All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can
be buried anywhere.

Under the earth,

[volcano explodes]

beneath the sea,

[airplane whooshes]

or even right
under our own feet.

[coins jingle]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

Tonight, famous discoveries
from a missing masterpiece.

- Out of nowhere, members of
the media begin calling Susan,

asking where did you find it?

And most importantly, did
she know what she had?

- [Danny] To an incredible
national treasure.

- As the appraiser
starts reading,

some familiar words start
to jump out at them.

- But there's more,

because at the bottom,
there's a signature.

- [Danny] To one of the most
famous lost ships of all time.

- This is the holy grail
of found shipwrecks.

- People have been searching
for it for over 70 years.

- Join us now, because
nothing stays hidden forever.

[dramatic music]

We've all done it:

borrowed a book and
forgot to return it.

For one family,

this slipup leads to finding
a long lost literary treasure.

[tense music]

- In 1990, Barbara Testa is
going through some old boxes

and bags in her attic.

As she digs and rummages
through the clutter,

she comes across some
old family letters

and some of her grandmother's
handwritten poems

in an old steamer trunk.

- It's a sentimental

and nostalgic trip
through family history.

But then, Barbara pauses.

Tucked between the
familiar stories

and memories are pages

in a handwriting she
doesn't recognize.

- As she's reading the pages,
they appear to be a part

of a manuscript and the
words are becoming more

and more familiar.

Right is right and
wrong is wrong,

and a body ain't got
no business doing wrong

when he ain't ignorant
and knows better.

- [Danny] Barbara's uncovered
a handwritten manuscript

of Mark Twain's masterpiece,

"The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn".

- [Hugo] Barbara reaches
out to Sotheby's

who sends an armored truck to
her home to collect the book.

- Sotheby's works with the
Mark Twain Papers Project

at UC Berkeley.

They compare the handwriting,
style, and structure

to other authenticated
Mark Twain manuscripts.

- [Danny] Sure enough, the
handwriting matches perfectly,

but there's a twist.

It's only half the book;
the rest is missing.

So how did this part end
up in Barbara's attic,

and where's the rest?

- Barbara tells the researchers
that her grandfather,

James Frazier Gluck, was
the curator of a library

in Buffalo, New York, and the
man was a zealous collector.

He was collecting manuscripts

from some of the world's
most famous writers,

people like Walt Whitman
and Louisa May Alcott,

and everything he collected,
he donated to the library.

- Researchers discover that
back in the mid-1880s,

Gluck had contacted
Samuel L. Clemens,

better known as Mark Twain,

requesting the manuscript
for his collection.

- Twain, who was a former
resident of Buffalo, New York,

agreed to send Gluck the
handwritten manuscript

of a Huckleberry Finn,

but he only finds the
second half of the book,

so that's what he
sends over to Gluck,

which remains in the
library to this day.

- And that's where the
story is thought to end.

But it turns out,

in 1887, unbeknownst
to everybody,

Twain did find the first
half and he sent it to Gluck.

Except for some reason,
it never makes it

into the Buffalo
Library's collection

to join the second
half of the book.

- We do know that Gluck
died suddenly in 1897

and the whereabouts of the
manuscript were unknown.

It's not until
Barbara's discovery

over 100 years later that
the lost half is found.

- One rare book
collector calls it

the greatest literary
find of the 20th century.

Twain lovers are ecstatic
and so are Barbara

and her sister, who plan
on auctioning it off

to make a pretty penny.

- [Danny] But before
the bidding even starts,

they get a notice from the
Buffalo Public Library, claiming

they own the rights to Barbara's
half of the manuscript.

- [Hugo] While Barbara wants to
sell the book, the library wants

to keep it with the other
half in their collection.

After some legal back and forth,

the two sides
finally reach a deal.

- [Sami] Barbara and her
sister get a finder's fee

of $1 million, and
the library promises

to put Twain's complete
manuscript on display

just as her
grandfather intended.

