Original subtitles

[narrator] Could these weird objects

unlock the secrets of the Great Pyramid?

Perhaps these are an escape artist's toolkit

for the soul of the Pharaoh.

[narrator] What was this lethal device for?

The crazy thing is that it's being used

in shops on children.

[narrator] Is this proof that ancient Romans

beat Columbus to the Americans?

This head doesn't fit.

It's an object that shouldn't be there.

[narrator] These are the most remarkable

and mysterious objects on Earth,

hidden away in museums,

laboratories, and storage rooms.

Now, new research and technology can get

under their skin...

like never before.

We can rebuild them,

pull them apart,

and zoom in to reveal the unbelievable,

the ancient,

and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's Strangest Things.

[narrator] These three simple objects,

a sphere, a hook,

and five fragments of wood

were discovered in a secret shaft

in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

When these objects were found, it was huge news.

[narrator] Because they're the only items ever recovered

from inside this massive pyramid.

And we have absolutely no idea what they are.

Now, with the latest technology,

we're bringing these strange objects out into the light.

[narrator] The stone sphere is about the size of a baseball.

The stone is clearly roughly made.

It has a scratch particularly

evident all around its circumference.

[narrator] The corroded copper hook splits

into two curving prongs,

formfitting stick out near the base.

[Dr. Somara] It looks like it's supposed to attach

to something else.

But what?

We just don't know.

[narrator] And the five fragments of wood,

once bore strange score marks.

For more than 4,000 years, the Great Pyramid,

where they were found, has captivated people.

There are still lots of mysteries

around it that we haven't been able to crack.

[Dr. Bellinger] Is it possible that these objects

could somehow shed light

on some of these mysteries?

[narrator] Or could they be a red herring?

Are they even authentic?

Or are they a later object planted?

[narrator] Could these really have belonged to the builders

of the Great Pyramid?

Why were they hidden inside it,

and what are they for?

[Dr. Bellinger] It's 1872, and Dr. James Grant,

a physician, and Waynman Dixon,

an engineer, are exploring the Great Pyramid.

The interior of the Great Pyramid is a bit of a warren

of passageways and openings.

[narrator] Inside, they make the discovery of their lives.

Grant and Dixon were looking for shafts

leading out of the Queen's Chamber.

Dixon's got his tools.

He's hammering,

he's chiseling away.

And lo and behold, he finds one,

and breaks through into it.

And on the other side, they find a second shaft.

[narrator] It's in these shafts,

they discovered the three mysterious objects.

It makes headlines right across the globe.

[Dr. Bellinger] We're in the Great Pyramid of Egypt,

the poster child monument for this ancient culture.

And this is the first time

anything had been found inside of it.

[narrator] The objects become known as the Dixon Relics.

Could they explain some of the mysteries

of the Great Pyramid?

The only surviving

ancient wonder of the world.

This is built at a time

where they hadn't even invented the wheel.

[narrator] And the pyramid itself holds few clues

to these mysteries.

At this point in time,

the Egyptians weren't even decorating

the inside of their tombs with hieroglyphic carvings

that could be read to shed some light

on what they were doing there and why.

[narrator] The pyramid holds no bodies,

no grave goods, nothing.

That's what makes the Dixon Relics such a big deal.

If they are genuine,

they might help unlock the pyramid's secrets.

But if they're imposters,

they tell us nothing.

Is it possible that someone plants them later?

Unfortunately, there is a long line

of people who have the opportunity to plant

the Dixon Relics in the pyramid.

Dixon and Grant were far from the first people

to pass through the pyramid and take out things.

The ancient Greeks and Romans passed through,

and as European colonialism really expanded, and Egypt,

a mania took hold of the world.

Even Napoleon came to visit the Great Pyramid,

and reportedly spent the night alone inside of it.

[narrator] The only way to know that these artifacts

weren't planted by one of these later visitors

is to date them.

The spear and the hook wind up in the British Museum.

The wood, on the other hand, at some point disintegrated,

broke into five pieces

which were placed into a cigar box

and that went missing.

[narrator] The stone and metal cannot be dated,

and that is all they have.

