celeste was loaded with alcohol,

she had been used for transporting coal,

which is known for its dust.

The pumps on the vessel might have been clogged by coal dust

from a previous voyage.

We also know that one of its two pumps had been disassembled.

Adam Bunch: A sounding rod, which is used to measure

the amount of water in the hold, was discovered on deck,

which suggests it had been used just before

the ship was abandoned.

So one theory is that maybe a faulty reading

of the sounding rod combined with an ineffective pump,

could have convinced Captain Briggs the ship was sinking.

So maybe that's why he ordered it abandoned

near the last land he sighted,

the Island of Santa Maria in the Azores.

Alison Leonard: But the Mary Celeste was still afloat

and in seaworthy shape when it was found.

So, panicking over fear of her sinking doesn't seem likely.

Narrator: Of the 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol on board,

nine were found empty.

This discovery points to a different,

and possibly far more dangerous explanation.

James Ellis: These particular barrels, unlike the rest,

were crafted from red oak, which is a more porous wood

than the sturdy white oak used for the others.

This distinction is crucial,

as red oak is far more prone to leakage.

The slow, silent seepage of alcohol could have created

a dangerous build-up of fumes.

Anthea Nardi: Nine barrels may not sound like a lot,

but that's about 300 gallons!

If the alcohol leaked and was absorbed

into the walls of the ship,

this would have created a highly flammable environment.

Even the vapors are highly explosive.

In a ship made entirely of timber,

and likely lit by oil lamps,

fire would have been the biggest fear.

Narrator: According to Briggs' log,

on the night of November 24th, a storm swept in,

battering the ship, and sending the barrels of alcohol

in the hold tumbling about.

Alison Leonard: And as the Mary Celeste neared the Azores,

the air would have grown warmer,

and with all that movement below deck,

alcohol vapors could have begun to rise.

Combine that with the higher temperatures,

and it's very possible that small,

volatile explosions were occurring.

James Ellis: It's also possible that Captain Briggs heard

some of this in the hold and ordered the hatches thrown open

to let the fumes escape.

This would also explain why the skylight was left open.

As fumes poured out of the hatchways,

rumbling noises would have been heard from the stern

and the escaping vapour could've resembled smoke.

Anthea Nardi: Captain Briggs, likely worried

for the safety of his wife and child,

probably gave the order to board the ship's lifeboat.

In the rush, they may have even removed

part of the ship's railing

to get everyone onto the small boat quickly.

Adam Bunch: They could have secured a rope

from the lifeboat to the stern of the ship,

planning to return once the danger had passed.

But records show that wind picked up

right around that time, stirring up rough seas.

So maybe a rogue wave overturned the lifeboat,

or the tow line snapped,

leaving the crew at the mercy of the elements.

They would have been essentially, doomed.

The truth is, we'll never know for sure.

Narrator: Ultimately, the Mary Celeste was discovered intact,

but that doesn't mean the crew wasn't reacting

to a very real threat in their eyes,

whether it was imminent danger or imagined.

Without more evidence, what happened may remain as lost

as the ship was, on that foggy December day,

in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

♪♪

Narrator: 1941, 3 million Nazi soldiers flooded

into the Soviet Union,

looting tens of thousands of art treasures.

In Pushkin, the staff of Catherine Palace

had already removed and hidden all the valuables they could.

But the one thing deemed too large and precious to move,

the palace's greatest treasure,

had been cleverly camouflaged.

James Ellis: The Nazis stormed the palace

and took the most valuable of the few artworks

the Russians left behind,

and turned the building into a barracks.

Then, a couple of soldiers noticed a room

on the first floor that seemed out of place.

Sand covered its floor,

and the walls seemed to be made of muslin and cotton.

Anthea Nardi: One soldier picked at the fabric

and discovered it was a false wall.

Behind it was a dazzling, intricate mosaic

of thousands of pieces of carved amber,

mother of pearl, and gilt-wood trim.

Amma Agbedor: The Nazis tore all four walls down,

revealing a 590-square-foot room

with 13,000 pounds of sculpted amber,

along with other semiprecious stones covering its walls.

There were also dozens of chandeliers,

gilt-framed mirrors, and a ceiling over 20 feet high.

