Original subtitles

what is this strange Roman device

that has been puzzling archaeologists for centuries

the Romans

documented everything very carefully but

there are no records of these objects

was a device powered by leeches

the first weather app now

not all crazy ideas seemed

necessarily crazy back then

these ancient ones can Scrolls

show the way to buried treasures an

initial inventory revealed 200 tons of

gold and silver which

would be worth billions of dollars today

[music]

fascinating mysterious objects

long hidden in museums laboratories and

archives

[music]

now we can use the most modern

technology to reveal their secrets

we can Replicating them,

disassembling

and enlarging them

and thus

revealing forgotten and bizarre things

are the strangest things in the world.

This strange bronze sculpture

embodies one of the greatest mysteries of the

Roman Empire. Its purpose

is still unclear today.

There are no records of these

objects.

We don't know exactly what they

were used for and can only

speculate

because the purpose of the object

was not obvious. Scientists

simply called it a Roman

dodecahedron because of its 12-5-sided

outer surfaces. If there was only one,

you could simply dismiss it as a curiosity,

but a total of 116 variants of it were

found,

none of them exactly like it Others, some

of them are about the size of a fist, others a little

smaller.

A Roman dodecahedron has twelve

sides and a small ball on each corner,

so it is easy to stand up

and each side has a hole, but the

holes are of different sizes on the side surfaces.

[Music]

became the bronze Polished so it

certainly sparkled in the sunlight and was a

real eye-catcher. There are

no numbers or

characters on it that

could explain its function, but there is a new

theory. Science was

on the wrong track for centuries,

so what could the dodeka have been used for?

Where did they come from? What's the deal

with these strange square

objects? It

's undisputed that the ancient Romans

were passionate gamers.

Maybe the things were

used for gaming. Arndt Romans loved

dice games. They played them all the time, just like

many people in the subway do today

on their smartphones

during excavations In Rome, in

large temples, game boards and tables were found

at which people used to sit and

play dice. In Pompei, there is a

well-known wall painting that

shows men arguing over a game of dice

and before Caesar crossed the Rubicon

he said the famous sentence

the dice have been cast I surrender to

my fate

The Romans had dice in a

wide variety of sizes and shapes

for many different games, the

dodecahedrons are dice but this

theory also has a catch

when you throw them they don't roll well

because the sides are not flat

and they don't have numbers

In addition, the holes are different

sizes between 6 mm and 4 cm so each

side has a different weight like a

zinc cube

they don't work like cubes

that doesn't fit so

how about a candlestick

this idea came about because of the

wax residue found in one of them

But this theory also depends on if

it were a candlestick you would

burn your hands on it.

Ordinary candlesticks have

a rim at the top so that the wax doesn't

drip onto your hand

or a children's toy.

If I give my little son something like that to

play with, he puts it in his mouth

mouth in the ear and probably even in

the nose

neither dice nor candlesticks nor

children's toys

could perhaps the location of the

artifacts give an indication of their

function

the dodecahedrons were only excavated in the north and

northwest of the Roman Empire

where the weather is often cold

and unpleasant

in the

However, they have not yet been found in sunny regions in the south.

One theory is that they were

used to knit gloves.

To check this, someone

printed a 3D model and used it to

knit a 5-year-old glove

[Music]

I like that. They are archaeologists at a loss

and talk to

astronomers and mathematicians for decades then

someone who is familiar with handicrafts comes along

and says that they were definitely used to knit gloves.

This theory doesn't convince everyone, but

I don't rule out that they

were used for this, but gloves are

a common product and there were

already devices back then to live with the fact

that these objects were only intended for stretching

gloves does not match

the great effort with which they were

undoubtedly made.

Almost all dodecahedrons are made of bronze and

it was expensive.

Money was also made from this material,

the Roman method made objects

that are hollow on the inside Making bronze

is still used today. It

is time-consuming and complicated.

