All language subtitles for Mysteries.Unearthed.with.Danny.Trejo.S02E16.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[tense music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can
be buried anywhere:

under the earth,

[volcanic eruption booms]

beneath the sea,

[airplane roaring]

or even right
under our own feet.

[coins jingling]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find
can change history.

Tonight,

[swords swoosh]
[explosions boom]

powerful discoveries.

[tires squeal]

From a muscle car with
a legendary past...

- It turns out that this
isn't just any old Mustang.

This is probably one of

the most famous
Mustangs in history.

- [Danny] To a
hidden stronghold...

- They find a vast,
concrete chamber.

- They also find what looks
like two escape tunnels.

- [Danny] To a floating
force of destruction.

- This ship carried
very large guns.

It was basically the
15th century equivalent

of a nuclear warship.

[explosion booms]

- Join us now, because
nothing stays hidden forever.

[mysterious music]

When most of us think of power,

we think of physical strength,

but sometimes that
force isn't in the body,

it's under the hood.

- It's 2017 and Hugo Sanchez is

picking through a
junkyard in Mexico.

He restores muscle cars

and so he's looking for a
beater with some good bones.

- It's like a
graveyard of metal.

You've got your twisted frames,

your blown-out doors,
your rusted fenders,

but then he spies something.

It's a familiar silhouette

that is just covered,
unfortunately,

by decades of neglect.

It's the shell of a 1968
Mustang GT Fastback.

- The car's a mess,

dents everywhere,
rust everywhere,

and yet he sees
in the silhouette

something that he might
be able to work with.

- [Danny] Without hesitating,

Sanchez buys the old car
on the spot for $5,000.

- Sanchez hauls the wreck to
his friend, Ralph Garcia Jr.,

a body shop owner
who specializes

in customizing old Mustangs.

- [Andrew] As Garcia
begins to inspect the car,

he realizes that this
is an S-code Mustang GT

with a 390-cubic-inch V8 engine.

This was a beast of
a car in its day.

- [Sami] So Garcia runs the
car's VIN through a database

and what comes back
is astonishing to him.

It turns out that this Mustang
isn't just any old Mustang.

This is probably one of the
most famous Mustangs in history,

because this is the Mustang

that Steve McQueen drove

in the 1968 film, "Bullitt".

- [Danny] Widely hailed as one
of the greatest action films

ever made,

"Bullitt" became legendary

for its groundbreaking
car chase sequence.

- [Andrew] This was 1968,

so no CGI, no green screen,

just Steve McQueen
behind the wheel

of a stripped down
Mustang Fastback,

tearing through the
streets of San Francisco.

- [Paul] Well, the film
"Bullitt" is what made

the Mustang one of
the most iconic cars

in all of American history

that had only come on the
market four years before.

But now everybody
wanted a Mustang.

Everyone wanted to be as cool

as Steve McQueen was
behind the wheel.

- [Danny] The car
may look the part,

but to be sure, Sanchez
and Garcia reach out

to a well-known expert
for confirmation.

- [Andrew] Sanchez and Garcia
send photos of the car

to Kevin Marti, a
renowned Ford historian

and an expert on Mustangs.

As soon as he sees the photos,

he's on the next
flight to Mexico.

- [Danny] Marti knows every
detail about the cars used

in "Bullitt" and the
first thing he explains is

that there were two of them.

- [Kavitha] One
was the hero car,

used for closeups
and regular scenes.

The other was the
jumper used for stunts.

It was reinforced, gutted,

and totally battered
by the shoot.

- [Sami] Marti takes a look
at the car and he sees

the vehicle's reinforced
suspension and chassis.

He also sees the holes
that were put in the car

so that the movie
lights and the cameras

inside the car could be powered.

He also notices that underneath

that cream-colored paint
and those patches of rust,

the original paint,

that Highland Green,
is still present.

- [Danny] It's official.

This is the jumper Mustang
that made movie magic,

but how did it end up in Mexico?

- [Paul] After filming wraps
on "Bullitt", the car sold.

It changes hands
several times and moves

from New Jersey to Kentucky,

but eventually it's
just so beat up

that it's sold for junk

and winds up in this automobile
graveyard down in Mexico.

