Original subtitles

[Music]

Is this really the man who

destroyed Troy with the help of a wooden horse?

Schliemann is said to have seen the face

of Agamemnon.

This corroded metal plate is a

weapon of mass destruction. It is the

equivalent of an atomic bomb

and these strange cylinders can

unlock the secrets of Stonehenge,

but without the picture the box

[music]

fascinating mysterious objects

long hidden in museums laboratories and

archives

now we can use the latest

technology to unravel their secrets

[music]

disassemble

and enlarge

and thus forget

these are the strangest things in the world

[music]

in the National Archaeological Museum in

Athens becomes this important relic from

ancient Greece preserved

some claim it is evidence that one of

the greatest myths in history is true

with the help of the latest technology

we shed light on the darkness and reveal the

mystery of the mysterious gold mask of

Agamemnon,

according to legend the king who

led the siege of Troy

King so not a real person but if

this is Agamemnon's mask then he

obviously lived.

The mask is about 25 cm high and 17 cm

wide and made from a single gold plate.

Every detail is meticulously embossed into

the gold.

You get the feeling that you are looking at a person

who lived thousands of years ago

this is a delusion

it bears no resemblance to other

objects from Greece of that

time

it was conjured up by an archaeologist

obsessed with

bringing a myth to life it

looks like the mask has been redesigned

this mysterious relic is

real who is the man behind the

gold mask and history has to be

rewritten if evidence is

found

1876 South Greece

the German archaeologist Heinrich

Schliemann searches for a legend in the ruins of the

Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae

Mycenae was an important city it had

large ones Walls made of heavy stone bridges

that were supposedly built by Cyclops

because the walls were so huge it was believed

that they could only be built by monsters

the place

within the mighty walls Schliemann comes across

a long-buried grave during his excavations

Simon Schneemann discovers the remains

of 19 People children adults men

and women

he also discovers a treasure chest

in which there are a number of valuable

items including gold and silver

gemstones jewelry even gold leaves with

which some corpses were covered and

he finds something that is different from all

previous finds from ancient

Greece some

faces of the deceased those

buried here were covered with gold masks

no one had seen such Greek

death masks before each of them was

made from a single sheet of gold

four of them are relatively simply

decorated but one of the masks is very

decorative it has more details so it looks

more like a face looks

that you can see

the mask is known as the gold mask of

Agamemnon no one has

actually discovered the tomb of a mythical

king

of Greece have reported

coming across the face of Agamemnon

who is Agamemnon and why is it so

important that he existed

[music]

then Agamemnon was one of the most powerful

Greek kings of that time. The

story of Agamemnon is told in the

Iliad and the Odyssey, the works

of the ancient Greek poet.

According to Agamemnon, he wages a

legendary ten-year war against

Troy. It ends with his soldiers

overcoming the mighty fortification walls

Hide the famous Trojan Horse in a huge wooden horse.

The story of the Trojan War

is one of the most important mythical

tales in literature.

According to more, the Trojan

War took place over 3000 years ago in a

mysterious age. Instead, it is

no easy task to

unravel these stories and facts from

fiction To separate the problem is

that they are full of characters that

make it seem like they really existed,

kings and warriors for example, but there were also

many mythological creatures like

Cyclops, one-eyed giants or other

monsters that the heroes fought against,

places like Troy that were fought over Conflict

in which Elias turns were unknown many

scholars believed the city to be

gods of immense mythological lands, it's

all a bit hard to believe so

how can you come up with the idea that this

could really be Agamemnon

than how to find the mask he has been around

for years obsessed with

proving that the Iliad is more than just a

tall tale

Schliemann believes that many of the

classic stories like the Elias

are true, that their characters are real and

not a myth. He was obsessed with

proving that

Schliemann's expedition begins with the

search for the legendary one City of Troy there

are rumors that the ruins of Troy

are buried somewhere in the northwest of what is now Turkey in 1870

Snowman begins his

excavations at a place called isarlik

[music]

was a man-made mound

that in the past was much closer to

the coast

that means that there was a good view of

incoming ships and he had a

very good strategic location for

trade in the Mediterranean

after three years of excavation

Schliemann hits the jackpot he discovers a

forgotten city

there is evidence of destruction and

fire which fits well with the story of the

Troy of was plundered by the Greeks,

he finds valuable objects, he

connects them with Priam, the

king of the Trojans in Elias,

it is one of the greatest

archaeological finds of all time,

the discovery of Troy proved that the

city was not a myth but actually

existed

[music].

