All language subtitles for Ancient Top 10 Series 1 8of9 Greatest Ancient Monuments 720p

[dramatic music]

male narrator:
A colossal statue,

the biggest
of the ancient world.

- It was so large
that you couldn't even

wrap your arms around the thumb.

narrator: The stadium where
people were dying to win.

- 500,000 people murdered

in the name of entertainment.

narrator: The jungle temples
bigger than New York.

- Larger than anything built

by the Greeks, the Romans,
the Egyptians.

It was massive.

narrator: The world's first
skyscraper.

♪ ♪

- The ancient Egyptians'
engineering prowess

was just astonishing.

narrator: And an epic
construction project

that cost a million lives.

- It's taken more time,
material, and labor

than any other construction
on Earth.

narrator:
Where will they be ranked

on the only top-ten list

thousands of years
in the making?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Some of the greatest monuments
were built in ancient times.

Secrets and legends
surround them.

Their ingenuity leaves us
in awe,

creating a fascination
that never dies.

This week's "Ancient Top 10":

the "Greatest Ancient
Monuments,"

ranked by experts, according to
which is the greatest in scale.

Coming in at number ten
in our countdown,

the mysterious land
of a thousand faces.

♪ ♪

The statues of Easter Island.

- This is a monumental landscape

that deserves to be
in any top ten.

narrator: Just 14 miles long
and 7 miles wide,

Easter Island lies

in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean,

over 2,000 miles
off the coast of Chile.

It's one of the most remote
places on Earth.

The island is covered

with these huge, curious
statues known as moai.

- These things are amazing.

They are
as much as 13 feet high,

they weigh as much as 14 tons,

and there are more than 800 of
them spread across the island.

narrator: It's thought
they were built

by Polynesian sailors

who arrived here
around 1,000 years ago.

They quarried
light volcanic rock

to create nearly 900 figures
with overlarge heads.

- The moai represented
deceased ancestors,

and some were constructed
on stone bases.

Others just look like heads.

But even they have full bodies
beneath the ground.

- They're like icebergs.

There is as much buried
beneath the soil

as you can see above.

Imagine them standing
silhouetted across the sunlight.

They must have been
awe-inspiring.

narrator: These faces
allowed the sacred spirits

of the most important moai
to live on forever.

It took a team
of five to six men

around a year
to carve each one.

Then they were transported
from the quarry

and placed around the island

so their sacred spirits could
watch over the people.

[lively percussive music]

It was a momentous task.

[man yells]

- In order to move
these stone monoliths

from one part of the island
to another,

they cut down all their trees
for transport

and then were left with no wood
to make boats or tools,

and they ended up dying
on the island.

♪ ♪

You can't help but feel saddened
at such a short-sighted loss.

- There was massive
deforestation,

which meant people probably
couldn't grow enough food

and they were hungry.

And we see this kind
of phenomena represented

in these monumental statues,
the moai.

Early on,
they're thin and athletic.

Later on, towards the period
of deforestation,

we see their big, fat bellies.

So is this a representation

of something
that they just couldn't have?

narrator: The islanders
had sacrificed everything

to honor their ancestors.

When they ran out of resources,

they rejected their idols
and started killing each other.

- Suddenly, stone spear points
appear in the archaeology,

a good sign of sudden warfare.

And we've got evidence
of human remains

that show trauma
and cannibalism.

So at a peak population
of 20,000,

by the time the Europeans
arrived,

there were only hundreds
of people on Easter Island.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Today the moai gaze
on a paradise far removed

from the violent
cannibal wasteland it once was.

- Easter Island.

It's one of the most iconic
sites in the world,

and just 'cause of the size
of those sculptures

and the sheer numbers,
it had to be in our top ten.

♪ ♪

narrator: Thousands of years
earlier,

in ancient Britain,

an even greater stone monument
was built.

At number nine...

[dramatic music]

Stonehenge.

- To appreciate Stonehenge,

you really have to understand
that it's unique,

it's mysterious, it's powerful,
it's enormous,

and it's also 4,500 years old.

narrator: Stonehenge was built
during the Bronze Age

after Britain had adopted
an agricultural society.