This is what the palace staff had tried desperately to hide:

the "Eighth Wonder of the World";

Russia's two-and-a-half century-old Amber Room.

Adam Bunch: By early 1944,

the momentum of the war

had turned and the Nazis left

the Catherine Palace.

Soviet staff returned to a big empty room,

just bare walls and floor,

where the Amber Room used to be.

It must have been absolutely crushing.

This unique piece of Russian history

had been stolen. The entire room!

Where in the world had the Nazis taken it?

Narrator: Catherine Palace had not been

the Amber Room's original home.

It had started in Berlin in 1701,

as a project to please Sophie Charlotte,

the spouse of Friedrich I.

James Ellis: Over the next 13 years,

a German sculptor conceived and oversaw the creation

of a whole room sheathed and encrusted in amber,

close to a thousand pounds of it, intricately sculpted,

and backed in gold and silver leaf to make it

shimmer in candlelight.

Anthea Nardi: By 1716, Friedrich I's son,

King Frederick William, found himself low on money

and facing a visit from someone he wanted to make an ally,

Tsar Peter I of Russia.

It was customary for royals to exchange gifts,

but Frederick William didn't want to go to any great expense,

so he decided to give Peter the Amber Room,

and the Tsar had it carted off

to his Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

Adam Bunch: 30 years after Peter's death,

the room was moved again.

This time, to the Catherine Palace, in Pushkin.

His daughter, Czarina Elizabeth,

hired an Italian architect to rework it and expand it,

to fit its new, much bigger home.

James Ellis: That was when the Amber Room grew

from 180 square feet to almost 600 square feet.

Twelve thousand pounds of amber were added;

now, a total of six tons of it encrusted the walls.

Narrator: Within 36 hours of finding it,

the Nazis had dismantled the Amber Room

into its various panels;

packed it all into crates

and transported it to Konigsberg,

modern-day Kaliningrad,

where it was installed in Konigsberg Castle

for the German public to admire.

Anthea Nardi: Konigsberg was a Nazi stronghold.

And in August of 1944, the Allies launched

a devastating air raid on the Castle.

Even the sections still standing were in bad shape.

The Soviets raced to the site and scoured the ruins,

hoping the Amber Room might have escaped the barrage.

But they found no evidence of it.

James Ellis: Amber will burn in a fire,

but it leaves a sticky residue.

No such traces were found anywhere.

It seemed the Nazis must have moved the Amber Room

out of Konigsberg before the air raid.

But if so, what could they have done with it?

Narrator: In April of 1945,

Allied forces sweeping through Thuringia, Germany

received a tip that led them to investigate a local salt mine.

A unit boarded an elevator that plunged

2,100 feet below the surface.

Anthea Nardi: They came upon a huge steel vault door,

blasted it open, and found one hundred tons of gold bars

and personal effects stolen from concentration camp victims.

There were crates full of various paper currencies,

and an enormous hoard of stolen art.

They also found a large number of museum pieces

and wall-mounted silver candelabras,

labelled in Russian.

Amma Agbedor: One of the investigators on the trail

of the Amber Room had calculated,

based on its design and descriptions

of the finished room,

that it must have been equipped with 132 candelabras.

And the number of candelabras found at the Mine?

132.

Adam Bunch: The trove of stolen treasures was searched

but they didn't find any other potential

parts of the Amber Room.

And they didn't find any proof that those candelabras

were from the Amber Room either.

But since the number matches, it would have to be

a pretty big coincidence.

Narrator: Around the time of the Allied air raid on Konigsberg,

another major event occurred.

This one, with horribly tragic consequences,

and a possible connection to the Amber Room...

Amma Agbedor: It was pretty clear at that point

that the Nazis were losing the war.

Soviet troops were pressing in, surrounding Konigsberg.

For hundreds of thousands of German civilians,

the only possible route to escape the Red Army

was via the Baltic Sea.

But Hitler wouldn't allow it.

Adam Bunch: Hitler's directive was, "no surrender, no retreat."

But the German navy disobeyed that order,

launching a secret humanitarian mission,

called "Operation Hannibal,"

one of the biggest seaborne evacuations in history.

James Ellis: A steady stream of ships,

crammed with fleeing German civilians

and all the precious belongings they could carry,

sailed off one after the other,

taking their chances against the Soviet warships and planes.

