Original subtitles

[William Shatner] Mystical lost cities

that have captivated explorers for hundreds of years,

mysterious tunnels that draw extraordinary adventurers

into hidden tombs,

and entire lost worlds just waiting to be found.

Africa.

The immense size and immediately recognizable shape

of this incredible continent

can only be described with one word:

iconic.

Its landscape is endlessly diverse,

holding vast, uncharted wilderness,

mysterious, ancient ruins,

dramatic local legends,

and not to mention paradigm-shifting discoveries

that have both challenged

and rewritten the history of our species on planet Earth.

What is it

that continues to draw explorers and adventurers

to expansive and enigmatic Africa?

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

? ?

[Shatner] The continent of Africa.

This majestic landmass spans

an incredible 11.7 million square miles,

a space that would comfortably fit the United States,

China, India and most of Europe.

And Africa's massive scale

is echoed in its natural features,

like the world's largest hot desert,

the planet's longest river,

and Earth's highest freestanding mountain.

Africa is also home to the largest

and the tallest creatures on dry land.

But even today, the sheer size of the continent

is largely underestimated.

[Ben McGee] Africa is actually

a lot bigger than people think it is,

and there's a reason for that.

The type of world maps that we've used,

the Mercator map, have effectively shrunk

the size of Africa- 'cause it's in the middle-

and stretched things near the poles...

...making Africa look much smaller than it actually is.

Africa is unbelievably big

and incredibly diverse when it comes to topography.

It encompasses giant rift valleys,

plains,

desert savannas.

Just when you move through one area,

you get to another that's completely different.

And, uh, this all has the effect of lending Africa

a sense of perpetual mystery.

[Shatner] Africa's unparalleled diversity and scale

has created a legendary allure

that has inspired countless explorers

determined to reveal its hidden secrets.

But might Africa's most profound mystery

surround its role

in the very birth of all mankind?

One of the great mysteries of Africa is,

"Is that where we're really from?"

Did humans come from Africa?

In 1871, Charles Darwin

took on human evolution in his book Descent of Man.

And he theorized that since the two animals

that were most closely related to humans

were gorillas and chimpanzees, and they're both from Africa,

he says that is more likely than not where humans come from

and that Africa is the cradle of humanity.

So the search for the origin of our species became

this great obsession of explorers.

[Shatner] Darwin's monumental theory

inspired many scientific adventures in Africa.

And more than a century after his hypothesis,

American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson

was scouring Ethiopia when he discovered

three million-year-old bones

that would ignite the attention of the entire world.

[Karen Bellinger] In 1974,

a paleoanthropologist working in Ethiopia discovered

a fossil that was hugely important.

They called her Lucy.

And it was clear from her lower body

that she walked upright.

And this was a missing link.

It was the first

kind of transitional fossil discovered to link

ape ancestors and early modern humans.

[Stephanie Wynne-Jones] The discovery of Lucy

was really important,

um, because although there'd been this long recognition

that human origins probably came from Africa

and were to be found within Africa,

Lucy remains that sort of moment

when that point was proven for the first time.

[Shatner] In 2026, exciting new fossil evidence

of early man was discovered in a cave in Morocco,

proving that the story of mankind is still unfolding

on this mysterious continent.

Since the 1800s,

the Western world has been captivated

by the exciting tales of legendary explorers

like David Livingstone,

the first European to cross the massive continent...

...and Henry Morton Stanley,

who covered thousands of miles of Africa's interior

and shared his adventures in a famous chronicle entitled

Through the Dark Continent.

[Wynne-Jones] The idea

of exploring into the heart of Africa

really goes back to the 19th century.

There were geographers and historians

traveling through Africa on exploratory expeditions

to try and shed light on places

that were unknown to European science.

But even today, there's so many places and areas

about which we have very little knowledge.

There's so much still to know.

[Shatner] Today, modern-day explorers

like ecologist Julian Bayliss

are continuing to explore Africa and map the areas

that remain difficult for humans to survey.

I've probably organized and run over 50 scientific expeditions

in mountains, in forests, in rainforests in Africa

because it still holds largely unexplored areas

that humankind haven't necessarily been to before.

And it all started

with Mount Mabu in northern Mozambique.

I was using satellite imagery

to locate these isolated forests.

And that area of forest turned out to be

the largest rainforest in Southern Africa.

And we've been finding new species.

It was tremendously exciting.