The switch from
a hunter-gatherer way of life

freed up time,

and it was the start of an era
of monument-building.

The greatest was Stonehenge,
in southern England.

♪ ♪

Work began around 3000 BC,

making it older
than the pyramids of Egypt.

- Experts estimate that it took
over 30 million man-hours

to construct Stonehenge
over a 1,500-year period.

I mean, that's one monumental
building project.

♪ ♪

narrator: The stones are set
in a circle.

Two main types are used,
sarsens and bluestones.

- The largest stones
in the Stonehenge monument

weigh 25 tons.

And they are still standing
today.

It is absolutely incredible.

narrator: There are
different theories

to how they got there.

The larger sarsen stones are
thought to have been brought

from Salisbury Plain,
20 miles away,

on logs greased with animal fat

and the smaller bluestones
transported from much further,

from Preseli, Wales.

It's possible
they were moved by boat.

- Some of the stones they used
to build Stonehenge

were actually transported
over 140 miles,

and given the primitive
technology they had at the time,

that is an amazing achievement.

♪ ♪

narrator: One of the biggest
mysteries of Stonehenge

is why it was built.

Some think
it was to honor the dead

or for use
in a midwinter festival.

But the alignment of the stones
to the sunset

suggests a religious purpose.

- Stonehenge
is an incredible solar temple,

and it's perfectly aligned
for the sunset

on both the shortest and
the longest days of the year.

narrator: There was nothing
more important than the Sun,

the giver of life.

- If you're in a civilization
that worships the Sun,

what better way in marking
your relationship with the deity

than to have the sun shine
on a particular day

on your monument?

- Stonehenge is still a riddle.

Each time we look at it,
we should just imagine

the sheer willpower
and ingenuity

of those men and women

who built this wonder
of the prehistoric world.

narrator: A source of
fascination and speculation,

it remains a true wonder.

♪ ♪

Our next monument

was the greatest statue
of the ancient world,

destroyed in seconds,
but what caused its downfall?

At number eight...

[dramatic music]

The Colossus of Rhodes.

- The Colossus of Rhodes

was one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world.

Just to make it into that list,

it must have been
deeply, deeply awe-inspiring.

♪ ♪

narrator: This giant statue

guarded the Greek harbor
of Rhodes,

in the eastern Mediterranean.

Standing 110 feet high,

it was the tallest statue
in the world at the time.

But the Colossus was born
from another massive structure.

In 305 BC, Rhodes was under
attack from the Macedonians.

♪ ♪

They had built
a huge mobile siege tower,

which became known
as the helepolis.

- When the people of Rhodes saw
this huge siege engine,

the helepolis,
rolling towards them,

all they had were simple weapons
to try and defeat it.

♪ ♪

narrator: But defeat it
they did.

The huge tower was stopped dead

thanks to hidden holes
in the ground in front of it.

The Macedonians were forced
to retreat,

abandoning the helepolis.

narrator: This is the countdown

of the world's greatest
ancient monuments,

ranked by size
according to our experts.

We're at number eight and
the huge Colossus of Rhodes.

On the Greek island of Rhodes,

a mighty siege tower
called the helepolis

had been left abandoned
by its army

after a failed siege
of the city.

- The helepolis was so massive
that when the battle was over,

the victorious defenders
were able to rip it apart

and use its scrap material
to build

one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world,

the Colossus of Rhodes.

narrator: It was modeled
on their patron,

the sun god Helios.

Bronze from discarded weapons
was melted down into plates

and used for the exterior,

bolted over an iron framework.

The siege tower was used
as supporting scaffolding.

The entire structure
weighed 100 tons.

It was a giant.

Historians believe
it wore a spiked crown

like images of Helios found
on contemporary Rhodian coins.

- The Colossus of Rhodes
is often depicted

as standing astride
the harbor of Rhodes.

In fact, it probably stood in
the harbor or in a hill nearby.