Anthea Nardi: Up to two million German civilians

were ultimately ferried out of ports on the Baltic,

to escape internment or death at the hands of the Red Army.

Many of them left via Pilawa, Konigsberg's port.

So could the crates holding the Amber Room's panels

have been among their cargo?

Narrator: The overwhelming majority

of Operation Hannibal's ships

made it out safely;

but, some did not.

Amma Agbedor: The SS Karlsruhe left Konigsberg

on April 11, 1945,

heavily loaded with 1,083 souls on board,

almost all civilian refugees,

and 360 tons of unspecified goods, packed in crates.

Hours into its voyage, Russian planes

spotted the ship, attacked,

and the Karlsruhe sank in less than three minutes,

taking all but 113 of those on board with it.

Maybe the Amber Room was also lost to the sea that day.

James Ellis: But in 2020, the SS Karlsruhe was located

and positively identified lying virtually intact,

at a depth of about 290 feet.

Divers found shoes, belts, and other personal effects

of the hundreds that perished,

but no sign of the Amber Room.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Over half a century after it was last seen,

the strongest evidence for the Amber Room's possible survival

emerged out of Bremen, Germany.

James Ellis: In 1997, a mystery person calling himself "Mr. X"

advertised that he was selling an antique jeweled

Florentine mosaic called "Feel and Touch."

The Amber Room was said to have had four mosaics,

based on all the senses.

Anthea Nardi: Word of the attempted sale

set off alarm bells and the German authorities moved in

to apprehend the seller.

It turned out he was the son of a now-deceased German soldier

who'd told him he'd been one of the soldiers ordered to

pack up the Amber Room and transport it out of Konigsberg.

Amma Agbedor: Experts examined the mosaic

and conclusively determined that it was authentic.

So it appears that the Amber Room - or at least some of it -

did survive the war.

Maybe the rest of it is still out there somewhere.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: 62 years after it vanished,

the Catherine Palace got its Amber Room back,

a replica that took 25 years to make

and incorporated the stolen and recovered, Florentine Mosaic.

The original Amber Room may yet one day turn up.

But until it does, the replica is there to remind us

of timeless artistic beauty

destroyed by the horrors of war.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: May 29, 1925.

Percy Fawcett, the last of "the great Victorian explorers"

assured his wife of success on this,

his eighth attempt to find an ancient Amazonian city

he referred to as "The Lost City of Z".

A. Leonard: Fawcett was already world-famous at this time.

His previous adventures had inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's

novel "The Lost World."

By most accounts, he had exceptional intelligence

and stamina; he was charismatic and determined,

and apparently, pretty fearless.

A. Agbedor: In February of 1925,

Fawcett, his 21-year-old son Jack,

and his friend Raleigh Rimell

arrived at Corumbá, Bolivia by train.

They and two local laborers then trekked 250 miles

north-northeast to Cuiabá,

then almost dead-straight for another 280 miles,

to a place Fawcett dubbed "Dead Horse Camp."

James Ellis: While at Dead Horse Camp,

Fawcett penned updates for the various newspapers

he had agreements with,

and wrote his wife Nina a letter, saying,

"You need have no fear of any failure."

He sent local runners off to post everything,

and then he and his party crossed the Upper Xingu River,

and disappeared, never to be heard from again.

So what happened to them?

And did the Lost City of Z even exist?

Narrator: Percy Fawcett was born in 1867,

in Torquay, Devon, England.

At 19 years old, he joined the Royal Artillery,

and got his start as a world traveler,

sent to various outposts of the British Empire.

Alison Leonard: In 1901, Fawcett became a member

of the Royal Geographical Society of London,

and travelled to Africa as a surveyor.

Five years later, he was sent to map the territory

bordering Bolivia and Brazil.

And that was really when his life changed.

♪♪

Adam Bunch: Fawcett would have seen how badly

the Amazon's indigenous people

were being mistreated

by the rubber barons,

who were there making vast fortunes.

So he tried to build a different kind of

relationship with them.

Amma Agbedor: Fawcett heard accounts of past civilizations

that had built great cities in the jungle,

and saw what he perceived to be

signs of these cities in the topography.