But there are many, many dangers

in running expeditions in-in Africa.

We have to drive through the bush,

and it's very easy to get lost.

We have the dangerous animal side of things,

especially in this part of the world.

Other dangers are things like traps.

So, the local people use something called a gin trap,

which is like a bear trap.

They will basically sever your foot.

And the traps are buried underneath the ground.

You cannot see them.

So there's many risks.

[Shatner] In 2012,

Julian Bayliss made a remarkable discovery.

Satellite imagery revealed

what he believed was an untouched,

ancient forest in the sky

known as Mount Lico.

[Bayliss] So, immediately,

all these questions started to come,

having seen that first impression

of Mount Lico on the satellite image.

Mount Lico is known as a sky island.

It has steep sides going up to the basin of a rainforest.

What's going on here?

Why isn't that forest disturbed?

And of course, the only way to find out

is to go and have a look.

[Shatner] Despite the danger,

in 2018, Julian and his team

mounted an expedition to climb 400 feet of sheer cliff

to explore this mysterious sky island.

After their treacherous climb, they discovered

what could only be described as a lost world.

[Bayliss] So this forest, potentially,

has been undisturbed

for millions and millions and millions of years,

providing sufficient time

for the animals that are found in there

to develop into new species.

We found a new species of butterfly.

We found a new species of frog.

We even found a new species of crab

in the only stream on top of Mount Lico.

And seeing it with your own eyes,

there's a feeling of exhilaration, excitement,

reverence for a untouched,

magical, ancient land

that nobody, or very few people,

have ever set foot in before.

Africa

is such a unique and wonderful place

because it still holds a lot of mystery,

a lot of magic, and a lot of adventure.

[Shatner] Based on Julian's work,

hundreds of new species have been discovered

throughout these so-called sky islands of Africa.

But beyond the continent's natural wonders,

Africa is also home

to legends of lost civilizations

and a mythical lost city.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

This endless expanse of dry savannah covers an area

of 350,000 square miles

from Botswana to Namibia and South Africa.

Its name is derived from Tswana words

that describe a "waterless place"

and a "great thirst."

[thunder crashing]

But after a good rainy season,

this semidesert becomes a thriving habitat

for thousands of diverse animals

and a magnet for curious and courageous adventure seekers

like wildlife journalist Adam Cruise.

The Kalahari is a very fascinating desert.

And it's massive.

I mean, it's this big blank space in Southern Africa.

But the most interesting thing about the Kalahari is,

it is packed with wildlife,

especially lions.

There are a lot of lions in the Kalahari.

Exploring and walking around

is not as easy as it could be.

You've got to be very, very vigilant about temperatures,

about wildlife, and about the expanse,

because it's...

it's easy to get lost there, and I have many times.

I had always gone into the Kalahari,

first as a boy with my family,

and gone to do, uh, safaris,

just go look at wildlife.

And then I started reading more about

the previous explorers into the Kalahari,

which prompted me to go with more purpose.

The last three or four expeditions I did

into the Kalahari was for the sole purpose of searching

for the Lost City of the Kalahari.

[Shatner] The Lost City of the Kalahari

is the stuff of myth and legend,

an ancient metropolis believed to be hidden

somewhere in Africa's great southern desert,

constructed in antiquity

by an unknown civilization.

And the fascinating tale of this mysterious place

began in 1885

with the exploits of a famous Canadian entertainer

turned explorer named William Leonard Hunt,

who often went by the self-proclaimed name

The Great Farini.

[Cruise] The Great Farini.

He was a showman. He was a circus man.

But he wanted to be an explorer,

and that's why he found himself in the Kalahari.

And he thought he would write his name

among the greats by crossing the Kalahari and back

and documenting it.

So Farini charts his journey through the Kalahari.

He has a companion with him

who was an early photographer.

He photographed the dunes,

documented the great waterfalls called the Augrabies,

he photographed the trees and these massive nests

that basically take up a whole tree.

There was no doubt that Farini was there.

So, Farini comes back from his trip to the Kalahari,

and he writes a lengthy, galloping book

about his exploits, Through the Kalahari.

Three-quarters through the whole story,

he drops in the fact that, one day,

they stumbled across some ruins.

He talks about a circular wall

about three-quarters of a mile long.

He talks about a fluted column.

And then there's an altar.

He can't find any inscriptions,

and because they're running out of water,

he says they have to leave.

