Original subtitles

This is our oldest source for the complete 10 commandments.

Yes.

These scrolls are the most significant

archaeological treasure of the 20th century.

All that writing is preserved under there.

It's like a magic trick.

The cave continues.

[ laughs ] that's a literal secret chamber.

That doesn't happen every day.

I see a tunnel. It keeps going.

There's a tunnel back there, man.

A billion dollars of treasure, oh, boy.

Oh, my god. Are you kidding me?

That's writing!

There is a human history there.

Absolutely.

Oh, look at that.

Oh, my god.

♪

♪

it is one of the greatest archaeological discoveries

in modern history --

the dead sea scrolls.

In 1946, the remains of hundreds of ancient manuscripts

were discovered hidden in a series of caves

near the dead sea in israel.

These scrolls include copies of the old testament,

1,000 years older than any known before,

plus untold prophecies not found in scripture

that could rewrite the bible as we know it.

There's even a scroll inscribed on copper

that some claim points to vast riches hidden in the desert.

A number of questions surround the scrolls.

Where did they come from?

Who wrote them?

What secrets do they hold,

and are there more out there waiting to be found?

Now, scientists are applying

nasa technology to extract ancient messages

from fragmented parchments,

and archaeologists are exploring a once-lost city

where the scrolls may have been written

and closing in on unexplored caverns

that could contain new manuscripts.

Join me on a quest to the holy land

to fill in the blank pages of history

and to unravel the many mysteries

of the dead sea scrolls.

♪

my name is josh gates...

Look! [ laughs ]

...Explorer, adventurer...

That is it!

...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.

Ah, ah, aah, haa!

With a degree in archaeology

and a passion for the unexplained,

I travel to the ends of the earth,

investigating the greatest legends in history.

Okay, let's punch it.

This is "expedition unknown."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

my quest to unlock the mysteries of the dead sea scrolls

brings me to the holy land, where the first chapter

in the history of the scrolls was written.

The old city of jerusalem -- it may sound like a cliche,

but there really is no place like it.

Choose any descriptor you like -- evocative,

maddening, overwhelming, divine.

You don't walk these streets.

You're carried through them.

To step off the curb here is to be swept up

in the turbulent waters of history.

♪

it's been a crossroads of civilizations

as long as there have been roads to cross.

It was the center of trade routes

stretching from rome to india

and home to diverse cultures living side by side,

sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict,

but more than anything else, jerusalem is about faith,

home to three of the holiest places on earth --

the golden dome of the rock, sacred to muslims,

the church of the holy sepulchre,

the site of the crucifixion of christ,

and the oldest of them all, the western or wailing wall,

all that remains of a 3,000-year-old jewish temple.

To understand what was once here,

we have to turn back the hands of time.

The so-called temple mount

begins as a natural rise known as mount moriah,

where ancient hebrews believe creation itself began.

Over time, a jewish empire grows around it.

The great temple of solomon is built on the sacred mount.

In 586 bce, it's destroyed by invaders.

The rebuilt structure is known as the second temple,

the center of jewish faith

and home to jerusalem's greatest treasures,

including an archive of sacred scrolls and manuscripts.

Centuries later, the romans conquer the city.

In the year 67, the jews of jerusalem spark a rebellion.

Ah!

In retaliation, the roman army destroys the second temple.

Now all that remains is the western wall

of the temple platform.

The story of the dead sea scrolls

begins when jerusalem looked like this.

♪

I'm at the israel museum's scale model of the holy city

to meet scroll expert

and curator dr. Adolfo roitman.

All right. Let's talk about this incredible model here.

I feel like godzilla.

This is awesome.

This is the jerusalem of 1st century ce

in time of the romans.

So we are kind of in the period of the dead sea scrolls here.

Exactly.

They were discovered in a placed called qumran located

on the northwestern shore of the dead sea

about 30 miles from jerusalem. Okay.

The first dead sea scroll was discovered

by the end of 1946 and the beginning of 1947.

Amazingly, they were discovered completely by accident.