The real question of whether these objects were left

by the builders of the pyramid

couldn't be answered without the wood.

[narrator] The wood fragments disappear sometime

in the late '40s.

It's a dead-end.

[narrator] In 2019, at the University of Aberdeen,

an assistant curator

is working in the Asia Collection.

She comes across this strange lacquered box,

which doesn't quite seem like it belongs,

because she recognizes that it's decorated with elements

from the old Egyptian flag.

She discovers that it contains

these five wooden fragments.

[narrator] The rediscovery of the fragments

changes everything.

Now they can carbon date the relics,

and discover if they're the real deal or not.

But the results are a shock.

[Dr. Marina] It was over 500 years earlier

than the date of the building of the Great Pyramid,

which was really surprising.

[narrator] Five hundred years is quite some gap.

[Dr. Bellinger] In terms of the ancient Egyptians,

that's way before they were even thinking

about building pyramids.

[narrator] Is it really plausible

that something so old could still be in use

500 years after it was made?

[Dr. Marina] Egypt doesn't have a lot of wood

of good quality,

and so these would have been imported from Lebanon.

And because this was very costly to bring to Egypt,

they would be reused once they lost

their initial purpose.

[narrator] In fact, archeological excavations

are now revealing that the ancient Egyptians often

repurposed old wood,

particularly in later monuments and tombs.

So despite the wood's great age,

their discovery inside the younger Great Pyramid

fits with what we know of ancient Egypt.

But that doesn't answer the big question,

what are they for?

[narrator] When the Dixon Relics are first discovered,

some experts believe they could be

sophisticated surveyor's instruments,

an Egyptian builder's toolkit.

[Dr. Somara] Building these pyramids

wasn't just about moving gigantic blocks.

It was also about precision.

And from the base of the pyramid,

all the way to its apex,

it's 51.5 degrees.

Get that wrong at the bottom,

and you're hugely out by the time you get to the top.

[narrator] Egyptians already know

that getting your angles wrong is a big problem.

This pyramid is built by Khufu's dad, Sneferu.

It's known as the Bent Pyramid.

[Dr. Bellinger] Essentially, it looks as if Sneferu's Pyramid

originally was built at too steep an angle and it failed.

Recognizing their error, the Egyptians corrected it,

and it looks a bit wonky as a result.

Clearly the ancient Egyptians

eventually arrived at the conclusion

that 51 degrees is the optimal angle

to build your pyramid.

A set of tools to help keep you on track

was probably a necessity to hit that very precise mark.

[narrator] The Dixon Relics could explain the mystery

of how the builders achieve this in the Great Pyramid.

These could be parts of actually one single tool.

The wood could be the handle attached to the hook,

and then the ball could have been attached

also to this instrument as a sort of plumb bob.

[Dr. Somara] The way a plumb bob works

is it's essentially a weight hanging off a string.

And thanks to gravity, you get perfect verticals.

[narrator] That would explain the groove around the sphere.

By adding just a few pieces of missing wood,

the Dixon Relics become even more,

a multi angle plumb bob,

one that not only allows you to measure verticals,

but horizontal, and diagonals as well.

But there is a problem with this theory.

The missing section of wood to make it work is... missing.

There is another explanation.

Some experts have suggested the Dixon Relics explain

a different mystery of the Great Pyramid.

Its four corners

line up with the four cardinal directions

true north, south, east, and west,

with a margin of error of less than a 10th of a degree.

[narrator] Getting this orientation right is central

to ancient Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife.

[Dr. Marina] The stars in the north

were considered immortal for the ancient Egyptians.

By building the pyramids and orienting them

towards the stars,

the Egyptian pharaohs

would also become deities

at their death

and join these stars.

[narrator] To achieve this vital orientation

of the King's tomb,

the ancient Egyptians can use

a special tool called the merkhet,

the instrument of knowing.

[Dr. Marina] The merkhet looks like a plumb bob,

and it was employed to locate a particular star

in a specific point in the sky.

They will orient these instrument

towards the meridian,

the line that goes

from the north to the south.

One key thing about the merkhet

is that it was used in conjunction

with a long forked device called a bay.

[narrator] And that looks very much like one piece

of the Dixon Relics.

