Original subtitles

[narrator] A bizarre skeleton is uncovered in Chile's Atacama Desert.

Is this a human skeleton that's been altered somehow?

Or could it be a completely different species?

In the Gobi Desert,

researchers discover a massive structure

which had been hidden for centuries.

[Dr. Anthony] This was no ordinary wall.

It was one of four ramparts

surrounding the remains of a town

or even a small kingdom.

Archaeologists uncover a macabre scene

in Peru's Moche Valley.

About 1,000 feet from the Pacific,

they spotted human bones.

In total, they recovered 137 complete human skeletons.

Could this be an ancient burial ground?

Ancient lost cities.

Forgotten treasures.

Extraordinary curiosities once lost to the sands of time

are finally exposed.

As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath

the deserts of the world, the "Secrets in the Sand"

will finally be revealed.

[wind blowing]

The Atacama Desert dominates northern Chile's landscape,

extending over 600 miles from one end to the other.

[Dr. Dan] The Atacama is one of the driest deserts in the world.

On average, they get less than an inch of rain a year,

and that's partly because of an ocean current in the Pacific

called the Humboldt current.

That brings up really cold water

from the bottom of the ocean,

and that keeps the air above it very, very dry.

So any wind blowing into the desert from the ocean

has no water in it.

[Dr. Alison] The desert is also surrounded by the Andes

and the Chilean coastal range.

These mountains block moisture from reaching the desert,

creating a kind of death-zone for any living plant or animal.

[Teddy] The extreme environment is almost otherworldly.

In fact, soil samples from the region are comparable

to samples from Mars.

For decades now, scientists at NASA

have used the Atacama Desert as a testing ground

for instruments designed to explore the red planet.

In the heart of the Atacama,

long-abandoned buildings have created ghost towns.

The people who once lived and worked here moved to nearby

cities for a more comfortable life.

While walking the empty streets of one of these towns,

an intrepid explorer makes an astonishing discovery.

In one of the town's abandoned buildings,

he finds an extraordinary skeleton.

It's incredibly small, measuring only six inches

from head-to-toe.

The tiny skull is especially striking.

It's elongated and has a distinct cone-shape.

And while typical human skeletons

have 12 pairs of ribs, this one only has ten.

It's really bizarre and certainly raises

a lot of questions.

Is this a human skeleton that's been altered somehow?

Or could it be a completely different species?

The skeleton soon enters the world of rare artifacts,

eventually landing in the hands of a private collector

in Spain, where it sparks intrigue and controversy.

As it so happens, this collector

was a UFO enthusiast,

so it wasn't long before this skeleton caused

a big stir in the UFO community.

You had all these UFO believers claiming that

this body's unique morphology

only had one possible explanation.

It couldn't possibly be human. It had to be an alien.

Unsurprisingly, these claims attracted a lot

of media attention.

A team of scientists caught wind of the story and offered

to sequence the skeleton's DNA to find out once and for all

whether the bones belonged to a human or to some other,

maybe unidentified, species.

The scientists began a series of tests

on the Atacama skeleton, now nicknamed "Ata."

Their results lead to a resounding conclusion.

[Teddy] Using skeletal radiography,

computed tomography, or CT, and whole-genome sequencing,

they proved that Ata is beyond a doubt human.

They even go one step further and identify her as a female.

[Anthea] Looking at the body, you can see that her skeleton

was actually mummified.

Was this done deliberately?

Could a burial ritual have resulted

in Ata's striking bone abnormalities?

Ata's remarkable preservation

may point to a link between this tiny skeleton

and one of the world's oldest mummification rituals.

[Dr. Dan] The Atacama Desert is home

to the oldest mummies in the world,

like 2,000 years older than Egyptian mummies.

These astonishing remains

belong to the Chinchorro culture.

They're the first marine hunter-gatherers

that settled in this desert.

And they settled between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago.

[Dr. Alison] The oldest Chinchorro mummy, known as the Acha Man,

was found near the city of Arica and is estimated to be

over 9,000 years old.

Over the course of the last century,

hundreds of these mummies have been uncovered

along Peru's desert beaches.

