Original subtitles

Welcome to "expedition unknown" headquarters.

I'm josh gates, and for the next hour,

we're going to unravel more of the mysteries

of the dead sea scrolls.

Here with us tonight in studio

is archaeologist dr. Oren gutfeld.

And since we last saw him in qumran,

dr. Gutfeld has been digging in cave 53b,

and tonight, you're gonna be the first people

to hear what he's found.

Plus, we'll talk to a scientist

who's invented a new high-tech way

to read scrolls.

He was the first person in 2,000 years

to read one particular scroll

thought too damaged to decipher,

and now he'll tell us what it says.

And finally, I'll be joined by members of the exu crew

for exclusive footage

from behind the scenes of our trip to the holy land.

Gates: Ah, my leg's too long. I can't bring my knee in.

It's, like, the perfect trap to never get out of.

An adventure of biblical proportions continues right now

on "expedition unknown: After the hunt."

ta-bump, bump, bump. Bump, bump, bump, bump.

There you go.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

okay. Let's get this ball rolling.

First off, I want to introduce you

to the members of my "expedition unknown" field crew.

First, our two directors of photography,

mr. Evan b. Stone and mr. Brian weed.

Gentlemen, how are you?

Great. Doing well.

Next to them, we have our story producer

and hair model,

tom quinn.

Great to be here. Happy to have you.

And most importantly, sitting here to my left,

we're honored to be joined

by one of the leading archaeologists

in the study of the dead sea scrolls,

our old friend, dr. Oren gutfeld.

How are you, sir? Hi, josh.

Nice to see you out of the desert.

Yes. I'm glad to be clean for a change.

Yeah, I know. Me, too.

Well, dr. Gutfeld opened up a cave in qumran in 2017

and found a dead sea scroll parchment inside a ceramic jar,

becoming the first person to discover a new parchment

in a new cave in over 70 years.

That must have been incredible.

I mean, you must have been freaking out.

Gutfeld: That was amazing.

I could hardly speak. I was speechless.

Yeah.

That's a high-five moment. [ chuckles ]

I know that there was no writing on the scroll,

but was there anything on it at all,

or was it just, like, a blank sheet of paper?

No, it's a blank sheet -- not of paper, of cloth.

But no, it's blank.

So, let's talk about the significance of this scroll.

We don't have writing on it,

but tell us why it's so important.

Well, first of all,

it proves that we need to go back to the caves

and look for more.

There are more fragments over there

that are waiting to be found.

For me, one of the things about going to qumran

and seeing the caves,

the thing that's the most surprising to an outsider

is you sort of think,

"could there really be more caves to search here?

Could there really be more work to do?"

but in reality, a lot of these caves haven't been searched.

Right? That's correct.

Right.

What percentage of the caves

would you say have been systematically excavated?

Almost nothing.

Crazy.

But what's amazing is that the whole landscape

is like a swiss cheese.

I mean, there's just so many -- hundreds of caves.

You could spend lifetimes searching these places,

and even you're finding stuff in a cave

that was a well-established

dead sea scroll cave for decades.

Gutfeld: Absolutely,

and I think that in the excavation of cave 53b,

we prove it, that we have found a complete chamber

that was not looted or was not excavated

by any of the expeditions.

Right, and this is the place that you took us to next,

above cave 53,

where you were currently working when we were there.

What led you to 53b?

I mean, when you first saw it,

there was no indication there was a cave there?

Incredible.

Well, for everyone at home,

here's a quick reminder of what we got to see

when oren brought us into cave 53b.

Gutfeld: Do you know what we have 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.

Man: [ speaking native language ]

just a second.

[ conversing in foreign language ]

they found something.

They found something? Yes.

What did they find? I don't know.

Let's go.

After you.

He said there is a chamber that we missed over there.

Are you [bleep] me?

They 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.

And there could be anything in there.

Everything.

There could be scrolls in there.

Even scrolls. Why not?

That's another season of excavation.

Next season, my ass.

Let's get some shovels. Come on.

Let's dig this out. Not today.

That back there --

that is the unknown just waiting.

So this was,

for us, really exciting,

to be at a dig site with an active excavation

at the moment when something gets found.

It was not exciting only for you.

It was exciting for me as well.

I think all of our mouths

were salivating with the possibilities.

Yeah, I was ready to just put down my camera and start...

But, you know, that's not the way it works.

Me, too! Yeah.

"let me help you here," you know?

You know, we have lots of patience in archeology.