[Dr. Somara] So used in tandem,

they could help you determine exactly where true north was,

and to help you line up the structure

with the pole stars.

[Dr. Bellinger] And it raises the question of whether the Dixon Relics

were somehow a device just like this.

[narrator] But some experts are unconvinced.

Because if these are precious tools,

why hide them away inside one of the mysterious shafts?

Four of these hidden shafts have been discovered,

two in the King's Chamber and two in the Queen's.

No one knows what they are for.

Could these strange things hold the answer?

[narrator] In 1993, more than a hundred years

after Dixon and Grant's discovery,

a German engineer, Rudolf Gantenbrink,

sets out to discover the purpose of the shafts.

[Dr. Bellinger] Gantenbrink sends a robot

into these inaccessible shafts.

[Dr. Bellinger] And the robot comes up against a dead-end.

But intriguingly,

there are two copper pins in the wall.

He also finds a squared off wooden pole,

looks kind of familiar.

[narrator] Perhaps like the Dixon Relic wood looks

before it disintegrated.

Could this explain the three strange objects?

Because if you lay the pole Gantenbrink found,

the length of wood,

and the copper hook end to end,

it seems as if all three could connect together

as one long hooking tool.

One of the theories that comes out of this, is that perhaps,

the Dixon Relics are essentially

an escape artist's toolkit for the soul of the Pharaoh.

Perhaps the stone was to pound

through the wall, and the hook would connect

to these pins, and the wooden pole

would allow him to lever his way out and up

into the sky to take his place in the realm of the Gods.

[narrator] But as with every theory

about the Dixon Relics, there's a hitch.

The hook and the pins, they don't match up.

[narrator] The copper pins in the shaft

are approximately three inches apart.

But the double ended hook is no more than two inches wide.

The hook doesn't fit.

We may never know the true purpose of the Dixon Relics,

but one thing experts are confident about,

these are the real deal.

They were hidden in the Great Pyramid by its builders

four and a half thousand years ago.

Whether they are builder's tools

or a Pharaoh's escape system,

they remain some of the most precious relics

of a lost world.

[narrator] In the Michigan History Center is a curious,

polished wooden cabinet.

It looks like some kind of Flash Gordon movie prop.

But this is a real machine.

And it produces a type of radiation known to be lethal.

The crazy thing is that it's not some very sophisticated

and essential medical device.

It's being used in shops on children.

[narrator] Using state-of-the-art digital imaging,

we can examine this strange device in minute detail.

This is the Adrian Fluoroscope.

Made in the 1930s, it stands nearly

four-feet high, two-feet wide,

and almost three-feet deep.

[Dr. Mark] This is a beautiful instrument,

looks very professional,

polished wood on the outside.

It looks the part.

[narrator] Its top is covered in switches and dials.

[Dr. Sarah] It has three metal ports

that look a little bit like binoculars.

And you can stand and look down into the machine.

[narrator] Near the base is a small step,

with a wide opening into the machine's interior,

which is where the damage could be done.

This contraption is actually potentially very dangerous,

but it was used for decades

all across the Western Hemisphere.

[narrator] How does it work?

Who came up with this dangerous idea?

And what happened to the people who used it?

[narrator] Zoom in to the base of the Adrian Fluoroscope

and there's a very obvious clue as to its purpose.

You can see at the bottom, there's a hole

that is just the right size for a human foot.

[narrator] Curious machines like this one,

sold under names like the Pedoscope

or the Foot-o-scope,

were once a common feature in shoe stores.

The idea of this device

was that instead of having your feet simply measured,

you were going to use latest technology to really

precisely decide how well a shoe fitted your foot.

[narrator] In this machine,

low-tech rulers are out.

In their place, come high-tech X-rays

that magically reveal the hidden structure

of the foot.

The person responsible for the technology

that leads to the Foot-o-scope is this man,

superstar inventor Thomas Alva Edison.

[Dr. Sarah] In May 1896,

at the National Electric Light Association,

he debuted his new invention, the fluoroscope.

Hundreds of people lined up

and essentially they would stand in front of a screen,

and they were able to see the insides of their body.