Some of the mummies were preserved naturally,

desiccated by the extreme heat and dry conditions.

But others were mummified artificially,

according to a precise ritual.

[Teddy] First, the Chinchorro would remove the skin

and soft tissue from the body.

The cavities left behind were then stuffed with leaves,

feathers, sticks, and other natural fibers

before the skin was sewn back on with reeds.

The last step involved attaching thick black hair

to the mummy's head and covering its face with a clay mask

and openings for the eyes and mouth.

These rituals were performed on both children and adults,

which begs the question,

could Ata be one of these Chinchorro mummies?

Could the mummification process

have altered her skeleton somehow?

To date Ata's remains, the team conducting

her skeletal analysis focuses on the DNA fragments.

[Dr. Dan] The Chinchorro mummies are thousands of years old,

And over that length of time, DNA degrades.

You get fragmented samples of low quality,

but that's not what scientists see with Ata at all.

Her DNA looks great.

[Dr. Alison] Ata's DNA fragments averaged around 300 base pairs.

Remarkably large for a specimen that might be very old.

When they compared this data to established DNA decay models,

they determined that Ata couldn't be more than 500 years old.

So she didn't belong to the Chinchorro culture,

and their mummification rituals weren't the cause of

her skeletal abnormalities.

So how did her bones form in this peculiar way?

As genetic testing continues on the skeleton,

the team analyzing Ata's DNA makes a breakthrough.

They discovered a serial of mutations

in seven of Ata's genes.

Many of these mutations are known to be associated with

bone-development abnormalities, including dwarfism,

cranial malformations, rib anomalies,

and premature joint fissures.

While these gene mutations have all been documented

individually before, this specific cluster has never

been seen anywhere else.

It's unlikely that Ata would have survived her many

conditions, and we now think that she was most likely born

prematurely, at only about 15 weeks old.

[Teddy] While this unique series of mutations seems to explain

why Ata looks so unusual to untrained-eyes,

another question remains unanswered --

Where did she come from?

And could her environment have played a role in

her unique development?

In the never-ending search for clues about Ata's history,

experts return to the place where she was found,

the ghost towns of the Atacama Desert.

[Dr. Dan] These towns were not ordinary settlements.

They were mining towns, and they were established

to extract one mineral in particular -- saltpeter.

Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate,

is an essential ingredient for gunpowder

and for fertilizer, and it was once so valuable

it was referred to as "white-gold."

[Dr. Alison] The Atacama Desert

is the world's largest natural deposit of saltpeter,

and these small mining communities thrived for decades.

But life here was extremely tough.

Long hours in the hot sun meant that

working conditions were brutal.

And the towns were entirely dependent

on the saltpeter industry for survival.

[Teddy] These towns boomed for nearly a century,

so much so that Saltpeter once accounted

for 50% of Chile's total revenue.

But in the 1930s and 40s, German chemists realized

they could synthesize the compound in factories,

saving time and money.

Almost overnight, the mining towns of the Atacama

lost their lifeline.

[Anthea] Ata was found in the oldest of these communities,

a town called La Noria

that was founded in the 1820s

and abandoned just after the Second World War.

We aren't sure when Ata was born,

but we do know that she's less than 500 years old.

Could she have been from La Noria, where she was found?

The potential link between Ata and La Noria leads to new,

intriguing possibilities.

Besides its use in gunpowder and fertilizer,

potassium nitrate is a common ingredient

in a ton of different foods and cosmetics.

[Dr. Alison] In small quantities, potassium nitrate

is completely safe, but too much of it can be fatal.

It can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin,

and high enough levels of exposure reduces

the blood's ability to transport oxygen.

This causes a bluish tinge to the skin,

could cause trouble breathing, collapse, and even death.

Animal studies have found that high levels of saltpeter

may have devastating effects on pregnancy.

Over the course of several generations,

rats fed a diet high in potassium nitrate

began to develop physical malformations,

including cleft palates

and deformations of the skull and eyes.

The people who lived in La Noria would have been exposed

to exceptionally high levels of saltpeter

during the mining process, as well as in day-to-day life,

so the environment Ata's parents lived in may have

likely contributed to her skeletal anomalies.