He also found what he believed were shards

of centuries-old pottery, scattered in the forests.

James Ellis: The 1925 expedition centered on Brazil's

Mato Grosso, or "great woods"

a challenging and perilous environment,

and one of the last frontier areas in the world.

In his last letter to his wife, Fawcett wrote:

"We hope to get through this region in a few days."

Referring to the area beyond Dead Horse Camp.

Two years went by with no word from Fawcett

and even though Nina claimed

she wasn't worried about him, or her son,

others were.

♪♪

Narrator: By January of 1927,

the Royal Geographical Society of London

announced it would back any competent explorer

willing to search for Fawcett.

They made no indication as to what they thought

might have happened to him.

Alison Leonard: The most likely scenario,

if you're playing the odds,

would have been that Fawcett was on a "fool's errand;"

he went into the jungle searching for a myth

that had never existed, saying he wouldn't return

until he'd found it.

The only two logical outcomes of that are,

you search a really long time,

only to come back and eat your words,

or... you don't come back at all.

♪♪

Adam Bunch: From the beginning, many people believed

the lost "City of Z" had never existed.

For one thing, in Fawcett's time,

it's estimated there may have only been about 200,000 people

living in the entire Amazon rainforest.

So people questioned why there would have been a big city

with a large population centuries earlier,

but not in 1925?

Amma Agbedor: It was also well known that the Amazon soil

wasn't suitable for large-scale farming,

something that would've been required

to sustain a large population.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: In the years after Fawcett's disappearance

at least 13 expeditions set out looking for him,

of which approximately a hundred people died,

or simply went missing.

The high cost in human life makes another theory

some have put forward, that much more troubling.

Adam Bunch: Fawcett and his party spent about five months

at Dead Horse Camp,

kind of a long time to be hanging around.

And from there, he sent the updates

to the international news syndicates and his wife,

making sure to include the camp's coordinates,

but he gave the press and his wife different coordinates.

Amma Agbedor: If people have the wrong coordinates

for your last known position,

you're going to be a lot harder to find, if you go missing.

So is that what Fawcett wanted?

James Ellis: He had actually warned people

that he was expecting to be away for a very long time,

and even told them, 'If I go missing,

don't come looking for me'.

It's entirely conceivable

that Percy Fawcett did not want to be found.

Narrator: Decades later, some of Fawcett's

private journals and letters,

including those in the possession of his descendants,

were accessed, and shed new light on Fawcett's

frame of mind, and possible intentions.

Alison Leonard: Regarding what was then pejoratively termed

"going native", adopting the customs of the colonized people

you were living amongst, Fawcett wrote,

"There is no disgrace in it.

It shows creditable regard for the real things in life."

Also, some of Fawcett's associates said he hoped

one day to follow what he'd called "the Grand Scheme",

and set up a secret community in the jungle.

Adam Bunch: But those who knew Fawcett well felt

he believed deeply in the Lost City of Z

and intentionally cutting all ties with home

would have meant he could never prove to the world

that the city existed.

So whether or not he wanted to go missing,

people were still left with the question:

Did Percy Fawcett find the Lost City of 'Z' before he died?

And was there anything to find?

Amma Agbedor: It'd been hard to reconcile

why Fawcett gave those two conflicting coordinates

for his last position when he was at Dead Horse Camp.

He may have been trying to throw others off the path

to protect himself,

but it was also possible he felt he was close

to finding his Lost City,

and wanted to make sure others couldn't follow him.

Narrator: In 2019, archaeologists mounted

a LIDAR scanner on a helicopter

and flew multiple passes

over Mato Grosso's Llanos de Moxos savannah

and made a discovery nobody had expected.

James Ellis: Along the Xingu River in the same general area

that Percy Fawcett was focusing his search,

the LIDAR revealed clear signs

of a large network of settlements,

with carefully designed walls and large earthen mounds

arranged around circular plazas.

Alison Leonard: These ancient plaza towns

were interconnected by curbed roadways,

30 to 50 feet across, and miles long.

The settlements, all within an hour's walk of one another,

dated back to between 200 and 1200 CE,

and it's thought that they were capable of housing

up to 60,000 people!

This flew in the face of all we used to believe

about the Amazon.

