All language subtitles for Drain.the.Oceans.S03E02.Drain.the.Viking.Seas.720p.WEBRip.x264-CAFFEiNE[eztv]_track3_[eng]

Narrator: The wild seas
of europe's far north.

For centuries, a
global centre of trade.

And home to wealthy,
powerful nations.

Their success relies on one
thing above all others:

Mastery of these
storm-tossed waters.

Through astonishing
seamanship,

And groundbreaking design,

It begins with a people

Whose name strikes terror
across all europe:

The vikings.

From their heartlands in
scandinavia, the vikings
build extraordinary

Sailing ships and use them
to raid and conquer,

Reaching even the shores
of north america.

So revered were these ships
that the vikings buried their
great kings inside them.

What was the secret
of their success?

This quiet field in
southern norway may
provide an answer.

A huge burial mound,
hinting at a deeper history.

Dr passche: It's so exciting.

It's one of the biggest
we have in scandinavia.

And that's why we wanted
to go into this area.

Narrator: Previous
excavations here have
found little.

Now, armed with the latest
scanning technology,
archaeologist knut paasche,

And his team, probe the site.

As the ground starts giving
up its secrets, they identify
11 more burial mounds.

And then the motherlode.

Dr passche: But there's
no doubt what it is.

We have the shape.

It's definitely a ship.

Narrator: Very little
is known about the
viking longships

Of the eighth and
ninth centuries.

Just a few images past
down, and a handful of
archaeological relicts.

Dr passche: Our main
problem today is that
we have so few left,

So we don't know what did
they actually look like.

Narrator: Of the thousands
of viking ships that
once sailed the oceans,

Just four have been
found in norway.

Knute hopes this
could be another.

Dr passche: Well you
don't find things
like that every day.

When we recognised,
whoa, this is actually
a ship, then it was wow!

Narrator: And now armed
with his scanning data,
we can remove the soil,

Peel back the sediments
of time and reveal what
lies beneath.

Hidden one and a half
feet below ground, an
unmistakable outline.

Almost 65 feet long.

Large enough for
a crew of 30 men.

Made up overlapping oak
timbers, joined by nails.

And this a flat, rectangular
structure towards
the centre of the ship.

The burial mounds are in
the south east of norway,

Close to where other buried
viking ships have been found.

Those are roughly the
same size and design.

Dr passche: It's very
comparable to the others.

Then you have the length,
the width and the depth
of the ship as well.

Narrator: For knut, it
can mean only one thing.

Dr passche: There's no
doubt, it is a viking ship.

Narrator: Knut wants to
learn more about this
1,000 year old vessel,

To understand the secrets
of viking ship design,

And learn how this race of
seafarers mastered the wild
seas of scandinavia.

First, he recognises
the overlapping plant
construction.

It's a style known
as clinker built.

Oak planks fastened
together with iron rivets.

A design that's water proof,
and gives viking ships the
flexibility they need

To stand up to the power
of the northern seas.

Dr passche: This
construction, first
of all it's flexible.

That's very, very important.

It's not as stiff as you can
see at other wooden boats
or ships further south.

Not fighting the weather,
but actually go with it.

Narrator: Knut turns his
attention to the flat
rectangular structure,

Sitting in the
heart of the vessel.

Its location at the centre
of the ship is a clue.

It must have once supported
a large mast and sail

Key breakthroughs
in ship design.

A simple rowing boat could
never traverse these seas.

Knut also notes the
shape and position of
the flat structure,

Cleverly placed to
distribute the huge
forces on the sail

Down into the frame
of the ship,

Allowing viking
expeditions to withstand
even gale force winds.

Dr passche: They have all
these details in the ship
that they have used hundreds

Of years to learn
how to build them,

And that's why they actually
could survive out there.

Narrator: But these details
alone can't explain the
vikings legendary ability

To navigate the
stormiest oceans and
even the wild atlantic.

A piece of the
puzzle is missing.

And to find what that
is, knut's come here

To study the most
beautifully preserved
viking ship ever found.

Discovered close to the oslo
fjord, at 70 feet long,

It's similar in size
and construction to
his own discovery.

Dr passche: You have
these beautiful lines
going downwards.

They're not only beautiful.

This is actually
really important.

Narrator: And beyond the
strength and flexibility
of the ship's unique

Wooden construction,
there's something else.

Its hydrodynamic profile.

The vikings were centuries
ahead of their time

In understanding the
principles of streamlining

And how to keep a ship
riding on top of the waves.