- [Danny] Today, the
iconic Mustang is

turning heads all over again.

- [Andrew] Sanchez and Garcia
have restored the jumper car

back to its original 1968 glory,

but for now, it's
staying in the garage.

The hero car from "Bullitt"
sold at auction in 2020

for a staggering $3.74 million.

So if the jumper car were
to ever hit the market,

who knows what
lengths collectors

would go to acquire it?

- Next, another vehicle
that packs a punch,

but this one wasn't
built for the big screen.

It was built for war.

- In 2008, on the
quiet Rue de Perrier

in the city of
Chartres in France,

road workers are
pulling up old asphalt.

[equipment rattling]

- This is a routine
maintenance project

until the digger
hits something solid.

Work is halted and all
of the workers come in

to take a look.

- They can see something
just under the dirt.

It's not a stone, it's metal.

It's twisted and rusty,

and it definitely
doesn't belong here.

- [Andrew] Unfortunately,
whatever this is

is massive and it won't budge.

So they bring in
some more equipment

and they're finally able
to drag it out of the earth

and it is the most
unexpected thing:

a tank.

- [John] The workers
are shocked and afraid

because this thing could
still have live ammo

or explosives in it,

which means it could blow up.

- [Danny] Unwilling
to take any chances,

the team quickly calls
in the bomb squad.

- [Andrew] They sweep the
vehicle and declare it safe.

Next, historians come in
and they identify the tank.

This is an M5 Stuart.

[explosion bangs]

- [Martin] The M5 Stuart was
one of the most versatile

armored fighting vehicles used
by American military forces

during the Second World War.

In an armored division,
speed is armor

and the Stuart is
lightweight and fast,

perfect for
reconnaissance operations.

- [Danny] That
speed put the Stuart

at the front of the action.

And in the chaos of the
advance through France,

one mission would prove it
was too fast for its own good.

- [John] Back on August
16th, 1944, American forces

are tearing through
Nazi-occupied France.

Leading the charge
is an M5 Stuart,

part of the 31st Tank Battalion.

- [Martin] This vehicle
was on a scouting mission

when it was struck by a round

from a German Panzerfaust
anti-tank weapon.

[explosion booms]

The Panzerfaust round
hits the right track

and disables the vehicle.

The crew abandons it safely,

but they then spend
the next three days

attempting to
evade German forces

before they make it
back to friendly lines.

- [Danny] Meanwhile, the
tank is quickly seized

by German troops.

- German engineers
disabled this M5.

They took the cannon,
the machine guns,

they actually blew
off the turret

and they just left it as
this kind of metal hulk

that could never be used again.

- [Martin] Two days later,
forces under the command

of General George S.
Patton liberate Chartres.

They find the tank, but
it's too damaged to be

returned to service,

so they push it off into a
shell crater and bury it.

- [John] Over time,
the land was paved

and the road became
just another street.

The tank sat beneath it
for 60 years, forgotten.

- Across history, some of
the most powerful people

didn't rule empires;

they ruled arenas.

And a discovery
in Italy uncovered

the story of one such figure.

- [Andrew] It's a few days
before Christmas, 1959,

and construction crews
in Taranto, Italy are

excavating a new
foundation for a building.

- [Adam] The excavation
is going along,

sort of business as usual,

until suddenly, there
is the jarring sound

of metal hitting stone.

So the equipment stops, the
workers grab their shovels.

They start clearing
earth until they come

to a small limestone vault

about the size of a human body.

- [Kavitha] In a country
where history runs deep,

this only means one thing.

It's time to call
the archeologists.

They lift the slabs
that form the lid

and inside, they
find a sarcophagus.

- [Andrew] Inside
the sarcophagus,

they find the remains of a body.

It's a man in his
late 20s, early 30s,

who stood about 5'7".

- [Danny] But it's what's
found around his bones

that tells a deeper story.

- [Kavitha] They find remnants
of black and orange pottery

and they date to about 480 B.C.

Around this time,
this part of Italy was

under Greek control.

- The archeology team brings
these pottery fragments

back to the lab and they
put 'em back together

and realize it forms
three full jars,

and part of a fourth.