They could see their whole skeleton.

[narrator] Edison's astonishing new technique

wows the crowds.

It becomes known as fluoroscopy.

It gave the moving images of the skeleton

that you could very easily create

with one of these X-ray devices

and a screen.

It didn't need any high-tech equipment,

so it quite quickly became commercialized.

[Dr. Sarah] Essentially, what you did,

was you would go in to the shoe shop,

you try on a shoe, and then with the shoe on,

you would put your foot inside the Foot-o-scope.

[narrator] The X-ray tube inside the base

bombards the shoe from underneath with radiation.

A fluorescent screen sits above the shoe.

The image on it reveals the customer's foot

inside the shoe.

And that's where the strange metal castings

on the top of the machine earned their keep.

The Foot-o-scope has three viewing ports.

One of them was a bit lower than the others.

One would be for the salesperson.

The other would be for the parent.

And the third one would be for the child,

who was usually really fascinated

to see the inside their foot.

[Dr. Philip] They were instructed to wiggle

their toes and the idea was that you then see

how much room there was.

[Dr. Sarah] So you can imagine that

this was quite sensational.

We like super high-tech, super sciencey stuff.

So if you have a simple machine that measures a foot,

that's not nearly as good as a crazy X-ray machine

that measure the foot with the hyper invisible science.

And that can be a bit of a problem because often

the super sciencey thing doesn't work better

than the very simple version of things.

[narrator] So does this high-tech showstopper

actually work?

The real problem was that it wasn't the bones

that mattered so much in shoe-fitting,

as the soft tissue around it.

And this was invisible to the X-rays.

[narrator] So that's a no, then.

Today, the idea of X-ray shoe-fitting

seems a little like overkill.

So why create this device in the first place?

[narrator] Its development really takes off

in the First World War.

The most likely origin story is that of a medical doctor

who worked for the military called Dr. Jacob Lowe.

[narrator] Dr. Lowe is inundated by soldiers

with foot injuries that need X-rays

to assess the damage.

The solution to his backlog turns out to be a fluoroscope

turned on its side.

The advantage of fluoroscopy

was that you could examine the foot

without having to remove the boot,

and so you could do it much more efficiently.

[narrator] When the war ends, Lowe realizes

he's sitting on a big idea.

[indistinct chatter]

[Dr. Sarah] Lowe sees a real opportunity here,

and he modifies the device

for the shoe-fitting industry.

He forms the Foot-o-scope Corporation

and they filed their patent in 1919.

[narrator] In January, 1920,

Lowe reveals his revolutionary

shoe-fitting device to the world

at a retailer's convention in Boston.

[Dr. Sarah] This tells us quite a lot

about the scientific importance

of the device in that it wasn't really about science,

it was much more about selling.

[narrator] Incased in expensive mahogany,

devices like the Adrian Fluoroscope

don't come cheap.

The $900 price tag,

the equivalent of $13,000 today,

represents a major investment for any shoe store

that wants one.

But all over the world, people go crazy

for wonder machines like this.

[Dr. Philip] People loved them.

So people would go into shoe stores

just to see their feet in the device

rather than even to buy shoes.

[Dr. Sarah] Ultimately, this is a kind of technological performance

that doesn't really have any useful purpose,

but it is a really good sales device.

[narrator] The popularity of this device

and its rivals grows.

By their peak in the 1950s,

there are thousands of machines in use

across the world,

but there is one major problem.

[Dr. Sarah] No one's really thought to ask.

Is it safe?

[narrator] At the turn of the 20th century,

little is known about the danger of X-rays.

The clues were there all the way back in 1896,

the scientist Nikola Tesla put his finger in an X-ray

and came out with burns.

He didn't realize that those were actually radiation burns

caused by the X-ray, though.

[narrator] Thomas Edison, inventor of the fluoroscope,

is probably aware of the risks

after his assistant, Clarence Dally,

falls seriously ill.

His hair starts to fall out.

He begins to experience nausea and dizziness.

He starts to experience lesions on the skin.

He does actually have skin grafts

from other parts of his body onto his hands,

but the lesions still remain.

Eventually, he has to have both of his arms amputated

and within a short period of time,

he actually dies from radiation sickness.