Slow and methodical. That's correct.

You have to sift everything.

So, for people who don't know what we're talking about here,

this is a photograph from your site.

This is a sifting station.

Weed: I can't imagine how difficult this process is

because just looking at this photograph,

I'm realizing everything is the same color,

and I can't imagine hours of going through

and being able to find the worthwhile items.

Having spent a lot of time on different shows

in these sifting stations,

the people who do it, like, they'll see something,

and I'm looking at what looks like a pile of sand,

and they'll just pick out a bead or a pit or something.

They just can see it.

Yeah, their eye is trained for that.

I think one of the main reason

for our success in cave 53 and cave 53b

is that we sifted every bucket and bucket,

and even in the entrance of the cave,

we found this beautiful cooking pot.

What is waiting for us in the back of the cave?

So, this room that was back there,

we could only see into the top of it.

Was the floor the same level?

Did it go all the way down to that floor?

That's correct. The floor was on the same level as cave 53b.

Wow.

This is your team at work in the cave.

Yes.

So, the million-dollar question --

what was back there?

What happened after we left?

So, a few weeks later,

we started excavation in this chamber,

worked for about 4, 5 days. Okay.

Found lots of pottery inside. You did?

Some of them are complete vessels.

So it wasn't empty.

There was stuff back there. Oh, yes.

And a very, very unique find that I want to show you.

Okay, let's see what you got.

Okay, what else you got back there?

Wow. Beautiful.

Yes. What is that?

It's a thing where a genie comes out.

That's right. That's where a genie lives in there,

and oren got three wishes.

[ laughter ]

very rare.

That's an oil lamp, right?

This is a unique oil lamp.

This is what we called the qumran oil lamp

that was found only in qumran.

Wow.

And they're unique because of their design?

That's correct.

You see that their neck is very, very long,

which is not typical,

and it's dated

very, very well to the end of the 3rd century bce

or the first half of the 2nd century bce.

Wow. I mean, how far were we from this?

Nothing.

This could have been in your living room, evan.

We were just inches away from this.

Unbelievable.

Isn't it incredible to think that we were there,

and they found this room with these artifacts

just locked away,

you know, waiting to be discovered?

Yes, but think that some person,

about 2,200 years ago,

left this oil lamp over there on the shelf

and never came back.

Stone: That's the weirdest part --

how anything is left behind.

Evan always talks about this.

It drives evan crazy. Like the cooking pot.

I guess we leave --

I mean, I lose a lot of stuff so...

A lot of cellphones and keys.

I was gonna say, evan, you've had 20 backpacks

over the last five years.

[ chuckles ]

quinn: You found this copper pot,

and it might have been something that they cooked in.

Was there any evidence of fires or cooking

or anything like that in that chamber,

or have you had the chance to check that out yet?

For sure, they didn't cook in the cave,

but probably they cooked outside

and brought the food inside the pot inside the cave,

but next to the pot,

we found seven arrowheads and spears.

Hmm. Is that, like, for hunting food and that sort of thing?

That's correct.

And you can see over here...

These tools are 10,000 years old.

That's correct.

They still look like they could do some damage, too.

Still in good shape.

Gates: We're all wrapped up in the era of the scrolls

a few thousand years ago.

There were people living in these caves

10,000 years ago.

That's correct.

Because that's something else

we haven't really talked much about

is that you found stuff in this cave that is much older.

It's quite amazing.

Yeah, it's awesome.

But think about it,

we found incredible stuff over there --

the cooking pot made of bones,

the arrowheads, and lots of pottery,

but it could have been also

a sealed cave with more scrolls.

It really does prove this point,

that there is no reason that we shouldn't assume

there are other jars and other scrolls

just sitting right now, waiting to be found.

Exactly,

and that we need to return to the caves

and to dig them,

to sift every bucket and bucket.

Tonight! [ laughter ]

let's get out of here!

Every time I'm with you, I'm like,

"we got to go right now!

We got to go now, oren!"

he's good.

That's awesome. Great work.

Well, I have a lot more questions,

and fortunately, dr. Gutfeld is going to stick around

and answer a few of them,

and after a short break,

we're gonna show you some exclusive footage

of a new discovery

from the labs of the israeli antiquities authority.

You went through a box of what looked like garbage,

and you rewrote the bible.

Then, later on,

we're gonna go back to the tunnels below beit lehi

to see an incredible artifact

that hasn't been viewed in more than 2,000 years.

Look at that!

Oh, my god.

