Original subtitles

[music playing]

NARRATOR: How did the Greeks create one of the deadliest

warships of the ancient world?

[thudding]

Were the first armored battleships

built hundreds of years before the industrial age?

It was the grandfather of the modern warship.

NARRATOR: And why did Rome's most notorious emperor build

his famous pleasure ships?

The man who built this is clearly

the master of the universe.

NARRATOR: Monuments more colossal than our own, ancient

superweapons as mighty as today's, technology so precise

it defies reinvention--

the ancient world was not primitive.

Their marvels are so advanced, we still use them now.

Travel to a world closer than we imagine, an ancient age

where nothing was impossible.

2,000 years ago, Caligula, Rome's most

insane and murderous emperor, demanded the impossible.

He commissioned two ships of such size, luxury,

and technical sophistication that even modern vessels can't

compete.

How could terrified Roman engineers

turn his deranged dreams into reality?

And did such impossibly large and sophisticated vessels even

exist?

Here at Lake Nemi 19 miles south of Rome, Italy,

two incredible ships, the biggest

to survive from the ancient world,

were recovered from these waters.

Lake Nemi had revealed its dark secret.

Behind me, Lake Nemi, it's full of muck and debris,

but there was discovered one of the greatest discoveries

from antiquity, the ships of Nemi.

NARRATOR: These incredible vessels

sat on the bottom of this lake for nearly 2,000 years,

but no one knew that they once belonged to Caligula,

an infamous Roman emperor who reigned

for just four savage years.

It wasn't until the Renaissance that the exploration

of these amazing wrecks began.

For hundreds of years, scholars and treasure hunters

were obsessed with what lay beyond their reach

under Lake Nemi until in the 1920s

the incredible challenge of raising these sunken ships

began.

The fascist dictator Mussolini decided

that he wanted these Nemi boats excavated,

making an association between himself,

his regime, and the Roman emperors that were before him.

He set in motion this extraordinary task

to raise the Nemi ships.

It takes five years, but finally they come to the surface.

NARRATOR: To expose the ships, the waters of the lake

were lowered 75 feet using an ancient drainage tunnel.

The 2000-year-old ships were the size of a football field

and packed in airtight mud.

They were in incredible condition.

These were the greatest ancient ships ever found.

What they then need to do is see where they were going

to put these boats.

They're so enormous.

And so they actually had to build a purpose-built museum

on the shores of the lake.

NARRATOR: The Italians built a wonder of the modern world

to house these two wonder ships of the ancient world.

But today, this museum houses a mystery.

The Ship Museum of Nemi is absolutely extraordinary.

This space is gigantic.

Now, what you see here today is largely open space,

but it was originally entirely filled with two massive ships.

NARRATOR: But where are the ships today,

and how was the greatest archaeological discovery

since Tutankhamen lost in a single night?

[booming]

[banging]

ANN INSCKER: On the 31st of May 1944 during the Second World

War, the Allies were bombing the area.

And a German artillery division was nearby,

and they knew that the game was up.

And what they decided to do was to get into this boat museum

and set fire to the two boats.

And I think probably because of the way

the Nazis were quite indoctrinated

with their history and their archaeology, these prized

exhibits were something that they didn't want to see survive

because they weren't German.

DARIUS ARYA: Today what you see is a lot of reconstructions,

some models of the ships themselves,

and a lot of technology that was involved and used

in ancient times.

It was a technological wonder.

NARRATOR: But the remaining metal and wooden parts

of the Nemi ships reveal incredible technology that

matches modern luxury ships.

They were the largest and most elaborate surviving boats

in antiquity.

NARRATOR: But how were these amazing vessels

linked to Caligula?

This surviving lead pipe found on board

has priceless information.

These Latin words cast into the lead

say "Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus," the emperor known

as Caligula, best remembered for his cruelty, sadism,

and the wild excesses that almost bankrupted the Roman

Empire.

The Romans have got a reputation for opulence,

and ambition, and megalomania.

And you could say that all those characteristics are

encapsulated in the single character of Caligula.

Now, Caligula is not the emperor's proper name.

NARRATOR: Caligula's father Germanicus was Rome's greatest

general.

On campaign he brought his son with him, dressed

as a mascot in military uniform complete with little combat

boots.

