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Are we a species with amnesia?

Could we have forgotten
a vital part of our own story?

I'm Graham Hancock,

and many archaeologists
hate me for trying to find out.

The notion of a lost
advanced civilization of the Ice Age

is extremely threatening
to mainstream archaeology

because it rips the ground out
from under that entire discipline.

It removes the foundation.

I don't care about that.

There's people that come along
and because of their impact,

it changes the way people look at things.

Graham Hancock is a man who,

despite all of the insults,

and all of the people disparaging his work

he has trekked on and on and on.

What I care about
is learning the lessons of the past

in order to clear away that fog
that surrounds prehistory.

And it's a fog
because there's no documents.

We have to build our picture of the past
from fragmentary evidence.

Folk stories, legends, myths.

These for me are all important evidence.

And one of the most mysterious
and revealing mythologies in prehistory

comes down to us
through the ancient cultures of Mexico.

In my search
for a lost civilization,

I've come to a land of fertile valleys
and simmering volcanoes.

This is the Puebla region,
east of Mexico City.

The site of this country's oldest
continuously inhabited city, Cholula.

Today, a modern metropolis
of over 100,000 people,

it holds an ancient secret at its heart.

History is written by the victors.

That's especially true in Mexico.

When the Spanish conquistadors
arrived in Cholula in 1519,

they massacred its inhabitants,

obliterating not only their culture,

but also almost all traces

of the more ancient cultures
that had preceded them.

But the invaders
couldn't erase everything.

The conquistadors had first assumed
this hill was just that, a hill,

and they built a church on top of it.

But this hill isn't the natural feature
it's often mistaken for.

In fact, it's the most massive monument
ever built anywhere in the world.

And yet, chances are
you've never heard of it.

This is the Great Pyramid of Cholula.

After centuries of neglect and pillaging,

it's impossible to understand

the sheer enormity
of what once stood here.

But we do have some idea of what
it must have looked like in its prime.

It's estimated that
the Great Pyramid of Cholula

rose to at least 213 feet, 65 meters.

Evidence suggests
it was originally dedicated

to the ancient Mexican god
of rain and floods,

whom the Aztecs
knew by the name of Tlaloc.

Built mostly with
mud and straw adobe bricks,

it wasn't as tall
as Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza,

but it was larger
with nearly three times the footprint,

measuring 400 by 400 meters at its base,

roughly 30 football fields,

making this the largest monument

ever constructed
by any civilization anywhere.

Archaeologists quickly established

that work on the pyramid
was completed around eight centuries ago,

1200 AD or thereabouts.

But when they began cutting tunnels
through the body of the structure,

they were stunned
by what they discovered inside.

It's a surreal feeling

descending into
the largest pyramid on Earth.

Within are beautiful murals

depicting mythological scenes
and creatures...

and tantalizing glimpses
of many layers of construction.

Do they offer clues
to this site's biggest mystery?

Could it be part of a global legacy

left behind by an ancient,
advanced civilization of prehistory?

I'm joined by one of the world's leading
experts on the Great Pyramid of Cholula,

University of Calgary anthropologist
and archaeologist, Geoff McCafferty.

We're in the heart
of the most massive monument

ever built anywhere in the ancient world.

You get almost the same sense
as when you go into a church.

You know, there is a tangible sense
of an aura of that power.

These tunnels were excavated
by Mexican archaeologists.

There are a total of
eight kilometers of tunnels.

- That's extraordinary. Eight kilometers?
- Yeah.

Using these tunnels,

archaeologists made
an astounding discovery.

The Pyramid of Cholula
is simply the latest

in a whole series of
more ancient pyramids hidden beneath.

Inside is an even older pyramid,

dating back to 800 AD or so,

and beneath that, another one

dating at least 200 to 500 years earlier.

Until like a series
of Russian nesting dolls,

we get to what's thought to be
the first and oldest pyramid built here,

still an impressive 120 meters square
and 17 meters or 56 feet high.

When did construction first begin here?

So, the earliest evidence
of construction of the ceremonial zone

dates to about 500 BC.

It was a good size pyramid.

Then, over time, it was expanded,

sort of larger construction
over the top of the other.

So this pyramid-building project

must have been carried out
by multiple generations

over a span of 1,700 years,
and possibly longer,

a fact now acknowledged by archaeologists.

Yet modern scholarship

knows next to nothing
about the original architects

or why they chose to build a pyramid here.

Precisely the mysteries
that most interest me.

Do you get the sense
that something may be missing

from the archaeological
and historical story of ancient Mexico?

Well, not to be overly dramatic,

but I think that
a better understanding of Cholula

would fundamentally change
the perception of Mesoamerican history.

It is a black hole.

It is a black hole in Mexican history.

Do you think there was something here
before that first pyramid was built?

The pyramid was built over
an important spring.

Yeah.

