Original subtitles

A hidden cave that could hold the remains

of an ancient civilization.

An entire city entombed in volcanic ash.

And a royal grave

guarded by thousands

of silent warriors.

Throughout history, kings, emperors and pharaohs

have been laid to rest in sacred tombs.

These burial grounds were meant to protect the body,

and to allow the soul to transition

into the afterlife.

But is it possible that tombs serve another purpose?

Could they contain not just human remains,

but also surprising secrets about our past?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Here in this rugged, mountainous region

bordering the Gobi Desert,

two brothers begin digging a well on their family farm.

But instead of water, their shovels reveal

a life-sized statue of a soldier.

When archeologists later excavate the site,

they unearth thousands of these sculptures,

known as the Terra Cotta Warriors,

each with remarkably

realistic facial expressions.

Every now and then, there's a game-changing moment

in archaeological history.

This is a discovery of that magnitude,

because as time went on,

it became clear that this wasn't just a few pots.

It was actually a vast underground army

of 6,000 soldiers

standing to attention.

These incredibly lifelike statues

are actually part of a massive underground tomb complex

called the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.

The mausoleum covers an area

of nearly four miles and contains

numerous underground palaces and chambers

that surround a tomb mound at the center of the complex.

The tomb mound itself is quite unassuming.

It's sort of a pyramid shape, but it's made of earth.

And these days it's covered with trees.

So it's all very green, but when it was

originally built, it would've supported

some large structures, some large temple structures.

So the tomb complex is far away

from the place where they discovered

the Terra Cotta Warriors.

And everyone doesn't really understand,

initially, how they can be part of the same thing.

The sheer size of the complex is unprecedented.

It's an amazing sight.

The scope of this is hard to describe.

There's chariots, there's horses.

There's an entire labyrinthine complex that exits.

And all of it intentionally kept

underground in what is literally an underworld.

This vast tomb complex was built in the 3rd century BC

to the final resting place for Qin Shi Huang,

the first emperor of a unified China.

Mausoleums and tombs in China

are statements of who you were.

So what you get with this tomb is a huge statement

of how important this man was.

The amazing thing about his reign

is it only lasted 11 years,

but, in that time, he completely transformed China

by making it one unified whole.

Even the name China seems to derive

from the name of his state, Qin.

So this is a guy who was unprecedented.

He thought of himself as the ruler of the known world.

As soon as he came to power he started building

this tomb complex as a way of

transporting what he had acquired and what he had

accomplished in the living world into the afterlife,

into the world of immortals, and that included

material things like treasures and-and vast untold riches.

The pyramid-shaped artificial mound at the center

of the complex is 250 feet tall.

Archaeologists believe that underneath this mound

is a chamber containing Emperor Qin's tomb.

According to ancient Chinese writings,

every detail of this chamber was designed

to perfectly mirror the emperor's kingdom.

There's a very elaborate passage that vividly describes

how the tomb was designed

from the records of the grand historian,

Szuma Chien.

The main feature was a small-scale representation

of the Chinese empire at the time.

And so it had all the waterways and the rivers and the oceans

and geographical features that were duplicated

on a small scale.

There is this sense in Chinese society,

going right back to pre-history,

that when people die, they kind of switch

to another plane of existence

and life goes on for them there.

So the coffin of the first emperor sits

in the center of a map of the known world.

And so the towns are little jewels and the roads are gold.

And then above him, you have a ceiling that has

the constellations, uh, in the sky because

the constellations are supposedly reflected

by the world on the ground, so you have

heaven and earth and the emperor in the middle.

Um, and it's all picked out in precious metals.

To date, the central burial mound

has only been partially excavated

because archeologists believe that,

according to historical records,

it may be too hazardous to uncover.

According to the grand historian,

the tomb itself is highly contaminated with mercury.

The rivers and oceans

were represented by flowing mercury.

And this mercury was

fed through a very complex drainage system

and was mechanically activated,

so that it permanently circulated.

In ancient China,

mercury was also believed to be,

uh, one of the substances

that could help somebody achieve immortality.

And it just so happens that, since 1981, we've known

that there are very high concentrations of mercury

in the soil, um, around the grave mound.