Dr passche: When you
meet the waves,

The ship should actually
swallow the waves with it.

The water should go underneath
and lift the ship in the
middle and the water

Should be pushed
out in the back.

Narrator: The design that
lies behind the viking
legend is now clear.

Brilliantly engineered
to skim across the most
violent waters.

A sleek, ocean raider built
for exploration and conquest.

Capable of taming the
wild oceans, wherever
they may be.

Knut has cracked the dna of
his buried ship's design,

But there is still
one final puzzle.

Like the ancient egyptians
before them, ship burial
was an old viking custom.

Sending a dead king
along with all his most
treasured possessions

On a final journey
to the afterlife.

Other burial ships have
been found close to the sea,
but this one is different.

Dr passche: I mean we are
more than a kilometre
away the sea here.

Why on earth have they
brought the ship all
the way in here?

Narrator: Marine
archaeologist knut
passche wants to find out

Why a buried viking ship
has been found so far
from the coast.

Dr passche: That
has been a mystery.

It's not easy to carry
more than 2 tons maybe
of oak in here.

Narrator: Norway's coastline
of small inlets and deep
fjords is the result

Of millions of years of
geological change,

Especially the long ice
age, when glaciers
covered this land.

As knut studies the pattern
of that geological change,

He makes a surprising
discovery.

During the viking era,
the coastline here
looked very different,

With the sea much
higher than it is today.

And that means these fields
were part of the fjord,

And this narrow stream
running all the way up

Towards the burial site,

Was a river.

Norway's changing geology
explains why knut's
vessel lies so far inland.

Dr passche: You could
actually row it into the
river and up the creek.

Narrator: It's now possible
to understand exactly

What happened here 1,000
years ago, as the vikings

Bring their most hallowed
possession to be buried along
with their fallen king.

With their longships
designed for raiding
and crossing oceans,

The vikings reach
ever further.

Could the discovery of
these circular stones hold
the key to the next chapter

In the evolution of
viking society, and
of their ships?

Here close to the southern
tip of norway is an
ancient shipping route

Used for centuries by
seafarers to travel
along the coast

Protected from the
worst of the weather.

Dr passche: This landscape
is quite dramatic.

Something could have
happened while they came in,

Because it's very narrow
through this sounds here.

Narrator: It's here that the
chance discovery of some
strange looking stones

Could help explain how
the viking way of life
began to change.

Pal: A diver called and said
yes, seen a lot of rounded
stones with a hole in it.

Yes, I think that we
have to check this.

Narrator: With the stones
just a short distance
from the harbour,

The archaeological team
sets out to make a thorough
investigation of the channel.

Dr soreide: We are going
to a really advanced
scanning of the sea floor

To look at the stones
in more detail today.

Narrator: Now, with those
high resolution scans,

We can drain the shore
of southern norway

To discover for the first
time what lies beneath
these waters.

A cluster of at least 26
stones, each one is made
of hard rock,

Is almost a foot in
diameter and weighs
around 75 pounds

Perfectly round and with a
hole drilled in the middle.

The team soon realizes
they must be grindstones.

Dr soreide: They came
in pairs. You have one
on the bottom

And you rotate the other one
and you then can make flour.

Narrator: Studying the
site, the team notices
something important.

The stones are strewn in a
definite pattern, lying the
length of a narrow ditch

At the bottom of
the channel.

Pal: The way it looks is it
tells us quite obviously that
this has to be a wrecked ship.

Narrator: A wreck whose
wooden remains have
completely rotted away.

Dr soreide: The total
extent of the site is
about 18 meters,

Probably something has
shifted so but it indicates

That this has been a
fairly large ship.

Narrator: The team now
wants to discover what
kind of ship it was.

With the hull missing, that's
going to be difficult.

Then, they find something.

A reindeer antler, often
traded from norway and used
to make combs or needles.

To the scientists,
it's an important clue.

Pal: This is the antler
that we managed to pull
out from the wreck site.

As we can see, it's
the thickets part of
the reindeer antler

And this is chopped
off in both ends.

Narrator: By carbon dating
the marrow inside the bone,
they're able to date it

To the final decades of
the viking golden age.

You don't need grindstones
for raiding and pillaging.

Why so many?

The team realizes they
had to be some form of
valuable cargo.

Dr soreide: This was
definitely a part of the
cargo and probably an item

That was for sale, that
they were going to
deliver to somewhere.

Narrator: Using the
footprints of the stones,

As they reconstruct the
shape of the vessel,

It becomes clear this was
wider than the traditional
viking longship and deeper.