Wherever it stood, it must have
dominated the city.

narrator: The Colossus
of Rhodes

was a monument
to freedom and independence,

a triumph
for a small maritime republic.

But, sadly,
its glory was short-lived.

- The Colossus of Rhodes wowed
the ancient world for 54 years,

but then
a huge earthquake struck,

snapping the Colossus
at the knees,

bringing the statue
crashing down.

narrator: The Rhodians believed
it was destroyed

because they had offended
the sun god.

- Although its remains
were broken on the ground,

people travelled
from great distances

to see those remains,
and it's said it was so large

that you couldn't even wrap
your arms around the thumb.

narrator: The Colossus
might be gone,

but its legacy lives on.

It's thought to have inspired
the Statue of Liberty.

♪ ♪

Next on our countdown

is a monument built
on human sacrifice and blood,

the greatest temple of a people
who revered death.

At number seven...

[dramatic music]

The serpent pyramid
of Chichen Itza.

- Ten square miles.

Tens of thousands
of inhabitants.

Chichen Itza
was a massive ancient city

and its history bloody.

narrator: At its peak
over 1,000 years ago,

the ancient civilization
of the Maya

dominated the jungles of Mexico
and Central America.

They left behind
10,000 pyramids.

The greatest?

The 80-foot-high temple
at Chichen Itza

dedicated to the feathered
serpent god, Kukulkan.

♪ ♪

- The ancient Maya

were great scientists, warriors,
and artists,

and the serpent temple
at Chichen Itza

in the Yucatan of Mexico

is definitely
one of the greatest monuments

in the history of the world.

♪ ♪

narrator: In the spring,

the shadow of a snake
moves down the pyramid

to represent the god Kukulkan
coming down to Earth.

♪ ♪

And in the autumn,
the snake shadow moves back up.

There's 365 steps,

one for every day of the year.

The Maya saw these
as the sacred route to heaven.

Only priests were allowed
to the top--

and their sacrificial offerings
to the gods.

- For the ancient Maya, human
sacrifice was a way of life.

It was central
to their religious practices

for over 1,000 years.

The total number
of people sacrificed?

No one knows.

- Can you imagine
standing at the base

of the great temple pyramid
of the serpent,

looking up as a priest
takes out his flint knife,

removes the heart
of a sacrificial victim,

takes off his head,

and then throws the body
down the great staircase,

where the body just lands
at your feet

in a grisly display of power?

♪ ♪

narrator: If it were a
particularly courageous warrior

who had been sacrificed,

the corpse would be cut up
and eaten.

[people yelling]

Death wasn't just
for the Maya's enemies.

In this playing field,
a ball game took place

with the highest stakes,

the captain of the losing team
beheaded.

♪ ♪

And close by,
two large sinkholes

where, in times of drought,
local women and children

were thrown in as sacrifices
to the rain god.

The Maya eventually abandoned
Chichen Itza.

But what has since
been found there

has revealed their
blood-thirsty, brutal ways.

[dramatic music]

From the jungle
to the desert.

Carved from solid rock,
our next monument was made

by the billionaires
of the ancient world.

Number six
in our countdown is...

[dramatic music]

The Treasury building at Petra.

- As an architect,
I consider Petra to be

one of the most atmospheric
and awe-inspiring achievements

of the ancient world.

narrator: In the middle
of the Jordanian desert,

a narrow pass runs
for just under a mile

through a deep cliff.

♪ ♪

Concealed at the end is
a miracle of the ancient world

that lay undiscovered
for centuries,

an extraordinary monument

carved straight
into the rock face.

- The fantastic thing
about the Treasury of Petra

is that it was carved
out of the mountainside

like Mount Rushmore,

but, incredibly,
it was twice as high.

narrator: The Treasury
is 128 feet tall.

Mount Rushmore
is just under 60 feet.

And while Mount Rushmore
was made using explosives

and all kinds
of modern machinery,

the Treasury was carved
completely by hand.

narrator: We're counting down

the ancient world's
greatest monuments,

and we've reached number six.