So all in all,

everybody ends up
getting what they want,

114 years later.

- Meanwhile, another crew
isn't digging through paper;

they're pulling something
far stranger from the ground.

[tense music]

- It's 1872 in Los Angeles

and major Henry Hancock
has set up an operation

quarrying natural asphalt
from his property.

- Large pools of the
black, sticky liquid

are all over his ranch
near the surface,

and there's a big demand for
the substance right now.

It's needed to pave
roads, tar roofs.

Los Angeles, at this
time, is a growing city.

- But as workers start
digging out the tar,

they come across a large bone.

Then they find
another, then dozens,

then hundreds, then thousands.

- This land used to
be a Spanish ranchero,

so people first assume that
these are the remains of cattle

or horses that accidentally
stumbled into the tar.

- Hancock wants to know
just what is going on.

So he calls his geologist friend

named William Denton to
come and take a look.

- Denton looks at many
of the fossil bones

and starts to realize
they're too large,

not shaped correctly
for cattle at all.

- [Andrew] Denton also finds a
very large fossilized tooth,

much bigger than
any mountain lion

or other cat native to the area.

[saber-tooth cat growling]

- [Sami] After further
research, he determines

that the tooth fossil comes
from a saber-tooth cat

that went extinct in this
area over 9,000 years ago.

- [Danny] The discovery
is fascinating,

and it's just the beginning.

Over the years, more
massive bones are unearthed.

Then in 1901,

a geologist named W.W.
Orcutt takes over,

and he's determined
to find even more.

- [Sami] He sets up
a major excavation

and research operation
to remove and catalog

the thousands of bones

that are still being
pulled from the asphalt.

- Orcutt and his team find
skeletons from thousands

of different species, all
from the Pleistocene Epoch

between 10 and 40,000 years ago.

- [Andrew] These include
mammoths, saber-tooth cats,

dire wolves, and other
massive megafauna

that ruled the world
during the Ice Age.

- [Danny] The area
eventually gets named

the La Brea Tar Pits,

and it's a gold mine, one
of the biggest deposits

of prehistoric
bones in the world.

But how did so many
end up in one spot?

- [Sami] Researchers believe

that animals were
lured to the area

to drink from nearby streams,

and then would get trapped in
the black sticky substance.

- [Austin] Researchers
have even found

bones from entire families,

meaning they obviously
got caught together

and perished in this tarry trap.

- [Danny] Exploration of the
area continues for decades.

Then in 2006,

another project stirs
up something brand new.

- The Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, next door

to the La Brea Tar Pits,
decides that they want

to build an underground
parking garage.

They bring in these cranes

and heavy earth movers
to begin the task,

and as soon as they do,
what do they find but,

you guessed it, more bones.

- Altogether, the workers
uncover 16 new fossil deposits,

but by far, the most
important discovery is

an 80% intact adult
mammoth skeleton.

- [Andrew] This is the most
complete set of mammoth remains

to come out of the tar pits

and one of the most
complete adult specimens

ever found anywhere
in the world.

The animal is given the
affectionate name, Zed.

Researchers determined
that he died around the age

of 48, nearly 37,000
years in the past,

probably from injury sustained
fighting over a mate.

- [Sami] Today,
you can go see Zed

at the La Brea Tar Pit Museum,

one of the most famous
natural sites in Los Angeles

and one that attracts around
400,000 visitors every year.

- Antiques, old clothes,
dusty heirlooms.

That's all one woman thought
she'd find cleaning out

her dad's house, but what
she uncovered turns out

to be worth far more
than just memories.

[tense music]

- It's 2004 in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana,

and Susan Hendry Tureau is
going through the belongings

of her late father,
Basil Hendry Sr.

They're going through
antiques and old clothing

and some religious artwork
that he had collected.

- Susan keeps a few paintings
that have sentimental value

and then assigns
the rest to a pile

that she's willing to sell,

including a dark, old, gloomy
painting of Jesus Christ.