As the story goes, a young shepherd is herding goats

in qumran near the dead sea.

Passing a cave, he throws a stone

to scare a wayward animal back to the flock

and hears something shatter.

Curious, he enters the cavern and discovers 10 clay jars

holding seven ancient scrolls.

They had no idea they discovered maybe the most significant

archaeological treasure of the 20th century.

They decided, "why not you sell the scrolls?"

and four scrolls were bought by a dealer from bethlehem,

an arab christian.

And the other three?

A hebrew university professor bought the other three scrolls

for the hebrew university, so on both sides of jerusalem,

a jew and the christians, they had scrolls.

Okay, this is the beginning of a joke.

But instead of walking into a bar,

the christian antiquities dealer resells his scrolls

to the archbishop of the syrian orthodox church.

Facing political turmoil in jerusalem,

the archbishop smuggles the scrolls into the united states.

In 1954, he takes out a classified ad

in the wall street journal,

offering the scrolls to the highest bidder.

Israeli scholars race to acquire them,

sensing their huge historic and religious value.

And the scrolls were bought for the state of israel

for a quarter of million dollar in '55.

The sale sets off a flurry of digging

and looting along the edge of the dead sea

that eventually yields the remains

of more than 900 manuscripts

discovered in 11 different caves.

Now we have around 20,000 fragments of manuscripts.

Unbelievable. Would you like to see them?

I would love to see them.

Come with me.

Dr. Roitman invites me into the hallowed halls

of the so-called shrine of the book,

where the world's greatest collection of scrolls

is carefully preserved.

We pass through a series of chambers

inspired by the caves where the scrolls were discovered,

and at the end of the tunnel, a revelation.

Wow, look at this place, what a room.

It feels like you're in a temple, a shrine.

Here, in this venerated vault,

I'm surrounded by a treasure trove.

The remains of some of the best-preserved

dead sea scrolls are on display.

Amazing.

Penned mainly in hebrew on parchment or papyrus,

the first question is, "what's written on them?"

let's start with the "mona lisa" of all the scrolls --

the book of isaiah.

Unbelievable.

Written about 2,000 years ago,

this scroll is the oldest-known copy of a major portion

of the old testament or hebrew bible.

And so this is just a piece of it.

How long is the full scroll?

More than 20 feet long.

This manuscript has all the 66 chapters

of the book of isaiah like in our modern bible.

Before this was found,

what was the oldest-known copy of the book of isaiah?

From middle ages, thousand years after this manuscript.

This ancient copy of isaiah is a big deal to biblical scholars

since it confirms that this part of the old testament

has remained consistent for thousands of years.

But not all of the dead sea scrolls

are copies of the bible as we know it.

We have apocryphal stories, new stories that we didn't know

before the discovery of the scrolls.

This one document called the war scroll.

This describes the war by the end of history

between the son of light and the son of darkness.

It's very "game of thrones."

[ laughs ]

but this doesn't appear in the old testament...

No. It's outside the canon.

Scholars believe that the war scroll

is more than just a description of the apocalypse.

It was a tactical manual, outlining weaponry

and maneuvers to help good triumph over evil,

and it's not the only scroll with stories

that can't be found anywhere else in scripture.

We have a new version of the book of genesis.

Abraham is presented as an exorcist expelling demons.

Amazing.

In this re-imagining of genesis,

abraham doesn't just speak with god.

He possesses divine powers.

This is a new presentation of abraham.

Very new.

The thing that is so mind-blowing

is that the ink looks like it was written yesterday.

Yes, but most of the scrolls, they don't look like this.

Some of them are in very good shape,

some other very fragmentary materials.

The work of the lab is crucial in order to preserve them.

To learn what other secrets are hidden on the scrolls,

dr. Roitman helps arrange exclusive access

to the only laboratory in the world

that actually handles the original manuscripts.

Pnina...

Hello. I'm josh.

I'm pnina. Very nice to meet you.

For 70 years, the leon levy laboratory

of the israeli antiquities authority

has been doing the miraculous work

of making these ancient parchments readable again.