[narrator] By 1920,

when the Adrian Fluoroscope arrives,

the dangers X-rays posed to humans are becoming obvious.

Exposure from X-rays can have very detrimental effects.

For example, you could lose your eyesight,

you could get burns.

Infertility can very easily develop,

cancer can grow, so you have all types

of very nasty effects from radiation.

[narrator] Yet despite the increasingly visible risks,

machines like this Adrian Fluoroscope

are not the only ones capitalizing

on the new science.

Even the side effect of hair loss from X-ray exposure

is an opportunity to make a fast buck.

In the 1920s, Physicist Albert Geyser

invents the Tricho machine.

It uses X-rays to zap unwanted hair.

The client would come and sit and would be...

Basically the X-ray source would be put in front of them

and they would be irradiated in ways that would destroy,

you know, hair producing cells.

But that of course have the potential

to inflict all kinds of other damage as well.

[narrator] Seventy-five Tricho clinics

opened across the United States.

It's estimated that tens of thousands of women

probably used these machines.

[narrator] It isn't until the 1970s

that the awful consequences of the Tricho system

finally emerged.

Over 30% of women who had used it

developed skin lesions, ulcers, or even cancer.

So just how dangerous are X-ray shoe-fitters?

[Dr. Mark] Admitting X-rays all the time because you want to see

your foot in real time imagery,

so you get a lot of radiation

and nothing protects you from it.

It was, you know, estimated that a single shoe-fitting

could end up giving you

what was considered to be the safe dose of radiation

that you shouldn't exceed over an entire year.

[narrator] In 1946,

the American Standards Association

issues a safety code

that strictly limits X-ray exposure levels.

But that doesn't mean this machine is safe.

Even when later on the dangers of X-rays were recognized

and lead shielding was added to these devices,

one couldn't rely on that to make them any safer,

that maybe the shielding wouldn't be properly fitted.

It would be leaky.

[narrator] But was anyone actually harmed

by a shoe-fitting machine?

There are surprisingly few recorded cases

of shoe-fitting induced radiation damage

amongst customers.

Staff are not always so lucky.

One case is documented of a foot model

or a leg model that was radiated so much

that her leg had to be amputated.

[Dr. Sarah] The real danger was to sales people

because they were doing it several times a day

and they were also often actually

placing their hands inside

and adjusting the foot.

We do know of one case of a woman

who was affected by severe radiation induced dermatitis

and there were probably many other cases

who just haven't realized that that was the cause.

[narrator] By the early 1950s,

the American medical organizations

are issuing warnings of the dangers

of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes.

[Dr. Sarah] People had begun to realize

that it probably wasn't a good idea

to irradiate your customers.

By 1957, Pennsylvania became the first state

to ban the Foot-o-scope.

Switzerland followed suit in 1959.

[narrator] The last X-ray shoe-fitting machine

is still in use in the shoe store

in West Virginia as late as 1981.

And as recently as 2004,

another case of skin cancer

is linked to radiation exposure

from a shoe-fitting machine.

But the true scale of damage done may never be known.

In the vault of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia

in Mexico City lies a strange

terracotta carving of a head.

It's really unusual.

[narrator] For 90 years, this face has confounded

historians and archeologists.

This is what people call an out of place object.

It's an object that shouldn't be there.

[narrator] Now, using the latest technology,

we can reexamine this incredible object

in minute detail.

This is the Calixtlahuaca head.

[Dr. Steele] It's about the size of a golf ball,

just a couple of centimeters across

and we think it might once have been part

of a tiny statue.

[narrator] The face is of a bearded man

with wavy hair wearing a cap.

Some archeologists believe

they have seen this look before.

[Dr. Marina] The style of the face and the beard

looks very similar to what we see in Roman statues

from the 2nd century CE.

[narrator] Which is unremarkable

until you consider where the head turns up.

[Dr. Abigail] It was found with a group of grave offerings

inside an Aztec tomb

sometime between 1476 and 1510 AD.

[narrator] That should be impossible

because it is before Europeans reached

this part of the Americans.

I feel pretty confident in saying that

there weren't any Romans in the Americas.