then other myths could

also be true

after he had found the place from the legend

he was now looking for one of the characters

Schliemann concentrates on

Agamemnon according to Homer explained that

after his victory in Troy he returned to his

homeland where he was

killed by his wife's lover and Buried on the

city wall, this is exactly

where Schliemann finds the

extraordinary gold mask with which

he seals his Rome.

The media hype is great because the mask

seems to be proof that

the king from Greek

mythology really existed during the Trojan

War -

this is remarkable because it had been there

for decades other archaeologists

unsuccessfully tried to find evidence of the

Trojan War

within just three years

Schliemann discovered not only the location of the

event but also the main character

Schliemann are so bad to

find everything a

version edition figures were

buried exactly where he roughly

had either Schliemann extremely

lucky or it's just too good to

be true

in Schliemann times this was a very

strange find because there was nothing

like it from ancient

Greece you have to go to Egypt

to find something similar to this

golden mask that you put on the heads of the

Deceased

and no one finds not only a never-

before-seen mask but five

some people don't believe that this

mask was authentic they thought that it had been

faked badly

not only the mask seems out of

place also Schliemannshof was highly

questionable

was not a professional archaeologist

Interest in archeology only came in

old age after he was already a multi-

millionaire, he invested in

various industries and

also earned a lot of money from the gold rush in

the USA.

People knew that he

was very charismatic and worked with great

passion, but that does

n't mean they believe him

All of the items you

had either found seemed to

come from different eras it

seemed like he had just put together a

group of very impressive

items

they thought he sometimes just made up

stories it didn't just stop at

telling fairy tales

would be accused of smuggling some of the

treasure for which he

had to pay a fine to the Turkish government

it is not surprising that some

suspect Schneemann had manipulated the mask find

but again it is not that simple.

Snowman was accompanied

by Greek officials during the excavations in Mycenae.

Schliemann was a

controversial figure so that

He was not trusted, he was

under observation during the excavations.

Most scientists today believe

that Schliemann simply did not have the

opportunity to smuggle in fake masks

without being observed. They are

sure that the mask of Agamemnon

is really ancient, but some

still think that there is something wrong with it On

closer inspection, the

sharp facial features, the individual

beard hairs and the mustache stand out.

The appearance of this mask is

clearly different from the others. The

level of detail does not seem to fit such an old

mask.

Some scientists are of the opinion

that this mask is more likely from a

classical period Ironically, 700

years after the Elijah story around 500

BC, it

looks too Greek for its supposed age.

One suspects that perhaps no one has reworked the mask.

Under high magnification,

scientists notice a detail on the

mustache that looks like it has been

turned upside down up but

maybe he went down beforehand the

assumption Snowman didn't have the

opportunity to smuggle in a fake

but maybe he

reworked the original

it wasn't clear what the mask

looked like before it was only photographed a few weeks after it was

discovered

so someone would have changed the mask

The argument may have been made that the mask

is too detailed to be real,

however there is a catch - it

may be different from many Mikenean

artefacts but its appearance is not

unique - a drinking vessel was

found with a lion's mane and this

mane was the beard and mustache of

Agamemnon - mask is quite similar in style,

this suggests that

the other

masks were from a similar time as

this drinking vessel,

the conclusion is logical

that the mask is real, that it is

a mask that

was created in antiquity and was not changed later so

is this really the face of the

legendary destroyer of Troy King

Agamemnon

the problem is that with Schliemann

everything is never as it seems let's take

the undisputed discovery of Troy

Schliemann stopped digging when he

found evidence of a large fire they

agreed with him according to the evidence of

the Trojan War

was that back then they lungs

were built on top of each other almost like a layer cake

when one settlement was abandoned

another was built on top of it centuries later

was a reality a much earlier

city through the real Troy had

been dug through without him

noticing and it looks like no one

in Migraine was wrong about the time in

which the mask was found. It does

not date from the time in which Agamemnon is said to have

lived.