The Roman soldiers loved him and called him Caligula,

meaning little boot or Bootikins.

You always get the sense that psychologically this really

annoyed him.

He didn't think he was being taken seriously enough.

NARRATOR: Caligula was desperate to prove himself

a mighty emperor, ruler of the known world.

He would go to any extreme to build objects

of impossible extravagance and opulence.

We're told that Caligula delighted in things that

were believed to be impossible.

These two boats, they were quite extraordinary creations.

NARRATOR: Both these massive vessels

were nearly 250 feet long.

For size alone the ships are remarkable,

but inside they were filled with extraordinary features

previously thought impossible on ancient ships.

One of them was a floating palace, a huge thing decorated

with marble, with alabaster bathrooms,

with hot and cold water, with underfloor heating,

with mosaics.

And it seems like this was really

just a giant floating party palace for Caligula.

The other boat was really a floating temple.

NARRATOR: The construction of these advanced ships

would enable the Romans to build on an impossible scale.

When we think of shipbuilding, we

think of planks nailed onto a skeleton

to form the hull shape.

But incredibly, the Romans started with the hull itself.

NARRATOR: The Romans used mortise and tenon joints

to fix the enormous hull together.

No modern ships use such a precise technique.

It seems impossibly difficult to form the hull shell first.

The ribs and frame were added last.

NARRATOR: This incredible technique,

which all but vanished with the fall of Rome,

created an impossibly precise and self-supporting hull.

Modern shipbuilders can replicate this

by using glass fiber, but only the ancients

could build a self-supporting hull on such a vast scale.

It is a testament to Roman power.

NARRATOR: But their sheer size was just

the beginning of Caligula's ambition

to create the impossible.

ANDREW LAMBERT: Caligula's barges

are a bit like Disneyland.

They're designed to impress.

They're trying to say the man who built this is clearly

the master of the universe.

NARRATOR: It wasn't just ambition that made Caligula

demand the impossible.

Historians believe that during his reign

he became totally insane.

ANN INSCKER: He considered himself a god.

He had an incestuous relationship with his sister

Drusilla made his sister pregnant.

He's thought to have ripped the fetus from her womb.

And when she was dead, he gave her the status

of being a goddess herself.

BETTANY HUGHES: All Roman leaders

had pretty exalted ideas of themselves,

but Caligula takes things that bit further.

He seems to believe he has a kind of divine power.

NARRATOR: At Lake Nemi, Caligula didn't just

build impossible ships.

He used them to fulfill the impossible dream

to be a god himself, lover of the goddess Diana on his temple

ship out in the middle of Lake Nemi.

At this floating luxury summer retreat,

the emperor could demand whatever he

wanted from his fearful guests.

BETTANY HUGHES: You just have to imagine what it would have been

like to have visited those boats.

You would be fearful of Caligula because people

think he's mad at this point.

You go into these boats which were

absolute incarnations of genius, but also incarnations

of excess.

And we're told that he used to sit

in the rooms of these floating party palaces,

staring around the halls, and pointing his finger and saying,

I could have you killed.

NARRATOR: The impossible ambition of the Roman emperor

Caligula created the greatest ships

to survive from the ancient world.

But they weren't just big and opulent.

Inside was incredible technology that even modern luxury yachts

don't have.

ANDREW LAMBERT: The ships give us an insight into Roman

technology in the 1st century AD.

Some of the technology on the Lake Nemi ships

would not be seen again for 1,500, 2,000 years.

NARRATOR: 2,000 years ago, the Roman emperor Caligula

commissioned two superyachts to luxury standards that

have never been repeated.

Caligula's Nemi ships represent the best technology

of the ancient world.

What represents the best of today?

This is the Galactica Star, winner of a world superyacht

award.

It's fitted out with all the latest gadgetry that money can

buy.

Surely the Nemi ships can't rival this, or can they?

Behind the gold and the marble, beneath the statues

and even trees was advanced Roman technology thousands

of years ahead of its time, like this bronze tap, which

looks too modern to be in a Roman ship, which precisely

controlled the flow of water to the onboard baths and heating

system.

This exceptional discovery is engineered

to such high tolerances, it is still

watertight after 2,000 years.

