Original subtitles

Well, it is 3:30 in the morning, and I am at the airport

because we got an email from dr. Richard hansen.

And that means I'm going to guatemala.

♪

-how are you? -Good to see you!

Good to see you!

-You got something to show me? -Yeah, I think we do.

All right, guys. Come here. Check this out.

You got something? Yeah, you do. Look at that.

None of the tombs of these snake kings have ever been found?

No. Never been found.

Let's see if one of them might be up here.

-Whoa! -Whoa!

Comin' in!

Did we just find find a lost city?

Man, let's punch it.

Nobody in the modern world has ever seen this.

That's right.

Wow! Look at this! Amazing.

♪

when people ask me which of my expeditions

has been the most thrilling,

which site has been the most jaw-dropping,

and which legend has been the most mysterious,

my answer is simple -- the lost city of el mirador.

♪

emerging from the dense rainforests of central america,

this maya metropolis was lorded over by an enigmatic dynasty

known as the snake kings.

Their empire rose to incredible heights

before collapsing back into the jungle two millennia ago.

The tombs of the snake kings have never been found.

So over a year ago, I set off on a mission

to join the man trying to change all of that.

Dr. Richard hansen has been

uncovering the secrets of el mirador for three decades,

and may be on the verge

of revealing the final resting place

of the city's legendary rulers.

It was a thrilling and dangerous mission

that resulted in an historic find.

And now, there's news of what might be

a truly monumental new discovery at the site.

♪

which is why we're going back.

Have the snake kings been found?

These ruins keep calling me back,

and they have more secrets to share.

So get ready to live the adventure

before returning to the jungles of guatemala

for the next chapter in the search for the snake kings.

♪

my name is josh gates...

Ay-yi-yi!

...Explorer, adventurer...

Oh, my god!

...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.

All right, I gotta find an off ramp around here.

With a degree in archaeology

and a passion for the unexplained,

I travel to the ends of the earth,

investigating the greatest legends in history.

Okay, let's punch it.

This is "expedition unknown."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

my first investigation into the mysteries

of the lost city of el mirador

began hundreds of miles from the ruins

in guatemala city.

Until the spanish arrived in the 1500s,

guatemala was the domain of the maya,

one of the most advanced civilizations

of the ancient world.

Even guatemala city here sits on top of a huge mayan ruin,

though, today, you'd hardly know it.

Today, this is a big, noisy, congested metropolis,

home to over three million people.

But if you look closely,

signs of the ancient maya are everywhere.

Nowhere is that more clear than at my first stop,

the national museum of guatemala.

♪

within these galleries are the great treasures of the maya,

jade funeral masks, monumental sculptures,

and intricately carved glyphs.

At their height, they were the most advanced

civilization in the americas,

with a population of more than two million.

Their empire of cities stretched from southeastern mexico

through all of guatemala and belize

and sections of honduras and el salvador.

To understand how the mysterious ruins of el mirador

and the legendary snake kings fit into maya history,

I'm meeting with dr. Stanley guenter.

And so you are -- I want to make sure I get this right,

you are an epigrapher.

Yep. So an epigrapher is someone

who studies ancient maya hieroglyphs.

Right.

But what we know is that there's a big division

between what we call the pre-classic period

and the classic period.

Gates: Okay, here's the deal.

Archaeologists divide maya history into several periods.

Almost everything you and I know about the maya

comes from the classic period.

This was when powerful maya kingdoms

built elaborate cities like tikal

and, later, chichen itza.

It's the height of their art, architecture, and engineering.

Prior to this, though, is the longer

and far less understood pre-classic period,

which experts long believed was a more primitive civilization.

And some time around the year 150,

this pre-classic kingdom completely collapses,

so much so that we can barely read their writing.

♪

this society was ruled by a powerful dynasty

known as the snake kings.

Much of what we know about them

is derived from an incredible artifact

currently housed in the museum's storage vault,

something known as a dynastic vase,

an object that may be the key

to locating the remains of the snake kings.

And what makes this so special?

It gives us the names of the earliest snake kings,

and from this vase,

we know there were at least 19 of these guys.

Gates: The dynastic vase reveals the identity

of 19 powerful snake kings

from the mysterious pre-classic period,

but some key details are missing

like what happened to their kingdom,

and where are they buried?

So this was found where?

It was found by looters

somewhere in the site of el mirador.

So does it stand to reason, then, that if these guys

were ruling around el mirador,

there could be 19 undisturbed tombs of the snake kings there?