Stick around.

Welcome back to "after the hunt,"

our in-depth look into the search for more

dead sea scrolls.

Here with me is archaeologist dr. Oren gutfeld,

who was our gracious host

in the caves of qumran and beyond.

And I get a lot of questions from social media,

and one of them I thought was best put to you.

A viewer asked the question...

So, what happens? Do you stop?

Of course, we --

do you push a red button and -- the scroll button?

No. We have ready a scroll kit.

What's in the scroll kit?

A scroll kit, it's made of plastic.

You open it.

There's two pairs of gloves and then a mask

and the small tweezers to deal with the parchment.

You wrap it with unoxidized paper with the plastic.

You close it, and you run immediately to the lab.

It's like a first aid kid for the scrolls,

and you're a first responder.

You have to leave it in the same condition.

Right, because as soon as you expose these things to the air,

they're already in danger. That's right.

When you expose it to the air, different temperature,

you immediately can damage the scroll.

Right.

Well, speaking of dead sea scrolls,

I got my first look at an actual scroll

in tonight's episode

at jerusalem's shrine of the book.

But there was more to my visit than we were able to show you,

including some never-before-seen footage

with the museum's curator, dr. Adolfo roitman.

He showed me a mystical scroll

that was basically edited out of the old testament.

Here's what it had to say.

This is called what?

Roitman: The war scroll. The war scroll.

So, this document describes

the war by the end of history

between the son of light and the son of darkness.

And this is part of the new books discovered in qumran.

We are very eager to know

and to have other versions of history,

not just the "official" one.

This is the other version.

This is the other side of the coin.

It gives us another look at history,

but also allows us to bypass...

Exactly.

...All of the fog of history and just see this moment.

And the fact that we have new books

actually give us a totally new perspective

about ancient jewish wisdom.

So, this is one of the really fascinating things

about the dead sea scrolls

because when you ask people "what are the dead sea scrolls?"

a lot of people say,

"well, it's just really old copies of the hebrew bible,

of the old testament,"

but it's a lot more than that.

Gutfeld: Yes, much more.

The bible scrolls

is only a fourth of the entire dead sea scrolls.

So, a quarter of the scrolls are the old testament.

That's correct.

Most of the scrolls are epigraphs or special books

that were written and found for the first time.

I love the war scroll.

I love this idea of the sons of light

battling the sons of darkness

in this apocalyptic battle, you know?

This was a time of great fear --

you know, that this was maybe the end of times.

And they were right.

At the end of the second temple period,

the roman came,

put a siege on jerusalem,

and after three, four years,

they destroyed the second temple.

[ man yells ]

right?

It actually was the end times for many people.

For sure. From theological point of view, that was the end.

And when it comes to reading these scrolls,

I had the honor of going behind the scenes with pnina shor

and her team in the iaa lab.

You got to see some of that visit in tonight's episode,

but here's an amazing discovery from the lab

that we weren't able to show you.

Take a look.

Gates: Tell me a bit about your part

in the work on the scrolls here.

One of the things I found when I was going through our store room

is that we have several boxes

with piles of what looked like fragments

that didn't seem to have anything on them.

So you thought maybe there's more here than meets the eye?

Yep.

And I found one word

and a few parts of letters around it.

Okay.

The word in hebrew is "zimrah,"

which means "a song."

it appears only five times in the hebrew bible,

and I could figure out what the letter was beforehand,

and that letter before that word appears

only in psalms 147: 1.

I knew this was from the beginning of the verse,

and I knew that the end of the verse

was actually preserved in a different fragment

that's a much larger one,

which is this one here.

So, my fragment belongs...

Right here.

So, that's where that belongs.

And what I actually discovered

is that the version of this verse here

is one word shorter than what is used

in the hebrew bible today.

And so, what was the word that was added

to the later hebrew bible?

[ speaking hebrew]

which basically into english,

would both translate as "nice."

that's absolutely astounding.

You went through a box of what looked like garbage,

and you rewrote the bible.

[ laughs ]

[ laughs ]

amazing.

Seeing this pile of these fragments,

you look at that,

and you go, "there's nothing there.

This is, like, the charred remains of a house.

There's, like, nothing left."

that kind of dedication is incredible to me.

I mean, I'll give up on a 500-piece puzzle, you know?

Stone: And what I was really amazed about

is how much energy is put into working on this stuff,

and you think, "oh, that's not important,"

but it is.

Well, it's the basis of faith.