Large enough to
carry those stones.

A new direction in viking
design: A viking cargo ship.

So what can this cargo reveal
about how the vikings built

And secured their
long term success?

He bottom of a
channel in southern norway,

This cargo of grindstones
could reveal something
new about viking trade.

Dr soreide: I find this
site really exciting

Because it's the first sort
of ocean going trade vessel

That we have found
in norway underwater.

So I'm really hoping to see
where it had been, where it
came from, where it was going.

Narrator: Careful examination
of the grindstones reveals
they had been deliberately

Hewn from a very particular
type of rock.

A kind of schist that
carries a unique
geological signature,

And using that signature,
the team is able to trace
it back

To here: Hyllestad,
in western norway.

By sea, a journey of
over 300 miles

A distance that only
reinforces the theory

That these had to be
valuable items for trade

And by following where
these and other viking
goods have been found

An extraordinary
picture emerges.

The unmistakable footprint
of a vast trading network.

From the north sea towards
great britain, ireland and
iceland, south to France,

Spain and into
the mediterranean sea,

Even reaching across the
atlantic, as far west as
north america

And down the great rivers
of asia, as far east as the
black and caspian seas.

Dr soreide: It shows that
the vikings were really
opening up their world

And being able to trade
with areas they had
never been to before.

The ship also had to
evolve and that
interconnection

Is really what happened
at that time.

Narrator: Just a few
decades after the sinking
of the cargo ship,

The spread of
christianity in the
nordic countries brings

And end to the viking
way of life.

But over the coming
centuries, the viking
seas continue

To be a focus for
trade and conflict.

How do the remains of
a sunken giant reveal
the battles

To control these vital
trading routes?

Sweden in the 16th century.

An ambitious new king
sits on the throne.

King erik the 14th dreams
of dominating the baltic's
lucrative trade routes.

But something stands
in his way.

Sweden's sworn enemies in
denmark and northern germany.

Dr ronnby: He has the
ambition to be a big
european king really.

I mean he tries to be
one of the big players
in europe.

Narrator: And so he
commissions what in
the 16th century

Is the ultimate symbol
of power.

A battleship, greater
than anything the
baltic had ever seen.

Her name is the mars.

Richard: Think of mars like
the death star in star wars.

It's a super ship.

It has more cannons
than ever before.

It's more robust.
It has more armour.

Narrator: The mars is
built for a new kind
of naval warfare

Instead of getting up
close and boarding an
enemy's ship,

Keep it at a distance and
sink it with cannon fire.

Richard: That's the coming
way of fighting and you're
putting more and more guns

And more and more gun decks.

Narrator: King erik's new
super weapon is put to the
test for the first time

In may 1564

At the head of a fleet of 37,

Including 16 large warships,
the mars goes into battle
off sweden's eastern coast.

She damages the danish
flagship and sinks another
enemy vessel in just minutes.

Richard: Bang, bang,
bang and the ship sinks
and everybody's like

"what happened here?"

Narrator: But then on
just the second day of
her military career

The mars disappears
somewhere into the icy
depths of the baltic

With over 800 men on board,
vanishing from history

How could this super
weapon of the baltic
have simply disappeared?

For marine explorers like
richard lundgren, finding
her becomes an obsession.

Richard: We spent the better
part of our whole adult lives
searching for this shipwreck

And I can't tell you how many
times people was telling
you, richard, you're crazy.

Why don't you give it up?

Narrator: For over
20 years richard's team
scours the swedish coast,

Searching for the
missing ship.

Member 1: A few anomalies
there, but that could be
fish or something else.

Narrator: They find
over 160 wrecks on the
bottom of the baltic.

Not one of them is the mars

Then one day, they
detect something truly
massive on the sea floor.

Richard: I see up into
the water, the only
thing that tells you

That you're actually falling
through space and actually
falling back into time,

Time travelling, is
the fact that you
see this line.

Narrator: As they dive down
to over 230 feet a vast
shape begins to appear

From the milky haze.

After searching for
over 20 years,

Richard lundgren has
finally found what he hopes
is the wreck of the mars.

Richard: It's like a mist
down there, a milky mist,

Like a ghostly mist and that
hull appear in front of you.

Narrator: With a wreck this
large, a diver only ever
sees part of the picture.

Richard: You can't compare
with anything you've
seen before in the water.

This is massive.