Because the soil around the tomb has high levels of mercury,

archaeologists are reticent about opening up the tomb.

There's a concern they could expose

the local populations to mercury poisoning.

And that it would lead to a large amount of the artifacts

being damaged or lost irretrievably.

Will archaeologists ever be able to safely open

the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang?

No one is certain.

But there are those who believe the emperor's body

was never located in the tomb's burial chamber

in the first place.

In Chinese history books, it says that the emperor was

buried at Mount Li, but it's not clear if that

meant in the mountain or in a grave mound near the mountain.

And this is important, because in the Middle Ages,

there was an historian who suggested that, actually,

the emperor was buried in a jade mine

in a mountain nearby.

So, it's very possible that the tomb mound itself

is a decoy, that he's not there at all.

And if they start digging there,

they'll be digging in the wrong place.

One big, hanging question that we're still

left with is, of course, what else is there?

We've only uncovered parts of this tomb.

So much of it still has not been revealed.

And who knows if it will ever be discovered.

Is it possible

that the tomb of China's first emperor is a decoy,

and his remains are actually held somewhere else?

Well, if that's true,

then it could be quite an elaborate ruse.

In fact, there's another massive tomb,

located in Ireland, that has an equally mysterious purpose.

Because it was designed to offer passage

to the land of the dead.

Rising above this region's lush fields,

not far from the banks of the River Boyne,

is one of the most mysterious ancient tombs

in the world.

Newgrange.

This massive stone structure

has a diameter of 87 yards,

or nearly the size of a football field.

Newgrange is the envy of monuments all around the planet.

The thing that people say when they come here

is they're surprised how big it is.

It is huge.

It takes up over an acre of ground.

And there is an estimated

200,000 tons of stone in the monument.

According to archaeological findings,

Newgrange was built around the year 3200 BC,

making it centuries older

than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

Because Newgrange is so ancient,

there's still much that we don't know about

the people who built this extraordinary tomb.

Probably one of the most fascinating

things about Newgrange is the fact

that it was built in pre-metal days,

just as the Stone Age was kind of sort of coming to a close.

And it's difficult to imagine

how ancient people were able to assemble this

massive monument, but they managed to do so.

A lot of work went into the building of this monument,

and it was all done with extreme precision.

Inside, there are carved stones.

And then you come into a chamber, which is quite roomy.

So you have this cathedral-like feeling when you walk inside.

Newgrange is what archaeologists refer to as a passage tomb.

It has a passage leading

into the interior.

And in that interior, human bones

have generally been found, in different quantities.

There are human remains in these places, but the most common

um, burial practice around this time was cremation.

So we find multiple people being cremated and then interred.

Then the traditional Irish folklore

that dates way, way back, the other world of the dead,

it sort of overlaps with our own.

So the idea is that these sites would sort of allow

for this passage between the realm of the dead

and the realm of the living.

On the back recess of the inner chamber

there is a tri-spiral.

The most common interpretation

that people come up with is that it represents

this constant cycle of renewal and regeneration.

On a spiritual level, it may promise rebirth

for the spirits of the dead.

The tri-spiral is unique to Newgrange.

And it's also found on the entrance stone

and throughout the tomb.

Archaeologists who have studied Newgrange

have theorized that this ancient tomb

was intended to serve a profound and mystical purpose.

And as evidence, they point to a curious element

of its design that is only visible

one day a year.

Newgrange is unusual in that it has

a very special aperture...

or opening above the entrance.

On the day of winter solstice,

this glimmering golden beam of sunlight enters there,

and pierces the darkness.

When the sun rises at winter solstice,

light hits the chamber

for precisely 17 minutes.

And some even speculate that the spirits

would have used the light

to leave the burial chamber and go and join the deities.

Did the builders of Newgrange

specifically design it to be a gateway into the afterlife?

Some archaeologists believe that the answer is yes.

And they also claim that Newgrange was built

to allow those who stood within its inner chamber

to communicate directly

with the dead.

In the case of Newgrange, the notion of the sunbeam

drawing out the souls of the deceased,

and-and leading them to that other world,

is not just a one-way ticket.

It was a portal between worlds.

Were the people inside there...