We're at Petra
in the desert of Jordan

and the extraordinary
Treasury building

carved into the mountainside.

[dramatic music]

The Treasury's name comes from
a legend about this stone urn.

It was said to store valuables

and is riddled
with bullet marks

from attempts to break it open.

But there was no treasure.

Instead, secret chambers

discovered
underneath the building

show a family of skeletons.

It was built as a mausoleum
for the city.

- It was surrounded
by a buzzing metropolis

made up of 30,000 people,
all living in the desert.

narrator: They were
the Arab Nabateans

from the 1st century AD.

- Ancient writers
called the Nabateans

the richest people on Earth.

They were the Rockefellers
of the ancient world.

narrator:
The source of their wealth?

Spices.

- Petra was built
right on the spice superhighway,

which meant
that it profited massively

from all the camel trains
that passed through.

It made it
one of the richest trading posts

in the ancient world.

narrator: Every year,
10,000 loads of spices

passed through the city.

Every transaction was taxed.

The profits were immense.

And with the proceeds,

the Nabateans built their
incredible rocky monuments.

- At Petra, they cut tombs and
temples into the living rock.

And it seems they did this by
building steps up into the rock,

then carving out a platform

and then from there
building a scaffold

and then working
their way down,

with rubble accumulating below
and making a ramp

so they never had to work
at a very great height.

This is simple but ingenious.

narrator: All the houses
were supplied with plumbing.

From mountain springs, water
was channeled through the rock.

Nearly 200 cisterns
have been discovered,

with a total capacity
of 11 million gallons of water.

- Research has shown
that every building

was connected
by underground pipes.

Every citizen would receive
over two gallons of water a day.

And when you look
at the site today

and the desert-like conditions,

that kind of water
would have been a luxury.

- Petra was a caravan city
in the middle of the desert.

But somehow,
through ingenious high-tech,

they created
a water management system

to bring life to the city.

It became, basically,

the Las Vegas
of the ancient world.

narrator: An oasis
in the desert.

And there is still much more
to be discovered.

- Incredibly, only 15% of Petra
has been excavated and explored.

Just imagine what else lies
under those desert sands.

narrator: There may be treasure
after all.

For those seeking
both fame and fortune,

our next monument
was the perfect place,

home to the gladiator.

At number five,

it's the killing zone
of ancient Rome...

[dramatic music]

The Colosseum.

[rock music]

- The Colosseum,
the arena of death.

A million animals slaughtered,

500,000 people murdered

in the name of entertainment.

narrator: In amphitheaters
all over the Roman Empire,

thousands died every year.

For Romans, death was
a popular spectator sport.

- The leaders
of the Roman Empire knew

that to keep their citizens
on side,

they needed to keep them
well fed and well entertained,

give them bread and circuses.

And the Colosseum is the
ultimate entertainment venue.

narrator: It was built
between 72 and 80 AD.

150 feet high,
over 600 feet long,

with a central area equivalent
to a modern football field.

It was the biggest building of
its kind in the Roman Empire.

- When people went
to the Colosseum,

they were expecting
to see blood.

♪ ♪

In the morning, it was
the gladiators called bestiarii

fighting against wild beasts.

At noontime, you could go off
and have a meal,

or you could stick around
and you could watch

the execution of criminals
in gruesome ways.

♪ ♪

In the afternoon,
it was the main event,

and that's when you had
man against man,

gladiator against gladiator,
fighting to the death.

♪ ♪

narrator: The Colosseum was
a brutal arena of death.

So many hippos
were slaughtered,

they became extinct
on the River Nile,

the North African elephant
wiped out for the same reason.

[light music]

- It's speculated
that the Colosseum could hold

up to 80,000 people,
but what's even more remarkable

is that the fantastic design
of the Romans

allowed for each
and every one of them

to have a clear view of what was
happening on the arena.

- The Colosseum isn't just
a fancy facade.

It's fantastically engineered
throughout the whole structure.

Gladiators and animals
could be raised in lifts

directly into the arena.

narrator: And for one event,
four million gallons of water

were diverted from the city's
immense aqueduct system.