Narrator: Now, using the
data from richard's detailed
scan of the wreck

We can drain the oceans
to reveal a vast ship on
the floor of the baltic

Scattered over an area the
size of a football field

The bulk of the hull remains
intact with gun ports running
along its upper part.

But the bow is entirely
missing the victim of
some unknown cataclysm.

Cannon are strewn across the
site along with the twisted
remains of huge timbers.

Over 55 yards long, and
15 yards wide, the baltic had
never seen anything like her.

Richard: The wreck site
is a perfect time capsule.

There is very few wrecks
on this earth that are in
such a pristine condition.

It's almost like it sank
yesterday, right, even if
it's more 450 years ago.

But is it the mars?

We didn't know.

Narrator: To find out, the
divers search for evidence.

And find a bronze canon
over 15 feet long

With a unique marker.

Dr ronnby: The real
proof was when we saw the
coat of arms on the guns.

Then we were 100 percent
sure that this was actually
the mars we had found.

Narrator: The drained
wreck site reveals that
the mars carried over

100 canon and other guns.

A huge number for a
16th century warship

Based on the evidence on
the sea floor and from
swedish archives,

It's now possible to
reconstruct what the mars
must have looked like

Just before her final
and fateful battle.

A true colossus.

Dr ronnby: This is
a very big ship.

In the bow it was quite a
high castle sticking up
and the same in the stern

Of the ship, it was
also quite a big
castle sticking up.

Narrator: To equip her
for this new style of
naval warfare,

The mars had both upper
and lower gun decks,

With canon ports spanning
the length of the ship.

That kind of firepower
demanded a crew of at
least 600.

The population of a village.

Mars more than lives up to
the myths surrounding her.

But for richard and his
crew, there is now a
further question.

How does this invincible
titan of the seas end up
on the floor of the baltic?

Pal: Welcome back from the
mars dive and I think today

It was a very successful day
and very productive also.

Narrator: For the team,
every piece of timber, every
artefact on the sea floor

Member 2: We have
georeference of
every single objet.

Narrator: Is a clue to be
deciphered in the quest to
understand what sank the mars.

Dr ronnby: When you see
mars on the sea bottom,

You can actually understand
what happened on the
surface.

Narrator: Examining
the drained wreck, the
team begins to see

What must have happened.

Richard: When you get down
to mars, you can see that
this is a battlefield.

You can see that something
powerful and very dramatic
has happened here.

Narrator: The bow is
entirely missing and appears
to have been blown clean off.

The hull is cracked open,
while along the port side,

These ballast stones
have been blasted right
out of the ship.

And there is also evidence
of a significant fire.

Richard: You can
actually smell the fire
and that's really eerie.

I've never experienced
that before in my life.

Narrator: The drained
wreck reveals that somehow

This impregnable ship
has a weak spot.

What is it?

The team believes a
grappling hook found on
the side of the wreck

Could hold the answer.

Its location suggests it
belongs not to the mars,

But to an enemy ship that
has managed to get close
enough to board her

After the success of the
first day's battle, the
mars finds herself alone.

A change in wind direction
leaves her vulnerable

And isolated from the rest
of the swedish fleet.

Richard: Mars alone is
a giant, but it needs
bodyguard.

Without those bodyguards,
the other ships can come
very close and

They can throw grappling
hooks and they can tie
themselves into the ship

And then you simply
overwhelm it.

And that's exactly
what happens.

Narrator: Incendiary
bombs start fires on
board the mars,

And soon the two sides
are struggling in hand
to hand combat.

Dr ronnby: Just in that
moment, there is an
explosion on board.

Richard: One of the canons
mid deck caught fire

And exploded and then it
went to the gunpowder
and then boom

(explosion)

When she explodes
she goes down quick.

Narrator: The crew of the
mars and the enemy sailors

Who board her vanish to
the bottom of the ocean.

Perhaps as many as
1,000 men.

King erik's gambit to
seize control over the
baltic sea has failed.

But the historic rivalry
between sweden and
denmark continues.

How does this pile of stones
reveal the enormous stakes
in another epic battle

For control of these
contested waters?

By the beginning of the 18th
century, sweden's king
charles the 12th is battling

To dominate the great
seas of the north, but
he has many enemies.

Jens: The suggestion that
we have in 1714, 15, is
that basically sweden

Is facing a huge allied
axis of denmark, prussia,
poland, saxony and russia.

So sweden against
everybody else.

Narrator: Charles is forced
to retreat to his coastal
stronghold in what

Is now northern germany.

The city of stralsund.