And that is the first full description

of the Lost City of the Kalahari.

And from that description, there were hundreds of people

trying to find this mythical place.

[Shatner] Farini's tantalizing tale

electrified the public's imagination,

and soon a new wave of fearless explorers,

motivated by fortune and glory,

ventured into the great sandy abyss

of the Kalahari in search of this lost city.

[Andrew] One of the people that became involved

with the search for a lost civilization

in the Kalahari was Joshua Norman Haldeman.

He was the grandfather of Elon Musk.

And from 1953 onwards,

on 12 separate occasions, he would go

to the Kalahari with his family

and they would search for evidence

of some kind of, um, you know, civilization.

[Lance Geiger] In 1964,

there's an explorer by the name of A.J. Clement.

He publishes his narrative of the expedition.

And A.J. Clement concludes that

Farini was lost the whole time,

that he didn't know where he was.

And A.J. Clement does come upon

a bunch of natural rocks- dolerite-

which he thinks might be what Farini saw.

So, maybe it was dolerite,

and Farini just didn't know what he was seeing,

or maybe he found something that is, right now, buried

under the sands of the Kalahari.

[Shatner] For those inclined to take on the challenge,

the possibility of discovering a mythical lost city in Africa

is a seductive proposition

that could rewrite Africa's ancient history.

But to this day, no one has managed

to confirm Farini's claims.

And based on his background as an entertainer,

many have wondered, was his monumental discovery

just part of the act?

[Geiger] The Great Farini made his fame

walking on tightropes across Niagara Falls.

And he becomes very famous as a performer,

and then he makes the very odd choice

to go and explore Africa.

[Cruise] The unexplained mystery with this Lost City

of the Kalahari is the man Farini himself.

His job was to entertain.

His job was to fabricate.

So the question is, did he really see something,

or was he entertaining us?

He knew how to tell a story.

Was it a real one, or was it fiction?

[Shatner] Was the Lost City of the Kalahari

a complete fabrication concocted by a convincing storyteller,

or could it be a very real place?

Perhaps clues can be found in the ancient stone structures

that dot this epic landscape.

Throughout Southern Africa, there are magnificent ruins.

One just has to think of the Great Zimbabwe ruins.

This was once a huge city.

Mapungubwe in South Africa comes to mind.

Another walled city, and they are all over the place.

So, if they are there, there's a good chance

that there could have been something similar

in the Kalahari.

If there is a lost city to be found,

you cannot afford to not go and look for it.

Imagine having that to your name.

I'll definitely be going back to the Kalahari.

I've got the Lost City fever,

and I think, unfortunately, uh, it's a permanent one.

Finding the Lost City of the Kalahari

remains a lofty goal for many explorers.

However, if it's discovered,

will a never-before-known civilization

need to be added to the history books?

Who can say?

But there is another actual city in Africa

sitting in complete ruin,

and no one knows why, centuries ago,

it was mysteriously abandoned.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

Scattered along the majestic 330-mile coastline

lies the remnants of a once thriving

medieval trade network.

Among the 116 historic Swahili settlements

are the major port city of Mombasa

and the breathtaking beaches of Malindi.

And nestled between them, in an ancient rainforest,

are the ruins of a mysteriously abandoned town called Gedi.

[Wynne-Jones] When Gedi was first discovered,

it wasn't a completely unknown site.

The people who live around Gedi have always known

about the ruins.

There are many local stories

about the association of the site with spirits,

and many of the Swahili on the coast

think of Gedi as being the site of many of their ancestors.

And then some of the other local groups

believed that it was the home of ancestral spirits

and should be avoided.

It was first excavated starting in the 1940s,

by the pioneering archaeologist of the Swahili coast

called James Kirkman.

And there was a written account of Kirkman's excavations.

And actually, it was the first Swahili site

ever to be excavated.

The inhabitants of Gedi

are definitely part of what we understand

as the Swahili coastal tradition.

But there are no histories that relate to Gedi,

um, which is quite unusual, because there are histories

that relate to other towns nearby.

Who exactly came to Gedi in the 11th century,

um, we don't completely know.

Kenyan archaeologist Dr. Freda Nkirote,

with the National Museums of Kenya,

has been studying the settlement for decades

and has uncovered many clues about the prosperous culture

that once thrived there.

[Wynne-Jones] We have found glazed ceramics

from the Islamic world,

porcelains that had come all the way from China.