- They actually flooded
the arena floor

for naval battles

and the next day
had it all drained out

and the stage back in place.

narrator: It was
a technical achievement

way ahead of its time.

And there's more.

The Colosseum had its own
climate control system,

a retractable roof.

It was a sunshade

that could be controlled
from a system of pulleys.

It would move to shade
the crowd from the sun.

- It's just like
a modern sporting arena.

The center court of Wimbledon

only got its retractable roof
in 2009.

narrator: That's 2,000 years
behind the Romans.

♪ ♪

The Colosseum is a grisly
but awe-inspiring monument

to Roman entertainment.

narrator: This is
the "Ancient Top 10"'s list

of the greatest
ancient monuments

ranked according to size.

Now it's time for number four,

an ancient forest of stone
in Egypt...

[dramatic music]

[rock music]

The temple complex of Karnak.

♪ ♪

- Karnak was built
over 1,500 years--

30 pharaohs, each generation
trying to outdo the last

and to build something
even more magnificent.

And what we have left

is one of the marvels
of the ancient world.

♪ ♪

narrator: For thousands
of years,

Egyptian civilization blossomed

along the fertile valley
of the River Nile,

ruled by pharaohs

who built incredible palaces
and monuments

and this,
the extraordinary Karnak,

a complex
covering more than 247 acres.

- Karnak is absolutely massive.

It was the largest religious
complex in the ancient world.

Just the precinct
of the god Amun

was big enough
to hold ten cathedrals.

narrator: One of
its great rooms

is a staggering
54,000 square feet.

- The pillared hall at Karnak
is a vast forest

of 134 towering columns,

some as tall
as a seven-story building.

- It's so vast, you could fit
Notre Dame cathedral inside it.

And in fact, still today,
it's the largest room discovered

in any religious building
in the world.

narrator: Each pillar
is so broad,

it takes ten men
to encircle it.

The lintels on the pillar tops?

70 tons each.

It also once had a roof.

But how on Earth
did they build it?

- The Karnak pillars
weren't built

using cranes and scaffolding
like we have today.

Instead, the ancient Egyptians
used mud ramps

to build layer upon layer
upon layer.

It really was an incredible feat
of ancient engineering.

narrator: As the mud built up,

the giant stones
could be slid into place.

At its peak,
80,000 workers toiled here.

- The temple of Karnak

is one of the largest
religious sites

in the entire history
of the world.

The pillared hall alone
used 7,000 tons of sandstone.

That's equal to the weight
of the entire Eiffel Tower.

narrator: When the mud
was removed,

the temple's full glory
was revealed.

The most ambitious builder
of Karnak's pharaohs

was Ramesses II,

who reigned for over 60 years
in the 13th century BC.

- Ramesses II had every reason

to create these enormous
statues of himself,

because he had the ego to match.

All rulers built monuments, but
Ramesses II outbuilt them all.

narrator: With each pharaoh's
bid to outdo their ancestors,

Karnak became one of
the most incredible sights

of the ancient world.

But even Karnak can't compete

with number three
in our countdown,

a mysterious monument
hidden in the jungle,

only to re-emerge
centuries later.

[dramatic music]

The city of temples,
Angkor Wat.

- The temple is larger
than anything built

by the Greeks, the Romans,
the Egyptians.

It was massive.

narrator: In 1860, a French
naturalist, Henri Mouhot,

stumbled across some ruins
in Cambodia.

They became famous
as the lost world

of a mysterious ancient people.

- When you explore Angkor Wat,

it is pretty hard
not to feel like an adventurer,

because these amazing
stone buildings

just emerge from the jungle.

♪ ♪

This was the biggest
religious complex in the world,

and there is still more of it
being discovered.

narrator: This is
"Ancient Top 10"'s countdown

of the most magnificent
ancient monuments,

ranked in order of size.

[dramatic percussive music]

We're at number three

in Cambodia's temple city,
Angkor Wat.