I mean, this is, like, the underpinnings of religion here.

Yes, not only judaism, but also early christianity.

Exactly.

So, let's talk about how nervous you were in this lab, guys.

You know, just to be there, in the presence, is stressful,

and then he opens this box full of these little pieces.

And, I mean, all it would take would be a sneeze --

one sneeze -- and they're everywhere.

They're gone. Right.

But then we have to film a shot of one of these scrolls,

and we have to be over it.

One of the best scrolls. Yes.

And every moment of having that camera over that scroll,

I had beads of sweat.

I think we were all like...

How many times did you get, like, "be careful"?

Like, "oh, no."

be careful. Be careful.

Double, triple-checking all of the knobs.

Yeah. Unbelievable.

One of the things we didn't have too much time to show tonight

was these amazing conservators and, really, artists

who were working at a microscopic level,

trying to restore these scrolls.

It's just incredible work.

It's so important what they're doing because,

you know, when these scrolls were first found,

there was a lot of work done to restore them

which actually wound up damaging them.

Right, they started taping them to these glass plates,

and a lot of the work that's happening today

is actually just trying to undo this.

To reverse this. Right.

And they have to use another solvent

to get this adhesive tape glue off of every single piece

because it is eating through the parchment.

Yes. Crazy.

Just the most painstaking work you can imagine.

And what those first conservators

were trying to do with household tape,

modern researchers are doing with digital imaging.

Researchers at the university of haifa,

about 100 miles from jerusalem,

are using high-resolution scans

to knit together more than 25,000 fragments

from the dead sea scrolls.

When I was in israel, I had a chance to watch them work,

and now for the first time, you will, too.

Take a look.

This is like the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle.

[ chuckling ] yeah.

Gayer: Like, 10 different jigsaw puzzles.

You put them all in the same box,

you mix them up together,

you throw away all the pictures,

and then you throw away 80% of the pieces.

Okay, so how do you make sense of all these fragments?

So for every scroll, there's a canvas.

We put together a canvas.

We can -- we have created fonts

that resemble the actual fonts of the actual scrolls.

So, we can take the fragments.

We can write down the text around them

and put together a scroll

in a way that has not been done before.

Right.

This is a very small fragment.

It was attached underneath another fragment,

but there's something really interesting here

if you look at the back of the fragment.

More writing.

Yeah.

Now, are we just seeing ink

that's bleeding through from the front side?

No, when we compare it to the front side,

it's not the same writing.

It's actually another fragment stuck to the previous one.

So these are two different fragments

that are stuck together

that people just thought were one fragment?

Yeah.

It's more than just putting a puzzle together.

It's actual detective work, really.

I mean, this is "csi: Israel" here.

This is forensic work.

Pretty cool stuff.

Some scholars are telling me

that regarding my blank piece of scroll that I found,

that maybe in 50 years,

some new technology will be able to read.

Perhaps there is something over there,

and we cannot read it. Right.

Well, it was a real privilege

to see what they're doing with the scrolls in jerusalem

and in haifa.

When we come back, though,

I'm gonna talk to a scientist

here in the united states

who's invented a cutting-edge way

to read damaged scrolls

that were thought to be lost forever.

What he learns might change the way that we see history.

Stay with us.

Welcome back to exu headquarters,

where we're taking an in-depth look

into the first part of our investigation

of the dead sea scrolls.

Well, before our last break,

we watched footage of my visit to the university of haifa,

where scientists are using computers

to virtually separate the fused layers

of 2,000-year-old parchment.

But my next guest has actually gone one step further.

He's invented a way to read a dead sea scroll

that's too damaged to even be opened.

Joining me from the university of kentucky

is dr. Brent seales.

Doc, how are you?

Great. How you doing, josh?

I'm doing real well, thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us.

Let's start by talking about the scroll in particular

that you're working with now.

It's called the en-gedi scroll, correct?

That's right. Yeah.

Well, that scroll was actually discovered in 1970,

so it's been around a while,

but it was so badly damaged at its discovery

that it ended up in the archive on the shelf

because there was really no way to do anything with it.

So, basically, people looked at this scroll and said,

"this is a game-over scenario."

yeah, that's true.

And so, tell me a bit about the condition of the scroll.

What made it so challenging?

Well, it was discovered

inside the holy ark of a synagogue in israel,

and everything in there had been burned.

So, it really looked like a piece of charcoal

when it came out of there.

Yeah, I actually have -- you sent over here.