You cover a clay core with wax in

the wax, you mill the mold into which you

want to cast the bronze,

then you cover the model again with

clay and fire it. The

wax melts and flows

You create the negative form of the object

that you want to cast. You heat the

bronze to over 1000 degrees so that it

becomes nice and liquid and pour it into the

mold.

It can also splash and spark.

Then you wait until it

has cooled down.

This technique is too much expensive for

everyday objects

economically it would have been anything but

sensible

to invest so much time and effort into making these beautiful

structures as everyday objects for

everyday use

they must have been incredibly expensive

therefore it is very unlikely

that they were just candlesticks or

toys

these theories fit not quite

together

all previous theories about the function of

the dodecahedron have weak points no

wonder that archaeologists

are still puzzling after all these centuries

but there is a new theory that would also

explain the elaborate production of the sophisticated objects

one thing is astonishing in the Roman

Empire and especially in the north of

Europe, almost all the Roman

military camps looked the same, so there must have been

a precise plan for their construction

and this required the

appropriate measuring devices.

How else could the Romans have

planned and measured their roads and how

else would they have known where they were

The Roman Empire is characterized

by the fact that the Romans

measured distances and

marked them accordingly. They placed

milestones along their roads that

accurately indicated the distance.

The secret of this precision is,

more precisely, the different

sizes of the opposite holes

[ Music]

When you look through a hole,

at a

certain distance the one opposite seems to be the same size at some point

and this distance is

always the same size.

You then only need an

object whose size is fixed and

which is clearly visible from the ground -

a Roman one

For example, a soldier could have stood with his standard at

a certain distance

if, when you

looked through it, the standard fit exactly into both holes, you

knew the corresponding

distance, that would explain the

different sizes of the holes.

By turning the thing you could

measure different distances and

if you Such a device had to be

easy to handle, which would

explain the beads on the corners and the

different sized holes with the

engravings around them, which

may have helped with the alignment. In terms

of function,

such an instrument would have been very suitable for the

needs of the Romans Army fit

the greatest need of the Roman army

is to win wars

they had to know when the enemy

was within range for their arrows and their

catapults would have been of no use to them

if you didn't release them at exactly the right

time so a

device like this would have

been very handy for the construction of

roads and military camps and in

battles to know when the enemy

was within range and then

use the catapults accordingly.

Mystery solved, the dodecahedrons are

actually measuring instruments of the ancient Romans -

the theory seems plausible

but as long as no documents or new

archaeological evidence for it emerges

one will probably never be able to say with certainty

[Music] In

1952, archaeologists discovered

one of the most

controversial and fascinating

objects that had been found in a cave in the West Bank: ancient

strips of rolled metal, the

copper scroll of Kuman,

its two fragments are almost 30 cm

long and 5 cm wide heavily oxidized and

brittle the engraved text sparked a

treasure hunt and a discussion

that is still ongoing today

[music]

a treasure map or not the

latest research could help solve one of the

greatest archaeological mysteries of the

20th century

who made the scroll where

did it come from Is there really a treasure buried in the desert

or is it just the

dream of an adventurous

archaeologist? What's the deal with the

copper scroll from Kuman

[Music] In

1947 in the northern West Bank at the

Dead Sea

a young sheep herds them through the

rocky wilderness near the village of Kuman a

good 20 Kilometers away from Jerusalem,

a few jars containing papyrus fragments were discovered in a cave.

The 2,000-year-old documents are

among the most important archaeological

finds of today. The

Dead Sea Scrolls are

a sensation for archaeologists.

They contain some of the oldest texts in

the Hebrew Bible.