[dramatic music]

Built in the 12th century,

Angkor Wat was originally
a Hindu temple

in the capital city
of the Khmer people,

a civilization
in Southeast Asia.

At over 400 acres,
it's one of the largest

religious monuments
ever constructed.

- The main temple at Angkor Wat
is made up

of around 10 million
sandstone blocks,

and we think that would've taken
about 40 years to build.

Much of it
is still standing today,

and that is just testament

to the sheer genius
of its engineering.

narrator: The carved relief
around the perimeter

is half a mile long, making it

the longest continuous
bas-relief in the world.

- The stonework at Angkor Wat
was exquisite and precise.

You couldn't even fit
a razor blade

in between the blocks.

You would need modern computers
and lasers

to achieve that today.

narrator: How was this achieved
1,000 years ago?

This re-enactment shows

how the blocks were suspended
above one another.

Wooden handles were inserted

and used to grind down
the block faces.

The stones themselves
sanded each other down

to achieve a perfect fit.

- The ancient Cambodian
building techniques

created something ten times
larger than any cathedral.

The religious complex
is actually part of

one of the greatest cities
of the ancient world.

- What impresses me about
Angkor Wat is its sheer size.

In the same period,
cities like London

had populations
of less than 30,000 people.

At Angkor Wat, we think about
a million people lived there.

- Angkor Wat was a massive,
buzzing, humming complex.

Today New York City covers
about 305 square miles,

but back then in its heyday,

Angkor Wat covered 400.

I mean, that is enormous.

narrator: The vast urban
population was sustained

by clever water management.

There were two reservoirs,
each five miles long.

But like on Easter Island,

the city's epic engineering
success in one area

caused the failure of another.

[soft vocal music]

Deforestation and soil erosion
blocked the water supply.

Famine led
to the temple being abandoned.

But its discovery in the jungle
hundreds of years later

brought
this magnificent monument

back to life once more.

From one that was hidden
to one you cannot miss.

We move
to the tallest structure

of the ancient world.

Fit for a king, it was made
not for this life but the next.

We're back
where else but in Egypt.

Coming in at number two...

[dramatic music]

The Great Pyramid,
built by Pharaoh Khufu.

- The pyramid of Khufu weighs in

at a staggering
six million tons.

It is, without doubt,

one of the most amazing feats
of engineering on this Earth.

narrator: The Egyptians built
more than 118 pyramids

across their kingdom,

but this dwarfs all others.

It was constructed
around 2600 BC

as the pharaoh's
burial chamber.

At 480 feet high,

it was the tallest man-made
structure in the world

for nearly 4,000 years.

- It took up to 40,000 workers
at least ten years

to build the Great Pyramid
of Khufu.

This means that blocks

that weighed anything
from 2 1/2 to 80 tons

were being put in place
every 2 1/2 minutes.

That's just staggering.

narrator: 2.3 million
limestone blocks

were hauled up
using muscle power alone.

- The Great Pyramid
was so precisely built

that all of the sides are equal
to each other

down to a matter of inches.

For a monument that size,
that's just amazing.

- The entire base
of the Great Pyramid

is almost perfectly level.

It's an astonishing feat
of construction.

narrator: The pyramid
was originally covered

with bright, polished limestone
and capped with gold.

Four sides of the casing met
at 90-degree angles.

They were so perfectly aligned,

the angles were accurate
to within 1/100th of an inch.

Some experts say
the very slight curvature

built into the faces
of the pyramid

exactly matches the curvature
of the Earth.

Inside the Great Pyramid

lies the now empty burial
chamber of Pharaoh Khufu.

But there are
many other legends

that suggest the pyramid
and those around it

were more than just a tomb.

- What where they used for?

Did they actually contain
the body of the king?

Or were they ritual devices for
projecting the pharaoh's soul

into the constellation
of Orion?

We're not entirely sure.

- The organization,
the logistics,

the alignment with the stars--

the ancient Egyptians'
engineering prowess

was just astonishing
and way ahead of its time.

narrator: The Great Pyramid
is the last

of the seven wonders
of the ancient world

still standing.