This is a replica of the en-gedi scroll,

and it, to me, looks like something --

it looks, like, about the size of a roll of chapstick here --

and this, to me, looks like something

that you would never be able to read.

This looks pretty well ruined.

Well, it does,

and the archaeologists knew,

because of where it was found,

that it could be valuable,

but they had no method for looking inside.

And there was really no option

for just peeling this thing out and unrolling it?

If you tried to unroll that,

it would probably disintegrate

and it would end up fragmentary,

and you might still not even be able to read it.

So it sounds like a lot of people looked at this scroll

and kind of gave up on it.

What was it that made you think

you might be able to read this?

We'd been working for a while on the concept

of being able to look inside using x-ray plus software,

and that scroll ended up being the exact perfect size

to at least be able to take a look to see what might happen.

My understanding is that pnina shor's team

basically did a ct scan of this scroll

and then sent you that data.

Is that what happened?

That's right, a micro-ct scan --

so, very high resolution tomographic scan based on x-ray.

So she sent you a micro-ct scan.

That device is normally used for what?

The micro-ct scanner they used

was mainly used for lab animals

like mice and rats,

for doing analysis on them.

You know, the anatomy of a lab animal is much smaller,

so it's higher resolution to be able to see that.

So, to be clear,

you never actually looked at the physical scroll?

So, all of it was just data that came to you,

and you didn't even need to see the original artifact?

We didn't.

The scan was so high precision

that everything we needed was in the data set.

Absolutely.

Okay, so you got the data,

and then you set to work doing what?

Well, we took a look,

and we really couldn't see anything

that looked like writing,

so we set to work using our software

to see if we could do a more careful analysis.

Where does one get software

to read ct scans of ancient scrolls?

Well, we're computer scientists,

so we wrote that software in-house.

So you custom-wrote the code to take, I guess sort of,

you know, medical technology, ct scan technology,

and somehow used that to read the scroll.

That's exactly right.

What did you do with the data?

Well, the data gives you a map of everything that's inside.

Right. It's just unstructured.

So, what we did is we added that structure,

and in this case,

that means that we had to find every layer

and be able to unwrap it.

You know, what's a layer, and what's not a layer,

and how do you do that?

Let's take a look at this magic at work.

First thing we're seeing here

is actually the ct scan itself?

That's right. Yeah.

It helps to be able to just visualize the raw data.

And look at that.

It actually cross-sections right through it,

and we can see that inside of this charred remain,

you do have all these rolled layers.

And you can see how unpredictable that is, too, right?

Totally, right.

It's not evenly rolled.

And then within those layers,

you're actually looking for the writing on the parchment.

Is that correct?

That's right. Yeah.

Is it identifying particular layers?

Yeah, so you hone in on one of those,

and the job is to isolate it,

and then at every place on that layer,

it searches in a little neighborhood around there

to get a good guess at what's there,

and that's what we call texturing.

That's where you map the writing onto that surface

because once you find exactly

where the writing should be,

you can pull it out of that data set

because it's localized.

I mean, once you know what's on each layer,

you can virtually open them.

Once they're opened,

they can all be put together into one big piece.

And so once all that happens, you actually are able to,

in a totally virtual, digital sense,

you're able to read the scroll.

Yeah, that's right because whatever's on there --

and if it's writing, it should be readable --

is opened and ready for you to look at.

When did you know this was gonna work?

We knew it was gonna work

when we saw the first writing

from the first little section that we did,

and we knew that it was hebrew.

When pnina shor first saw

that you'd been successful at this,

what was her reaction?

Well, she told me that she was moved to tears,

and that she and her husband were the ones themselves

who identified the text.

And what did they identify it as?

Well, it's an early copy of the book of leviticus,

so it's from the bible.

It's a torah scroll.

Unbelievable.

This seems like science fiction.

It seems like something you'd see

on the bridge of the enterprise, right?

This idea that you can

virtually look inside of something

and analyze it in this way just seems...

It seems impossible.

Well, it's really true.

I mean, when I look at the steps, of course,

we understand how it works,

but the final image really looks like a photo.

Yeah, it's kind of miraculous to think that what's inside

and its tangled way can be made to look just like a photo.

Well, it's incredible work,

and I saw that you sent me over

another charred-looking item here.

What is this of?

Well, so that's a replica of a scroll

that comes from a different site in the world.

It comes from just right around the corner from pompeii,

one of the most famous archaeological sites

in the world,

the site where mt. Vesuvius exploded in ad 79,

the bay of naples in Italy.