- So a year passes and
Susan finally gets around

to having these
paintings appraised.

The appraiser isn't really
blown away by any of them,

but he thinks that that one

of Jesus could maybe get $750
from the right collector.

- The piece has been
heavily over painted,

maybe even multiple times.

It looks almost cartoonish.

Plus the painting's
condition is deteriorating,

so Susan is eager
to get rid of it

and she puts it up for auction.

- [Danny] When the painting
hits the auction floor,

something happens
that shocks everyone.

- The bidding starts low,

but several paddles go up,
blasting past the $750 mark.

- They start going
above $2,000, $3,000,

and eventually,
this painting sells

for roughly $10,000.

- [Geoffrey] 10 grand isn't
gonna change her life,

but it's certainly a lot
more than she'd hoped

to get from cleaning out some
of the old family belongings.

So Susan pockets the money

and she really doesn't
think much more about it.

- [Danny] A few years later,

Susan's phone starts
ringing off the hook.

- Out of nowhere, members of
the media begin calling Susan,

asking her about
this Jesus painting

that she sold at auction.

They asked, where did you find
it? Where did it come from?

And most importantly, did
she know what she had?

- [Danny To most, it looked
like just another old painting.

But as the new owners embark
on a skilled restoration,

a very different
story comes to light.

- [Austin] As they clean it up

and remove the dark layers
of paint on the surface,

a new, different image
starts to be revealed.

- The group takes
infrared photographs

to get a better look at this
image that's peeking through.

They see what's
called a pentimento,

which is basically a
tracing of an earlier piece.

- [Kavitha] There's a version
underneath the painting

where Jesus' thumb is straight

instead of in a curved position.

- [Danny] Based on this,
the new owners believe

they've uncovered a lost work

from one of the most
famous artists of all time:

Leonardo Da Vinci.

- As it's carefully restored,

the piece becomes
easily recognizable

as a missing Da Vinci
known as Salvador Mundi,

which translates to "The
Savior of the World".

- [Danny] The revelation
sparks a flurry of headlines.

How did such an important work

of art end up in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana?

- [Austin] Susan believes that
her father acquired the painting

from her Aunt Millie,

but no one ever mentioned

that this painting was
anything overtly special.

- [Danny] With little to
go on, experts dig deeper

to better connect the dots.

- Researchers tracked down
records from a Sotheby's auction

in 1958 featuring the estate
of James Cook, the grandson

of famous British art
collector, Sir Francis Cook.

- Sure enough, there's a record

of Aunt Millie buying this
painting for 45 pounds,

roughly 120 bucks.

- [Danny] Once it's
fully restored,

the Salvator Mundi goes
back up for auction in 2017.

[gavel bangs]
- Sold.

[audience cheering]

- This time, a member of
the Saudi Royal family

buys it at auction
for $450 million,

making this once
discarded painting

the most valuable piece
of art in world history.

- [Kavitha] You'd think
if you were spending

almost a half a billion
dollars on a painting,

you'd wanna show it off,

but nobody's seen
it since the sale.

- [Adam] The rumor is that it
is in a high security vault

somewhere in Switzerland,

and with the history
of the Salvator Mundi

of appearing and disappearing,

we may never see it again,

or maybe we will.

- In 2012, another
revered piece of history

falls into one woman's lap.

[tense music]

- Marie Malchodi, who's a
book conservation technician

at Brown University's library,

is going through a recent
donation from the estate

of Solomon Drowne,

who graduated from
Brown in the year 1773.

- And while going through a
book that was published in 1811

called "The Modern
Practice of Physics",

she finds something unusual.

A little slip of paper
is tucked in the back.

- She carefully
unfolds the paper

and she sees a depiction
of Jesus's baptism

by John the Baptist.

But at the bottom she
notices an inscription

that says "P. Revere Sculp".

- Malchodi can't
believe her eyes.