Scientists were enthusiastic about the scrolls

now offer you some of

the oldest biblical sources along with

descriptions of the region and

customs during a very turbulent

period in Jewish history

for Bible archaeologists it was the find

of the century or even a thousand

they describe the time in which parts of

the Bible were written

Scientists got a

clearer picture of an era in which many

religious works and communities were created

[Music]

Just five years later, a team

of archaeologists discovered the copper scroll

broken in two in a neighboring cave. It

was immediately clear to them that they had

found something very special

that they are not made of parchment but

of metal -

copper is much more valuable and

more difficult to describe -

an indication that the

copper scroll is a very important if

not sacred document

which was so important that someone

bothered to write it in copper to hammer

some words that press through in mirror image on

the outside of the roll

attract the attention of

scientists they decipher words like

dig the unit of measurement elle and gold

some archaeologists draw a

clear conclusion from this

you shouldn't judge a book by its

cover but that's

every archaeologist's dream Finding a treasure map

This assumption could only be

confirmed by opening the roll, but that is

very risky.

The problem is that if copper is left

lying around for thousands of years, it oxidizes and that

makes it brittle.

You would just try to

roll it out like that.

An expert doesn't want to admit defeat

[Music] In

1955, the British archaeologist

John Elegro received permission from the

relevant authorities to cut open the strips of the

roll so that they

could be translated -

but no device can cut with such precision,

so Alice Baker asks a

professor at the University of Manchester to make

one especially for the copper roll of

kuman developed

on October 1, 1955 it is ready for use

a hybrid of circular saw and

dental instrument right Baker

begins to cut the priceless

copper fragments into strips

any blunder would be catastrophic

[Music]

takes three and a half months to divide the roll

fragments into 23 segments

finally can their 2000 year old

Secret is revealed,

it is actually a

treasure map,

the reference to buried gold on the

outside was just the tip of the

iceberg

without beginning. When they translated the individual parts,

they realized it was

not just one, but

several treasure maps of

Morosian 2.30 m Long roll

contained 64 individual

descriptions and lists of

hidden treasures filled with coins, valuable

metal objects and sacred objects. The

wealth described in the copper roll was unimaginable.

An initial inventory revealed 200

tons of gold and silver, which today

would be worth billions of dollars, a

huge one across the desert distributed

buried treasure

the information is astronomically high

how could someone amass such a large fortune 2000 years ago

and keep it secret

is there really a multi-billion

dollar treasure in the desert

some archaeologists find it difficult

to believe that

the problem is as another problem came

In addition, the scientists

attributed the scroll to the scenes of

Hannah ascetically living mystical

fringe group of Judaism.

They were poor, lived in the desert and

had dedicated their lives to religion.

Where were they supposed to have gold and

silver in today's multi-

billion dollar factory,

but how battle monks are supposed to be to

have been extremely rich sounds somehow

unbelievable

the story of a possible

treasure divides the scientific community who had

the scroll opened is

convinced that the treasure really

exists. Among the staunch opponents of his

thesis is a co-discoverer of the

scroll, the biblical scientist

and Catholic priest Josef

[music]

Josef Milik calculated the information

and thought it was much too high.

Something wasn't right.

According to me, the wealth is not

only too great for the scene but for

the entire region around Kumran 2000 years ago

[Music]

could possibly be too high.

His explanation for this must be it is

a calculation error

the unit of measurement in the text is talent its

value varied over time in

different eras and

societies

what weight should

be given to a talent what the

lighter version so the value of the

supposed treasures would have been much lower

[music]

the Conversion of talent into today's

tons could have been incorrect

the authors of the scroll could have used

a different measure of talent as a basis

then it would be much less

[music]

a treasure worth millions would be more

historically credible than one worth

billions

but an important question remains

where it came from This still enormous

wealth comes from

[Music] a

good 20 kilometers from Kuman,

the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is a

holy place of pilgrimage for the Jews and the

last outline of the second or

Herodesian Temple,

the second Temple was a sanctuary of

Judea, it was their most important holy

cities and contained the treasures and

gold of the Jewish believers it must have been a

very richly furnished building

an explanation for the treasure

the treasure from the second temple is said to have been

hidden in the desert during the great Jewish war

[music]

which could be dug up again in times of peace

it I never gave the treasure to Allegro

misdeutsche the scroll

to settle the dispute only one thing helps: to

translate the entire text exactly.