The priests, for instance, the Druids...

Were they in contact with the ancestors who'd gone before?

The builders of the monument have created a space

which is separate, which is a world of the dead.

There was always a feeling that this is

a house for the spirits.

Where consulting with the ancestors,

asking advice from the ancestors,

would have happened 5,000 years ago.

Which is extraordinary.

Was Newgrange constructed to be not only a tomb,

but also a place where the living

communicated with the dead?

It's an intriguing theory.

Which is why archaeologists continue

to study Newgrange in the hope of one day

unraveling all of its mysteries.

How people choose to handle their remains

always tells you a lot about

what people think about the afterlife.

Where are they going?

What is the relationship between the soul and the body?

And in Newgrange, this had a lot to do

with this notion that the dead are still around.

And perhaps can see you even if you can't see them.

So, in a sense, with Newgrange,

we might even say that the dead

did achieve immortality.

The idea that Newgrange was built to allow

the soul to live forever is fascinating.

But on the other hand, there are some tombs

that seem frozen in time.

For instance, there's an entire city

located near Mount Vesuvius

that suddenly became a mass grave

when it was covered in a blanket of volcanic ash.

At approximately 1:00 p.m. on a peaceful late summer day,

this ancient Roman city in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius

is shaken by a massive volcanic eruption.

Within minutes, superheated gas and lava

engulf the city and its surroundings.

In an instant, thousands of people are

buried alive, as a city that was once their home

suddenly becomes their tomb.

Nearly 2,000 years after the eruption,

Pompeii is a city that remains

frozen in time.

This eruption was what we call a pyroclastic eruption.

Where clouds of-of ash and debris,

hundreds of degrees hot, came flowing down the mountain,

flash-frying everything in its path.

And miraculously, the heat of this cloud

was enough to carbonize and preserve,

rather than destroy, all kinds of information.

We have well-preserved architecture,

wood and organic materials,

foodstuffs,

human remains,

animal remains that have been preserved

for 2,000 years

beneath, uh, this volcanic debris.

Today the excavated ruins of Pompei

offer archaeologists and tourists

a breathtaking look at the doomed ancient city.

Perhaps the most intriguing discovery found beneath the ash

from Mt. Vesuvius' eruption

was an ancient Roman structure

located not far from Pompeii

known as the Villa dei Papiri.

The Villa dei Papiri was a Roman luxury villa

that was full of sculpture

and marble and bronze.

The villa was discovered by chance in 1750

by well diggers, who, tunneling about 75 feet

through volcanic debris,

first hit a colored marble floor

with an amazing pattern

made up of bright red and yellow marbles.

We think this was once the vacation home

of a Roman senator of the highest rank

of an old noble family

named Lucius Calpurnius Piso.

The volcanic ash that buried Villa dei Papiri,

did not only preserve the physical structure.

It also entombed a library that contained

more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls.

These scrolls are an extraordinary record

of the thoughts and writings of people

who lived nearly 2,000 years ago.

Those texts were discovered when the city was excavated

and some of the artifacts were first found.

The people who discovered them didn't know what they were.

They thought that maybe they were pieces of branches

or logs because they were rolled up and carbonized.

Until someone finally realized these are texts on papyrus.

The Villa dei Papiri library is significant because

it's the only surviving library

from antiquity with its contents.

There were scrolls found that date to the 3rd,

2nd and 1st century BC

and the 1st century AD.

About 300 of them or so have been un-scrolled.

And they contain mostly philosophic texts,

some poetry, some literary criticism,

a little bit of history.

But many of the scrolls are so tightly bound together

and carbonized that there's been a moratorium

on attempts to open them.

Fear of damaging the scrolls has left many of them

virtually untouched for over 100 years.

But new technology has presented an extraordinary opportunity

to actually read these mysterious ancient texts.

Scientists in the computer science department

at the University of Kentucky have developed

a new method known as "virtual unwrapping,"

which uses a sophisticated X-ray machine

to scan the scrolls without damaging them.

The virtual unwrapping that we innovated basically

allows a 360-degree set of views to be collected

from an object that rotates in front of an X-ray beam.

This is a real scroll that's 2,000 years old.