The mask was found in a shaft tomb.

Recent studies show that the

Mycenaeans built such tombs Set about 300

years before the Trojan Wars it

is agreed that the

mask is a real artifact it

just doesn't show King Agamemnon

no it turns out that this

golden object is far too old to

show the mythical destroyer of Troy

if so not Agamemnon then who is

the man behind the gold mask

[applause]

maybe Agamemnon doesn't know but it

was certainly an important

personality maybe a king who

was buried with this dead mask

according to recent research it must have been

an important personality

during the Bronze Age Most of

the Mediterranean in terms of trade,

culture and warfare

may have been a river that stretched across the

entire region.

In excavations in Mycemic cities

we have found the grave of a warrior with

many elements that are related to

other civilizations in the region

it seems that this king could have had contact with

a very strong very famous

civilization

we found a small figure of the

Egyptian goddess

that would explain where the idea for

the golden death mask came from

so it is possible that the Mycenaean

similar masks were seen on deceased kings

and pharaohs in Egypt had

and were excited by the idea

the fact that this mask does not

depict the face of Agamemnon does

not make it any less remarkable or

less important the real Agamemnon

could even be a descendant of this man

Troy has proven to be more real so why

not Agamemnon

[music]

in the International Spy Museum in

Washington DC This corroded

copper plate is kept for this

object is worth more than its weight in

gold

with the latest technology we reveal

its secret

by enlarging the object and then

zooming in, faint

markings are visible that are inset on the

surface

Remove the corrosion digitally and they finally become

clearly visible. This object is covered

with tiny symbols and lettering.

The engravings were

made by highly qualified people.

At first glance it is unreadable,

but if you turn the image around,

the words Bank of England appear, the

central bank of the United States Kingdom

on closer inspection you can see a

mark for 10 pounds and the date 1937 so

it is a printing plate for the

production of British 10 pound notes

something so valuable should

be kept safe but this plate

was not discovered in a London safe

it was found in 1959 on a most

unusual one Place found at the

bottom of an Austrian lake

how did the copper plate get there

where did it come from is it not

in the 1930s at all the design of the

10 pound notes is over 150 years old and you

can tell

they were printed on white paper there

was none Color used they were

only printed on one side there was no

embossing and no metal strips

the banknote was made using a

printing plate just like this one

it is a very carefully engraved

object onto which ink is applied

and then you press on the paper to

make the banknote

[music ]

However, upon closer inspection, there is a

mistake next to the abbreviated word

for company, there is a metal splinter

that would leave an ink stain on the note,

this is an indication

that it is a counterfeit.

On the contrary,

the Bank of England built in a few nice

little tricks to deceive counterfeiters

the figure of Britannia only has one

earring instead of two and there were dots

that were supposed to look like compression springs but were

deliberately put there. These

small errors were extremely difficult to

detect and reproduce and

were intended to deter counterfeiters

in the 1930s

Banknotes up to 150 errors hidden

the tiny dot on this plate is

definitely one of them others could have

disappeared from the printing plate after years under water

they were made from very fine metal parts

and it is precisely these fine

details that corrode first

the Britannia for example is hardly any more

However,

from the remains of this plate

there seems to be nothing to indicate

that it is not a real

printing plate.

So what is a British

money printing plate doing over 1100 km from London

on the bottom of a lake in

Austria?

The most important clue to the origin of

the plate is that the Divers who

found them were looking for a

notorious treasure towards the end of the

war, people watch as

German soldiers bring wagons with boxes to

the lake and sink them there.

Nobody knows what's in there but

everyone believes that it's Nazi gold

but when they do In 1959, they dive to the bottom of the lake and

find no gold.

They discover this copper plate. This

raises the question of why the

Germans had a printing plate for British

ten pound notes.

Historians search secret Nazi files

for answers and come across a

company codenamed Operation

Andreas Germans want to literally bombard the

British economy with money.

The plan is to drop 30 billion of

counterfeit money over Great Britain from the

air.

The British would find and spend this money

and feed it into the economic system.