Milik is entrusted with that, but

much to Alegro's frustration he takes his time with the

publication for good reason.

He would have claimed it was about efishells battles

to be a forgery, he would have been

suspected of a cover-up, he

would have confirmed the authenticity, they would have come to the house

treasure hunt to find the gold and the

other treasures

[music] so

a lot of time and delayed

the publication

[music]

Rummel published his own thesis

that had one As a result of a bitter and

insurmountable dispute between the

two scientists

in order to prove his theory, in

1962 Alegro begins the search for the

treasure

[music]

The search for lost treasures

has fascinated humanity for

centuries and has driven many to ruin. Can't

find a single piece of gold

Even after decades of searching

by other treasure hunters, the

legendary treasures remain undiscovered.

The treasure is only a legend.

New research could finally decipher the secret of the

copper roll

contains

that the temple has received over the entire time

and that the things

were never there all at once,

other Hebrew texts tell of

a fictitious treasure that never existed, of

idealized riches that

may have existed in the past,

the idea could go back to the ancient Greeks

go back this is the country's

temple chronicle a directory of the series

gifts to a temple of Athena 200

years older than the copper scroll of

kuman

at the beginning of the inscription it says everything

that is listed here was not

really there

maybe the items existed

at some point but actually

it worked that's why you would like to sacrifice everything to the goddess Athena,

even if you did

n't have it,

so you wanted to show how much you

love the goddess love

there is a connection between the

loan listings and the mysterious

copper scroll from kuman

the scroll is written in Hebrew but

upon closer inspection If you discover

Greek letters at the end of some

entries,

Greek inventoryists contain

similar symbols. They were used like numbers

on index cards for cataloging

[music]

had to structure the presentation for their god

sensibly. Maybe

you had this with Greek letters. The

copper scroll of Kumran could also be

a list of riches could have been

displayed in a temple that would

also explain its material

why the scroll was made of copper

perhaps it wasn't just about

durability but also my form of

presentation

perhaps the scroll hung like a

tablet on the wall of a temple and

testified to all the riches which

had been donated to him over the years

but an unsolved problem remains.

Unlike in the Indian

temple chronicle, there are references in the copper scroll

of Kuman to places where

the treasures mentioned are

supposed to be located. Their authors were not

so afraid of attracting the attention of ancient

treasure hunters The answer

can be found in the last textiles

in the last section of the scroll where you

can find the list.

There is probably another

scroll that can be used to decipher the exact

locations of the treasures mentioned in the copper scroll

of Kumran,

so it's not just those Treasures

disappeared but also the exact

instructions on where to find them.

As long as there is hope that a

real treasure exists, treasure

hunters will come to Kuman to find it

in the north of England

in the local history museum, Jens

has a copy of one of the most bizarre

inventions in history is almost

a meter high and resembles a mini

carousel but what does that mean? It is

a

scientific instrument from the

Victorian era. The

device is made of mahogany wood, glass, silver

and brass. It was once supposed to change the world. It has

never existed.

It is the storm predictor It is supposed to

crack one of the biggest problems of the Victorian era, a

reliable forecast of the weather

and with the help of 12 leeches that

live in water-filled glasses and

are trained to bring a bell to

people.

Weather conditions, the leeches should

swim upwards and thus towards a

bad weather front point out

around 170 years ago,

people took the effectiveness of this device

seriously

[applause]

who came up with this obscure idea,

how should the device work and

can leeches really predict the weather?