Despite years of research,

Ata remains an enduring mystery.

Now, we don't fully understand

whether Ata's malformations are the result of those toxins

or whether they're just random mutations.

And we also don't know

a lot of other very basic things about her.

And the main reason for all of that is that

she's held in a private collection

and she's not accessible for further study.

All in all, Ata's this really special situation

that has sparked a ton of controversy.

[Dr. Alison] Ever since she entered the spotlight,

people around the world have called for Ata

to be returned to Chile.

Her genetic analysis suggests

that she was likely of Chilean descent,

which raises the very real possibility that

she may have descendants still living in the country.

Maybe more genetic testing can be done to find them

and bring Ata home.

To this day, Ata's story haunts the Atacama Desert.

As calls for her repatriation continue,

she remains a powerful symbol of our responsibility

to honor the dead.

[wind blows]

The steps and sand dunes of the Gobi Desert

stretch for a thousand miles

from Northern China to Southern Mongolia.

It gets its name from the Mongolian word

for waterless place.

The Gobi isn't the largest

or even the driest desert in the world, but it is

the Earth's most northerly desert.

It's also the least populated and least visited environment

outside of the polar caps,

no doubt due to its harsh conditions.

Extreme fluctuations in temperature

make it inhospitable, and punishing sandstorms

from the West can bury everything in their path.

Despite this, the Gobi Desert boasts a rich human history,

from the clashes of ancient Chinese dynasties

and the Mongol Empire to the Silk Road trade route

that facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas, and beliefs

between East and West.

[Teddy] To the outside world,

the Gobi has largely remained unknown.

While there have been folk tales and rumors

about lost cities and civilizations

buried under the sand,

aside from a handful of European and American explorers,

most of the desert's secrets

have stayed with its inhabitants.

A team of explorers is conducting research

in Western Inner Mongolia,

downstream from the Ejin River,

when they come across something unexpected.

[Dr. Amma] There was an enormous sand dune partially covering

a man-made mud brick structure.

As the sand was cleared away, the structure was revealed

to be the corner of two large walls.

[Dr. Anthony] After the rest of the sand was removed,

they discovered the corner wall was 13 feet thick

and 30 feet tall. So this was no ordinary wall.

It was one of four ramparts

surrounding the remains of a town

or even a small kingdom.

The massive walls roughly form a rectangle,

1,200 feet across North to South,

and almost 1,450 feet from East to West.

There are two openings, or gates,

on the East and West sides,

and inside this rectangle, the crumbled

remains of the town are pretty much everywhere.

The buildings to the South are smaller

and appear to be former dwellings,

while the larger buildings to the North

are more decorated and official-looking.

Clearly, this is some kind of settlement that had been

occupied for a long time

at one point in the region's long history.

But when? And by whom?

As a team of archaeologists proceeds with an excavation,

vital clues about the city's identity are uncovered.

[Dr. Amma] The first structures within the city walls to be cleared

were five temple-like buildings to the North.

They resemble pagodas,

which indicates a Chinese influence,

but they're actually Tibetan Buddhist temples

called stupas.

But it's what was within the stupas

that was truly stunning.

Hundreds upon hundreds of artifacts, statues,

and painted murals filled with Buddhist iconography

and beautifully rendered calligraphy.

Much of it was in shockingly good condition

since the desert climate had prevented moisture,

and most of the artifacts were buried and preserved

by the sand.

The researchers turned their attention

to the city's South end, which leads to more surprises.

[Dr. Amma] Many everyday items were found,

like bits of broken pottery, coins, tools, and more books

and religious artifacts.

Many of the items were from Eurasia and further afield,

which strongly suggests a once vibrant hub of busy trade

and cultural exchange.

[Anthea] Historical records have indicated

the presence of a legendary lost city

called Khara-Khoto, somewhere in the Gobi Desert.

But its location has never been known.

So is it possible that this is Khara-Khoto?

Also known as the Black City,

Khara-Khoto was an enclosed settlement built in 1032 CE

by the Tangut, a distinct ethnic group

of Northwestern China.