She knows that "sculp"
in a signature stands

for "sculpsit," which is
Latin for, "he engraved it,"

and she sees the name P. Revere.

So she started thinking to
herself, there's no way

that this could
be the Paul Revere

from the Revolutionary War.

- Most Americans know from
school that in April 1775,

Paul Revere was responsible
for warning the colonists

that the British military
was on their way.

- [Danny] Less well
known is the fact that

before he became a
celebrated patriot,

Revere made copper
plate engravings

for books and magazines.

- [Adam] Arguably, his
most famous engraving

was the Boston Massacre in 1770,

which was used as a
key piece of propaganda

for the American
Revolutionary War effort.

- But this piece is
a little different.

This etching is of
a religious nature.

It depicts Jesus being fully
submerged in the Jordan River

by John the Baptist.

The piece is titled, "Buried
With Him by Baptism".

- [Danny] For more insight,
Malchodi brings the etching

to Richard Noble,

the Brown University library's
rare material cataloger.

- Noble first examines
the paper itself.

He holds the paper
up to the light

and he sees a rib structure,
which is a telltale sign

of 18th century paper.

- Then Noble moves on to his
next area of focus, looking at

who Solomon Drowne actually was.

The alumnus who owned
that collection of books,

it turns out that he was a
contemporary of Revere's,

so the age of the books, as well

as the etching,
they both line up.

- Finally, Noble discovers

that there are actually
four other copies

of this etching
attributed to Paul Revere.

So he calls the American
Antiquarian Society

and the Worcester Art Museum

to have this copy
compared to the others.

- Sure enough, they're a match.

So it's an authentic
Paul Revere etching.

But there is one difference

between this one and
the other copies.

This is the only one with
the full plate mark visible,

making it extremely rare.

- [Danny] The exact value
of this etching isn't known,

but other Revere works,

including one of
the Boston Massacre,

have sold for over
$400,000 at auction,

and this one is
even more unique.

- Now, while this incredible
engraving has been featured in

numerous exhibits, you can
actually go see it today.

Whether you're a history buff
for a Paul Revere enthusiast,

it's at the John Hay
Library at Brown University

by appointment only.

- Imagine it's 1799, you're
a young French soldier

digging near a
dusty fort in Egypt,

when your shovel hits
something strange,

a stone slab covered in
symbols no one can read.

What it meant and
who left it there

puzzles historians for decades.

[tense music]

- July 1799,
Napoleon and his army

are marching across Egypt,

conquering everything in sight.

After the army takes
the town of Rashid,

they begin to construct a fort,
laying claim to this area.

- Under the blazing sun,

the soldiers are
digging a foundation

for the fort when they
strike something unexpected

in the sand, a
large black stone.

- This isn't the kind of stone
that you skip across a pond.

This one is almost four feet
tall, two and a half feet wide,

and it weighs over 1,600 pounds.

These soldiers have no idea
what they're looking at,

so they call over
a superior officer.

- [Austin] This army officer
is not an archeologist,

but he notices the
stone is covered

in strange inscriptions.

He tells his soldiers
to dig it out

and they bring it
straight to Napoleon.

- [Danny] Napoleon gathers some
of his best scholars to try

and figure out what it says.

- These scholars have never
seen anything like this,

but what they are
able to determine is

that the inscriptions look
like three distinct languages.

- [John] One of these
languages is ancient Greek,

which these experts can read,

and it translates to
some kind of text

about an ancient pharaoh's
accomplishments.

- [Andrew] The other symbols
look like hieroglyphics

and demotic script, a
demotic script being a kind

of ancient Egyptian
language used

by ordinary people,
but now lost.

So the scholars are
able to identify

what it is they're looking at,

but they're not able to read it.

- [Danny] Before Napoleon's
team can decipher

the mysterious writing,
the British close in.

- [John] On March 21st, 1801,
in the Battle of Alexandria,

the British defeat
the French in Egypt.

They seize control of Rashid

and the stone right
along with it.