The spring represents
a passageway into the underworld...

- Mmm.
- ...so it was clearly an important

sacred space
as well as a ceremonial focus.

The fact that
the pyramid was the structure

that was chosen to be
built upon that site is not accidental.

On the contrary,
I believe it's a critical clue

to understanding the motivations
of the original builders,

because that repeats a theme
that we find all around the world.

We've already uncovered evidence

of a similar terraced pyramid
in Indonesia at Gunung Padang

that also has
a sacred spring at its heart.

It's a pattern found
not just in Mexico or Indonesia.

That's the case
with the subterranean chamber

beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza.

In my view, that is the first sacred place
on the Giza plateau,

and the pyramids are later
built on top of it to honor it.

The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán
sits on top of a natural cavern.

They modified it somewhat

and then,
they built a pyramid on top of it.

But the first thing was the place itself,

the sacred place,
and the pyramids mark this.

You start off with a place

that for one reason or another
is regarded as sacred,

that had a special magnetism
that people could sense

that made it important
and that made it matter.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula
shares another key feature

with ancient pyramids
all around the world.

Hints of hidden chambers.

Not long after
the Spanish conquest of Mexico,

a reliable eyewitness,
Father Bernardino de Sahagún,

reported that the Great Pyramid of Cholula
was full of mines and caves within.

Today, modern investigators
have confirmed that observation.

One of the former archaeologists found,
somewhere inside the pyramid,

an open room.

And there were tunnels leading into it.

It's never been published.

I don't know
what the current situation is.

- That's a very tantalizing hint.
- You think so?

Has that room ever been excavated?
Has it ever been revisited?

Not that I know of.

Why hasn't this inner chamber
ever been revisited?

What secrets could it hold

about the intentions
of the original builders?

Regardless, the fact that
the Great Pyramid of Cholula

has a hidden inner chamber at all,

like its cousins
in Gunung Padang and Giza,

is yet another striking feature
shared by these structures.

And there's more.

So it's pretty well established
that the structure

is oriented to the setting sun

- on the summer solstice.
- That's correct.

The sun is setting
between the two volcanoes to the west,

so it's very much
a solstice-related orientation.

We know that the indigenous Mesoamericans
were very clued into astronomical cycles.

As were the ancient Egyptians,
who built their Great Pyramid of Giza

to align precisely
to true astronomical north.

The fact that these ancient pyramids,

whose builders supposedly
had no contact with one another,

have so much in common is a mystery.

Is it just coincidence?

I don't think so.

The general view
that archaeology puts forward,

is that pyramids
were built in the form that they have

'cause that's the easiest way
to make a high building.

The problem is that these structures
are universally associated

with very specific spiritual ideas.

What happens to us after death?

This is always connected
with pyramid structures,

and that's the case
whether you find them in Mexico

or whether you find them in ancient Egypt

or whether you find them in Cambodia
or whether you find them in India.

It's a detail that defies
the accepted mainstream view

that various human civilizations
around the world,

independently invented pyramids.

What it suggests to me

is that something else
was going on behind the scenes.

Could we be witnessing the unfolding
of some extraordinary master plan?

A shared legacy
from a lost global civilization

that provided the seeds
and the spark of inspiration

from which many later civilizations grew.

It's a possibility that leads me to ask

whether the pyramid-building project
at Cholula

could have much older origins
than most archaeologists want to believe.

What about the dating of the structure?

Are there carbon dates
from the earliest phases?

No. We've had ceramics that are similar
to ceramics from the basin of Mexico

dating to, like, 1000 BC.

Does that give us enough
to be confident about the whole story?

No. No, I would say absolutely not.

And there's a tremendous amount of work
that needs to be done

- throughout the prehistory of Mexico.
- Yeah.

I'm not disputing
the archaeological evidence

that dates
the first monumental construction

on the site of
the Great Pyramid of Cholula

to around 2,300 years ago,
but there are older pyramids in Mexico.

And what really interests me
are the ideas that underpin them all.

By 1519,
when the Spanish conquistadors arrived,

Cholula's Great Pyramid
had fallen into disrepair.

But when they realized
it was much more than just a hill,

and asked who built it,

the locals regaled them
with a fascinating legend.

According to myth,

the Great Pyramid of Cholula
was the work of a race of giants.

Once upon a time,
there were giants in ancient Mexico,

until the rain god Tlaloc grew angry
and sent a great flood to destroy them.

Only seven survived the cataclysm.

Fearing that a second deluge might follow,
the giant Xelhua, known as the architect,

went to Cholula,

and with the help of its people

built a massive artificial mountain
out of bricks,

a pyramid,

and dedicated it
to the worship of Tlaloc, the rain god.

Archaeologists regard this
as just a fanciful tale,

but I think
that by ignoring it completely,

we're in danger of missing
some important clues

to the origins of this incredible place.