Despite the harsh desert conditions,

the city grew into an important mercantile trade hub

and became a key stop along the Silk Road.

[Dr. Anthony] The Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected

China to the Western Mediterranean world

and even beyond.

It didn't only spread goods and spices, but also cultures,

languages, and beliefs across continents.

[Anthea] Khara-Khoto became a bustling commercial

and cultural epicenter because, according to records,

it was strategically located, the only stop in the desert

for hundreds of miles.

Tradesmen making long treks across the sand for weeks

would stop to do business,

but also to rest and get supplies like food and water.

But there's a shroud of darkness surrounding the city.

After flourishing for hundreds of years,

by the late 14th century,

Khara-Khoto had vanished without a trace.

As the researchers begin to delve

into the treasure trove of relics

collected from the city,

they come across a significant clue.

[Dr. Amma] In addition to the religious artifacts, there were stacks

and stacks of manuscripts, written texts,

and scriptures in the temples. But they weren't just Tibetan.

These manuscripts were also written in other languages,

including Chinese, and most tellingly,

the rare Tangut script.

This definitely tracks with the year 1032,

when Khara-Khoto was said to be

a Tangut stronghold

of the Tibeto-Burman tribal union.

[Teddy] Taken in total, all signs point to the conclusion

that this is the mysterious dark city

of Khara-Khoto after all.

But one question remains.

How did such a thriving center just disappear?

Khara-Khoto wasn't the first ancient city on the Silk Road

that suddenly ceased to exist.

One of the most famous stops along the trade route was

the walled city and kingdom of Loulan,

located in Western China's Xinjiang region.

Loulan was referred to as an oasis state

due to its proximity to the lake waters

of the Lop Nur.

However, at some point between the 3rd and the 7th century,

the city vanished, and its whereabouts remained

a mystery until the early 1900s,

when a Swedish explorer

discovered it below the desert sand.

It was initially believed Loulan's demise was a result

of climate change.

As the lake waters of Lop Nur dried up over the years,

Loulan was abandoned, since the survival of the city

depended on a water supply.

But more recent studies have shown that the environmental

crisis was partially man-made.

Irrigation practices of the time

also contributed to the draining of the lake.

Could this have happened at Khara-Khoto too?

[Dr. Amma] Khara-Khoto was located next to a water source,

the Ejin River.

And while the Ejin did eventually suffer

from a reduction in water flow,

there's no proof it was

the cause of Khara-Khoto's demise.

With or without human intervention.

A closer look at the region's history may prove

it was human activity that brought Khara-Khoto

to its premature end -- the human act of war.

[Teddy] Although Khara-Khoto was established in 1032

and continued to thrive under the rule of the Tangut-led

Western Xia dynasty, the city functioned as

a peaceful sanctuary for several different

cultures and religions.

[Dr. Amma] But just to be safe, the exterior walls and ramparts

were built to defend against potential invasions,

which may have allowed the city to thrive

where other settlements fell to enemy attack.

However, Khara-Khoto wasn't going to stay immune forever.

After a series of punishing attacks from the Mongols,

a nomadic tribe from Central Asia led by Genghis Khan,

Khara-Khoto was captured in 1226.

And a year later, the Tanguts surrendered.

If the Mongols didn't have any use for the Silk Road,

then Khara-Khoto's reason for being would have

no longer existed.

It's possible, as one of the rumors suggested,

that the city fell into ruin shortly after

the Mongols seized it.

But the aftermath of the Mongol invasion

tells a different story.

[Anthea] The reality was that Khara-Khoto not only continued to prosper

after the Mongol conquests, but the Mongolian Empire was

instrumental in growing the Silk Road even further.

This would have resulted in more traders passing

through the city.

[Teddy] The Mongols held on for another 150 years,

until the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by the Ming Dynasty,

and the Mongols were expelled from China, with one exception.

A large hold-out army fled to Khara-Khoto

to plan a counterattack.

When the Chinese learned of this,

they sent thousands of soldiers,

and in 1372, defeated the last Mongols

within the city walls.