♪♪

Adam Bunch: And they did farm!

There are patches of extremely fertile soil,

now referred to as terra preta-"black earth."

The ancient Amazonians created this nutrient-rich soil

over generations, with manure, waste,

by controlled burns of the forest.

Amma Agbedor: It's estimated that as many as a million people

may have lived in this network of settlements

in Llanos de Moxos,

making it even more populous

than many European cities at that time.

These were the Lost Cities of the Amazon!

But, where did all these people go?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: In the 16th century,

European colonizers flooded into Central and South America

and brought diseases that the indigenous people

had no defenses against.

By the 19th century, up to 95% of the indigenous population

had died of smallpox and measles.

James Ellis: The Amazonians didn't build with stone,

so when the structures they built were abandoned,

they simply melted back into the forest,

making them extremely difficult to locate

without the help of modern technology.

Alison Leonard: So, did Percy Fawcett find

his Lost City of 'Z', before he died?

It looks like at least he was looking in the right area,

but it's impossible to know how far he got.

That doesn't mean we won't ever find out;

it just means we haven't, yet.

He did keep journals, after all- and he was a photographer.

Just think of what still might be out there,

waiting to be discovered.

♪♪

Narrator: In the meantime,

indigenous and international researchers

have plenty of exploration to do

on more than a hundred newly discovered settlement sites.

Lost Cities, found,

after lying silent in the jungle

for hundreds of years.

♪♪

Narrator: October 9, 1216

King John, one of the most infamous monarchs

in English history, was on the run from rebellious barons

and an invading French Prince.

Anthea Nardi: As he fled, he dragged with him

a procession of carts - the royal baggage train,

loaded with gold, jewels, and religious relics.

James Ellis: Some accounts say the convoy of 3,000 soldiers,

servants and supporters carried the Crown Jewels,

along with other priceless treasures,

including the legendary Sword of Tristram,

a broken-tipped knight's blade used as regalia at coronations.

Alison Leonard: John's route took him across the Wash.

This is a treacherous, tidal estuary

on the Lincolnshire coast.

And the Wash was a death trap,

a shifting, sinking, and suffocating quagmire

of quicksand and rising water

covering nearly 21 square miles.

If you're caught at the wrong time,

the tide rushes in and swallows you.

Adam Bunch: It was a risky path,

but John was desperate.

Rebels had invited Prince Louis of France

to take the English Crown,

prompting John to flee East Anglia.

And it was during that frantic escape,

the King's treasure vanished in the Wash without a trace.

And eight centuries later, we're still left wondering,

what happened to it?

Narrator: King John's reputation was among the worst

of any English monarch.

He was known for his greed,

cruelty, and incompetence.

James Ellis: His reign was marked by catastrophic failures,

losing vast territories that make up

much of modern France and even parts of England.

Anthea Nardi: In 1204, King John suffered a humiliating blow.

He lost Normandy to King Philip of France,

ending England's centuries-old claim to the territory.

This was more than a minor setback.

It signalled the collapse of the English Empire in France.

Alison Leonard: By the 1210s, John was facing enemies

on all fronts, including within his own ranks.

His relentless cruelty and heavy-handed rule,

pushed his nobles to the brink.

James Ellis: John stirred up even more trouble

when he refused to accept Stephen Langton

as the Archbishop of Canterbury,

the top position in the English Catholic Church.

By doing so, he directly challenged the authority

of Pope Innocent III in Rome,

who retaliated by excommunicating him.

Narrator: By 1215, King John had made so many enemies,

that a group of medieval oligarchs took action,

creating one of history's most important documents:

the Magna Carta.

This charter was designed to enforce political reforms

and rein in John's abuse of power,

and ultimately became the bedrock of English democracy.

♪♪

Anthea Nardi: But any hope for peace was short-lived.

John violated the Magna Carta almost immediately

and raised an army of mercenaries,

plunging the country into chaos.

James Ellis: By October of 1216,

the King was in dire straits.

His reign was on the brink of collapse.

His forces were spread thin,

and he was on the run with his precious treasures in tow,

as he attempted to navigate the Wash.

Adam Bunch: The Wash is notoriously unpredictable,

but it's also surprisingly shallow,

which just adds to the mystery.