Perhaps that architect

who appeared in Cholula
after a great flood,

wasn't a physical giant,

but one of the intellectual giants

of an advanced civilization
lost to history.

We shouldn't expect
the evidence to be easy to find,

precisely because, as at Cholula,
ancient monuments are often located

directly on top of
still older constructions,

obscuring their origins.

About a two-hour drive to the northwest,

another remarkable site
offers me my next clue.

Perched atop this uniquely-shaped hill

is an ancient Aztec complex
known as Texcotzingo.

Here at Texcotzingo,
we encounter a pyramid again,

this time a creation of the Earth herself.

It's easy to understand why this place

could have exerted
a powerful magnetism on the ancients.

Pyramids clearly mattered
in ancient Mexico.

Here, in the 15th century,

the Aztecs built a remarkable network
of garden terraces and pools

fed by cleverly constructed aqueducts

that carried water down
from a reservoir at the mountain's top.

It's like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
Mesoamerican style.

But intriguingly, from my investigations,

all of it was dedicated
to the same ancient god

associated with
the earliest pyramid at Cholula...

Tlaloc, the god of rains and floods,
whose cult long predated the Aztecs.

Archaeologists believe that the Aztecs

were the first
to pay attention to Texcotzingo,

but could this incredible site
be much older?

The Spanish conquistadors
took it for granted

that Texcotzingo was entirely
the work of the Aztecs,

and that is what
most archaeologists will tell you too.

But what if the Aztecs
simply renovated and added to a site

originally created
by a much older civilization?

Author Marco Vigato believes the evidence
suggests that's exactly what happened.

This site was clearly reworked
over a very long period of time.

The rock was
a very hard type of porphyry stone.

If you look around at the site here,

you see that some of the stone surfaces
are very heavily weathered.

Some parts of the site
that clearly show evidence of erosion

must have continued
for thousands of years,

taking into account
this is an extremely hard type of stone.

Right.
So in your view, the Aztecs,

well, we know they were latecomers,

but they found this site
at least partially worked already

and they took it over

- and developed it further.
- Right.

It's a radical thought.

Could a much older culture have carved out

some of the more unusual features
on the side of the hill?

Like these deeply-weathered megaliths
strewn on the ground.

And this chamber
carved out of the bedrock.

This was almost certainly
a pre-Aztec site.

- Mmm-hmm.
- It was simply reoccupied and reused.

It's a conclusion
archaeologists would dispute,

but there's some
relevant evidence to consider.

Not far away, in a dried-up riverbed
at the foot of a mountain,

a huge statue
of the rain god Tlaloc was uncovered.

The largest single cut stone
in the entire Americas.

Archaeologists have dated it
to around 700 AD,

long before
the Aztecs dominated these lands.

It's proof that Tlaloc, the rain god,

had already been worshipped
in this area by earlier cultures,

perhaps under several different names,

for nearly a thousand years,
and maybe longer.

In fact, Tlaloc,
as a mythological character,

goes back all the way

to the earliest known cultures
of prehistoric Mexico.

And he's not alone.

The global floods
sent by the rain god sets the stage

for the appearance of the most intriguing
character in Mexican mythology...

Quetzalcoatl.

After the Great Flood,

a stranger from the east
landed on Mexico's shores

riding on a boat with no paddles,
said to be carried by serpents.

His name was Quetzalcoatl,

meaning, "the feathered serpent."

He and his followers taught the locals
how to grow crops and domesticate animals.

He gave them laws

and instructed them in the ways
of architecture, astronomy and the arts.

They worshipped him as a deity.

But after being violently ousted
by the followers of a Mexican war god,

Quetzalcoatl sailed away towards the east,
promising one day to return.

The legend of Quetzalcoatl has been told
for generations, even down to today.

We get a description
of a heavily bearded individual.

He sounds a bit like a foreigner
from across the ocean,

and he brings the gifts of civilization.

What I find so astonishing
is how often we've heard this story

from cultures that supposedly
had no connection with ancient Mexico.

The setting is always the same.
There has been a giant cataclysm.

The world has been plunged into darkness,
floods, chaos everywhere.

Society is collapsing.

And then out of the darkness
appears a figure who has knowledge

of what is necessary
to make a civilization.

And that figure teaches
the demoralized survivors of the cataclysm

how to start civilization again.

In ancient Greek mythology,
it's the Titan Prometheus

who, after a great flood,
shares with humans the secret of fire.

In the South American Andes,

pre-Inca civilizations describe a robed,
bearded figure named Viracocha,

who emerged from a great lake

and taught the local people
how to create amazing works of masonry

that still exist today.

Even in the Pacific,
Polynesian legends talk of Maui,

who created their islands
by pulling them up from the ocean floor,

and then taught the islanders
to work with stone tools

and to cook their food.