There definitely should be.

If you were gonna get any further answers

to your questions,

I think you're gonna have to head off to el mirador.

It's easy to get to, though, right?

Not that easy.

♪

gates: Getting to el mirador requires a flight

to the island town of flores.

Then we charter twin helicopters

for the long trip into the jungle.

Okay, guys, we are leaving.

Anybody who wants to go to the jungle,

get in the helicopter.

♪

the choppers lift off,

and our last glimpse of the modern world

disappears beneath us...

♪

...And we chart a course straight into the unknown.

North of flores is a massive protected zone

known as the maya biosphere reserve.

It spans more than 8,000 square miles,

and at its heart, a gigantic depression

ringed by limestone hills known as the mirador basin.

Inside, a rainforest filled

with swamps, jaguars, crocodiles,

and the city of el mirador.

♪

both choppers race onward, and after nearly 30 minutes

of soaring over an ocean of green,

we approach the coordinates of the site.

Soon, we realize those bumps are buildings,

massive pyramids and temples rising up from the forest floor.

Okay, here we go!

The choppers quickly depart for the safety of flores,

leaving us feeling very, very stranded.

But at least we're not alone.

We're here to meet archaeologist richard hansen,

who's somewhere in the jungles nearby.

The archaeologists have built a pretty huge sprawling camp,

all sorts of little bungalows and structures.

Finally, I find richard working

in the archaeologist's natural habitat,

the sifting station.

-Richard. -Hi, josh.

-Hey. How are you, man? -Good. How are you doing?

You made it.

How long have you been working out here?

Well, I've been out in this basin 37 years.

So when you first arrived here in the late '70s,

what was the conventional wisdom about this place?

Well, all maya sites were classic.

When did that idea start to change?

We excavated.

We started finding stuff like this.

This pottery?

This is pre-classic, about 150 a.D.

So you started to realize

this pottery is from much earlier.

I realized that maybe the model was wrong,

the entire model

for the evolution of maya civilization

was not correct.

So this place flourished 1,000 years

earlier than anybody thought? -Before tikal, that's right.

So what we're looking at out here, essentially,

the cradle of maya civilization.

How much do we know about the rulers

of el mirador, these snake kings, right?

These kings, they weren't just the king tuts of the new world,

these were the ramses of the...

-The big guys. -The big guys.

And they're not buried in some little hole somewhere.

Now, none of these royal tombs have ever been found.

No, never.

Do you think those royal tombs are here?

We have a strong suspicion they are.

And these tombs, if they're found,

will be loaded.

-Really? -Yeah.

All right. Well, let's get into it.

-Let's go. -Let's go.

Gates: El mirador is a big place.

To get around, richard's team uses atvs on hand-cut trails.

So all of this is part of the site?

All of this is part of the city of el mirador, josh.

-And is this natural here? -Oh, no.

These are pyramids. -All these are pyramids?

These are big, big buildings here, massive, big buildings.

So how many of these buildings are there total in el mirador?

Well, we're still counting,

but we're numbering in the tens of thousands.

-Tens of thousands? -Yes. Oh, yeah.

Get out of town.

No, it's unbelievable.

Gates: Coming up...

-Up, up, up, up. -[ groans ]

my adventure to the ruins of el mirador continues.

-Oh, my gosh. -Look at it!

And then...

There he is. The man himself.

A dramatic return to the site.

-What'd you find? -It'd be best if we show you.

Gates: And a discovery that could reveal

the long lost snake kings.

Looks like at the bottom, there's an opening.

There he is.

♪

♪

gates: A year ago, my search

for the legendary snake kings of the maya

brought me to the jungle ruins of el mirador.

Now, we're reliving our first mission before rushing back

to investigate a dramatic new discovery.

During my first trip, site director

dr. Richard hansen brought me deep into the overgrown city,

where I'm learning that the scale of el mirador

is larger than I ever could have imagined.

So how many of these buildings are there total in el mirador?

Well, we're still counting,

but we're numbering in the tens of thousands.

-Tens of thousands? -Yes.

-Oh, yeah. -Get out of town.

No, it's unbelievable.

Gates: It's hard to even comprehend.

We're driving through more than 500 square miles of ruins

and a city with a footprint larger than los angeles.

Okay, so where are we in the city now?

We're on the great central plaza of the city.

-We're on a plaza? -On a plaza.

Oh, this is all artificial.