And in cross section, we can see

there-there's damage, there are parts that are missing,

sections that are broken.

Now we're using our software for the second step,

which is to trace these wraps all the way through,

so that we can build a 3D model that lets us

flatten that out and then read the text that's on it.

And once we're done, we've achieved

this image that's on the left, which is the final,

completely unwrapped version.

This is a quote from Democritus

who was an early Greek philosopher

and is very well known for having postulated with others

that materials are made of atoms.

I think it's remarkable that 2,000 years ago,

Greek philosophers were postulating

what we now know is true from science.

Thus far, the team has been able to digitally scan

two complete scrolls and a number of fragments.

They hope that, in the future, technology will advance

and allow them to reveal even more.

But what secrets might be contained

in those 2,000-year-old scrolls?

One exciting possibility that has been suggested

is that the original letters

written by Jesus's apostle Paul

could've been kept within the library at Villa dei Papiri.

The Villa of the Papyri was entombed about

40 to 50 years after the death of Jesus.

At this time, the original apostles are now out doing

their mission work in various parts of the Mediterranean.

So it's entirely likely that the Villa of the Papyri,

could have a collection

of copies of Paul's letters.

If the letters from the Apostle Paul circulated

and found its way into the collection,

such a discovery would represent the earliest Christian

material that we have, almost dating back

to the time of Christ and the disciples.

Being able to use these techniques

to understand history in a way that's almost forensic

is gonna bring surprising things forward

and we're gonna be revealing more secrets

than we'd ever imagined before.

It's incredible to think that the original writings

of Paul the Apostle might have been buried

and preserved when Mount Vesuvius erupted.

And, also, it makes you wonder

are there other tombs that could be hiding

forgotten knowledge?

Well...

there's one located in Ecuador that might contain

the ancient library

of a lost civilization.

The Andes Mountains.

In the eastern part of Ecuador,

not far from the border of Peru,

is the entrance to a cave

known as Cueva de los Tayos,

or the Caves of Tayos.

Located at an elevation of 2,600 feet,

this winding cave system contains a network

of tunnels approximately three miles long

and is considered sacred

by the native Shuar people of the region.

But what's most remarkable about these caves...

is that somewhere within its depths

is believed to be a tomb that was constructed

by a mysterious lost civilization.

The Tayos Caves are arguably one of the most

enigmatic cave systems in the world.

They first came to note in the 1960s,

when an explorer by the name of Juan Moricz

came suddenly out of the jungle,

claiming that he'd descended hundreds of feet

into the Tayos Caves,

and had seen incredible things.

This included this tomb chamber

that is supposed to contain

evidence of a lost civilization,

most particularly what he described as a metal library

of these metal tablets,

seemingly in gold, with these

weird glyphs written all over them,

that were carved by some kind of ancient race

that has been entirely lost to us.

And Juan Moricz claimed

that this is what he'd seen and wanted to...

tell the world about this.

A metal library containing gold tablets?

Juan Moricz's extraordinary account

sparked worldwide curiosity.

And many began to wonder whether there really were

ancient gold tablets hidden somewhere

in the Tayos Caves.

Anybody reading that story

would've been fascinated by the mystery of the Tayos Caves.

And this is indeed what happened,

because it attracted the attention

of a Scottish civil engineer

by the name of Stan Hall,

who decided that he would create

an expedition to explore the caves.

In 1976, Stan Hall

recruited a number of people to join his expedition

to the remote jungle of Ecuador in search of the gold tablets,

including American astronaut Neil Armstrong,

whose participation helped to draw worldwide

interest to Hall's efforts.

My father became very obsessed with this treasure story.

The expedition that he mounted is still today

one of the largest of all time.

And it's because it involved over 100 personnel

from both the British and Ecuadorian government's

special forces and some universities

sent their scientists.

The main challenge was entering the cave.

Because the only way to get in

is this very deep hole in the ground.

According to Stan Hall's account of the expedition,

the entrance to the Tayos Caves was a hole

that required the group to descend one by one

more than 200 feet.

Soon after they entered the cave,

they made an extraordinary discovery.