Archaeologists say
that these civilizing heroes

are just inventions
of the ancients' elaborate fictions,

but I find the similarities
hard to ignore.

What if these accounts describe
the survivors of an advanced civilization

that was lost in the great cataclysms
of flood and fire

that we know occurred
near the end of the last Ice Age?

The myths of Mexico

and the story
of Quetzalcoatl in particular,

are tied to
just such an apocalyptic moment.

And Marco believes there's a record of it

just a few hours' drive
south of Mexico City,

amongst the ancient temples of Xochicalco.

Like Cholula, this city was
originally built by an indigenous culture

we know little about
in the 7th century AD.

Here, you'll find the remains
of two large pyramids.

One dedicated to the rain god,

and the other dedicated
to Mexico's civilizing hero, Quetzalcoatl.

I've come here to learn more
about these so-called mythical characters.

For archaeologists,
myths are fanciful and fragmentary.

They ignore them completely
in their attempts to reconstruct the past.

But here at Xochicalco,
some researchers see an attempt

to create a permanent record

of one of the most important myths
in ancient Mexico.

A record they believe that preserves
a forgotten episode in prehistory.

Wrapped around the four sides
of Quetzalcoatl's temple

are intricate carvings of this deity

in his manifestation
as the feathered serpent.

Clearly, he was an important figure
even back in 700 AD.

But Marco believes
these glyphs carved in stone

may reveal missing details
from his origin story.

What's special about this temple?

So what you have
on the lower tier of the pyramid

is really a representation
of the arrival of Quetzalcoatl

that unfolds on the three sides...

- Yeah.
- ...of the pyramid

until we get here
to the first significant glyph, here.

And what you see there
is a flaming temple.

You have these scrolls of smoke or fire.

- As though it's on fire.
- Right. Exactly.

What about the coils
of the serpent around it?

How do you read those in this context?

Right, well, this is
the tail of the serpent.

- Yeah.
- So, it wraps around this flaming temple.

It almost looks like a wave hitting...

- Okay.
- ...the temple from the side.

You could almost see that
as a representation of an island.

So, we have a temple which is on fire

and waves are
washing over it in your reading?

- Exactly.
- Yeah.

Give me your interpretation
of this scene, Marco.

Well, you have this
clearly powerful sitting figure

who looks like on a raft of snakes

that's almost heading away
from the direction of this flaming temple.

What you're seeing here
is the depiction of a cataclysm

which occurs in a certain place,
which Quetzalcoatl then is a survivor of.

You have this idea of the god
coming from a land that was destroyed.

And what you have is the arrival
of the god Quetzalcoatl here in Mexico

as a founder of Mesoamerican civilization.

It's a chronicle that goes back
to a very remote past.

Marco's reading
of the temple's glyphs

as a depiction of an ancient apocalypse

flies in the face
of all archaeological opinion.

But that doesn't
necessarily mean he's wrong.

The Temple of The Feathered Serpent
is about 1,300 years old,

and archaeologists are right to say

that there was
no global cataclysm in that epoch

that could have inspired
the Quetzalcoatl myth.

This misses the point.

The tradition is certainly
much older than the temple.

How much older? No one knows.

But there's one period of prehistory
that fits the bill perfectly.

Geologists have confirmed that there was
an ancient apocalypse of some kind.

A period of great cataclysms and floods

that had as big an impact here as it did
nearly everywhere else in the world...

sometime at the end of the last Ice Age,
around 12,800 years ago.

Could the story of Quetzalcoatl's arrival
date back as far as that?

I do not question
the age of the structure itself.

What you have here is just the telling
of a story that is in fact much older.

So, perhaps
what's sadly lacking in archaeology

is an archaeology of ideas.

Perhaps they focus too much
on the dates of a particular construction

and don't consider the ideas
that it's expressing.

Right.

If we're willing to look back
beyond the artificial horizons

that archeology sets,

then the myth at once
begins to make sense,

not as a fanciful account
of imagined events,

but as a true record
of a lost and forgotten past.

Archaeologists reject any such suggestion,

but I find it impossible to ignore

how widespread
these tales of civilizing heroes are.

Sometimes speaking of gods,
sometimes of humans,

who come in a time of chaos
after the great cataclysm.

Teaching the skills of agriculture,

architecture, engineering
and astronomy to the survivors.

In these traditions,

I believe the fingerprints
of a lost civilization are to be found.

So, where was this lost civilization based
before the cataclysm that destroyed it?

There are many possibilities
that have never been properly considered.

Because, as we've seen,
at the height of the last Ice Age,

the planet looked very different.

But further clues await us
a quarter of the way around the world.

There, just as in Cholula,

dozens of immense temples
were believed to have been built

by an ancient race of giants,

on islands that once weren't islands,
in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea.

And that's where my journey takes me next,

to a gigantic riddle in stone.

The mysterious megaliths of Malta.