They'd been trading far and wide.

It had once been

this sort of central point in Indian Ocean trade.

Over many centuries, it grew as a center of wealth.

[Shatner] The nature of the exotic artifacts

discovered at the Gedi ruins

suggest it was once a booming trade town.

But for centuries,

archaeologists have yet to uncover

what caused thousands of people to flee

such a well-built and successful city.

[Wynne-Jones] The big question about Gedi

is why it was abandoned.

Mombasa and Malindi, two of Gedi's nearest neighbors,

not only continued to be occupied

but thrived in later centuries.

They're still major centers today.

So why Gedi became unlivable

is something that we don't know.

We can only speculate.

[Shatner] What could have caused

an alleged mass exodus?

While some theorize it was disease

or fresh water drying up

or perhaps even a disruption in trade routes,

what's confounding is that based on archaeological evidence,

many believe Gedi was deserted practically overnight.

[Shatner] Did the residents of Gedi

really grab as much as they could carry and run?

And if so, what were they running from?

Well, local folklore suggests a haunting possibility.

It is said that the people of Gedi

may have been escaping evil spirits.

[Bellinger] The idea

that evil spirits had something to do

with Gedi's abandonment comes from

a-a real and deeply embedded spiritual belief

in creatures known as jinn.

The jinn inspires curiosity

and a certain amount of fear, even today,

among local tribespeople in the Gedi region.

[Nkirote reads on-screen text]

[Shatner] Was the belief in powerful, supernatural creatures

somehow responsible for the abandonment of Gedi?

It's just one of many questions yet to be answered

about the history of this African archaeological enigma.

Will the ruins of Gedi ever reveal the secret

of why this city was abandoned,

of why this city was abandoned,

or will its history remain a fascinating tale of folklore?

With so many different cultures,

Africa is brimming with intriguing local legends,

including tribal tales of mysterious blue stones

that are said to be rarer than diamonds.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

This small coastal country is known

for its stunning natural beauty,

diverse ecosystems, and a wealth of mineral resources.

Since 1930, an estimated $15 billion

worth of diamonds have officially been mined here,

including the massive 969-carat rock

known as the Star of Sierra Leone.

But in 1990, a geological discovery

of a very different kind would dazzle rock experts

and launch a stone-hunting adventure

that has spanned over 30 years.

[Andrew] In 1990,

an Italian geologist

by the name of Antonio Pitoni

went into Sierra Leone,

and he found himself talking with one of the chiefs

of the Fula tribes in that region.

They started talking about where diamonds came from,

and this chief said that they came from the sky,

they fell from the sky.

Pitoni said to him, "Well, what else falls from the sky?"

And the chief said to him, "We can show you."

And a shaman took him to a location,

and he started digging up the ground

and showed him these blue stones,

or skystones, as they're also known.

And the shaman said that these fell from the sky.

[Shatner] Stones that fell from the sky?

While the origin story was easy to dismiss as local mythology,

the rocks' jagged shape

and unusual blue patina was intriguing.

And when gemologist and rare meteorite collector

Jared Collins saw these enigmatic stones

for the first time, it would set him

on a 12-year quest to answer one simple question-

what are they?

[Jared] In 2013, I was in Hong Kong

for the yearly gem show,

and a dealer had invited me to his house

to see his collection of rare gemstones.

I see a blue rock.

The blue is very striking.

And I picked it up, and I knew

there was something unusual about this.

And I asked the guy, "What is this?"

And he said, "That's skystone, that's skystone."

This is an object

that supposedly came from the heavens

and was thrust into the Earth.

I asked him if he would sell it to me,

and he said no.

And this is a guy that would sell anything.

I think for almost a year, I bothered this guy.

He finally agreed to sell me one gram,

the small piece.

And as soon as I got ahold of it,

I immediately cut it in half

and I sent half of it over

to University of Washington Earth and Space Sciences.

And Dr. Tony Irving did what I think is

the best analysis done to date.

And he found

that the stones are essentially calcium orthosilicate.

So it could be natural, but his analysis was

that it is probably artificial,

it is a man-made material.

He was not able to identify the blue colorant.

It's not like a pigment.

You can't paint with it.

The blue colorant remains unknown.

[McGee] The most anomalous characteristic is,

why is it blue?

There are ways you can add a dye,

but we have no idea how

that would have been achieved there.