Thank you for having me here. This is incredible.

Pnina reveals one of their crown jewels

of their restoration work,

allowing me to see a scroll as its author did...

Without the barrier of museum glass.

Now, don't breathe.

Not a problem because getting this close to an original scroll

literally takes my breath away.

It's mind-blowing.

Is there an older copy of the book of psalms

than what we're looking at right here?

No. How crazy is that?

Now we'll show you the scroll that drives the world crazy.

♪

of all the copies of the book of deuteronomy

that we have, this is the only copy that preserves

all of the 10 commandments.

Wait a minute.

This is our oldest source for the complete

10 commandments?

Yes.

Wow.

And is the text complementary with later versions,

or are there any changes?

There's a slight difference.

Gates: I'm at the leon levy laboratory

of the israel antiquities authority in jerusalem,

where my quest to learn who wrote the dead sea scrolls,

and maybe discover more, brings me face-to-face

with one of the most precious artifacts on earth --

the original rulebook for western civilization,

the oldest copy of the 10 commandments in existence.

This is our oldest source for the complete 10 commandments?

This is the earliest copy that we have, yes.

Wow.

And is the text complementary with later versions,

or are there any changes?

There's a slight difference.

While contemporary bibles state, "keep the sabbath,"

the scroll copy adds a word meaning,

"remember," asking the faithful

to not only honor the day of rest

but to reflect on it as well, a small but profound difference.

This is awesome. And there's 10.

There's not a couple extras in here?

"party as often as thou wants"?

No.

But not all the scrolls are this well-preserved.

One of the biggest challenges the team here faces

is repairing earlier restoration work done in the 1950s

at the rockefeller museum in jerusalem.

And they began the ultimate jigsaw puzzle.

Thousands and thousands of scroll fragments,

they tape them with sellotape or adhesive tape.

They put in between two glass plates and tape them again.

They created over 1,200 glass plates.

Little did they know that the exciting new invention

of clear household tape

was doing more harm than good to the fragile fragments.

The residues of the tape penetrate the parchment

and causes its disintegration.

So you inherited a challenge. Yes.

A team of restoration specialists

chemically cleans each tiny piece of parchment,

repairing the damage.

It can take a year to go through one sheet of paper.

Once this painstaking process is complete,

the real detective work begins.

Fragments are moved around a computer canvas

like puzzle pieces on a coffee table

to reconstruct the original manuscript.

Groundbreaking new technologies can cross-reference

other scrolls to recognize the handwriting

of a particular scribe.

They even match the grain in different parchment pieces.

You notice the black edges? Mm-hmm.

Now, it's not burnt.

The jar was put on the floor of the cave,

and therefore, the humidity penetrated it

and caused the disintegration of the edges of the scroll.

Even fragments completely blackened by time

can be brought back to life in the lab's inner sanctum,

the imaging room,

where they're using technology pioneered by nasa

to digitally reveal hidden text on the most damaged documents.

This studio was created especially for the scrolls,

and so was this camera.

I feel like I'm about to get an x-ray in here.

You're about to get more than an x-ray here

because what we're seeing here

is a multispectral imaging system

that was created especially for the scrolls.

So is is possible to see it in action?

Absolutely.

The fragment is positioned

and exposed to 12 different wavelengths of light.

Man: And slowly we go through seven visible lights.

After that, we start with the light

that we cannot see with our eyes in the near-infrared zone.

Gates: The images captured at the different wavelengths

are then stitched together, and what appears is astounding.

The text, once lost to history, emerges from the dark parchment.

That is unbelievable.

All that writing is preserved under there.

It's like a magic trick.

This is the only fragment that we have from genesis.

1st-century wisdom unveiled by 21st-century technology.

The fragment says, "let there be light,"

god's first words brought back from the darkness

by light itself, science providing sight

and insight to the oldest copy of this scripture.

♪

the work of the team here and by other scholars around the world

using digital facsimiles will take generations to complete.

But what's been uncovered may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Could more scrolls still be hidden in the desert,

and can we determine who wrote them in the first place?