Wait, if you strip away all these trees...

You're on a cement floor.

What do you mean cement? Like, actually cement?

Cement. Lime plaster.

So all of their plazas,

all of these areas, they were plastered?

They were paved. They were paved.

-They were paved. -This whole city was paved.

-All of it? -All of it.

Gates: Every inch of el mirador, from pyramids to pathways,

was once stripped of trees

and covered in smooth lime plaster,

an urban metropolis and the largest ancient city

in the western hemisphere.

Now, why do you think they wanted it all paved,

because it was more functional or because it was prettier?

It was pretty, and it was functional,

but it allowed them to capture water.

Gates: All cities need water to survive.

But el mirador was built far from any river or lake.

The pre-classic maya built here

because the city is surrounded by swamps.

Beneath the surface, organic matter was sealed away

from oxygen for thousands of years,

creating a nutrient-rich mud that grew crops in abundance.

This super mud was the key to their agricultural success.

And they paved every inch of the city with a drain gutter,

to support them and their crops.

Richard gives me a tour el mirador's center,

where the pre-classic maya built reservoirs to collect water,

as well as vast temples like this one

dedicated to the snake king known as great fiery jaguar paw.

This was all covered with trees and dirt and...

-You dug all this out? -...All that had to be dug out.

Gates: Richard also tunneled under

the temple in several areas

but found no evidence of tombs.

-Anything in there? -There's nothing in there.

Gates: To take the search to the next level,

he's brought in father and son scanning experts

robert and bob leonard,

who deploy powerful ground-penetrating radar,

or gpr, to scan for any hidden cavities

inside the massive structure.

Oh, man. What is that?

You got something?

Richard, have you ever dug here before?

-No. -Come on up.

-Uh-oh. -You got something?

-Yes, I do.

Gates: But after peeking inside the temple

with a borescope camera,

the verdict is -- no snake king.

Snake kings have foiled us again.

That's right.

Gates: Undaunted, richard and I hop back into the moto-mule

for plan b on the search for the snake kings.

Okay, so where are headed to specifically?

This causeway takes us in the center part of the city,

right to the pyramid of danta.

Danta.

It is the largest pyramid in mesoamerica,

and most likely the largest ancient structure

in the entire world.

Gates: They say all roads lead to rome,

but at el mirador, all roads lead to la danta.

Richard has brought in an american research team

to help build a road map of the lost city,

to hunt for the tombs of the snake kings.

To get to them, we'll have to climb the pyramid.

Welcome to la danta.

♪

josh, this is the very base

of the large pyramid of danta.

-And this is the stairway. -How wide is this thing?

330 yards.

-This is three football fields. -That's right.

Josh, snake!

-Snake right by you. -What?

Snake? Up, up, up, snake!

Hansen: This is a deadly fer-de-lance,

the most deadly snake in all of central america.

These snakes are very aggressive.

They're very ill-tempered.

Gates: The fer-de-lance is one of the most venomous

snakes on the planet,

which is reason enough to avoid it.

But out here in the jungle,

hours from even basic medical attention,

a fer-de-lance bite can be a virtual death sentence.

You do not want to get bit by that guy.

We give the snake the respect and fear it deserves

until it slithers off into the jungle.

Okay, well, richard, I'd like to thank you for this informative

and terrifying introduction to this pyramid.

Let's get out of here.

All right, let's go.

Gates: I tighten up my snake guards,

and we begin the climb up to the second level of la danta,

where a special research team

is waiting to help us uncover more of el mirador

and perhaps find the elusive tombs of the snake kings.

Josh, this is daniel and jared.

Daniel, jared. Hey, nice to meet you.

...From lidar usa.

Gates: Dan and his company are pioneers

in a technology called lidar.

Lidar fires millions of laser pulses from the air

that virtually peel back layers of foliage

to show evidence of human construction underneath.

El mirador is only now being mapped with this technology,

so richard is hoping the lidar

will reveal the elaborate network of causeways,

which could lead us to new sections of the city

and perhaps hidden tombs.

So, where do we launch it from?

From the top.

This is gonna be a particularly sweaty day

here on "expedition unknown."

-okay. Let's do it. Come on. -All right.

Wait a minute!

The two lidar guys are carrying a bottle of water

and a playstation remote. -[ laughs ]

gates: We make our way up the pyramid.

This is the final push.

We're now twice the height of the statue of liberty

off her pedestal, on top of a pyramid

that's about as wide

as the empire state building is high.