When the stone is sampled and pieces are broken off,

the color kind of falls apart with it,

and so we have no idea

what whoever made the skystones used to turn them blue,

and that's pretty cool.

[Shatner] After the initial analysis,

Jared sent skystone samples to 15 labs around the world.

While the properties of the blue coloring

of the rocks remain inconclusive,

the extensive scientific tests seem to suggest

that the stone itself was somehow

forged by man.

[McGee] The data produced

when the skystones were analyzed provides a match,

and that's with what we call a geopolymer-

in other words, concrete or cement.

According to the numbers I saw, this could be anywhere

from a few thousand to tens of thousands of years old.

We don't know.

And so, maybe

it's a mystery concrete from civilization past.

[Shatner] The analysis of this mysterious material

raises a fascinating question.

Are the blue skystones the product

of an ancient African lost technology?

[Jared] One thing that we do know is

that whatever created it needed a high temperature

for a sustained period of time.

That would require having a kiln in Sierra Leone

5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 years ago,

which I'm pretty sure that they didn't have.

We know that the Mesopotamians were the first

to invent kiln technology.

That would be around 5000 or 6000 BC.

So,

is it a lost technology?

The science keeps saying

that it is potentially man-made, artificial.

What is this material doing in Sierra Leone?

I've spent more than 12 years now

trying to get to the bottom of this thing.

There is a mystery in here

that is not yet revealing itself,

and I would really like to find out what that is.

Whatever the blue skystones are,

they're undoubtedly extremely rare and exotic.

But there's another African mystery,

even more ancient, that has captivated the world

for more than 2,000 years-

the yet-to-be discovered location

of Cleopatra's tomb.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

This arid land is home

to the world's longest river, the Nile,

and many ancient civilizations,

including the kingdom of Kush in modern-day Sudan,

the Aksumite Empire in Ethiopia,

and the powerful and mysterious realm

known as ancient Egypt.

[Geiger] This great civilization of Egypt-

we don't always really think about that as Africa, but it is.

It left behind the pyramids and the Sphinx,

all these great structures

that have lasted thousands of years.

But one of the reasons that it so captivates us is that

there's still so much we don't know.

[Shatner] Evidence of a once advanced

and thriving empire can be found

in the extraordinary engineering at Cairo,

the grand temples

and immaculate royal tombs of Luxor,

and the captivating ruins

of ancient Egypt's last center of power, Alexandria.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

30 miles west of Alexandria.

According to renowned archaeologist Kathleen Martinez,

who has led excavations here for 20 years,

this massive two-square mile temple complex could unravel one

of the greatest enduring mysteries

of the ancient Egyptian world.

[Martinez] This is an ancient temple, very sacred.

And nobody

thought it was an important temple

because it was completely destroyed, abandoned,

and there was very little information about this place.

It was the only temple in Egypt

where you don't know to whom it was dedicated.

So I've said we need to excavate.

It could be the final resting place

of Queen Cleopatra.

[Shatner] Uncovering the mysterious life and death

of Queen Cleopatra- the last pharaoh of Egypt-

has been the ambition of countless explorers.

After ascending the throne in 51 BC at just 18 years old,

Cleopatra became the richest, most powerful woman on Earth.

Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Egypt, the last queen

at a time when men were really dominating all

of the most important political positions.

She was a powerful woman in her own right.

Cleopatra's job really was to advocate

for the needs of Egypt, which at this point

was very much being ruled by Rome.

One of the key ways in which Cleopatra did this was

by aligning herself romantically with Rome's leaders.

So she was very clever.

But Cleopatra remains mysterious to us

because she was written about by Roman writers,

and Roman writers had a tendency to denigrate her

and to paint her in a very particular light,

which may or may not be true.

And of course

we don't know where she was buried.

[Naunton] The question of the whereabouts

and the nature of Cleopatra's tomb is one

of the great problems for Egyptian archaeology.

It seems almost like an anomaly.

We are led to believe that that tomb was in Alexandria.

But we have, in fact,

just about no archaeological evidence for that tomb.

[Shatner] For centuries,

archaeologists and explorers have searched the ancient city

of Alexandria for the legendary lost tomb of Cleopatra

with no success.

But based on her discoveries at Taposiris Magna,

many believe Kathleen Martinez may be close

to locating the great queen's final resting place.

[Martinez] Plutarch, one of the most important ancient writers,

said that Cleopatra was buried in a temple of Isis.

I've been excavating now for 20 seasons.