This would undermine the entire

basis of the currency and

the economic system would

collapse

the British were put in such dire

financial straits that they

would no longer be able to fight a war

Germany would win without

firing a shot this is the

economic equivalent of an

atomic bomb

all you have to do is make a perfectly

fake printing plate not an

easy task

[music]

The plan to destroy the British economy

begins in a large villa

in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin where

Operation Andreas is based. The

pictures. The building is an SS

training center that has already been used for the

production of false documents and

forgeries. The Nazis

recruit the mathematician and Kurt

[ __ ] Albert Langer as their leader

he is a highly qualified

scientist but he also believes that

King Arthur was real and that the

British flag contains magical symbols

Langer has a clever idea he wants to

use a light-sensitive and acid-resistant dye to

make a perfect copy

Lange's plan was initially To take as

perfect a photo as possible of a real 10 pound note

and then transfer this image

to a plate with an acid-resistant dye.

This would make it

possible to remove the rest of the plate. What is

left is a perfect printing plate

for a 10 pound note.

Even with the best cameras, a good one cannot be achieved

for a long time Photo taken

under close inspection convincingly

from long himself said that the copy

of Britannia looks like an old witch

long ingenious plan is a flop he is

forced to abandon science in favor of

old-fashioned craftsmanship

so he hires the experienced engraver

Walter zeitrechnern even for him

this is a difficult task the engraving

has to capture all the little quirks

those little intentional mistakes that

set the original apart the Britannia

is particularly tricky for the Nazi forgers

it was incredibly difficult to

get the eyes right

you're right takes six attempts to

make a perfect copy

we don't know for sure if This

is one of period law plates because a

fake doesn't sign his work

but since they wanted to hide the plate it

must have been one of the better

versions

a perfect printing plate alone is

not enough the Nazis also need the

right paper it has to

feel right

that he the paper had them tested by blind people,

they weren't distracted by the appearance

and were able to concentrate entirely on the

crackling sound when folding.

Longer believes in a breakthrough. Now

he just has to prove it to his backers.

Apparently the Germans sent an

officer with a fake passport and

a whole bunch of fakes

over the Swiss border

then they gave the Swiss authorities

a tip that someone would

enter Switzerland with false documents.

They assumed and they

were right that the Swiss

would check both the passport and the money,

but they recognized the fake passport

from theirs From a perspective, the money has taken a really

long time. The Nazis can

now implement their plan

to destroy the British economy, but

shortly beforehand, Operation Andreas

unexpectedly comes to an abrupt halt

in order to drop money over Great Britain,

they had to

invade British airspace with planes

after the battle For England, this was

simply no longer possible for the Luftwaffe,

for Operation Andreas everything goes

wrong, this is also the end of the

largest forgery operation in history.

In July 1942, Heinrich Himmler, to whom

all secret services are subordinate, fights to

pay his foreign agents. He

needs cash and lots of it but

Germany doesn't have any left unless

it is printed it doesn't care if the

money is fake take the code name for

the new plan is Operation Bernhard

named after the person in charge it is

Sturmbandführer Bernhard Krüger this

more is a better choice than long

as he is an experienced forger who

falsified self-documents

the fake printing plate and the

other devices are gathering dust in a

Berlin cellar

Krüger brings everything to his new

headquarters in Sachsenhausen a

concentration camp north of Berlin

one of the main problems with Andreas was

that all possible information was leaked to the

outside world that's why the new

operation set up in a concentration camp because

there they were able to keep the matter secret

there is no risk of

information leaking out

Sachsenhausen is a labor camp a

brutal concentration camp in which the

inmates can be executed at any time and for no reason

but Krüger's company treats the

predominantly Jewish prisoners somewhat

Better

he does everything to ensure that the workers on his

project are happy to keep them happy,

he distributes additional

rations of cigarettes and even sets up

table tennis tables.

In 1943, Operation Bernhard is in

full swing with the research plates,

high-quality counterfeit money is

printed on an industrial scale. Prisoners

hand over the notes between each other

so that they look used only the

very best, almost flawless notes

were good enough to pay German spies

for their services. Take this.