They saw these walls

leading from one chamber to the next

that looked smooth and they looked like they're...

cut at right angles, so...

it looks like the ruins of some lost civilization.

The massive walls did not appear to be formed naturally,

but instead they looked like they were carved and placed,

as if they were man-made.

Stan Hall and his team believed this was evidence

that a lost civilization had inhabited

the Tayos Caves.

As they moved deeper into the caves

in search of the gold tablets,

they made another remarkable discovery inside a chamber

they referred to as the Altar of Light.

Inside the Altar of Light,

there was a ray of sunlight that shone straight

into the entrance of that chamber

and it made it really significant.

And within it, there's a smaller chamber

in which my father's expedition found the remains of a person.

They found this human skeleton

and surrounding it was pottery, um,

various shell objects and adornments.

But, unfortunately, when they reached out

to touch this skeleton,

it fell apart, it just fragmented.

Showing how old it was.

But subsequent research

would show that this was around 3,500 years old,

dating back to 1500 BC.

And according to the local Shuar,

this was one of their ancestors,

the race that had inhabited the caves before them.

The discovery of this ancient tomb was an astonishing

and unexpected find, one that heightened the mystery

of who inhabited the Tayos Caves

and led many to wonder what else might be hidden

within this vast network of underground passages.

A few interesting things happened

during Stan Hall's expedition.

They did not find the metal library,

but they did find other things.

Number one, it had these

walls that were cut at right angles.

And number two, they found a corpse that was dated

to go back to 1500 BC.

So even though they didn't find the metal library,

Stan was still convinced that it was there somewhere.

Is there a collection of metal tablets

hidden somewhere in the Tayos Caves?

The search for answers continues.

Just like on the other side of the world,

in the mountains of Mongolia,

where archaeologists are looking for the lost tomb

of the most notorious warlord

in history.

Towering above the sparse landscape

is a massive, 130-foot-tall statue

made of stainless steel.

This magnificent monument is a depiction

of Mongolia's most famous ruler,

Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan is one of the most prominent figures

in all of history, and he came up

as a very small, minor player in what was a small, minor country

that most of the world hadn't heard of.

But by the time he had died,

he had conquered most of the known world.

Genghis Khan is unquestionably

Mongolia's greatest, uh, cultural

and historical and national hero.

He was at the head of one

of the largest empires in the world,

second only to the British Empire.

And many people

maybe outside of Mongolia might remember Genghis Khan

for, uh, the bloodshed and conquests.

But he was also at the origins

of many technological, scientific,

astronomical developments and advancements.

After 20 years of empire-building,

Genghis Khan died in the year 1227 AD,

while battling the western Shi dynasty.

Khan's exact cause of death is a mystery.

But before he passed, he commanded

that his final resting place should be unmarked,

so that his tomb would be undisturbed forever.

The circumstances of his burial are quite mysterious.

According to legend, Genghis Khan's body

was brought back to Mongolia

by a group of, uh, 2,000 servants

who were guarded by a group of soldiers.

And once they finished their work of burying the body,

the servants were all killed by the soldiers.

Now the soldiers themselves were then killed

by a second group of soldiers,

who then themselves committed suicide,

so that the burial site would remain

forever undisturbed and unknown.

Many great rulers in many parts of the world

have wanted not to display one's body, but rather to hide it.

And that would have been practiced by Genghis Khan.

Because he knew that his tomb, if it was ever uncovered,

would be an enormously political tool

for whoever uncovered it.

And he wanted to control that legacy.

In the eight centuries since Genghis Khan's death,

many have tried to find his tomb.

But thus far, no one has been able to defeat

Khan's drastic measures to keep its location a secret.

Which naturally begs the question...

where could it be?

The Khentii Mountain Range, 2016.

A French archaeological expedition

ventures deep into this rugged region of northern Mongolia

to find Genghis Khan's lost tomb.

The team believes that the tomb may be hidden

near a particular mountain peak that is known as...

Burkhan Khaldun.

Burkhan Khaldun is almost 8,000 feet high

and covers more than 93 square miles.

Exploring this vast, rugged terrain

is made even more difficult because, in 2015,

the mountain was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site,

rendering if off-limits to any excavations

in search of Genghis Khan's tomb.