Feel the burn.

♪

almost there, guys.

♪

[ panting ] whoo, yes! Ha.

Oh, boy.

Oh, oh, oh, man.

Look at that.

This is the ancient maya pyramid of la danta,

by volume, perhaps the largest on planet earth.

We're a tiny island of humanity in a sea of green.

♪

gates: But this isn't the only temple here.

In the distance, we see other peaks jutting out

from the canopy, far from the center of el mirador.

And here, pyramid, pyramid...

Pyramid, pyramid, pyramid.

...Pyramid, pyramid.

All of these are ancient cities that are linked together

by causeways from this center.

-It's a country. -It's a whole empire.

Gates: Over the last four decades,

richard and his team haven't just been here in el mirador.

They've discovered 51 different maya cities in the basin,

revealing an extensive civilization connected by roads.

But because of the dense jungle,

it has never been fully mapped until now.

♪

the lidar drone is quickly assembled.

The plan is to fly it over the peaks

to uncover the causeways

and buildings beneath the foliage.

-This thing cut your arm off? -Yeah.

Okay. We're stepping back.

[ object whirring ]

[ thunder rumbles ]

the skies are looking threatening.

We've got huge storm clouds coming in,

just eating up the clear skies over here.

The wind is definitely changing a little bit and cooling.

[ thunder rumbles ]

daniel wisely aborts the flight

before we get a chance to make the scan.

Let's get that moving real quick, real quick, real quick.

The storm is just moving right on top of us.

We're gonna try to get out of here

and get back to the main camp before we get caught in it.

♪

guys, it's gonna rain. Let's get moving.

♪

[ thunder crashes ]

it's coming in! [bleep].

♪

gates: The jungles of guatemala are home

to the most extraordinary ruined city I've ever seen,

the maya metropolis of el mirador,

once ruled over by the mysterious snake kings.

Coming up, I'll be returning to the lost city

for a brand-new investigation and a remarkable new discovery.

But during our first expedition,

I find myself atop the massive pyramid of la danta,

where a potentially dangerous storm

has caused us to abort a lidar scan of the site.

Guys, it's gonna rain. Let's get moving.

Lighting is coming down through the jungle.

Now we're scrambling to safety.

It's coming in! [bleep].

Get everything we can dry. It's coming.

-Come on, come on. Let's go. -Let's go.

We're trying to get everything back before it really,

really comes down.

Let's get in the tech room, make sure the equipment's okay.

Man, we're barely gonna make it here.

Good, we're dry.

The rain continues all night long.

♪

the next morning, though, the sky has cleared.

And the helicopters have returned with fresh supplies.

We decide to take advantage of the sturdier ride

and mount the lidar scanner on one of the choppers.

Okay, here we go.

♪

we fly over the basin in a grid pattern

until our target area is completely covered by our scan.

For the lidar analysis,

richard suggests we head to his bungalow,

where his colleagues wait to see what we found.

I want to introduce carlos morales,

one of our top archaeologists and one of the men

that handles all of our lidar processing.

I'm hopeful we'll have something cool to show you.

Yeah, let's take a look.

How many points of data did we collect on that flight?

Whew, billions.

-With a b? -Yes.

Right now it's colorized by elevation,

so the higher it is, the redder it is.

The first thing you do is strip away all the trees,

so you can see the ground.

Gates: The lidar software does its work.

The trees slowly disappear, and what's left is miraculous.

-Oh, my god. -Wow.

-Massive platform. -Look at this!

There's a big site down here.

Did we just find a lost city, like, a legit lost city?

Just two minutes ago, nobody in the world

had a clue this site was even here.

That's crazy.

Richard, you feel like taking a walk?

[ laughs ] we could do it!

-All right, let's do it. -Come on.

Gates: We load up a mule team with food, water, and equipment

and begin our journey to a newly found part of this lost city.

We hope to find evidence of the snake kings

while avoiding actual snakes, not to mention jaguars

and other threats along the way.

-We need to go through this way. -Through that?

-Yeah. -Well, let's get into it.

Come on.

♪

♪

♪

it just feels like the forest is creating a defensive wall

against anyone coming through it.

♪

♪

finally, after hours of bushwhacking,

we're closing in on our gps target.

We got a rise here, richard. Look, that's going up.

There's something up here.

Gates: The topography changes abruptly,

and looming in front of us,

a hill that may not actually be a hill

at all as we approach the towering centerpiece.