Jens: This was one of the
main fortresses the swedes
had along the coast here

And this is where the king
was, the swedish king,

Charles the 12th and
this is what they wanted
to protect most.

Narrator: Stralsund
is very well defended.

For the forces led by
the danish to reach it,
there's only one way

Through this bay to
the east of the city.

And now a new gas pipeline
being laid across that bay

Is about to collide with
the region's history

Maritime archaeologist jens
auer is asked to investigate
the proposed route.

Jens: We found a
number of anomalies.

There were loads of places
that looked suspiciously

Like manmade objects
on the seabed.

Narrator: And then he
finds something unusual

Right in the proposed
path of the pipeline.

Jens: We see loads of
rocks on the seabed,
just a big mound.

It looks a bit out of place.

Narrator: Removing the
waters of the baltic,

Reveals the strange scene
that confronts jens and
his diving team

At first, it appears
to be no more than a
pile of stones,

But it becomes clear
there's more.

Timbers sticking out
from beneath the stones.

Jens: You think, okay
this is a shipwreck.

It's a shipwreck under a
heap of stones, a mound
of stones basically.

Narrator: How had a wrecked
ship ended up at the bottom

Of the baltic buried
under those stones?

Jens: This is where the
detective work starts.

A wreck buried under
a pile of stones.

They begin by carefully
recovering the timbers
from the sunken vessel

Tree ring tests date
them to the turn of
the 18th century

The very moment when this bay
was at the centre of the war
between denmark and sweden.

Jens: We're at the entrance
to the bay of greifswald.

This is the bay here.

Between the island of
rugen and the mainland.

Narrator: The only way to
reach sweden's king charles
in his fortified city

Of stralsund is via the bay.

For approaching enemy ships,

There's only one access
channel deep enough and out
of range of swedish canon.

Jens: That was the scary thing,
the week spot, the one place
where you could come through.

Narrator: The buried
wreck lies exactly on
the weak spot,

Right in the middle of that
vulnerable channel

For jens, the wreck's
position cannot be a
coincidence.

And returning to the drained
wreck reveals why

At first glance, the rocks
covering the wreck appear to
be stones used as ballast

By the sunken ship, but
there's something odd.

Jens: Normal ballast
stones are small and these
were like massive rocks.

Narrator: And that
isn't the only thing.

Instead of lying within
the wreck, as you'd expect
with ballast stones,

These rocks were
sitting on top of it.

There is one possible
explanation.

Jens: They looked like they
were used for sinking it on
purpose, intentionally.

Narrator: It means the
ship must have been
deliberately scuttled.

Then, jens finds
something else

The scuttled ship is
not alone.

There are others lying
in a straight line right
across that narrow channel.

It had to be a deliberate
barrier designed to block
the channel to enemy ships.

Jens: When you look
in the area, you see that
this is not the only ship.

There's actually 15 mounds
of stones over a distance
of about 840 meters

Stretching across the whole
shallow entrance to the bay.

Narrator: Strengthened
with anchors and other
debris between each ship,

It was almost impossible
to get through.

Jens: They made a
good job of really
blocking this off.

Narrator: And so, blocked by
the barrier, and unable to
invade via these forbidding

Cliffs, for almost two months,
the danish fleet remained
stuck outside the bay

But then, in September of
1750 something happens

And the fleet makes
it through.

Jens: So you have to
imagine 495 vessels,
boats out here,

So the whole water is covered
with vessels coming to the
shore taking soldiers,

Infantry, cavalry to
the beach here.

Narrator: This monument
commemorates the moment
when over 14,000 danish

And allied soldiers
surge onto the island.

A force three times the
size of the swedish army.

Jens: And that's really
the turning point in
this conflict.

Narrator: By December,
stralsund has fallen

So how did they get
through the barrier?

Only the swedes know there's
a secret entry point.

Jens: They left an opening,
but that opening was
invisible from the surface.

If you don't know where
the opening is, it's
very hard to get through.

Narrator: But one man
is ready to betray the
location of the opening.

Jens: A pilot in swedish
service ran away

And joined the danes
and he knew everything
about this barrier.

Narrator: Going over
to the danish side,

He shows them the way
through the barrier

As for the scuttled ships,

They remain for hundreds
of years underwater and
forgotten.

Hidden ghosts from
another battle to
control the baltic.

Today, scandinavia is
peaceful and still an
important hub

For international trade,

While thousands of shipwrecks
silently recall the genius,

The courage and the sacrifice
of those who sought to tame

The viking seas.

Captioned by subtitlepro llc