Mongolians in general still desire

to honor Genghis Kahn's wishes.

They discourage archaeological digs,

uh, to try to find the tomb.

He is still very, very much a hero in Mongolia.

And his wishes are still respected.

Because of the restrictions

against searching Burkhan Khaldun,

members of the French expedition decided that the key

to finding Genghis Khan's tomb

was to explore the mountain from the sky.

And in 2016, they used drones

equipped with both photographic and infrared cameras

to do an unprecedented survey of the area.

After surveying the mountain from above,

the French team made an extraordinary discovery.

They identified a mound that was 130 feet high

and 820 feet wide

that they believe might be man-made.

The French team that accessed, uh, the mountain

identified that the pyramid-shaped elevation

also had a little shrine

and it sits atop of this sacred mountain.

So they speculate that this would

probably be where Genghis Khan is buried.

Is it possible that the structure discovered

by the French expedition on Burkhan Khaldun

is the tomb of Genghis Khan?

For now, that question is unanswered,

because the Mongolian people remain committed

to honoring the revered emperor's dying wish

that his tomb should never be found.

Will Genghis Khan's final resting place ever be found?

It might seem impossible after all this time,

but new technology is helping archaeologists

discover tombs that were lost for centuries,

including a number of Egyptian burial sites

that weren't found by digging,

but rather by satellites

orbiting the Earth.

Archaeologists from the University of Alabama

announce that they have discovered thousands

of ancient Egyptian sites by analyzing satellite imagery.

Photographs taken from 435 miles above the Earth

showed that the ancient city of Tanis,

which is located in northeastern Egypt,

was much larger than previously thought.

The images of Tanis also revealed

over 1,000 lost tombs

that had been hidden beneath the sands

for thousands of years.

We've known for 300 years roughly where Tanis is.

But digging up a couple of sphinxes or a temple is not

the same as being able to look down from above

at the entire area.

And to see not only that it's four times

larger than we thought it was,

but also, when you look down on the satellite imagery,

there's a little cluster of huts which gets a bit bigger,

and then there's a kind of mansion phase where people get

these bigger buildings.

There's a temple district, and suddenly it allows you

to see tombs below the earth that people have never suspected

were there before.

What's happened is that satellite imagery

has actually given us the entire layout

of that city for the first time.

As we go into the future,

the techniques of archaeology are becoming better and better.

Space archaeology allows you to look

from above.

Beyond the human spectrum.

It can look into the infrareds,

so it can see tombs and cities below the earth

that people have never suspected were there before.

Thanks to these technological tools,

finding hidden tombs is becoming much easier,

including in areas that are extremely difficult to excavate,

such as under the shifting sands of the Arabian desert.

Which was where, in 2021,

an incredible tomb structure was discovered

near the city of Al-'Ula

in northwest Saudi Arabia.

In the deserts of Arabia, many round structure tombs

have been discovered using satellite technologies.

These features are often located in very remote places.

But with such technologies, we can

locate them much more easily.

What they worked out was that, at some point,

six and a half thousand years ago,

there had been a monumental tomb structure

in what is now the Arabian desert.

And so, suddenly, that changes our perspective

on the history of the Arabian Peninsula.

And we've worked that all out because a satellite

notices something from way, way up.

No matter what tools we use to find them,

the search for lost tombs will continue.

Because these sacred burial places

contain secrets about our past.

Some tombs are elaborate,

some are mystical and some are hidden

right beneath our feet.

Human beings have been burying their dead

for millennia, and we're often unaware

that we're walking around on cemeteries

from the distant past.

But sometimes a tomb is the only way

we can access the past.

The further you go back in history,

the greater the likelihood

that a tomb is the only way you're gonna find out

about life back then.

The amazing thing about archaeology

is it repeatedly confronts us

with what we never even dreamed of.

Could there be thousands of lost tombs

scattered around the world, waiting to be found?

It's a tantalizing prospect.

But maybe we should remember that our ancestors

sometimes went to great lengths

to build and hide their sacred burial places.

So while we're exploring ancient tombs,

we should also take care to let the dead rest in peace

and allow their journey into the afterlife

to remain undisturbed and...

unexplained.

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