To get answers, I'm leaving the city of jerusalem

and heading to qumran,

where the original scrolls were discovered.

♪

the caves where the scrolls were found were located

in the heart of the judean desert,

a place that feels a world away

from the bustling streets of jerusalem,

and to get there, I'm driving down highway 90,

which has the distinction of being

the lowest road in the world,

descending down to more than 1,400 feet below sea level.

It's also home to one of the strangest bodies

of water on earth.

Almost 10 times saltier than the ocean, the dead sea is,

well, lifeless.

No fish or plants can survive the extreme salinity.

And my destination is equally barren --

the desert cliffs of qumran,

and what looks like a quick hike up a mountain trail

quickly turns into a sweltering slog through the desert.

Once you get away from the shores of the dead sea,

this place becomes inhospitable really quickly.

After all, it's hot as hell, not a lot of fresh water

and not a scrap of shade,

which is why, throughout history,

very few people ever came through here,

but that does make this a very good place to hide things.

I'm here to meet leading dead sea scrolls

archaeologist dr. Oren gutfeld.

-Hey, josh. -Nice to meet you.

-Good to see you. -Oh.

What brings you here on a hot summer day?

I'm looking for a crazy man. Huh, you find one.

Yeah, it is desolate out here.

He's spent decades excavating ancient sites

across the holy land.

Josh, welcome to qumran.

♪

what a view.

It's incredible.

♪

these are all caves?

600 caves.

This is where all the dead sea scrolls were found.

Have all of these caves been excavated?

Less than 10%.

Really, less than 10% of them?

Yes. There's lots to do.

Most of the scrolls were found there, in cave number 4.

That cave, right there? Yes.

More than 15,000 fragments were found inside this cave.

It's, like, 90%.

Wow, come from one cave? From one cave.

And so where are you working?

I'm working over there, in cave number 53.

Can we see what you're doing?

Yes. Let's go. Yeah.

Today, the caves are in a closed nature reserve.

Any entry into them is dangerous

and strictly prohibited to the public,

but I'm lucky enough to have an all-access pass

to one of archaeology's most exclusive addresses.

Wow. Oh, man!

♪

gates: I'm in qumran, outside jerusalem,

with archaeologist oren gutfeld.

We're approaching the labyrinth of caves

where the dead sea scrolls were discovered

to answer the mystery of whether there are more to find.

Cave number 53... Wow.

That's where we have most of our finds.

After the first dead sea scrolls were discovered in 1946,

more were found in 10 additional caves.

But by the mid-'70s, it seemed that the area was tapped out.

That is until 2017,

when oren struck scroll gold in this very cave.

Gutfeld: And in another part of the cave,

we found another complete store jar with the parchment.

You found a scroll? Yes.

It's the first time after 70 years

that an archaeologist found an old parchment

inside a store jar.

Any writing on it? No.

It was blank.

Hey, if you found parchment out here, that's a big deal.

In my opinion, scrolls were hidden in many more caves,

and cave 53 is the proof for that.

And just above this chamber,

oren's team is in the process of excavating

cave 53b to see if more scrolls are hiding inside.

Hello. Hello. How are you?

Hello. Watch your head. How are you?

Oh, my god, this 2x4, this is holding up the cave?

Gutfeld: Yes, we hope so.

It will give us another 2 seconds to run.

That's about it.

Okay, so tell me what's going on in here.

We noticed a small entrance over here

and uncovered these two walls.

So you saw that this went further back.

Exactly, and do you know what we found?

This is the best 3rd-century bc

hellenistic cooking pot ever found here.

Are you kidding me?

Wow.

People weren't just hiding things in here.

They were maybe living in here, certainly cooking.

That's correct, not only hiding place, maybe shepherds,

maybe hunters who used these caves as well.

[ man speaks native language ] just second.

[ both speaking native language ]

they found something. They found something?

Yes. What did they find?

I don't know. Let's go.

After you.

Oh, I was really hoping I wasn't going to have to go

into this 2x4.

♪

hey, guys.

[ man speaks native language ]

okay, what do you got?