Spies were never told that they were

receiving counterfeit money,

the less good quality was

used for money laundering throughout Europe,

inferior notes were not used

These notes were put into circulation and were kept in the so-called

drop room.

The idea that they might one day

be dropped had not yet

been given up,

but there is no longer an opportunity for that.

Germany is losing the war.

Operation Bernhard has failed

or not is the extent of

what is happening Nazis had achieved was a

real shock for the Allies the

drop plan was canceled but the

counterfeit money already in circulation was causing

enormous damage it

appears that the operation was surprisingly

effective

over 130

million pounds worth of counterfeit banknotes were produced about 10% of the

Given the fensterling banknotes on the market,

this system could have had a

significant impact on the British economy. The

only question left is why

this plate ended up at the bottom of Lake Tablets.

As the war draws to an end,

the Nazis try to eliminate the evidence of the

counterfeiting program

Jewish prisoners who ran the program are

supposed to be murdered but an

administrative error saves their lives. The

banknotes and the devices are

disposed of.

Some were buried, others like the

banknotes were burned and some

like the printing plates were thrown into the

türblitzsee.

This is the only known

printing plate that still exists the world's

largest forgery operation

while these plates were successfully

used they could have been the

most devastating weapons of the Second

World War

three

mysterious cylinders are on display in the British Museum they are

a puzzle that is thousands of years old,

were discovered in the 19th century by

archaeologists what they are still used for

today

with the help of modern ones With the help of technology,

we

now reveal the secret to these mysterious objects.

They are called sparked drums,

although they are called drums,

they certainly weren't

a

human face

[music]

but that's not the strange thing about them

these three objects are different

sizes

each one from the inside has

0.84 times the diameter of the

next larger drum small medium and

large

they were in a mathematical

relationship to each other that's the case with

Stone Age objects unknown

but new research offers an

explanation that links them to the

largest monument of the entire Stone Age

these objects

could be related to Stonehenge

why this precise geometric sequence

what do the bizarre markings mean

these objects may reveal the secrets of

stonehen

[music]

1889 followed in northern England an

amateur archaeologist discovered

something unexpected while excavating a burial mound.

Grave of an approximately five-year-old child.

The grave dates from the Neolithic period,

an era that extends from around 4000 to

2500 BC in the British

Isles.

Archaeologists have only found a handful of

graves of this type At this

time, mass graves are predominantly

known.

This burial was

unusual.

This child belonged to the elite and

therefore received a special burial. There are

three strange artifacts next to the child's body.

They were deliberately placed behind the head

and the hips.

Apparently they have a special

function

[ Music]

archaeologists have developed some interesting

theories, one of which is

that they were memory aids;

the objects were intended to help the person

tell a story to a group of people;

the lines were sized and shaped in such a way

that one could trace them with a finger

one

remembers the next part of the story another theory is that

they are talismans

there are carefully engraved

decorations that look like human eyes

that could indicate that they are

guardians that they are somehow

monitoring the sleep of this child in the grave

they could be objects of protection

this theory fits the site

but it doesn't explain the big mystery

the exact geometric sequence of

shapes

it's not clear what's behind it

the answer could be found by researchers in one of the

most mysterious moments of the

Neolithic Age

Stonehenge

[music]

the drums are dated to around 3000 to

2500 BC dated at this time

Stonehenge was also built

the stones form a series of

symmetrical circles around a central

point

52 of the 80 massive stones are still standing today

the largest weighs around 30 tons and

the highest dung around seven meters a

masterpiece what is so special about

the stone circle Stonehenge

fact that there are many more in Europe

it is the only one found so far that

uses a very sophisticated tenon and lintel construction

these lintels over the standing stones

are put together the way a

carpenter would build a wooden structure

the size and precision of stonehen

suggest that it had an important

function it was a pagan

temple a ceremonial burial site

a solar calendar for astronomers

researchers are still looking for

answers

in the early 2000s

archaeologists andrew chamberly and mike

parker pierce take a closer look at the floor plan

they measured the circles of Stonehenge

and discovered something very

extraordinary.

Each of them was a multiple of a

length of the equivalent of

32.19 cm, which corresponded to a

unit of measurement.