It's just one of the many stories

and possible explanations for an ancient city

that continues to inspire speculation

even after its discovery.

While it's generally accepted

that Khara-Khoto fell into decline at some point

after the Chinese reclaimed it from the Mongols,

we may never know the exact reason

for its disappearance.

The discovery of Khara-Khoto revealed a compelling blend

of the rich cultural, political, and religious life

of ancient China and Mongolia, a testament to human resilience

and the transient nature of empires.

The city continues to beckon explorers

and historians eager to uncover more of its secrets.

[wind blowing]

The Moche Valley stretches along

Peru's northern coastline,

spreading out from the Moche River

into the La Libertad Region.

Despite the fact that it's so close

to the Pacific Ocean,

Peru's northern coastline is remarkably dry.

That region gets almost no precipitation at all,

less than one inch of rain per year.

The dry climate is partly due to the Andes Mountains.

As the winds blow from East to West across Peru,

they carry moisture from the Amazon rainforest.

The Andes act as a barrier,

trapping the moisture on their eastern slopes,

leaving the land to the West much drier.

[Dr. Anthony] You might think that agriculture would be impossible

in a place this arid.

But actually, people have been cultivating this land

since the pre-Columbian era.

The Moche people, whom this valley is named after,

flourished between 100 and 700 CE

by building sophisticated canals around the river.

People have lived here

and farmed this land ever since,

relying on irrigation technology for survival.

On the outskirts of Trujillo, the region's capital,

at a site known as Huanchaquito, Las Llamas,

residents notice strange objects

protruding from nearby sand dunes.

About 1,000 feet from the Pacific,

they spotted what looked like human bones,

still mostly buried beneath the sand.

An archaeological team is summoned

and begins to excavate,

and it isn't long before they're greeted

with an unsettling scene.

An archaeological team is summoned

and begins to excavate

at a site known as Huanchaquito, Las Llamas,

and it isn't long before they're greeted

with an unsettling scene.

[Dr. Dan] There are hundreds of bodies buried here.

In total, they recovered 137 complete human skeletons

in the sand.

So, considering the sheer number of bodies,

could this be an ancient burial ground,

maybe built by one of the pre-Columbian civilizations

that lived here?

Using radiocarbon dating techniques,

the team successfully dates

dozens of the Huanchaquito, Las Llamas skeletons.

The results show that the bones are over 600 years old.

The burials date back to the middle of the 15th century,

when this land was home

to the ancient Chimu civilization,

the culture that rose from the ashes of the Moche.

[Dr. Anthony] The Chimu had enormous influence,

ruling over 800 miles of what's today coastal Peru.

Thanks to their advanced irrigation techniques,

they transformed the desert valleys into farmland

fertile enough to support entire cities.

The Chimu capital, Chan Chan,

was the largest city in pre-Columbian America,

and it stood just a 15-minute walk

from Huanchaquito, Las Llamas.

Today, the ruins of the city cover 14 square miles.

For over five centuries, the Chimo Kingdom was

the dominant civilization in Peru,

until an unexpected threat loomed.

[Dr. Alison] In 1470, the Chimu came face to face

with the infamous Incan Empire.

The Inca had controlled their own separate kingdom

for more than 200 years,

until King Tupac Inca Yupanqui set his sights on Chimu land.

[Dr. Dan] The Incan expansion was very strategic.

To minimize the risk of revolution,

they forcibly resettled huge populations,

scattering distinct ethnic groups

and absorbing their major cities.

Using this system,

the Incas eventually managed to increase their empire

to a population of 12 million people.

[Anthea] Given that the skeletons found at Huanchaquito, Las Llamas

date back to the time of the Incan expansion,

maybe they could be linked to some sort of massacre.

Could these people have been murdered

by invading Incan armies as a brutal show of power?

[Dr. Alison] A violent massacre would likely have left behind

a chaotic mass burial, with the bodies discarded

without ceremony or dignity.

These burials were anything but.

The bodies had been carefully arranged,

with many buried in groups of three.

Traces of cotton left on the remains

tell us that they were likely wrapped in shrouds

before being placed in the ground.