Beneath the exquisite mosaic floors

of Caligula's floating palace was a sophisticated heating

system.

Hot air from a furnace passed through this space

and heated the floor above.

Technological innovations like this

gave the Nemi ships levels of luxury unmatched even

by modern ships.

One of the most vital components of our modern machines

was first found on the Nemi ships 2,000 years ago--

ball bearings.

An amazing find were the platforms that were designed

to act like turntables on a series of ball bearings

to support the statue of the goddess Diana

so that she could rotate around the room as she walked in.

Now, what's great about this technology is that

before the discovery of the Nemi ships,

ball bearings technology was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

1,500 years later on.

So here I have one of these marvels from the ships of Nemi.

This is a ball bearing.

Now, the thing is when we think about ball bearings today,

we think of something from the modern world.

But here it is 2,000 years ago.

This kind of discovery is what tells us how sophisticated,

how innovative the ancients were.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Experimental model maker Richard Windley

is recreating this technology to see just how unbelievable it

is.

RICHARD WINDLEY: So I'm going to try and replicate

the original Roman bronze bearings using

a little wooden form which I've made.

Probably the Romans would have done this.

This becomes the pattern for producing bronze castings.

They would need quite a few of these on the original version.

We think there were eight bearings

around the circumference of the bearing plate.

So we're going to try and replicate this.

NARRATOR: Looking at the evidence from the Nemi ships,

it's clear that making this ancient technology

will be an enormous challenge.

[machine whirring]

[tapping]

This is a project which has taxed even Richard Windley's

considerable skill.

This is the final reconstruction

of the ball bearing turntable.

The whole thing is constructed in oak.

It's very heavy.

These metal retaining plates are of iron,

and we used copper nails.

In actual fact, this was more of a challenge

than I'd really anticipated, even using some modern tools

and machinery.

It was tough.

When one considers that all this would have been done by hand--

planes, chisels, adzes, axes--

by the Roman engineers, I'm just filled with incredulity

that they were capable of doing this.

What's really quite fascinating about this project

is that we can't really consider modern life and modern machines

without the use of these kind of bearings.

One can only imagine the astonishment of the onlookers

on board the temple of Diana Nemi ship.

The statue of Diana suddenly started to move.

And this was only really achievable by the ability

of Roman engineers to overcome the problems of friction.

NARRATOR: And there's yet another incredible innovation,

a mechanical chain pump developed

to unprecedented levels.

After the Romans, this ingenious method of removing bilge water

would not reappear for over 1,000 years.

Why is it on the Lake Nemi ships?

Because you're on the lake and nobody

likes the smell of stale lake water.

So on a pleasure palace for an emperor who

was capable of cutting your head off for very little,

you didn't want to run a smelly boat.

So they'd come up with the best possible pump.

KARL UDE-MARTINEZ: When the Romans created their ship

technology it was the sheer scale of their ambition,

their application, and their imagination, which just seems

to be impossible.

NARRATOR: The Nemi ships created by the emperor Caligula were

examples of the sheer technological brilliance

and decadence of Rome.

But like their creator, they would be short lived.

BETTANY HUGHES: It was a brief but very, very intense reign

that ended in a dark tragedy.

And either his relatives or the Praetorian Guard,

those who were closest to him, ambushed and assassinated him.

He died from many stab wounds.

ANN INSCKER: We believe that the senators in particular

wanted to grant him the status of damnatio memoriae,

condemnation of memory.

And that was something where you got wiped off

the face of the Earth.

NARRATOR: And the Nemi ships would be wiped off

the face of the Earth for the next 2,000 years.

BETTANY HUGHES: The Nemi ships end up

at the bottom of the lake in the volcanic mud.

We don't quite know how they got there,

but the fact that Caligula had so many enemies

suggests at some point they were scuppered.

They were sunk.

ANDREW LAMBERT: These are technologies

that the Romans mastered.

They used them.

They used them even on ships.

And they disappeared.

At the end of the ancient world those technologies

simply vanished, and they had to be reinvented all over again.

The Nemi ships encapsulate something important about what

it is to be human.

In some ways they're a demonstration

of just what man can do, but they also remind us

of our arrogance and that sometimes we just

don't know when to stop.

NARRATOR: The ancient world could create pleasure ships

that still amaze us today, but they also

created floating superweapons in a desperate ancient arms race.