In the Victorian era, a

lot of things suddenly seemed possible and

crazy ideas took off

In the 1850s the British make

significant advances in technology

and science

inventions such as rubber tires photography

and bicycles revolutionize life

work and travel

it was a time of extraordinary

inventions and enormous social

physical industrial and

economic change the

speed of which was simply overwhelming

trade boomed and with it transport,

the weather also becomes

more important

[music]

the weather has always been important

for society because the

harvests depend on it, but as

trade and thus traffic on the

world's oceans increased, it became

even more important storms and

To predict storms

if you had a large fleet at sea

instead of just a few small boats as

trade increased the weather played

an increasingly important role

but weather forecasts still take

place like in the Middle Ages

there were all the farmer's rules like

dusk good weather boat dawn with threat

of rain

Such kind of proverbs no longer have a place in the

scientifically influenced

Victorian age:

electricity, magnetism, evolution, the

secrets of nature are being

deciphered, previously puzzling

connections are

cracked, a reliable

weather forecast, the next

achievement of science

in the Victorian age,

everything suddenly seemed to

be possible for science, including the weather to

understand and predict but

meteorological knowledge was

still in its infancy and no one

knew what was possible and what was not.

This is the moment when George

Weber enters the scene.

Mary Weather was a doctor from Weedby with

numerous interests including being

the curator of the local museum there,

he was also a passionate

inventor.

One of his inventions was a lamp

that burned continuously for two weeks,

supposedly with a mixture of pure

alcohol and whiskey.

Unfortunately, it doesn't catch on. His

customers probably prefer to

drink the whiskey instead of burning it In

1850 his groundbreaking

storm forecaster followed. The basis was formed by

several vessels filled with water and leeches.

At the top of each glass there was a

snap mechanism attached that was

connected to a bell

[music]

there was a small lever made of

whale bone when the leeches

got to it, it releases it off and a bell

rang in case a

single bloody person made a mistake. Mary Weather had

taken precautions, he used twelve of them.

I not only relied on a noble and

his knowledge of the weather, but also relied

on a majority decision. The

more bells rang, the more

reliable the forecast

sounds, but understandable How did Mary

River come to the conclusion that leeches

can predict the weather?

In popular parlance, animals were often the task

of meteorologists. There is

a long tradition of inferring changes in the weather based on the

behavior of animals.

There are also good reasons for this. Some animals

react very sensitively a

change in the weather

[music]

the idea of ​​using the change in behavior of

animals as a tool for

weather forecasting was

ancient and quite common,

for example when cows

lie down in the pasture there will be rain,

such farmer rules exist in all

cultures

in Germany there is the weather frog In

Germany, of course, everyone knows the

weather frog, the frog that sits on the

ladder in a glass jar like that,

while in the rest of the world this

is not known at all and Germans believe

that the weather frog

can really predict the weather based on the position on the ladder.

Mary will make the choice on leeches,

which had a particular fascination at the time,

he claimed that they

would rise to the surface of the water

when they sensed the coming of rain.

Hedgehogs seem very primitive, like snails,

but in reality they are extremely

complex creatures. Leeches

have no shell or

cover, so they are not snails but

are Real worms that live in water

Some people prefer fish Some horses

Some people They have a nice

color pattern so they can be colored orange and green

They are known mainly because of their

favorite food

Leeches are actually really like

little worms Vampires

They drink blood but they have

two Suction cups are

firm, the other is lined with hundreds of teeth

and they bite with them

while the hedgehogs suck out the blood.

They release two chemicals, an

anesthetic and an

anticoagulant, so that the blood flow

stops

as soon as they are full. They can

survive for up to a year without having to

eat again

The ability to care for blood makes it noble,

particularly interesting. At that time,

the prevailing opinion was that human

health depended on four humors:

black bile, yellow bile, mucus and

blood.

Blood was an important component of

one of these humors. You could

have bad blood. You could have too much

blood and in both cases

the leeches were of course perfect because they

could suck out the blood that was too much or

bad from the body. Bloodletting was

a common

medical treatment method back then. Leeches

are a gentle alternative.

For example, you simply

cut somewhere and of course you could

lead to people bleeding too much,

especially if you

did it so often, but you could

also get terrible inflammation that

couldn't be treated back then,

so the leeches, which

many people thought were more natural and, so to speak,

gentler and more targeted, were the better

method

[Music]

that made medicinal leeches very

popular.