As the archaeologists carefully excavate the vast

gravesite, they come to a grim realization.

Looking at the remains, this one really chilling detail

stands out right away. These skeletons are small.

In fact, all but three of them belong to children.

Most of them seem to be between the ages of about 8 and 14,

but some of them are as young as 5.

Strangely, among the children's skeletons

it was determined that

the remains likely belonged to roughly 200 llamas.

Typically, when we find humans and animals buried together,

there's a reason for it.

For instance, elite burials might feature pet

or livestock sacrifices designed to sustain the dead

and accompany them in the afterlife.

But even if that's the case here,

how do you explain the fact that the vast majority

of these remains are children?

The research team analyzes the skeletons for any clues

that might reveal just how these children died,

and it leads to a disturbing discovery.

[Dr. Dan] A lot of the skeletons show evidence of clean cut marks

across the sternum and signs of broken or missing ribs.

That suggests that the rib cage was forced open to retrieve

vital organs, most likely the heart.

And that really only leads to one possible explanation.

These are the remnants of a massive human sacrifice.

[Anthea] A sacrifice of this scale would have come

at an enormous cost to the Chimu,

who prized their children's lives

above all else.

Not only did children represent the future

of Chimu communities, but they also embodied

a high level of spiritual purity.

Llamas were also extremely valuable,

essential for travel, trade, clothing production,

and food.

So what could have warranted a sacrifice of this magnitude?

[Dr. Alison] One theory suggests that the Chimu may have inherited

the practice of human sacrifice from their Moche ancestors

who lived in the area hundreds of years earlier.

The Moche frequently depicted these rituals in their artwork,

often decorating ceramic vessels with an image known

as the Presentation Scene.

A few miles from the Chimu sacrifices stands

the Huaca De La Luna -- a sacred Moche monument.

Archaeological digs here have revealed the bodies

of roughly 70 sacrifice victims.

Cut marks on the skeletons indicate that the bodies were

mutilated and dismembered

before being swept into large pits and abandoned.

[Dr. Anthony] Based on the bone and tooth analysis of the remains

at Huaca De La Luna, it seems unlikely

that the Chimu child sacrifices

were connected to these Moche rituals.

There's one glaring difference.

The Moche victims were mostly fully grown men.

Many of them were in their 30s and 40s.

So these were likely warriors who had been captured

during territorial battles.

New theories point away from Moche culture

to the Chimu's own myths and legends.

The Chimu left no written records

of their spiritual beliefs, but we do know that

they worshiped a legendary character known as Taycanamo.

According to myth,

he was the founder of the Chimu people,

who emerged from the sea

after hatching from a golden egg.

Stories tell of Taycanamo

protecting his people from the sea

by calming storms

and teaching them advanced agricultural technology.

[Dr. Dan] In light of this mythical story,

the orientation of the sacrifice victims

starts to make sense.

Almost all of those children are posed

facing the same direction, and that direction is West,

toward the sea.

So could it be that these children were sacrificed

in the name of Taycanamo?

In an effort to learn more of Huanchaquito, Las Llamas

the researchers begin to investigate the burial grounds,

taking samples from the earth surrounding the skeletons.

This leads to a startling revelation.

[Anthea] The burials were dug through a layer of mud so thick

that it actually preserved the footprints of the people

traveling through the area.

Footprints leading back to the ruins

of the Chimu capital, Chan Chan, can clearly be seen.

This may well be the evidence of a macabre procession,

where the children would have walked to their deaths

from the city.

[Dr. Anthony] Beneath a layer of mud,

there's loose sand,

indicating that the mud was most likely linked

to an isolated weather event.

It would have required a huge amount of water.

Either rainwater or coastal flooding to produce this mud.

To the Chimu, who relied on dry weather

and their sophisticated irrigation systems for food,

this event would have had profound significance.

[Dr. Alison] Every few years, the Northern Coast of Peru

is battered by a phenomenon known as El Niño.

The surface waters of the Pacific

become abnormally warm, leading to increased evaporation

and massive amounts of rain and flooding.

These sacrifices were likely performed

in a desperate attempt to stop torrential rains

from destroying the Chimu's precious crops.