They found pottery all over.

[ speaking native language ]

he said there's a chamber that we missed over there.

Are you [bleep] me?

This is real.

He found a gap, which means that the cave continues.

♪

oh, man, it goes back. [ laughs ]

that's a literal secret chamber.

I mean, it goes quite a ways back.

Gutfeld: Yes.

We thought this is the end of the chamber,

and now we see that it continues.

That doesn't happen every day.

There could be scrolls in there. Why not?

That's another season of "expedition."

"next season," my ass. Let's get some shovels!

Come on. Let's dig this out.

Not today.

That's the thing about archaeology -- when you find

something exciting,

then you got to move really slowly.

That, back there, that is the unknown just waiting.

Nice work.

Nice work. -Hey.

Gates: But there may be other places to look for scrolls right now.

To figure out where, we first need to unravel

who wrote the scrolls

and put them in these caves in the first place.

Oren leads me down below the caves

to a stunning ruin that may hold answers.

There was a community of people living out here?

Oh, yes. And when does this date to?

Well, to the end of the 3rd and 2nd century bce,

1st century bce and 1st century ad.

So we're in the time of the scrolls.

That's correct. This is the site of the scrolls.

And so who were the people living out in this community?

Well, this is under dispute. Uh-huh.

The essenes were a strict, independent jewish sect,

who believed the priesthood of jerusalem was corrupt,

so they broke off and relocated to the desert.

How many people do you think lived out here?

Not more than few dozen people lived here, only men.

No women? No women.

So this is kind of like a monastery of sorts.

In a way.

They probably woke up very early,

immersed themselves in the ritual bath.

They had the communal meals with no talking.

All studying, no talking, no women.

Yes.

This would not have been for me.

I would've been thrown out in the first week.

Oren shows me an engineering wonder

that served as the ceremonial center for the essenes.

So this is the ritual bath.

Gates: Now what you expect to see out in the middle

of a bone-dry desert.

So water is coming down here through that aqueduct system?

Yes.

Wow, so if it pours all the way in jerusalem,

it'll come down through these canyons.

That's correct.

The essenes were very strict regarding purification,

and this is why we think

that qumran is a settlement of the essenes

because you have lots of ritual bath.

The essenes were obsessed with ritual and purity,

two subjects the scrolls mention a lot.

So the obvious question is, did the essenes write the scrolls?

That's a very good question.

Let me show you where we might have evidence for that.

Okay.

It's like a maze. Yes.

This is the room that's known as the scriptorium.

This is the scribe's room.

Okay, and why is it called that?

Because three inkwells

were found over here during excavations.

So we have evidence that writing was happening here?

Yes. That's correct.

The inkwells, coupled with oren's discovery

of a blank scroll, suggest that at least

some of the writing was done in the desert.

But only three inkwells.

Only three. It's not enough.

When you have more than 865 scrolls,

you need many, many inkwells.

For sure, not all the scrolls were copied

or written over here.

Rome basically destroyed jerusalem the year of 70.

Many refugees escaped from jerusalem to the desert.

There is another leading theory

as to where the scrolls came from.

When rome took over jerusalem in the year 70

and destroyed the second great temple,

the jews likely fled with countless treasures

and significant objects to save them from the invading army.

Oren and others believed that a library of scrolls

may have been saved from the temple

and concealed in various desert caves.

Do you think there's a chance that they were storing them

there like a kind of time capsule

for at least future generations

if not, you know, for us?

I'm not sure that they knew that the dry climate of the dead sea

would preserve it for the future,

but in fact, it worked.

For 2,000 years.

The answer to the question that has dogged

archaeologists for decades,

"who authored the dead sea scrolls?"

may be all of the above.

While it's almost certain that some of them

were written here by the essenes,

the idea that other scrolls came from jerusalem

means that it's entirely possible

that they were hidden in more than one place.

There are many other places

where refugees took their treasures,

scrolls, even, not only to the dead sea in the east

but also to the west of jerusalem, to the lowlands.

And oren, it turns out,

is digging in more than one place.