-Oh, look at that. -Look at this!

We've got a pyramid here, josh.

A-ha, that's our big boy, right there.

The center structure of this, whatever it is.

Oh, my word.

Even after thousands of years of growth,

you can still see that shape clear as day.

-You can still see it. -Until this very moment,

nobody in the modern world has ever seen this...

-That's right. -...Until right now.

You are seeing that for the first time.

-That's right. -Let's go look at it.

Let's go take a look.

♪

♪

look at this, top of the world.

And so, what do you think?

Could there be a snake king under our feet?

Judging by the size and scale and the nature of this,

that's entirely possible.

Gates: Unfortunately, we barely have time

to savor the discovery of this once-lost complex

when the pressure suddenly drops.

[ thunder crashes ]

-oh, we got thunder. -Yeah.

Gates: A massive storm begins to move in.

And in a frustrating turn of events,

we're forced to not only abandon our find...

You get all the personal gear.

Get the tents broken down. We're getting out of here.

...But to flee el mirador entirely.

We're in.

The crew and I fly barely ahead of dangerous winds.

♪

♪

[ beeping ]

we make it out, but I have to know what we left behind.

And so, three months later, I return to el mirador.

♪

not only did the dig site survive the storm,

but richard's done some excavating

at our newly found pyramid.

Look at it!

There's actually a building under here.

Oh, there is. There's a building here.

Incredible.

But a building of this size requires leadership.

Yeah.

And they would do that by placing monuments

to commemorate their legacy out here.

And it looks like we found something here, josh.

Carlos just found this stone.

You think that could be a monument?

We don't know.

We've got to clean it off and see here,

but we're coming down on the floor here.

-You want to dig it out? -Let's see what's here.

-Let's do it. Come on. -[ laughs ]

gates: Maya monuments, called stela,

are hugely important to archaeologists,

chronicling important events, people, and places.

It's like the maya left us a history book

and highlighted the key chapters.

Okay. Well, here it is on the floor.

Now we can see it, but no signs of inscription on it.

No, looked everywhere.

There might be something underneath it,

but we have to lift up to look.

Muchachos, por fa.

Okay. Here we go. Ready?

-[ speaking spanish ] -here we go.

Up, up, up, up!

-[ speaking spanish ] -up, up, up, up, up!

♪

-a-ha, look! -Look at that.

♪

gates: After being chased out by a storm,

I return to el mirador with dr. Richard hansen and his team,

searching the vast pre-classic maya city

for the tombs of the snake kings.

And we have just found one.

Gates: Up, up, up, up, up!

-[ speaking spanish ] -up, up, up, up!

Up, up, up, up, up, up!

-[ speaking spanish ] -a-ha, look!

Look at that.

It's carved. It's carved!

Oh, my gosh.

Look at it!

-Look at that. Is that a leg? -That's a leg.

Here's the thigh, comes up here, so we know he's facing this way.

Here is a glyph.

-That's a mayan glyph? -Yeah.

It's a portrait of a king.

Gates: This figure on the monument is clearly a king,

delineated by his ceremonial belt.

So we could literally be looking at a snake king here.

Yeah.

Gates: This stela is a monumental find, literally.

It is the only one of its kind

ever found in el mirador outside of the city center.

Why is it so important to understand this civilization?

Through the lens of archaeology,

we can see the whole story from the beginning to the end.

-Right. -We can see what they did right,

and we can see what they did wrong.

At one time, this was the largest

ancient city in the world.

And it all vanished.

Yeah, that's right.

It's a problem that we call the conspicuous consumption

of resources.

Gates: The maya's appetite for the lime plaster

that covered el mirador

was the engine of their own demise.

With the basin's trees harvested for fuel,

a layer of clay in the ground once held back by the tree roots

seeped into their growing fields and poisoned their agriculture.

The bigger el mirador grew,

the more accelerated the process of their end became.

It's a lesson for all of us, you know?

We have to pay attention to the history

to avoid repeating those errors.

Gates: Once again, I depart el mirador

thrilled to have played a small role

in this archaeological breakthrough.

I ask richard to contact me if he finds anything new.

♪

well, it is 3:30 in the morning,

and I am at the airport because we got an email

from dr. Richard hansen.

And that means I'm going to guatemala.

♪

traveling to el mirador hasn't gotten

any easier in the past year,

and I'm grateful when I reach the helicopter

with my old friend gabriel at the stick.