This unit of measurement does not only come into the

Stone in the three kilometers away there is

a site

known as the Stirlington Walls.

Terenten Walls itself could may

have been a settlement in which the

people who

built Stonehenge lived. There was a

hensch monument between them that had disappeared.

It was probably made of wood

[Music]

on the site of Darrington Malls

there are circular shapes that

also have this relationship to the long

foot.

Researchers are discovering more and more structures

which are apparently built to the same measurement

the ring of Brodka on the

Ordne Islands 800km away and the large

circle of New Grange over 500km

away on the other side of the

Irish Sea all seem to use the long

foot as a measurement

the fascinating thing about it is that

Possibility that it is a

standard measure that was used not only

around Stonehenge but

possibly throughout the entire country in the

Neolithic period,

as if someone sent a message

to everyone in Britain to

agree on the same system almost 5,000 years ago

3000 years before there was even writing there,

we used to think that people in

Europe lived in small

farming communities in relative isolation in the Neolithic Age,

if there was a standard measurement back then,

the question arises as to

how they shared this information

with each other.

A team of researchers now believes they have solved the mystery

could the following drums

be measuring devices for the construction of monuments

such as Stonehenge

the following drums have an exact

mathematical relationship to each other the

largest drum has a diameter of

14.6 cm the next 12.7 and the

smallest 10.2 each drum is 0.84 times the

size of the next larger drum,

this could just be a coincidence.

In 2016, a researcher at

the University of Manchester discovered something very

interesting.

She examined the smallest drum and

found that its circumference was

32.19 cm, the

same as the long foot She takes a

cord that is ten times as long.

She wraps it around the smallest of these

drums. She fits exactly ten times around.

She repeats the test with the

other two drums. On the larger ones,

the cord fits around 8 or 7 times.

This suggests an amazing possibility

The theory goes that these drums are

portable devices for wrapping

cords so you could make standard measurements

that are needed to build monuments. So they could be

tape measures that are 5000 years old, but if there is only

one find it could also be a coincidence,

but it is no

longer a single find In

1993, archaeologists in West

Sussex, 80 km from Stonehenge, discovered

another drum,

but this time without decorations, almost

as if it was unfinished.

When Dr Tever wrapped the new drum with the

ten-foot-long cord, it fits

exactly 9 times around

the idea that this one strange

artifacts tools used by the architects of

Stonehenge are tempting

but there is a catch the drums

are made of limestone

[music]

limestone is problematic it is soft

and wears out quickly

if these objects were part of a

Neolithic tool set

you would see signs of wear

but up close viewed there are

again cord marks still signs of

damage from regular

use as a tool strangely

not all

objects were made for use at that time

we speak of

skojomorphism which refers to objects

that imitate the original without taking over the

function they can from

a completely different material

A good example

of this would be a chalk ax which

looks like an ax but would break

if you used it and in fact

we found one such chalk ax

near England that

was made of wood

but why were copies made of limestone

they were probably for ritual purposes

It appears that the

long foot measure had both an

important symbolic and

practical use back then. We

may consider these two areas of

functional and spiritual to be

different phenomena today

but for the people of the past

this was not the case

which explains why this Standard measurement appears at

a ritual site like Stonehenge

and also why the drums were

used as grave goods but if there is

a connection then how come

the artifacts were found far from the

structures

new findings in durington walls

may provide the answer

[music]

analyzed 38,000 Teeth and bones

of animals that had been

slaughtered and eaten on the Rington Waltz site.

They were amazed that

many came from far away, for example from

the north of Scotland, which is 800

kilometers away.

The archaeologists had to rethink the idea

that people

lived in isolation from each other back then

a multitude of contacts not only

with neighbors but also with

communities that spanned the

British Isles and possibly

even the continent

the idea that knowledge

could have traveled hundreds of miles

no longer seems so far-fetched

people traveled over long

distances and When people

get together they exchange ideas

and talk they talk about religion they

talk about what moves them that's

what people do always and everywhere

For 150 years the Vogt drums were

beautiful mysterious objects in the museum now

show us how important it always is

to continue research and reconsider our views

on the lives of our ancestors