Okay, here we go.

We head to a site known as beit lehi

in the remote desert west of jerusalem,

where oren's team has uncovered compelling evidence

that the jews fleeing from jerusalem concealed themselves

and perhaps even more scrolls.

Are the roads this great the whole way?

Oh, no. It's getting much worse.

[ both laugh ]

another hour of off-roading and we reach beit lehi.

♪

there, we meet oren's colleague, archaeologist michal haber.

Michal, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, josh,

and welcome to the ancient village of beit lehi.

Situated on an important trade route

between jerusalem and the port city of gaza,

beit lehi was first settled in 800 bce.

It survived until the 14th century,

but it's what lies below these ruins that interests

oren and michal, and after years of painstaking digging,

they've uncovered something truly astonishing.

So you brought all of this down, and then what?

And then we found something incredible over here.

-Underground? -Underground.

Gates: What I see is beyond anything I could have imagined.

Oh, my god. Look at this place!

It's not just a cave but an entire network of tunnels,

an underground city all carved by hand.

Are you kidding me?

It's enormous!

Gates: My quest to discover new dead sea scrolls

brings me to a chamber beneath the ancient village

of beit lehi, in the desert outside of jerusalem.

Wow, are you kidding me?

It's enormous!

This was all filled in?

Gutfeld: All filled in.

This man-made cavern may contain crucial clues

in our search for more scrolls.

Michal, help me out.

Where are we?

We are in the depth of a massive dovecote.

-Dovecote? -Yes, for the raising of doves.

As you can see, we have hundreds and hundreds of these niches.

Each one could have held up to two or three birds.

This was an industry.

Droppings could have been used for fertilizer.

They were raised for meat and for sacrifice.

Wow, big business.

In the period in question,

when the dead sea scrolls are written and then later hidden,

what's going on here at beit lehi?

There are really a mass exodus from the area of jerusalem.

They were hiding inside these chambers.

Surely among the refugees that were fleeing

were also members of the elite.

Perhaps there were scribes among them.

We make our way through the underground labyrinth,

where oren and michal have uncovered clues

that jerusalem refugees not only hid here

but continued to practice their faith in secret.

We have, in the cornice above the entrance,

a seven-candle menorah.

2,000-year-old graffiti.

And right next to this ancient symbol of the jewish faith,

they produced the sacred oil to light the real thing.

What we have here is a typical early-second temple period

olive oil press,

and it hasn't moved for at least 2,100 years.

We found it by means of a hiding tunnel.

We saw a huge shaft aboveground.

We crawled through.

It dropped us off in this chamber.

These so-called hiding tunnels were tight,

secret passages carved like an anthill

under the city of beit lehi.

They are direct evidence that jews fleeing the romans

during the destruction of the second temple

perhaps bearing scrolls,

but oren hasn't just brought me here for a tour.

♪

above the underground labyrinth, oren's team

is investigating a promising development at the site.

Josh, this is pablo.

He's the core director of the excavation.

-Hello. -Hi, josh.

Pablo and his team have been conducting

aerial surveys of the ruins,

and they believe they found something.

I saw this depression from the air, from the drone,

and we wanted to check it

because it looks like a blocked entrance

to some underground cave or even tunnel.

It goes back, you think? Yes, I think so.

Wow.

Gates: Oren's team removes the last few rocks

barricading the entrance.

[ speaking native language ]

it goes back? Yes, it goes back.

Okay, great.

Okay, he said that we can go in.

♪

how's it look?

Gutfeld: Looks like a tunnel or chamber.

Okay, I'm going in, josh.

We crawl inside the claustrophobic tunnel to see

if it leads to more hiding places,

and, who knows, perhaps the remains

of undiscovered manuscripts.

Wow, very tight.

Got to kind of shimmy in backwards here.

Josh, slide in on your stomach.

There's a chamber.

Look at all the chisel marks.

I think it's a ritual bath.

Like, these would be stairs going down into here.

Yes.

Wow.

Hey, josh, look.

Unbelievable, another one of these hiding tunnels.