NARRATOR: We think the development of these

100,000-ton modern warships starts with the first steel

battleships of the First World War,

but steel armor was used hundreds of years before

on the first ironclad the world has ever known.

This mysterious ship utilized armor plating at sea

for the first time and achieved the impossible.

It saved a nation.

The turtle ships were commissioned

by a Korean admiral in order to overcome

the aggressive military might of the Japanese,

but they underestimated Korean resilience.

In the late 16th century, Korea

was facing the threat of a massive invasion

from the powerful Japanese navy.

So in response, in 1591 Admiral Yi Sun-sin

commissioned a fleet of modern warships unlike the world

had ever seen before.

NARRATOR: The Japanese had an invasion fleet

of over 700 ships.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin knew he couldn't outfight them.

He would have to outthink them.

But how could he do this?

RAY ASHLEY: Ships can be weapons in several ways.

You can simply pretend like they are pieces of territory

or real estate where they come alongside each other and

soldiers fight from one to another,

but the ships themselves can be used to sink other ships.

NARRATOR: The genius of Admiral Yi Sun-sin created a warship

centuries ahead of its time.

If you're going to take on the powerful Japanese navy,

the Korean admiral realized you needed a game changer.

It was called the geobukseon, or the turtle ship.

NARRATOR: It's impossible to believe,

but this ship would triumph in battle at odds of 30 to 1

using impossibly modern technology.

This ancient sea monster had to survive what for other ships

would be a suicide mission.

There's an intriguing clue to how the turtle ship was

so successful at this Korean temple.

This wood called red pine is hard and dense enough to resist

gunfire and cannon fire.

So this incredible superweapon was armored just like a turtle.

Picture a turtle swimming through the water

with its hardened shell, arms and legs out to the side.

Those would be the oars.

The men were encapsulated inside.

Around the outside of the ship was

a ring of cannons that could fire in any direction.

NARRATOR: These 12 cannons could destroy Japanese ships

at long range.

[banging]

These guns, small, bronze, muzzle-loading six-pounders,

were about the best that could be had in that period.

They proved to be stunningly effective in battle.

NARRATOR: But it wasn't just impossibly modern firepower

and protection that made the turtle ship so formidable.

The turtle ship was full of surprises.

The invincible Japanese navy fought

by using their overwhelming superior numbers of soldiers

to board and seize enemy ships.

But against the turtle ships, this tactic

would be impossible because of these.

HUNTER ELLIS: Why would you put iron spikes

on the deck of a ship?

Well, that would keep other people from boarding.

In fact, it was said that they would lay hay mats down on top

so those spikes were concealed.

Then when the enemy would jump on board,

they found what was waiting for them.

In this way the crew were protected from Japanese missile

fire and from boarding actions, and were able to concentrate

on using their own weapons and destroying the Japanese fleet.

NARRATOR: Another incredible parallel with the modern world

is what the 12 cannons on the turtle ships fired.

[booming]

These iron-tipped darts were ship-to-ship missiles,

a 20th century innovation on a 16th century warship,

smashing into enemy ships at 200 miles per hour.

[booming]

[crashing]

For hundreds of years they remain the most powerful ships

ever built.

HUNTER ELLIS: I've been on board some

of the most advanced naval vessels in the entire world.

And when your ship has a strategic advantage

over the enemy, it gives you that will to fight.

It gives you the confidence to know

that you can go into battle and then return home to your family

and friends.

So imagine what this did to the sailors of the turtle ship.

It gave them the ability to go against a force that was more

formidable than their own, knowing that they could come

back.

NARRATOR: In the 16th century, Korea

was faced with a massive Japanese invasion fleet.

Korea would come up with one of the greatest ships in history

to overcome this attack.

It was called the turtle ship.

On its bow was a fearsome dragon's head.

The reason you put a dragon on the bow of your ship,

it's about intimidation, power, a symbol of strength.

You see that fierce face coming towards you,

and you're worried about what's inside that ship.

NARRATOR: But this death's head wasn't just for show.

It concealed another deadly weapon that you'd think

belongs to today.

It was capable of spitting firebombs of gunpowder and iron

pellets, cannonballs--

[booming]

- -and smoke screens that would hide his ship

from the rest of the navy.