-Hola. -Hola.

-Como estas? -Muy bien.

Let's go. Vamos.

♪

gates: [ filtered voice ] okay, here we go.

♪

after all this, it's the sight of la danta pyramid

that tells me I'm back.

As we touch down, I'm greeted by a familiar face.

There he is, the man himself. How you doing, doc?

And if dr. Hansen is rushing up to a running helicopter,

he must be excited about something.

-How are you, doctor? -How are you?

-Good to see you. -Good to see you.

-You got something to show me? -Yeah, I think we do.

-You do? -I think we do.

♪

we take the hike into base camp.

And inside the mess hall is another pleasant surprise.

[ laughs ] the bobs.

What's going on? How you doing, sir?

You finally made it.

Turns out, the father-son gpr team of bob

and bob leonard are back, as well.

Richard has brought them in to help peer inside the pyramids

for any open chambers that could be snake king tombs.

What did you find?

We're seeing on several of these structures a pattern emerge.

Well, that's intriguing.

The same anomaly is in the same location

on several of these structures.

And that pattern makes us think it could be something important

for him to investigate scientifically.

So, that's exciting.

Well, one of the things that this lets us see, josh,

is I'm trying to understand

the construction of these buildings,

and some of this information's showing us those patterns.

When it comes to these snake kings,

their burial pattern, as we know, has not been found.

Well, we have 19 recorded kings on dynasty pots,

and we think they're here.

Gates: This is a potential bombshell.

It means that if they have discovered a snake king tomb,

they may also have the key to finding all of them.

And so, how many of these potential voids

or cavities did you find?

So, we think we've found four.

And then there's one in particular that, you know,

we think is the most interesting.

Okay, so, the million-dollar question is, where is it?

I think it'd be best if we show you.

Gates: I've traveled on richard's

so-called moto-mules before

and have the sciatica to prove it...

Oh, richard, you've made some upgrades

since I was here.

...Which is why I'm a little surprised to see this.

Josh, we now call it the moto-limousine.

The moto-limo.

[ engine starts ]

okay, here we go.

The brand-new mule speeds into the jungle.

Whoo-hoo!

And my anticipation builds.

Give up the goods. Where is this anomaly, richard?

Well, we thought it was gonna be

on the souther side of the plaza.

-Right. -We looked there.

In reality, it's just in front of you.

Gates: Here on the western end of the city

stands the massive pyramid complex known as el tigre,

second in size only to mighty la danta.

This is clearly one of the most important

ceremonial structures in the city.

And now the bobs have gathered promising data

that this pyramid may have a long-forgotten chamber inside.

If it's a burial, it could be a snake king.

Gates: We grab our gear for the long hike

up to the pyramid platform.

All right.

Richard, remind me again,

how did I end up carrying the generator?

[ laughs ]

gates: After doing about a month's

worth of the stair master in one go, we arrive.

♪

welcome to the upper platform of tigre pyramid.

Wow!

It may have taken me three trips to el mirador,

but we may finally be in the presence of a snake king.

Wow, look at this.

♪

♪

gates: Though lost to humanity for thousands of years,

el mirador hasn't gone entirely unoccupied,

and richard has gotten very friendly with his neighbors.

Richard, I understand that you speak howler monkey.

-I do. -Let's hear it.

-Okay, here we go. -Here we go. You ready?

Yeah.

[ imitating howler monkey ]

what exactly are you saying?

I don't know. I don't know. No response.

Maybe it reminds him of his mother-in-law.

[ laughter ]

♪

gates: After being summoned by archaeologist

dr. Richard hansen...

We're still in active excavations on here, josh.

Gates: ...I've returned to the once-lost,

pre-classic maya city of el mirador.

Wow, look at this.

Richard believes that he may have finally discovered

the site of a snake king tomb

inside the holy pyramid of el tigre.

Incredible.

Now with gpr experts bob and bob leonard,

we're going to scan and see if he's right.

So, richard, give me a little orientation here.

First of all, where are we up here?

Josh, what we're looking at are three buildings

on the summit of a platform,

which is characteristic of the architecture

in the pre-classic period from 300 b.C.

To about the time of christ.

Gates: This style of architecture

where one main pyramid

is flanked by two smaller ones is called triadic,

and it almost always signifies a religious or political center.

And since el tigre was home to the city's elite,

it is perhaps the most important triadic center in el mirador.

Richard has high hopes

for anything that's hidden inside of it.