- They ship it back to
England where King George III

decides to place it at the
British Museum in London.

- [Andrew] The
British send copies

of the inscriptions on the
stone's face to scholars

around the world, hoping
someone will be able

to unlock its lost languages.

- [John] One of these
copies lands on the desk

of a young French linguist
named Jean-Francois Champollion.

He's a prodigy who could
speak 13 languages

by the time he was 20.

- Champollion knows the Greek
alphabet, so like scholars

before him, he has no trouble

reading one third
of the inscriptions.

The other two are gonna
take him some time.

- Based on rudimentary
knowledge of hieroglyphics,

Champollion can already identify
where a royal name occurs.

It's surrounded by an
oval called a cartouche.

- [Danny] He compares the name

Ptolemaios in the Greek text

with a matching cartouche
in the hieroglyphics.

Then comes the key realization.

- All three languages
have the same message.

- [Danny] That connection helps
him begin cracking the code,

not just in hieroglyphics, but
in the middle script as well.

- Then he discovers
that hieroglyphics

is a hybrid language.

Some symbols represent words,
others depict objects,

but other symbols
convey entire ideas.

- [Danny] Piece by
piece, Champollion maps

phonetic sounds to the symbols,
slowly unlocking a language

that's been dead for
nearly 1,500 years.

- Essentially, the stone
reads like a resume

of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

It's a chronicle of
his good deeds,

everything from tax
cuts to restoring peace

after a rebellion during
his predecessor's reign.

- He wants everyone to
know about his legacy

and he leaves a record
to prove it no matter

what language you speak.

- [Danny] It's called
the Rosetta Stone,

named for the town
it was found in.

- The Rosetta Stone functions
almost like a decoder ring.

This allows scholars to
finally read and interpret

countless inscriptions,
texts, and artifacts,

unlocking a wealth of
knowledge about one

of the most significant
civilizations in history.

For many historians, the
Rosetta Stone is the best thing

to come from Napoleon's
otherwise quite brutal reign.

- Our next great find takes
us from the sands of Egypt

to a Greek island where a farmer

stumbles upon one of the
world's most famous faces.

[tense music]

- On April 8th, 1820, a
Greek farmer by the name

of Yorgos Ketrotas
is looking for stones

to help build up a retaining
wall on his property

on the island of Milos.

And as he's gathering
together all these stones,

he notices that there's one

that seems curiously
out of place.

- He gets closer,
brushes some dirt away,

and he realizes he's
found a smooth piece

of marble sticking up
from out of the earth.

- The island of Milos is known
for rich mineral deposits,

things like sulfur or
obsidian, but not marble.

- As the farmer continues
to look for rocks

to build his wall, he finds
another piece of marble,

and another, and
before you know it,

he's got a pile of marble,

and he can't believe his eyes.

- Coincidentally, a
French naval officer,

named Olivier Voutier,
is exploring the ruins

of an ancient theater nearby.

He notices the farmer's
reaction to the strange stones

that he's finding in his field,

and so he goes over to see
what Ketrotas has discovered.

- [Hugo] The two men sort
through the pile of stones

and they realize
that some of them

actually might fit together.

It takes a little
trial and error,

but they slowly reassemble

something very surprising.

- In front of them is the torso
of a beautiful naked woman,

although they're unable
to find her arms.

- Voutier however, knows
enough about ancient relics

to recognize something
valuable when he sees it,

and so he contacts
officials back in France

urging them to
purchase this piece.

- The French ambassador arranges
to purchase the statue,

and soon, it's on
its way to Paris

where she is presented
to King Louis XVIII.

- [Nicola] The king donates
the statue to the Louvre,

where experts identify
the statue as Aphrodite,

the Greek goddess of love,

who's also known as Venus
in Roman mythology.

- [Danny] This identification

gives the statue her iconic
name, the Venus de Milo.

- This masterpiece is
carved from two distinct

pieces of marble, and then
carefully join together.