Imagine being the enemy on the other side of that,

and all of a sudden this dragon's head

comes protruding out of that cloud.

That would have been an awesome sight.

NARRATOR: It seems impossible that this dragon's head could

actually breathe fire hundreds of years

before modern flamethrowers.

But we do know that the use of flame as a weapon at sea

goes back to the ancient Greeks.

This image shows Greek fire, which

originated 1,500 years ago.

Early ships were potential firebombs made from wood,

fabric, rope, and tar.

So we know the ancients used fire on ships,

but how did it work?

[rock music]

This reconstruction of a 2,500-year-old weapon is from

an ancient mural of a flamethrower mounted on a ship.

This right here is a working model

of the world's first flamethrower, the fire raiser.

So essentially the way this will work

is we have two hollowed out beams that

have been reconnected, and you have a hollow tube

on the inside of this.

The end has been capped so that it's airtight, and from the end

protrudes a pipe that goes into the cauldron right here.

And in the cauldron you have coal, sulfur,

pitch to create that flame.

This is then mounted on a movable cart with a bellow

at one end where the user would be,

and you can move this forward to your objective, activate

the bellow, and from this cauldron spits

a directional flame right onto your target.

This is the ultimate psychological weapon.

NARRATOR: The fire raiser isn't just terrifying.

It's lethal.

So that right there is what it's

like to be on the receiving end of an ancient superweapon.

NARRATOR: No wonder this weapon was called a fire raiser.

We know that fire, explosives, even

smoke screens came from the turtle ship's terrible mouth.

But there is evidence of what we now think of as weapons

of mass destruction.

The turtle ships use choking gas.

Could it be possible that chemical warfare was first

used 500 years before we think it first appeared in World War

I?

Even in the ancient world, the idea of noxious fumes

was well understood.

Ancient Greek philosophers went up Mount Etna

and were overcome by the fumes, and wrote about it.

So the idea that you could kill people with gas was known,

but it took the Koreans to come up

with an effective way of projecting this

in a particular kind of battle.

NARRATOR: Experts believe that gas from a mixture of burning

sulfur and saltpeter would have incapacitated its victims.

Experimental model maker Richard Windley

is investigating just how effective this delivery system

might have been.

RICHARD WINDLEY: If we think about the use of gas

in the First World War, obviously it was a very, very

dangerous technique.

It only needed the wind to change.

And the gas could actually affect

the people who were trying to deploy it

rather than the enemy.

So it is a risky strategy.

I've got one of the little chargers here.

I'm going to light this probably in the pot, put the lid back

on fairly quickly, and then hopefully we

should get some smoke.

NARRATOR: But could this really have delivered

an ancient chemical weapon?

RICHARD WINDLEY: The assumption is with something like this

that it was projecting the smoke a considerable distance.

Well, if you try blowing anything in air,

you can't blow it more than probably about 10 feet at most.

So really it was just a way of getting this stuff into the air

and dispersing it.

But I think that given the right kind of maneuverability

of these turtle ships, it probably was a viable option.

NARRATOR: How did these technological advances

translate into success in the struggle to dominate the seas

around Korea?

At the Battle of Myeongnyang, Admiral Yi Sun-sin and 12

turtle ships made a desperate last stand against impossible

odds--

a Japanese fleet of over 300 ships, including 133 warships.

How effective were the turtle ships?

Well, their true power was realized

when the Korean admiral led 12 turtle ships against a fleet

of 133 Japanese naval vessels.

He sank 31 Japanese ships before the rest of the fleet

turned and ran away.

So by using this ancient technology

Korea was safe, at least for now.

NARRATOR: In no battle in naval history

has such a small force smashed an enemy fleet that outnumbered

them 30 to 1.

In three battles, the turtle ships completely

leveled the score.

They turned a defeated Korean navy into a winning force.

They smashed the Japanese fleet.

They prevented the invasion.

So they really were a transformational weapon system.

They used technology brilliantly to solve

a fundamental strategic problem.

And Korea remained independent for the next 300 years.

NARRATOR: Admiral Yi Sun-sin is the national hero

of Korea to this day.

The turtle ships contained impossibly sophisticated

technology that predated 20th century warfare by 500 years.