Yes. Does it go somewhere?

Let's check.

The narrow tunnel leads upwards from the ritual bath.

This is exactly the kind of hiding place

we've been looking for,

a prime spot to secret away scrolls.

Is it a dead end?

It looks artificial?

Yes.

I'll see if they can grab it.

To see if this obstruction is part of a collapse

or put in place intentionally to hide something,

oren is going to bore through the stone

with a powerful impact-driver drill,

which uses concussive force and bit rotation

to deliver three times the torque of a regular drill.

♪

♪

once we've penetrated the rock, we'll peer inside

with a snake cam, a miniature camera affixed

to a flexible cable small enough to fit through the opening.

Okay, power is on.

I'm going to pass you the camera, okay?

Okay.

Okay, going through.

Oh, my god. It keeps going.

Ah, there's a tunnel!

♪

gates: The dead sea is famous for more than just scrolls.

Around 37 bce, king herod built a palace on these shores,

a desert spa on one of the saltiest

bodies of water on earth,

and these ancient mud baths and healing waters

are still a major tourist attraction today,

said to treat everything from arthritis

to sinus infections to overworked tv hosts...

I could get used to this.

...And, of course,

his overworked camera crew.

All right. Boys, back to work.

-Aw, come on. -Come on.

Okay, 5 minutes and a few more of these.

Bartender?

I'm in a subterranean chamber beneath the ancient village

of beit lehi, searching for sacred documents

from the time of the dead sea scrolls.

Jewish refugees fleeing the roman invasion of jerusalem

sought shelter in these tunnels,

and they may have secured their most prized possession,

scrolls from the second temple, behind this stone blockade.

Okay, going through.

Oh, my god. It keeps going.

Ah, there's a tunnel, amazing!

Do you think we can break that rock out?

Yeah, we need the pickaxes and try to break it.

Okay, pulling the camera back.

We have no idea where this passageway leads,

but whoever placed the stone slab here

must have done it to protect something important.

Oren chips away at the soft limestone

to clear our path.

It's moving.

Ah, look at that!

Nice work, man.

Want to come in?

Yes, I want to come in, I think, sort of.

Are we brave enough?

Oh, I'm brave enough.

I'm dumb enough.

The question is, am I small enough?

[ grunts ]

we crawl inside, entering an unexplored labyrinth

no one has seen for 2,000 years.

These tunnels are kind of infuriating.

They're not quite tall enough to crouch in,

so you're constantly on your hands and knees.

Oh, we're going down, josh.

There's a passage that goes down.

Ah!

Oren. Yes, josh.

You okay? I am okay.

Come down.

Okay.

Josh...

[ groans loudly ]

we venture deeper into the tunnel system.

Hey, josh.

Suddenly, the tight chamber opens up.

Wow, look at this.

Looks like a dead rat.

Oh, a spider.

Oh, come on.

Gah, that's a big one.

Hey, look at this. Come here.

Come here. Look, there's pottery.

Ah, yes? Yeah, see it?

♪

cooking pot?

So people were probably living in rooms like this.

Yes. There's more.

More of it? Yes.

It's clear that refugees from jerusalem

didn't just shelter here for a few days.

They lived here, hiding from the threat of roman forces.

So much pottery.

Gates: You didn't even have to dig for it.

And if they lived here, they may have brought scrolls with them.

Wow, look, with the handle.

Oh, look at that, the handle of the pot.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Second temple period store jar.

Look at that.

That is awesome.

The dead sea scrolls have all been found

in storage jars like this.

The next chapter in the saga of the scrolls

may be hidden in this very chamber.

Oh, oh, look at that.

Oh, look at that!

Oh, my god.

♪

next time, on "expedition unknown"...

What makes this scroll so different than the rest?

We have descriptions of treasures.

65 bars of gold at the sharp edge of the rock.

"sharp edge of the rock"... Yes.

There's a lot of sharp rocks.

Oh, my god. That's writing!

You think this could be the place?

I'm positive.

[ laughs ] look at this!

It goes way, way back.