In the second season,

we were able to discover that this is an ancient temple

dedicated to goddess Isis.

We have uncovered more than 3,000 artifacts,

and most of the objects

that we have discovered are from the time of Cleopatra.

We have discovered more than 600 coins portraying the queen.

We have 21 catacombs,

and most of those catacombs are from the time of Cleopatra.

And who was buried there?

Generals, officials,

high-rank people around the queen.

We have several statues of Isis, including one

that experts believe could have been a statue

of Queen Cleopatra herself.

All the evidence that we are getting

confirm the link of this temple to the queen.

[Naunton] The kinds of things that Kathleen has found

strengthen the idea

that this was a temple connected to Isis.

And we also know that Cleopatra went to great lengths

to associate herself with Isis

and to present herself as a kind of manifestation of Isis.

So it was very interesting

that there's that clear association with the site

and Isis and, therefore, perhaps by extension, Cleopatra.

[Shatner] Could Taposiris Magna be the location

of Cleopatra's lost tomb?

While there are at least 20 more catacombs to unearth,

the possibility became more plausible

with an underground discovery

that would change the course of the search

and perhaps history as we know it.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

After years searching

for the lost tomb of Queen Cleopatra,

archaeologist Kathleen Martinez

discovers something extraordinary-

a mysterious, ancient tunnel

hiding beneath this enormous temple complex.

[Martinez] The discovery of the tunnel

was with archaeological excavation,

systematic excavations.

But we didn't know

that this shaft will go down 25 meters,

and it was really hard to go down and to excavate.

So we had to continue excavating with our hands.

Encountering cobra,

different type of snakes and scorpions,

which make it very difficult.

But we continue,

because the tunnels go

from the temple to the Mediterranean Sea.

It opened to the Mediterranean Sea,

leading me to understand that

the temple was connected

to another structure that today is underwater.

So we are going to continue excavating

and working in the sea.

So there's a lot of work to do.

The tunnel will be the key

to discover the tomb of Queen Cleopatra.

[Naunton] We have to remember that with ancient Egypt,

the bodies of deceased individuals

were often placed in chambers at the bottom of deep shafts,

hidden away and protected for all eternity.

So the presence of shafts and tunnels

at the temple area immediately puts us in mind

of perhaps a monumental tomb of some kind.

And of course, until we know exactly where it goes,

it's very difficult to say what it might be,

but it is at the very least very intriguing.

[Shatner] While excavation of the tunnel is far from complete,

the search for Cleopatra's lost tomb

has attracted another famous explorer,

Dr. Robert Ballard,

who famously found the sunken wreck of the Titanic.

[Martinez] Now we are working on land and underwater

with Dr. Robert Ballard,

and we recently make a major discovery-

the port to the harbor of Taposiris Magna.

We are writing pages of history.

What kind of structures could be now underwater?

Could be another temple,

could be a town.

We don't know, but we believe

this is the beginning of another important journey.

There's so much that people don't know about Cleopatra,

and this is one of the things that we're trying to change.

I'm convinced that the discovery of the tomb

will be the greatest discovery of the century.

[Bradshaw] If the tomb of Cleopatra is discovered

within our lifetime, it would be

unspeakably exciting.

Partly, this is because people have been looking

for it for so long but more importantly

because of what it can reveal to us.

How did she die?

What did she look like?

Royal tombs for Egyptian rulers were statements

about how they wanted themselves to be perceived.

So we get Cleopatra's perspective on things, finally.

[Shatner] Will Cleopatra's elusive lost tomb

soon be discovered?

Like many mysteries in Africa, scientists, explorers

and adventurers continue their never-ending quest

for answers in the birthplace of all mankind.

[Nkirote reads on-screen text]

[Wynne-Jones] When you work in Africa,

you're often literally writing the history

for that place and that time.

I think there are many more stories to be told because

each time we go out there,

we're telling something new

'cause there's still so much to discover.

Africa is a magnificent land,

the cradle of civilization,

offering unprecedented diversity.

It's also home to lost cities and forgotten cultures,

along with otherworldly treasures buried

in its endless deserts and dense jungles.

And to think that scientists and explorers could be

on the precipice of a great discovery

that could forever change the history of mankind-

well, it makes the hidden mysteries

of this continent even more exciting.

What might be uncovered?

The possibilities are as monumental

as Africa itself

and for now remain...

unexplained.

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