And all over the ancient world, oceans had become battlefields.

They fought titanic battles, but the winners

of those battles controlled the sea, they controlled the money,

and they became the great empires of history.

NARRATOR: We've seen how the genius of ancient Korea

created the world's first modern battleship hundreds of years

before the mighty ironclad fleets of the 20th century.

[banging]

Just like today, man has always been seeking an edge.

He's always been seeking to use his skill, his innovation,

and his craft to come up with a killer system.

NARRATOR: But the first purpose-built warship

appeared 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece.

The ancients used massive ships as floating battlefields

for their armies.

When the tiny city-state of Athens

was outnumbered by an overwhelming Persian invasion,

they needed a game changer.

The golden age of Greece is an age of ingenuity and invention,

but there's one particular supercraft

that was perfected at this time that really changes world

history.

NARRATOR: To fight the mighty Persian empire,

the Greeks perfected a ship that didn't just

carry men and weapons.

It was a weapon in itself--

120 feet of offensive power.

This is the trireme.

It seems impossible, but this incredibly destructive weapon

was powered by muscle alone.

In the 1980s, naval experts set out

to build an exact replica of this famous superweapon.

This was the first trireme in 1,500 years

to row the Mediterranean.

Research suggests the trireme achieved

speeds of up to 12 knots.

One ancient writer describes how a trireme rowed 185 miles

from Athens to Mytilini in just 24 hours.

That's an average speed of 8 knots.

For a ship of this size, that seems beyond the capabilities

of any engineer, let alone oarsman.

But the trireme used a highly sophisticated design

that belongs more to our century than 2,500 years ago.

The oarsmen are actually packed in in an interlocking

jigsaw fashion.

So you get the most oarsmen in the most compact space

generating the greatest amount of power.

It really is a very clever piece of geometric engineering.

NARRATOR: But an incredible design was not enough.

It needed an incredible crew.

BETTANY HUGHES: We know that the men who powered these boats

must have been really extraordinary

physical specimens, super, super fit.

Because you don't have movable seats,

so you're doing everything with your arms and your back.

NARRATOR: The Greek rowers of the triremes

were free men united in their determination

to protect their homeland.

But could one ship really destroy another

without firepower?

[banging]

This incredible discovery of a bronze ram from Athlit

in modern Israel may reveal the deadly power of the trireme.

Maritime historian Andrew Lambert

is putting the ram to the test.

What we're going to be able to do today

is see just what it looks like when a ram like this smashes

into the side of a ship.

Everyone happy?

About to run the test.

MAN (ON RADIO): Ready.

NARRATOR: This devastating demonstration

shows how the Greeks were able to sink the Persian fleet.

But mishandling the trireme could be deadlier for its crew

than for the enemy.

3D analyst James Dean is investigating why it could

be a double-edged weapon.

If you ran too fast at 12 knots, you'll get stuck fast,

and you've attached yourself to a sinking ship.

Ram slowly at under 9 knots and the ship

won't be damaged enough to sink, and they'll board you.

The trireme travels its own length in six seconds.

Timing is a matter of life and death.

Arrive four seconds too early and the rammer gets rammed.

[banging]

NARRATOR: Some experts believe the impact of the trireme's ram

didn't just punch a hole.

It caused boats to explode, just like a modern weapon.

RAY ASHLEY: The Athlit ram does not

look like the kind of device in a bow of a ship that's

designed to poke a hole into an adversary.

It seems that it was constructed to actually deliver the max

amount of force to the entire structure of the ship.

It has these three plates that project forward.

It looks like it's supposed to deliver shock over as

wide an area as possible.

[banging]

NARRATOR: It is believed that to strengthen and protect

the hull engineers used hypozomata, heavy ropes

tightened from fore to aft.

Hypozomata kept the hull under 13 and 1/2 tons of tension.

This made it highly vulnerable to the type of blow

the Athlit ram could deliver.

This whole ship is held in compression.

That force is locked into the structure of the ship.

You can imagine the kind of explosive force

that could be delivered, like releasing an arrow from a bow.

ANDREW LAMBERT: The trireme is perfect.

It's light, elegant, aggressive, and every inch of it

says power.

This is a killing machine, a truly decisive weapon.

They shifted the balance of power from East to West.