They were used for a variety of

diseases. People were

crazy about them. In

1833, over

41 million medicinal leeches were

imported to France alone. In Germany,

farms were quickly established on which leeches

were bred and to this day Are there

still leech farms for

medical commercial production in

Germany?

At that time there were people who

worked as leech collectors, especially

women, who rolled up their arms up

their skirts and waited through the

waters in which they lived so that they could

suck on their legs

often used that they

are almost extinct

[music],

when developing the

storm forecaster, he was inspired by a poem by the

vaccination pioneer and nature observer

Edward Jenner

[music]

and contains the lines then the call is

offset, the hedgehog climbs up into

his prison all the way up as

Victorian doctor, Marie has a

weakness for animals but can they

really predict the weather

[music]

the leeches rise when

a rain front approaches that's not as

crazy as it sounds because in

bad weather

the air pressure usually falls to

take the pressure off This is

of course very important for the leeches because there

is different amounts of

oxygen in the water, for example the deeper they

get and so there is less oxygen

and the higher they go the more

oxygen there is so they have to be

able to perceive the pressure

hedgehogs next to the oxygen directly through

the skin from the water

they react very sensitively to the

concentration of oxygen in the water

and this changes as the

air pressure

falls the air pressure is less

oxygen in the water the leeches come

to the surface where there is a higher

oxygen content

they react to this and that is the

basis on which the device is based

but in order for the storm forecaster

to work, the leeches have to

ring a bell every time. Is

that even possible? I

trained leeches myself. We

tried to get the forest to see whether

they migrate over a certain height and

how fast they move

Forgot certain things again and I was

amazed that the leeches

could do more than we expected,

but Mary Weather complains that some

leeches have a difficult character.

From today's perspective, it seems

a bit strange when you hear

that Mary Weather thought some of

these leeches could predict the future

some are a bit

smarter others are a bit thinner

but I have worked with leeches myself

and I know that you can

notice the differences between the animals and then let's say you

can imagine that the right

personality skills

were Marie So it wasn't completely wrong,

Dr Mary Weather's idea is

of course not completely crazy, it

may have been an experiment that

wasn't particularly precise and that

no one followed up on afterwards, but it

could be that there is a

drop or more of truth in it

his storm forecaster

could actually work, why didn't he get his way,

what went wrong?

it was definitely not the doctor's lack of self-confidence.

[Music]

received a lecture at the

Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society and talked

for three hours about the success of the

device Comparing himself to

Galileo, the storm forecaster was

really that good.

A London newspaper reported

his successful prediction of a

strong storm

51.5 hours before it hit, a fairly

comfortable margin of error or

[Music]

In 1851, Mary river presented his

promising invention at the

World's Fair in London

all the important scientists,

inventors and manufacturers of the time

were there. He was a sensation

for the time and in the middle of it

was Mary Weather with his leech,

a very successful per-action but what

Mary was used up is not only the

recognition of the public but

also government support

wanted the government

to install its devices along the coast to

help sailors and merchant sleighs

but unlike the leeches the

government doesn't bite

us prognosticator the storm forecaster

wasn't a success actually not very

surprising it was expensive to

make and maintain among

other things because the leeches kept

dying and it wasn't particularly

reliable

[Music]

100 years earlier it would probably have

corresponded perfectly to the zeitgeist,

but at the time it was developed

it seemed pretty outdated

[Music] At the

beginning and middle of the 19th century,

scientific equipment was not allowed

Look more like aquariums in which

small creatures swam

in an era that wanted to leave superstition behind

and embrace science.

Other inventions

soon overshadowed the storm forecaster.

The telegraph brought enormous progress

because weather stations

with its help transmitted information much more quickly

The prevailing

weather could be exchanged using

precise maps, so much more accurate

forecasts could be made than with the

help of the bloody one. All that remains

of Mary Withers' bizarre

invention is a replica in the museum

of which he was once the curator, but it stands as an

exhibit without the

blood-sucking meteorologists