Herculaneum?

It's from herculaneum.

And is this also a scroll?

It is also a scroll.

It's written on papyrus.

And have you finished your work on this yet,

or is this ongoing?

We haven't. This is ongoing,

and it's really very exciting

because there are more than 700 of those

that have not been read.

That is incredible.

It sounds like you're gonna be busy

for a very long time.

[ chuckles ] I hope so.

This is really extraordinary stuff.

Thank you so much for your hard work on this

and high-five your whole team for me, okay?

I will. Thanks for including me.

I appreciate it.

You got it, doctor. Thank you so much.

All the best. Alright.

Yeah. Buh-bye. Bye.

Unbelievable.

We're gonna take a short break,

but when we return,

dr. Oren gutfeld will be back

to share an exciting new find

from beneath the settlement known as beit lehi.

We explored tunnels there

that have never been filmed before,

and what we discovered has never been seen before.

Welcome back to where else,

"expedition unknown" headquarters,

and the gang's all here again.

You remember dr. Oren gutfeld,

as well as our "expedition unknown" team,

our directors of photography,

mr. Evan b. Stone and brian weed,

and our story producer, mr. Tom quinn.

Great to have you all here.

Thanks. Happy to be here.

You didn't give us a choice.

Quiet, tom. [ laughs ]

so, on the table now,

we are talking about the site known as beit lehi,

and it's also where we ended tonight's show,

and so before we get into

the starting find that we made there,

tell us about this site.

The site of beit lehi was first found in 1961,

when a bulldozer of the army

by accident hit a ceiling of a burial cave

from the first temple period.

Wow.

The hebrew university archaeologist

professor joseph naveh

excavated the cave,

and to his surprise,

he found seven ancient hebrew inscriptions

on the walls.

One of them known as the jerusalem inscription

mentioned the city of jerusalem

for the first time in history

in around 586 bce. Wow.

So, an enormously significant find

as soon as the site was found.

Yes.

Beit lehi is not in qumran where the caves are,

where the dead sea scrolls were found,

but it does have this kind of striking connection,

which is that this is another place

where jews that were fleeing jerusalem

may have been hiding, right?

That's correct.

Now, in the show tonight that aired,

when we got to beit lehi,

we got down and dirty pretty quickly

by going underground,

but there is something you didn't see.

Earlier that day,

dr. Gutfeld and his colleague michael haber

taught us about the thousands of years of history

at this remarkable site,

and now, thanks to this exclusive footage,

you'll get to learn about it as well.

Gates: Wow. Look at the mosaic!

How old is this?

Haber: This was constructed -- the church, the mosaics --

around the year 500 ad.

So, this is a 1,500-year-old floor?

It is.

They don't make them like they used to.

[ chuckles ]

so, we're in 500 ad.

What was in this area before the church was here?

We have occupation in the area of beit lehi

stretching back to the first temple period.

Apart from gaps here and there,

we can speak to continuous occupation

from around the year 600 bc

to the site's abandonment in the medieval period

around the 14th century ad.

Wow. So, this site goes way back.

Gutfeld: Yes.

The site is really remarkable.

You know, we were there to look at this snapshot

of this very particular window of time

in the second temple period, the time of the scrolls,

but, really, there's so much more to talk about here.

Yes. There are many monumental buildings.

We have a small mosque and especially a monumental temple

that we just started to uncover.

This temple is dated to the 4th or the 3rd century bc.

So, we've had all these different groups occupying this area.

Let's talk about who's occupying it today.

This is near an active military training site.

No, it's in an active military training site.

Is that right? Gutfeld: Yes.

Yes, but there's a good part of it.

For 70 years, this area belongs to the army,

which means it was neglected.

We are the first ones to be there

after thousands of years.

That's the reason every day, we're finding something new.

I found something really new.

Yeah, evan, let's talk about your find at the site.

My find was very exciting

and it almost cost me my life

or at least my leg or something.

I stepped on a mortar.

There it is, right there.

Not something you see every day.

No, and part of me is like, "pick it up. Check it out,"

and the other part was like,

"you're an idiot. Don't do that."

and which part won out, brian?

[ laughter ]

well, he's still here,

so, luckily, I don't think he picked it up.

Stone: I took a photo.

I thought you did pick it up.

Negative. Oh, you didn't?

No. I'm -- come on.

I'm from new york.

I got street smarts, you know?

Yeah, you find a lot of these on the upper east side

where you grew up.