They wrested control of the Aegean from the Persians

and began an empire that would leave a lasting legacy

in history.

NARRATOR: It's amazing to think 2,000 years ago the Romans

and Greeks were building ships of such high technology.

[thudding]

But it's even more impossible to believe

that 2,000 years earlier Egypt used advanced shipbuilding

techniques which we have lost from history.

Their temples contain clues to how important

ships were to them.

I'm at this temple in southern Egypt

where there's impressive artwork and hieroglyphics on the wall.

You can see here a boat which belonged to Ramesses II.

Now, boats were really important to the ancient Egyptians

because, of course, the Nile was their major trade

route and a major way to get things around the country.

JOHN NAYLOR: Without the River Nile,

ancient Egypt simply wouldn't have existed.

The river is both the lifeblood of the nation, but also

the main highway.

Some of the longest ships ever built

plied up and down the Nile, carrying huge stones

such as obelisks from Aswan in the south

up to the north of the country.

NARRATOR: But what other mysterious boats

did the ancient Egyptians have?

The Giza Plateau, Egypt.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is one of the wonders

of the ancient world, but a discovery

next to this great structure shows how highly sophisticated

the Egyptians had become in building ships.

ANDREW LAMBERT: At the foot of the Great Pyramid,

archaeologists found a buried boat, a very large wooden boat

thousands of years old made with the most exquisite mortise

and tenon joints.

NARRATOR: The boat had been carefully built,

then taken apart by the Egyptian boat builders.

Its wooden parts, which were in almost perfect condition,

had been neatly stacked in the pit, all 1,224 of them.

When Egyptian experts reconstructed the ship,

it was like piecing together a huge jigsaw puzzle.

Egyptologists were amazed how intricate and advanced it was.

ANDREW LAMBERT: The Khufu ship is simply

a landmark in human technology.

It's the first great vessel built of wood.

NARRATOR: And this is the extraordinary ship

they created.

The Khufu boat was shell built, meaning the outer shell

of planks came first, then the interior timbers and framing.

As an ancient world ship it was a large vessel, 140 feet long

and 19 feet wide.

As a famous equivalent, the Mayflower

used by the Pilgrim fathers 4,000 years later

was about 30 feet shorter.

JOHN NAYLOR: These posts were constructed

in what may seem an odd way.

They were roped together.

They weren't nailed or pinned as we might expect,

or even glued as we would do with modern boats.

NARRATOR: The restorers had expected the boat

to be constructed like a modern wooden boat,

but they discovered that the planks were held or sewn

together with rope passing through slots into the timbers.

JOHN NAYLOR: This construction technique

produced boats which were flexible, quick to build,

and easy to maintain.

And this meant they could plow up and down the Nile, carrying

some impossibly large loads.

NARRATOR: Amazingly, 1 mile of rope

was required to assemble it.

It was a highly advanced piece of ancient engineering.

It's a boat that tells us a tremendous amount

about Egyptian technology, about the transition from boats made

of reeds into boats made of wood,

and about shipbuilding in an age before metal fixings.

NARRATOR: It is thought that in order

to keep the vessel watertight, the holes would be covered

with beeswax.

It's the first example in history where an intricate ship

with no nails was discovered.

We can all agree that the Great Pyramid was a miracle

of stone construction.

The Khufu ship, now that was a miracle

of ancient shipbuilding.

NARRATOR: And finally, researchers

discovered that it was assembled and disassembled

for one purpose only, for the pharaoh

to sail to the afterlife.

ANDREW LAMBERT: It was never built to sail down the River

Nile.

This is a ceremonial craft designed for a purely hereafter

purpose.

So it tells us everything about the Egyptians.

They're obsessed with the afterlife.

It's more important to leave this world in style

than it is to live in style.

NARRATOR: Although the Khufu boat might not

have sailed on water, it is still

considered to be one of the greatest ships

ever to be excavated.

Your grave goods says everything about you,

and Khufu had the best grave goods.

NARRATOR: The greatest ships of the ancient world

used highly sophisticated technology thousands of years

ahead of their time, from the first battleships to luxury

yachts and the supership that beat the tomb raiders, proving

that the ancients were able to achieve the impossible,

creating astonishing vessels that are still

among the world's greatest ships.