Until the discovery at Huanchaquito, Las Llamas,

there was little evidence the Chimu practiced

human sacrifice at all.

But new discoveries at the nearby Pampa La Cruz

archaeological site prove that this was far

from a one-time ritual.

[Dr. Dan] To date, they've found over 300 child sacrifices

at Pampa La Cruz.

But unlike the sacrifices at Las Llamas, these children

weren't all killed at the same time.

They were spread over the course of several centuries,

with the earliest remains dating back to 1100 CE,

and the most recent dating to about 1500 CE.

So all of this is really strong evidence that child sacrifices

were very much a part of Chimu culture.

[Dr. Anthony] These children undoubtedly gave their lives

in order to ensure the survival of a much larger community,

maybe even the entire empire.

As researchers continue to dig

at both the Huanchaquito, Las Llamas

and Pampa La Cruz sites,

the remains of these child sacrifices stand

as a stark reminder of a lost people's struggle for survival

in one of the world's driest climates.

[wind blowing]

Located on the western delta of the Nile River,

just 50 miles southeast of Alexandria,

the Egyptian city of Hosh Isa

stands alone in the district of Al-Beheira.

[Dr. Alison] Al-Beheira is extremely arid and sandy,

despite being so close to the Mediterranean Sea,

as well as the Nile River tributaries.

It's also hot.

In the summer, the temperatures can regularly

get to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, and it only receives an average

of one sixteenth of an inch of rainfall per month.

[Dr. Dan] Now, today, it's mostly rural and poor, but this area has

a rich history going back more than 4,000 years.

It's home to some of the first Coptic Christian monasteries,

a royal palace, and several ancient fortresses.

Not surprisingly, Beheira is also home

to a number of archaeological sites.

It has a long history of ancient discoveries.

The most famous find was the Rosetta Stone in 1799.

This was a slab that was inscribed with three different

and distinct scripts.

This led to the translation

of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for the first time.

A group of archaeologists is excavating

a section of Hosh Isa

when they make a surprising discovery.

They were digging into a wide, flat area of sand

when they unearthed what looked like the corner

of a mud brick structure.

As the surrounding debris was brushed away, what at first

appeared to be just a couple of densely packed bricks

turned out to be the foundation

of a building with several rooms and chambers.

So, what is this place?

[Dr. Dan] Other mud brick structures like this one have been

discovered and identified across the western Nile Delta

of Beheira, including archaeological sites

containing evidence of the Roman occupation of Egypt,

which lasted about 700 years, starting around 30 BCE.

West of the Rosetta Nile tributary, a large survey

project with 14 dig sites found examples of a distinctly

Roman cultural practice.

Two of the sites, Kom Al-Ahmar and Kom Wasit were discovered

to have walls of mud and red brick buried below

the desert surface.

When the walls were cleared and cleaned,

the unmistakable form of an ancient Roman bath complex

called a tholos was revealed.

[Dr. Amma] Smaller artifacts were also retrieved from

the bath's immediate surroundings,

including shards of pottery, brick fragments,

and several coins with dates consistent

with the Roman occupation.

So maybe the structure at Hosh Isa

is also from the Roman era.

Further exploration of the dig site tells a different story.

[Dr. Dan] When they analyzed the samples taken at Hosh Isa,

they figured out that this mud brick composite predates

the Roman Empire by at least 1,000 years.

They figured out that this structure had to be between

3,000 and 3,200 years old.

That corresponds to an era known as the 19th Dynasty

of the New Kingdom,

and that goes from about 1290 to 1190 BCE.

[Dr. Anthony] The 19th Dynasty

was a tremendously important time in Egypt's history.

It was a period of massive expansion of the empire,

and this was only achieved by centuries of aggressive

military conquest combined with the ability to repel attacks

from enemy forces.

As the excavation continues, several intriguing artifacts

are uncovered within the building's many

rooms and chambers.

[Dr. Alison] Some of the rooms had pottery containers

and storage vessels filled with fish bones,

animal remains, and other food provisions.

There were also large granaries and pottery ovens,

which had clearly been used for cooking and baking.