The first rule of the upper east side --

don't pick up the mortars.

You find a lot of these over there?

We found a few. Yes.

So after this happened, who do you call?

So I'm calling the bomb squad of the army,

and they came, and they blew it up.

They blew it up. So, it was live?

Oh, yes.

That's messed up.

Evan, you're lucky. That's messed up, man.

I'm lucky. I am lucky.

So, thankfully, evan was fine.

Used up another one of your nine lives,

and we got to the business of investigating,

and we were really fortunate to show up on a day

when members of your team

had found what they thought was the entrance to a tunnel

and when we put that snake camera through that drilled-out rock

and saw that that tunnel just went straight back,

I was speechless.

Yes, but we were lucky to find a tunnel

that was not opened before.

And you were so enthusiastic

about crawling back in this tunnel,

and you're a big guy, so I thought,

"oh, there must be some room back there.

This must be a place we can move around."

oren, it is very tight in those tunnels.

Yes. It's like a maze.

It's a maze. It's a long maze.

It was, like, endless.

Now, I have to tip my hat to tom here.

You had said to me beforehand,

"look, man, I'm a little claustrophobic.

I'm not gonna go inside this tunnel,"

but you crawled in there.

I crawled in there as far as I could.

I just sort of said, "you know what?

Damn it, I'm just gonna do this,"

and I just plowed on through and went in

and, you know, the hell with it, and I overcame it.

I was kind of proud of myself.

We actually have a photo of tom in the tunnel here.

There he is -- the man.

You did it.

There was one point in the tunnel

that you didn't quite make it to

where oren and I got into a bit of trouble.

Yeah.

I remember hearing through my earpiece, josh say,

"oh, I can't move my leg,"

and I'm imagining this whole thing, and it's like,

"okay. I'm getting my résumé together here and now."

right.

And so that you at home have a clue

as to what we're talking about here,

here's some exclusive footage from our exploration

that I'm actually happy that we didn't have time for.

You have to pull me up out of here.

I can try to use my back.

Almost.

Nope.

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Now this is where you turn.

There, there.

Yes.

Nope. Oh, no.

Ah, my leg's too long.

I can't bring my knee in.

It's, like, the perfect trap to never get out of.

Alright. Ready? One --

no, no. Okay.

Boost us, boost.

Come on.

Come on.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on.

Let go. Let go, let go, let go.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on.

I got it.

Oh, [bleep].

Who the hell decided we should go down there?

You did.

I don't remember it that way.

It's hard to get a sense of it,

but it basically was like an "l,"

and if you tried to do what I did there,

I couldn't bend my knees to get up that way.

But when we found it, I told you,

"josh, don't go there,"

and then you said, "no, I have to go there."

we didn't see that, but I was stuck as well.

Yes. And I'm calling you,

and I'm telling you, "please, help me,"

and you said, "no, I can't,"

and I ask why you can't.

He said, "well, I'm filming that."

good man.

Look, I've got to make a tv show.

Okay, film one, two, five minutes,

but then help me.

He said, "no, I want to see how you coming out from this."

I told you, "I'm coming out, and I'm going to kill you!"

[ laughter ]

gutfeld: Okay, now what?

Are you stuck?

Yes, I am.

This is real. We are not joking here.

I know. It's true.

Finally, I set the camera down,

and I did help,

and I have to say, you know,

that clip was a lot shorter

than the amount of time it actually took us

to get you out of there.

If I was in there alone...

Oh. Gutfeld: No way.

...That would be it. No way.

I mean it. You could not get out of that pit.

It was like a...

It was a trap. Yes.

Well, it's time to take a quick break,

but when we return, we're going to show you

everything we found underneath beit lehi

including a never-before-seen discovery

that absolutely blew my mind.

That is insane.

Plus, you're gonna get a sneak peek

at next week's incredible conclusion

to our quest for the dead sea scrolls.

It's a new mission, a new country,

and a chance at a billion-dollar treasure.

Stay tuned.

Welcome back.

We've got a pop quiz for my crew and for you at home.

Oren, you're disqualified because you're israeli,

and this is a question about israel.

The question is...

Is it...

...Or...

Evan. All above.

Even aol instant messenger,

which has the word "america" in the title?

Yes. I'm going for it.

Okay, brian? I'm pretty sure

the waze app came from israel,

and I'm not too sure about the other two,

so I'm gonna go with waze app.

Tom.

I think I'm gonna agree with brian.

Okay, so those are your final answers?