If King John really was carrying all that treasure,

why hasn't it been found in more than 800 years?

♪♪

Alison Leonard: Maybe the treasure didn't even exist.

It's important to remember that the medieval chroniclers

who recorded King John's reign

were often members of the clergy,

who had a deep resentment toward John

because he conflicted with the Church.

Adam Bunch: These accounts would have been biased;

and a story about him losing a treasure in such a foolish way,

would have fit perfectly with their narrative of him

as a cursed and inept ruler.

James Ellis: We still don't know with certainty

that any treasure disappeared;

the carriage that was lost could have been filled

with nothing more than personal effects.

Alison Leonard: John had almost no money left

by the end of his reign, and it's plausible that some

or perhaps the majority of his treasure had already been

melted down or sold off to pay his soldiers.

Narrator: While King John struggled to keep hold

of his land, he may have taken a more calculated approach

to his treasure.

Adam Bunch: Maybe the treasure was stashed away somewhere.

Some historians have speculated that his retinue

might have decided to hide the goods for safekeeping,

planning to retrieve them at a later, safer date.

Anthea Nardi: Perhaps they were set aside

for his son, Henry III.

There are several pieces listed in the regalia

for Henry's second coronation at Westminster in 1220.

A crown, sword, scepter, and tunic.

They seem to match those from King John's regalia in 1216.

So this could mean that the treasures

were carefully preserved.

James Ellis: We may never know exactly

what the baggage train carried,

but one undeniable fact remains:

it crossed the Wash.

The question is, what happened next?

Narrator: Amid the uncertainty and haste

of King John's final days,

the route he chose - and the treacherous terrain of the Wash

- may hold the key to what happened

to the missing treasure.

Alison Leonard: We know that after rallying reinforcements

on the Welsh border, King John dashed to Windsor

and then East Anglia, covering up to 50 miles a day.

On October 9th, he reached the town of King's Lynn

to a warm welcome.

Adam Bunch: According to one chronicler of the time,

Roger of Wendover,

the King and his entourage left King's Lynn

not long after they arrived and headed for a place called

Swineshead Abbey, about 30 miles away.

Alison Leonard: Despite the baggage being

of tremendous personal importance to King John,

some believe that his baggage train

probably traveled separately from him,

and was lost somewhere on the western side of the Wash.

Anthea Nardi: With enemies on all sides,

John would have been eager to protect

both himself and his treasure.

Splitting up seemed like the safest option

and he may have chosen the longer path through Wisbech,

while directing his baggage train to take a shortcut

via the causeway across the Wellstream's mouth,

a route only passable at low tide.

Narrator: The Wellstream, also known as the Wellester River

and the River Nene, was once a far more formidable waterway.

Just beyond Wisbech, it emptied into a vast estuary

spanning several miles.

James Ellis: The baggage train likely travelled west

along the road from King's Lynn

to the village of Walpole Cross Keys,

which at the time sat on the banks of the Wellstream.

With an experienced guide, the horses and wagons

could have navigated the Wash Way,

a narrow path across the sands,

for the 4.5-mile journey to Long Sutton.

Alison Leonard: It's possible that along the way,

King John's baggage train was engulfed

by a massive tidal bore.

This is dangerous, unpredictable force that occurs

when the rising tide is confined to a narrow,

funneled estuary and creates a sudden wall of water.

Adam Bunch: Astronomical records show us that at 4 p.m.

on October 12, 1216,

there was a fateful celestial event.

The Moon, the Sun, and Earth

were all perfectly aligned.

So the combined gravitational pull

may have created an dramatic 22-foot tide,

that surged through the estuary.

So King John's convoy would have been caught off guard,

overpowered by the waves.

♪♪

♪♪

Anthea Nardi: Many believe this puts the likely location

of the lost treasure somewhere near Sutton Bridge,

roughly two nautical miles from the outfall of the Wellstream.

But obviously that's just a theory

and impossible to verify.

Narrator: Within a week of the treasure vanishing,

King John contracted dysentery

and died on October 18, 1216

at Newark Castle.

Lost to time and buried under centuries of shifting tides

and marshland, King John's treasure remains hidden,

claimed by the ruthless,

ever-changing landscape of the Wash.

♪♪

♪♪