[narrator] Some experts have suggested

we need to tear up our history books.

But what's really going on here?

Exactly how old is it?

Is it Roman?

Could it really have reached America before Columbus?

Or is this something else entirely?

[narrator] The strange terracotta head is discovered

on an archeological site 37 miles west of Mexico City.

In the 1930s, Jose Garcia Payon

was excavating a tomb

in the ancient city of Calixtlahuaca.

[narrator] The city was founded around 1476

by the Aztec Emperor Axayacatl

and it remains an outpost of the empire

until its residents rebelled in 1510.

[Dr. Marina] The emperor at the time Moctezuma II

reacted by destroying the city

aside from its temple completely

and moving its inhabitants to a different place.

[narrator] The city only exists for 34 years.

So when Payon opens this Aztec tomb,

he knows that the chronology has to be between

1476 and 1510.

[narrator] 1510 predates the arrival

of the first Europeans in Mexico by seven years.

And what makes this story so mysterious

is that the grave hasn't been touched

since it was sealed sometime before 1510.

[Dr. Marina] As Payon was excavating,

he had to go through three archeological levels

until he got to the tomb.

So the... There doesn't seem to be any disturbance

of the contents of this burial.

[narrator] They know that it's the tomb of an Aztec nobleman

because it still contains typical luxury grave goods like these,

including gold and precious gems.

But one item stands out.

[Dr. Pennock] Then amongst them is this

small head with a beard.

You don't see anything like it elsewhere

in these sorts of offerings.

[narrator] It becomes known as the Calixtlahuaca head.

Why are archeologists so certain

there's something wrong with it?

For a start, its thick wavy hair looks nothing

like a period description of the Aztecs.

The hairstyle was coarse

and straight kind of cut across the forehead.

[narrator] And a full beard would be even more alien

to most Aztecs.

[Dr. Abigail] Hair on the face was considered unpleasant

and there are stories of mothers putting hot cloths

on the skin to prevent hair from growing

and tweezing any hairs that were there.

[narrator] Nothing about it makes sense.

[Dr. Abigail] This head doesn't fit

with what we know of Aztec art.

It's a complete outlier.

[narrator] The alien nature of the head

leads to an extraordinary suggestion.

Because Archeologist Eric Behringer

believes he recognizes the style

and it is a long way from any Aztec

6,000 miles away.

Behringer identified this as possibly Roman

and said that it looked a bit like some 2nd century AD

Roman styles in art.

[narrator] A second classical scholar, Bernard Andre

suggests an even more precise Roman date.

He thinks it belongs to the Severan period,

which dates from 193 to 235 AD.

And when you look at the Severan emperors,

you can see a likeness.

But how can a Roman head end up in an Aztec tomb

that is sealed years before Europeans arrive here?

If this head really is Roman,

it implies that Payon has stumbled on something

historically ground shaking,

evidence that the Romans have crossed the Atlantic

centuries before Columbus.

[Dr. Marina] But the academic community reacted to this as

something that was completely outlandish.

It could have never happened.

[narrator] And something odd about the head's announcement

to the world also troubles them.

Payon's excavation takes place in 1933,

but his first full report on the head doesn't appear

until nearly 30 years later.

[Dr. Abigail] When this is such a sensational object,

it's kind of hard to get your head around

how you would find something like this

and then leave it unpublished for that amount of time.

[narrator] For a further 30 years,

the head is ignored.

Until in 1995, Archeologist Romeo Hristov

reopens the debate.

Hristov got special permission

to drill a tiny sample out of the head

and the dust was sent to one of the Max Planck institutes

in Germany for thermoluminescent analysis.

[narrator] This technique can date inorganic material

like pottery.

Although there are problems with the sample,

the test suggests that the head is between

750 and 2,890 years old.

[Dr. Abigail] So what the thermoluminescence does suggest

is the idea that this object is probably pre-Columbian.

It predates the period of European colonization.

[narrator] And the dates do fit with the sculpture

being Roman.

Could a head from Europe really have reached Mexico

before the first Europeans?

[narrator] The problem with the Romans

reaching the Americas with this terracotta head

before the first Europeans is this,

3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean.