And when it is, the
Venus de Milo stands

at an imposing six
feet, seven inches tall.

- Today, this
statue that once lay

in pieces across
a farmer's field,

is seen by about 7
million people a year.

- You expect to find
the important pieces

of American history in
Philadelphia, Washington DC,

or even New York.

But imagine how unexpected
it is when one turns up

on a quiet farm in
North Carolina.

[tense music]

- In 2022, the Wood family
of Edenton, North Carolina,

decides to sell their
184 acre estate.

The property is historic,
dating all the way

back to the 1700s.

So the state of North
Carolina decides to buy it

and turn it into a landmark.

- The house itself is old

and it has some
original period items

that the Wood family believes
probably worth some money.

To prepare for the sale, the
Woods bring in an appraiser

to see what they might be worth.

- As the appraiser
surveys the room,

he spots a dust-covered,
metal filing cabinet.

Curious, he decides
to take a look inside.

Along with some old and
insignificant stacks of paper,

one thing stands out.

- There's a folder
that's holding

a very old, creased
piece of paper,

and as the appraiser
starts reading ,

some familiar words
start to jump out at him.

"We the people of
the United States,

in order to form a
more perfect union..."

- This is, of course, the famous
first line to the preamble

of the US Constitution,
but there's more,

because at the bottom there's
a signature: Charles Thompson.

- [Danny] While Charles Thompson
is not a well-known name,

the appraiser knows his history.

- [Sami] Charles Thompson is
the Secretary of Congress

during the
constitutional convention

when the Constitution
was written in 1787.

- The presence of his
signature on the document

provides a powerful indication
that this could be one

of the original copies
of the US Constitution.

- [Danny] So how does a document

of such historical significance
end up in a filing cabinet

on a North Carolina farm?

- Back in the 1780s,

before the Wood family
had owned the property,

it was the home of the state's
governor, Samuel Johnston.

- After the
Constitution is ratified

by the US Congress
in June of 1788,

copies of the document
are sent to the governors

of the 13 original colonies.

One of those copies
ends up at the estate

on Governor Johnston's desk.

- [Sami] When the governor
passes away at his estate

in 1816, all of his
papers and his office

is essentially turned
into a store room.

- So eventually, all those
documents are filed away in

that metal filing cabinet,
only to be discovered

by the Wood family appraiser
more than two centuries later.

Thinking that they
might have something

really valuable here,

the family decides to put
the item up for auction.

- The last time that
an original state copy

of the Constitution
went up for auction,

it sold for about $400 in 1891,

which in today's money,
is about $15,000.

So not bad for an
old piece of paper,

but it's definitely
not a fortune.

- [Danny] Now, over
a century later,

the Wood family
hopes for the best

as the auction begins.

- People are participating in
person, by phone, and online,

and the price quickly
soars past $1 million.

- [Martin] Bids begin jumping
by $500,000 increments.

It's a seven minute frenzy

as the family watches
the price soar.

When the gavel finally
falls, the Woods Constitution

sells for $9 million.

- An anonymous bidder ends
up winning the auction,

and according to Sotheby's,
pays the highest amount ever

for a book manuscript
or text at auction.

- As for the Wood family,
this single piece of paper

earns them $3 million
more than the $6 million

that they earned on the sale
of their entire property.

- Up next, a discovery on
a whole different scale,

and this one wasn't
tucked away in a drawer.

- So it's 1984, it's the
Reagan administration,

and with renewed tension
between the United States

and the Soviet Union,
the US Navy is eager

to recover the wrecks of two
sunken US nuclear submarines,

the USS Scorpion and
the USS Thresher,

both of which sank in the 1960s.

- The officials are desperate

to find these two sunken
submarines to ensure

that the Soviet Union
doesn't get there first

and discover vital
nuclear secrets.

- The Navy wanted
to know the status

of their nuclear reactor,
so they went to a man

who was one of the
most lauded names

in underwater
exploration, Bob Ballard.