Gold and riches are said to be
hidden inside.

But as the oldest and largest
of Egypt's pyramids,

the real treasure
is the pyramid itself.

narrator: This is
"Ancient Top 10"'s countdown

of the greatest
ancient monuments,

ranked according their size.

At number ten, the ghostly
world of Easter Island.

Number nine, the ring
of mystery at Stonehenge.

Number eight,
a giant amongst men,

the Colossus of Rhodes.

And number seven, Maya pyramid
perfection at Chichen Itza.

Number six, the incredible
carved Treasury of Petra.

And number five, the Roman
killing ground, the Colosseum.

Number four, the massive temple
on the Nile, Karnak.

And number three,
the temples of Angkor Wat.

Number two was Egypt's finest,
the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

But there's one monument
that is so super-sized,

it beats all others
by a long, long way.

At number one...

[triumphant music]

The Great Wall of China.

- It's taken more time,
material, and labor

than any other construction
on Earth.

It's defied mountain ranges,
time, and all-out war.

This is number one, the
greatest monument on Earth.

[dramatic music]

narrator: The Great Wall
of China is by far

the largest engineering project
the world has ever seen.

It's over 13,000 miles long.

That's five times the width
of the United States

and further than the distance

from the North
to the South Pole.

♪ ♪

- If you put it
in a straight line,

it would reach halfway around
the circumference

of Planet Earth.

And to walk end to end,

it would take
a staggering 18 months.

♪ ♪

- It's so long
that when it was manned,

the guards at one end
would see the sunrise

two hours before the guards
at the other.

narrator: The Great Wall
was built over centuries.

Generation after generation
added to it.

- There's not just one wall.

There are many walls.

It should be called
the Great Walls of China.

In fact, there are at least 16
separate lengths of wall.

narrator: Altogether, they run
from the Gobi Desert

through the mountains
north of Beijing

to the Yellow Sea.

Work began on the Great Wall

perhaps as early
as the 7th century BC.

It was needed to protect China
from being raided

by nomadic tribes in the north.

The first part
of the wall built

was 3,000 miles long.

It took 20 years and hundreds
of thousands of people.

They used simple materials
like sun-baked mud bricks.

The wall was then continuously
added to and improved upon.

But its effectiveness
would really be put to the test

when a terrifying new enemy
appeared

in the 12th century AD.

- The Mongols are coming.

A frightening prospect.

They are unparalleled
in their ferocity.

The Mongols will let nothing
stand in their way.

[army yelling]

narrator: In 1209,

the Mongol army
under Genghis Khan

outflanked the wall
and conquered China.

[dramatic music]

The Chinese
eventually regained control

and set about turning
their empire

into an impregnable fortress.

♪ ♪

The Great Wall was made longer
and stronger than ever

using bricks and stone--
3.8 billion bricks, that is.

- Building the wall
across just one valley

required 60 brick kilns

making half a million bricks
a month.

That's a total of 44
White Houses every month.

- One third of the
male population of China

was conscripted to build it.

I mean, that is staggering.

narrator:
The total material used

would be enough to build
120 Great Pyramids.

The equivalent of nearly
$400 billion was spent on it.

But it also cost lives.

- Some call it the longest
cemetery in the world.

Over a million people died
during its construction,

and some of them are buried
in the walls.

narrator: The dedication
of the Chinese people produced

one of the most impressive
structures ever built.

The finished wall ranged
from 16 to 42 feet high.

♪ ♪

On some sections, a whole army
could march along the top.

It's more than a Great Wall.

It's a lasting monument
to the efforts of man.

- It is the greatest man-made
structure ever undertaken

in the history of this planet.

narrator: There is no doubt;

the Great Wall of China is our
number one ancient monument.

♪ ♪

The civilizations
of the ancient world

made their mark

with the great monuments
they left behind--

colossal structures

more magnificent
than any of today's

and built without
modern machinery.

These incredible achievements
stand as reminders to us all

of the engineering genius and
limitless ambition of mankind.