Romans are not known as ocean sailors.

They prefer the relative shelter of the Mediterranean.

Hristov explains this by proposing what he calls

the drift voyage theory.

[Dr. Abigail] So the drift theory is this idea that the Romans had

a loss or abandoned ship that somehow just drifted

to the South Americas.

[narrator] This idea is supported

by a recent archeological discovery

of a Roman trading post in the Atlantic Ocean

on the Canary Islands.

Once they found evidence of Roman trade

in the Canary Islands, they then said,

"Oh, well, the prevailing currents

could have carried a ship."

And I mean, who could say that it couldn't?

[narrator] And there have been other claims of Roman finds in the Americas...

amphoras, coins, even a Roman sword.

But there's a catch.

[Dr. Abigail] The problem with these objects is that

people are trying to create a connection.

One example are the amphorae,

which were made by a Portuguese potter

in the 1960s and actually put in the ocean

as a means of aging them.

[narrator] Later discovered accidentally by a diver,

they were mistaken for genuine Roman jars.

And there is one other stumbling block

to the drift theory.

[Dr. Abigail] Apart from this head,

there is literally nothing else to substantiate

the arrival of a Roman ship in South America.

[narrator] Most historians and archeologists believe

drift theory requires too many leaps of faith.

Perhaps there is an altogether simpler

explanation for the head.

Maybe it's not European in the first place.

Evidence suggests that it wasn't unknown

for Aztec graves to contain non-Aztec objects.

[Dr. Pennock] The indigenous people in this period

are clearly interested in exotic objects.

You see lots of shells brought from the coast

brought long distances for symbolic meaning

and occasionally small objects

like Olmec heads from more ancient cultures.

[narrator] The Olmec civilization ruled in Mexico

for a thousand years

from around 1400 to 400 BCE.

[Dr. Pennock] The Olmecs were a very sophisticated civilization

with advanced architecture.

They developed some of the styles of building

that we're familiar with like step pyramids.

They mapped the heavens.

They really are a blueprint

for some of the later civilizations

in Mexico.

[narrator] And they were expert sculptors.

They've left behind a real legacy of wonderful archeology

including these very famous monolithic heads.

[narrator] But not all their sculptures

were monumental.

[Dr. Pennock] There's also a small Olmec sculpture

shown as a kneeling figure who has a beard.

[narrator] Excavations of Aztec graves

have found evidence that Aztecs collected

Olmec artifacts as grave goods.

There's even the case of a small Olmec head

being found in the offerings

of the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan.

So it's clearly been treasured or traded

for a long period of time.

[narrator] Could this strange head also be Olmec?

[Dr. Pennock] It's the right time period, the right continent,

but the reality is that we have never seen

anything like this that is of Olmec origin.

[narrator] Maybe there's an altogether

simpler explanation.

What if it was never buried in the tomb

in the first place?

[Dr. Abigail] Professor John Paddock,

who was a famous Professor of Mesoamerican Studies,

often told stories to his students

about how one of the excavators

on Payon's excavation

actually dropped the head there as a joke.

[narrator] Supporters of the head's authenticity

say Payon's son is certain his father

was always present on the dig.

So there was no opportunity to plant the head.

[Dr. Abigail] As someone who's been on digs,

it's very difficult to be there

guarding the dig the entire time.

[narrator] But if it is just a practical joke,

why does no one ever own up to it?

Possibly because there's a gap of nearly 30 years

before Payon reports the find.

[Dr. Abigail] If it was done as a hoax,

no one is really going to wanna step up

30 years later and say,

"Oh, yeah, oops, that was me."

The laughter period has kind of finished for that.

So that makes it difficult.

[narrator] No eyewitnesses to the dig are still alive.

So whilst the hoax story makes perfect sense,

we can't prove it.

Definitive answers about this strange object remain elusive

and perhaps that's unsurprising.

[Dr. Pennock] Humans love a mystery.

We want to see something that changes

our understanding, but sometimes

we just have to accept that a thing out of place

is just an isolated object

and we're not going to know how it got there

or exactly why it was there or who made it.

And we just kind of have to accept that uncertainty.