- So in August of 1985,
Ballard and his team

set off in this top
secret mission to locate

and survey the wreckage
of these two missing subs.

- [Danny] The team uses a
deep-towed sonar coupled

with the submersibles to
search the sea floor in a grid.

[sonar pinging]

- [Austin] In the search,
they find the USS Thresher,

and two weeks later,

they identify the
wreckage of the Scorpion.

Ballard and his team
complete the expedition

12 days ahead of schedule.

They take the remaining days
and they comb the ocean floor,

seeing what else
they could find.

- [Adam] They continue using
this incredible, sophisticated

underwater imaging,

and on September 1st, 1985,

operators in the camera room
observe something unexpected.

It's a debris field on the
floor of the North Atlantic.

Ballard follows the debris field
for roughly 2,000, 3,000 feet,

ultimately culminating at
the hull of a sunken ship.

- [Danny] While the
ocean floor is filled

with thousands of shipwrecks,

Ballard recognizes this as
perhaps the most famous of all.

- [Announcer] Her name,
of course, the Titanic.

- [Adam] He can't believe it.

This is the holy grail
of found shipwrecks.

- People have been
searching for the Titanic

for over 70 years,

but Ballard and his team
find the Titanic almost

as a footnote on a
military mission.

- [Austin] The find makes
headlines around the world,

makes a celebrity of Ballard,
and reignites interest

in this so-called
unsinkable ship.

- [Danny] In the years
after the discovery,

one key detail was
kept under wraps.

- [Austin] Only in 2008
could Ballard finally reveal

that were it not for
the secret search

for the Thresher
and the Scorpion,

the Titanic might never
have been discovered.

- It's 1592, and a team in
southern Italy are hard at work,

digging a ditch
for a powerful Duke

when they unearthed
something unusual

buried in the ash.

[tense music]

- A team of workers are trying

to excavate an
underground tunnel system

to bring water from
the Sarno River

to a town four miles away
called Torre Annunziata.

- Workers encounter
layer after layer

of hardened ash,
compacted like cement

from previous eruptions
of the nearby volcano,

Mount Vesuvius.

One day, as workers are digging,

they find pieces of what
appears to be ancient frescoes

and some have
inscriptions on them.

- [Sami] They stop and
grab their supervisor,

and when he looks at what
the workers have found,

he can't believe his eyes.

- These seem to
be ancient ruins.

And upon closer examination,

the architect finds
ancient walls adorned

with paintings and inscriptions.

- He petitions the Duke
for permission to excavate,

but the Duke is focused
on just one thing,

getting water to
Torre Annunziata.

- [Danny] The site
sits untouched

for the next 150 years,

until King Charles III of Spain

decides to explore it further.

- [Sami] In the mid 1700s,
we're in the middle of

the Age of Enlightenment,
which is a time period

where rulers were literally
competing with each other

for knowledge and information.

As part of that thirst for
glory, the king of Spain wants

to be the first to excavate
Fontana's work site.

- [Don] The site is
still buried under tons

of hardened volcanic ash

and holds little
known significance,

but they call in Swiss
military engineer

Carl Weber to oversee
the dig anyway.

- [Danny] As they dig
deeper, Weber and his team

uncover something shocking.

- Right there, on one
of these ancient walls,

workers discover an inscription,

"Rei Publicae Pompeianorvm",

the Republic of Pompeians.

- Now, Weber knows
without a doubt

that they've uncovered
something remarkable.

- [Danny] It's the legendary
lost city of Pompeii,

missing for nearly 1,500 years.

- Pompeii was
perfectly preserved

by one major catastrophic event:

the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius in 79 AD.

[volcano booming]

- This is not your
average volcanic eruption.

When this thing blows,
experts estimate it releases

thermal energy 100,000
times more powerful

than the atomic bombs
dropped on Japan

at the end of World War II.

- It erupts so suddenly

that many residents
don't have time to flee.