[Dr. Dan] In other rooms, they found items that were

a little bit more personal, things like beaded pendants

and amulets with these intricate carvings

of scarab beetles.

Now, those were really popular throughout Egypt at this time.

The scarab beetle was associated

with the sun god Khepri,

and that meant that it had protective powers

for whoever wore it.

[Dr. Anthony] Taken as a whole, the site's inventory included

domestic items for cooking, jewelry, and other adornments

for personal wear, as well as more practical items

like tools and swords.

In other words, this was an extremely wide variety

of objects found within a concentrated

and contained space.

So could these recovered artifacts be proof

of some lost or forgotten city?

A group of archaeologists is excavating

a section of Hosh Isa

when they make a surprising discovery.

It wouldn't be the first time a contemporary archaeological

dig led to the discovery

of an ancient Egyptian civilization.

Close to the historic city of Thebes,

known today as Luxor,

a team of archaeologists were looking for the undiscovered

mortuary temple of King Tut when they found something

just as remarkable.

[Dr. Anthony] They unearthed the remains of a 3,000-year-old city

so sprawling it invited comparisons to Pompeii.

The city was called Aten, or Dazzling Aten,

after yet another Egyptian sun god.

[Dr. Amma] There were sections of mud brick walls

that fan out in all directions.

When it was finally cleared,

the site revealed completed rooms filled with items

from daily life, similar to the Hosh Isa site.

With most of the excavation work at Hosh Isa completed,

the layout of the emerging structure shocked

the team of archaeologists.

[Dr. Anthony] This was no city like Aten,

with individual buildings spread over a large area.

The structure here at Hosh Isa

appeared to be one single building.

But given the sheer size and scale of its foundation,

plus the number of rooms, it must have served

a great civic purpose.

Or could it have been some kind of grand house or palace?

[Dr. Amma] The layout and design of the building was unique.

In fact, it was made up of two large buildings connected by

a single narrow passageway.

The two separate structures were identical in size

and shape, but that's where the similarities ended.

[Dr. Alison] As the excavation continued, it was revealed to have been

used as a storehouse for food and provisions.

This was where the granaries and animal remains were found.

But more significantly, the first building also stored

a large cache of weapons, much more than was needed for

any one household. More like an army.

[Dr. Dan] And it was the second building that ultimately

revealed its true purpose.

There were rows and rows of mud brick soldiers' barracks

carved out of the sand.

This building was a military fort,

and it was totally unlike any fort

that had ever been discovered before.

For one thing, the fort was a standalone structure.

It wasn't connected to any other buildings

or storage units or infrastructure, nothing.

So why was such an isolated fortress built here?

A closer look at Egypt's military history during

the 19th Dynasty offers some clues.

[Dr. Anthony] Throughout the 19th Dynasty, Egypt was

under the constant threat of attack

from two main adversaries --

One of them was tribes from Libya,

who first attempted to invade the Nile Delta

from the West in 1208 BCE.

[Dr. Amma] The second threat was a collective force known as

the Sea Peoples, a coalition made up of tribes

of the Shardana, Shekelesh, Akwasha,

Lukka, and Tursha.

Together, the Sea Peoples terrorized the Northern Coast

of Africa for almost a century with brutal naval attacks

from the Mediterranean Sea.

[Dr. Alison] In response, Egypt doubled down on its defense by building

impenetrable forts along a line of strategic outposts.

The fort at Hosh Isa was built on a military route called

Western War Road for the sole task of defending

Egypt's northern and western border.

And given its well-preserved remains,

it appeared to have succeeded in that task.

[Dr. Dan] This fort was standalone because it contained all

the necessary supplies, infrastructure within

its fortress walls.

The picture that emerges is a self-sufficient military

complex filled with enough food and equipment

to outlast any enemy.

That's a brilliant strategy, and it worked.

The Sea Peoples were eventually wiped out by the Egyptians.

Having successfully served its purpose,

the remarkable fort at Hosh Isa was likely abandoned

and then lost to time. Until now.

As experts continue to dig into its past, more clues will

likely be revealed about the lives of the soldiers

who lived and fought there.