Oren, if you were playing, what would you have said?

All of the above. [ bell dings ]

and oren would have been correct.

The answer is "all of the above."

waze was a 2008 israeli startup,

m-systems made the first usb thumb drive,

and aol instant messenger

was originally an israeli software

called icq.

They also invented something called the magnoshocker,

which is a combination of a metal detector and a taser,

and, yes, I'm on the waiting list.

Welcome back to "after the hunt."

we were talking before the break

about our time deep underneath beit lehi,

and there, covered in 2,000 years of dust,

we found the remnants of a cooking pot

and then another mysterious artifact

to be revealed on next week's "expedition unknown."

well, the "after the hunt" audience

doesn't have to do cliffhangers,

and so, here's the rest of what we discovered

underneath the site.

Gates: Wow. Look at this.

Come here. Come here. Look, there's pottery.

See it?

So, people were probably living in rooms like this.

Gutfeld:Yes. Interesting.

You don't even have to dig for it.

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,

and if they lived here,

they may have brought scrolls with them.

Oh, look at that. Look at that!

It's an oil lamp.

Oh, my god.

♪

it's an indescribable feeling to hold an artifact like this,

knowing that the last person to touch it

lived over 2,000 years ago.

You can even see right there where it was burned.

This would have been used by somebody

from the time of the scrolls

in this otherwise terrifying darkness

to provide a little bit of light.

Look at that. All the burn marks.

I mean, that is really like time-traveling.

That connects you to the past.

This was a really special thing to find

not just because it was intact

but because it's something that would have been

so important to them in these tunnels.

This probably would have been

their only source of light down there.

And just this idea of,

you know, thousands of years ago,

somebody using this artifact,

putting it down, walking away

and then to be the next people to touch it.

It's very emotional.

And the pottery that we found there

and the oil lamp, as remarkable as they were,

they weren't the only thing we found.

In fact, there's another discovery we made

that honestly took my breath away,

and I want to make sure that you get to see it at home.

Here's an exclusive clip.

[ grunting ]

gutfeld: Josh.

Something drawn on the wall.

Yeah. Yes.

Legs.

My word, look at that.

Right. Maybe we're not looking for scrolls.

We're looking for chisel marks.

That is insane.

That is as direct a link to the past

as you can get right there.

So, there you have it --

some sort of 2,000-year-old depiction

inside the tunnel.

Evan, I know what you think this is.

It's obvious. I mean...

Evan, not everything is an alien.

Come on. Look at it --

the big, round head,

the small hands, you know?

So, what do you think we're really seeing here?

I take it this isn't just graffiti.

I think it's something much more deep.

In another cave of the site,

archaeologists uncovered depictions of two priests,

one of them holding his hand and praying to god,

another one sitting and playing on a lyre.

I think this is something very, very similar.

It's something that comes from --

maybe from despair, maybe a prayer.

For help, for salvation from this situation.

That's correct.

And, by the way, after you left,

we started to look very carefully on the walls,

and we found some inscription on the walls.

One of them is the name zebedee,

zebedee known from the new testament

as the father of james and john,

the fisherman from the sea of galilee.

Wow.

The whole site really is remarkable,

from the layer cake of history there to these tunnels,

which have a really kind of emotional impact.

Once you get past the claustrophobia

and the fact that they're tight

and, you know, hard to get through,

you start to feel really connected to the history there.

Oh, yes. Very much. Very much.

And that sadly brings us to the end of this hour

of "after the hunt."

I'd like to thank my crew

as well as dr. Oren gutfeld

for joining us tonight

and dr. Brent seales.

Exactly one week from tonight,

tune in for the conclusion of our investigation

into the mysteries of the dead sea scrolls.

And immediately following that show,

we'll be right back here

for another addition of "after the hunt."

it's all about the next phase of our investigations,

the so-called copper scroll

and a treasure hunt of biblical proportions.

Here's a sneak peak

at next week's episode of "expedition unknown."

what makes this scroll so different than the rest?

Here we have descriptions of treasures.

Does the scroll give a value for the treasure?

By today's prices, $1 billion or so.

A billion dollars of treasure.

65 bars of gold

barricaded at the sharp edge of the rock.

Sharp edge of the rock.

There's a lot of sharp rocks in jordan.

You see that? Oh, my god.

That's writing.

Look at that -- more pottery.

You think this could be the place?

I'm positive.

This is amazing.

Look at this!

It goes way, way back.

Oh, my god!