None of the tombs of these snake kings have ever been found.

No. Never. Never been found.

Let's see if one of them might be up here.

The bobs did an earlier scan here

that discovered a void in the pyramid,

but now they've brought a new gpr unit,

which uses multiple antennas.

It should give them and richard

a clearer picture of what's down there.

All right, josh. Come here. Check this out.

-You've got something? -Yeah.

Yeah, you do.

Yeah, you do. Look at that!

You can see all this clear area up here.

-That's rock. -Solid rock up here, yeah.

And then when that signal gets into a void...

-Yeah. -...It'll sit there and bounce

back and forth. -Yes.

And so, you know, that's what we're seeing right there.

Holy smokes.

That looks like a chamber.

Yeah.

Let's look at it.

Gates: To get through the stone of the pyramid,

we came prepared with a pneumatic rock drill

powered by a gas generator,

which, just to remind you, I schlepped all the way up here.

Okay, we're up!

It uses a carbide bit to punch a small, deep hole

in the ancient structure.

Okay, we ready? Yeah?

Yep, let's go.

Gates: All four of us lean into the drill.

It's like boring through, well, solid rock.

But then, all of a sudden, it isn't.

-Whoa! -Whoa!

Oh, whoa, whoa! It dropped.

There's a cavity there.

Ha! Okay, let's get it up.

When it drops like that, there's something weird.

-Up. Up, up, up. -Whoa, whoa, whoa.

-Okay, let's bring this down. -Pull it out.

-Okay. -There we go.

-Okay, drill's out. -Okay.

Okay, now it's camera time.

Now it's camera time.

Mine's a little bit primitive compared to what we need.

I brought a little upgrade for you.

-Oh, good boy. -Yeah.

That's it, that's it.

Next-level.

The camera I've brought has

a special pan-and-tilt function...

Holy smokes.

Gates: ...With an articulating head capable of seeing

everything around it.

Okay, we're live. Moment of truth.

You ready?

We send our snake cam to catch a snake king.

Here we go.

Okay, we're good.

-Give me some slack. -Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! -Ha, ha!

It looks like at the bottom, there's an opening.

There is.

There's a room in there.

There's a room in there. Go further.

-Can you push on? -Yeah.

-There's the chamber there. -Boy, it looks like

there's almost architecture to that room.

I know. I know it.

It looks like a squared-off room, doesn't it?

That's what it looks like to me, too.

Oh, what? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Go back up again.

What's this?

It's got a big slab coming this way

and a big slab going that way.

It does look vaulted, doesn't it?

-It does look vaulted. -Right there. See?

Which would mean, then, that this thing has collapsed,

and there's the remnant of the vault.

Gates: This is remarkable.

It is entirely possible that we're looking

at a pre-classic maya construction

that no one has laid eyes on in over 2,000 years.

Even more significant is that the collapsed vault

looks eerily familiar to richard.

Well, what is fascinating is that there were two blocks

like this, one directly on the other,

and we have a precedent for that,

the great site of wakna, which is here at the basin.

There's a vault there that was looted.

-And that was a tomb, you think? -Oh, yes.

And that's what we saw in that thing there.

Which, you know, if that's the case,

then you could be looking at another tomb.

Oh, yeah.

Any chance that what we're seeing here is a snake king?

-Very possible. -Wow.

We're gonna have to dig it regardless.

Yeah.

After years of looking for man-made cavities

in the pyramids of el mirador,

richard may have at last found what he's looking for.

But finding out what's inside

without damaging the structure will take months

of painstakingly careful excavation.

So, like all things at el mirador,

we have some new answers and some new questions.

Well, what it gives us is an area

that we never would have excavated before.

Right.

Finding new structures at el mirador --

unbelievable.

To date, I've been to el mirador three times

in order to find the tombs of the snake kings.

I've been witness to some remarkable discoveries

and in the process learned how the mightiest of empires

can fall by their mismanagement of the environment.

Now this third trip has uncovered the possibility

not just of a single snake king tomb

but the signature construction for all of them.

I think having this non-invasive remote-sensing technology

combined with this minimally invasive drilling means

that you might be on the cusp

of making a lot of discoveries here.

Well, all this technology lets us

tell the story of humanity

we've never been able to tell before.

Good start.

-Thank you. -Let's keep at it.

Thanks for being here, josh.

Gates: It looks like as many times as I leave,

I'll never truly say goodbye to el mirador.

♪