They're preserved in
the same positions,

sitting, standing, hugging,

that they were in at the
time of the eruption.

- In all, most
scholars think that

1,500 to 2,000 people
died in the eruption,

but some estimates suggest that

as many as 16,000 people died.

- They had no chance.

Everything happened so
fast, so chaotically.

Pompeii and its citizens
are wiped off the map.

Simply put, its
total devastation.

- [Sami] With more than a
third of Pompeii still buried,

there's still plenty
more to be discovered,

and it's all thanks to workers

digging a ditch in the 1500s.

- It took five years
and many dead ends,

but when one of archeology's
greatest discoveries is finally

made in Egypt, it
happens by accident,

thanks to a young water boy.

[tense music]

- In November 1922,

12-year-old Hussein Abdel Rasoul

does what he does every day,

carries heavy jugs of
water to the dig site

of famous British
egyptologist, Howard Carter.

Carter's team has been
digging at this site,

known as the Valley
of the Kings,

on and off for years.

- As you can imagine,

digging in the Egyptian desert
is a brutal undertaking.

Temperatures reach
well over 100 degrees,

and all the sand
reflects the heat

onto the workers at the site.

- So Carter and his team rely
on water boys like Hussein

to bring jugs of water to the
dig team all day, every day.

- The Egyptian sands can often
be unsteady, and so Hussein

and the other water boys will
often dig little trenches

in order to place these jugs

to ensure that they
don't tip over.

- One day, Hussein
buries a jug of water

just as he's done
hundreds of times,

but on this day,
something is different.

- [Don] As he digs, he
hits something hard,

something that
shouldn't be there.

He clears the sand off it,

and there's the shape of a step.

- Now, Hussein doesn't
know where this leads,

but in all his time, he's
never seen anything like this,

and so he calls Howard
Carter over to take a look.

- [Hugo] When Carter sees the
step, he can't believe it.

He wants to know where it leads.

He brings the rest
of the team over

and they ferociously dig
for the next three weeks.

Eventually, they discover
a sunken staircase

ending at a heavy stone door.

- [Danny] On the door, he
sees something incredible,

a seal with the markings
of Tutankhamnun.

- On November 24th, Carter
breaks a small hole in the door

and peers inside, then silence.

When asked if he sees anything,
Carter responds in awe,

"Yes, wonderful things."

- The rest of the team
heads down to join him,

and as they enter, they find
four burial chambers filled

with 5,000
extraordinary treasures.

There are gold covered chariots,
stunningly crafted jewelry,

and a sarcophagus inscribed

with King Tutankhamnun's
cartouche.

- This discovery is a
dream come true for Carter

because he's wanted this
for such a long time.

It also captures the
public's fascination

and it leads to what
many call Tut-mania.

Effectively after this,

King Tut becomes the first
world famous pharaoh.

- [Don] Archeologists
spend years cataloging

and removing these
fragile items all left

to honor this fallen king,

who ascended the throne when
he was just nine years old

and died when he was 18.

- Perhaps the most
iconic discovery of all

is a solid gold mask

that once covered the
face of King Tut's mummy.

- [Don] Unfortunately, embalming
agents acted like a glue

to attach the mummy to the
golden coffin around it,

and experts have to
dismember Tut's mummy

to remove it from the tomb.

- [Kavitha] Howard Carter
goes into the history books

as the discoverer of Tut's tomb,

but Hussein Abdel Rasoul's
role in this discovery

is much less known.

- [Hugo] Carter purposely leaves
him out of his published report

and attributes the find
to his own workman,

perhaps to save face so
that the world doesn't learn

that this expert
archeologist was

digging in the wrong place.

- [Don] Either way, it's fitting
that the boy king's tomb

is finally discovered by a
12-year-old boy himself.

- Some of history's greatest
treasures were never meant

to be found, but fate

or maybe just dumb
luck had other plans.

I'm Danny Trejo, thanks for
watching Mysteries Unearthed.