- [Adam] The jars have
designs on the outside

depicting different
sporting events

from the Panathenaic Games,

sort of the precursor to
today's modern Olympics.

- [Andrew] Held every
July, these games were

part religious ceremony,
part competition.

Individual events
range from foot races

to boat races to
military dance contests.

If you competed and won
at the Panathenaic Games,

you got something
just as valuable

as a gold medal is
to athletes today:

olive oil.

- [Kavitha] Olive oil
was extremely valuable

in ancient Greece.

There was even a special
reserve for Greek athletes

pressed from the sacred
groves in Attica.

- [Adam] To have one jar
alone was significant,

and the man in the sarcophagus
had four jars with him.

That's not just the
mark of a competitor;

that's the mark of a champion.

- [Danny] Archeologists wonder

what sport made him
such a powerhouse.

- At 5'7", this athlete
was tall for his day

and researchers can tell
that he was very well built.

Regular exercise
changes our bones,

increases our bone density

as muscles pull
and push at them.

- [Adam] The man's
shoulders and arms have

massive muscle attachments.

His right ulna, one of
the bones in his forearm,

is much larger than
the one in his left,

and all around the operating
joints of his shoulders,

you could see the wear and tear

of repeated athletic motion.

- [Kavitha] Looking at
his right shoulder,

experts are convinced

it came from throwing
either discus or javelin.

- His lower body is
equally impressive.

He has thick calf
and thigh bones,

which suggests the
type of muscles

that could launch you
into a sprint or a jump.

- [Danny] That's when the images

on one of the four jars
finally makes sense.

- The pottery doesn't just
depict one athletic event.

It depicts all five
pentathlon events:

discus throwing, running,

javelin, wrestling, long jump.

- [Danny] But for
everything his bones reveal

about his strength,

they don't tell us how he died.

- [Adam] This athlete was young

and in incredibly
good physical shape.

There's no sign of
trauma or disease,

so no one understands

what could have
possibly killed him.

- [Andrew] As of today,
this man's remains are

the only ones we found that
we can definitively say

are of an ancient Greek athlete.

We may never know
this champion's name,

but his bones tell the story

of strength that
still speaks to us

2,500 years later.

- Sometimes, powerful
figures leave behind glory.

Other times, they
leave behind secrets.

And this next discovery
unearths a major one.

- [Don] In 2011, City
Superintendent Anna Imponente

and architect Carlo Serafini

are overseeing a
minor remodeling job

at the National Museum of
the Palazzo Venezia in Rome.

- [Martin] The museum is
quickly running out of room

to display its collection,

so they're going to
convert an old storage area

into new exhibition space.

- As workers clear out boxes
of forgotten papers and relics,

they find a trap
door in the floor,

measuring three
feet by three feet.

- Imponente and
Serafini pry it open

and underneath the
door, they see

a narrow, red brick staircase

descending into
absolute darkness.

- [Martin] Curious, they
grab a couple of flashlights

and head 50 feet down
into the unknown.

At the bottom, they
find themselves

inside a vast, concrete chamber.

It's about 860 square feet

and there are nine more rooms
that branch off from the space.

- [Don] There's a functioning
ventilation system,

electric wiring.

The rooms themselves are bare.

There's no decoration,
no furniture,

just broken junk around,

all of which seems to date
from the mid 20th century.

They also find what looks like

two unfinished escape tunnels.

- [Danny] What they've
uncovered is no ordinary space.

It's a secret bunker from one
of Italy's darkest chapters.

[planes roaring]
[explosions booming]

- [Andrew] In 1929,

Italy's fascist dictator
Benito Mussolini

chose the Palazzo Venezia
as his seat of power.

From the palazzo's balcony,

he famously addressed
massive crowds,

galvanizing support for
he and his government.

[crowd cheers]

[explosion booming]

- By World War II, the
palace wasn't just symbolic;

it became his official
residence and command center.

From here, Mussolini governed

as Hitler's closest
European ally.

- [Danny] But in 1942,

as the tide of war
begins to turn,

Mussolini's once
unchallenged grip on power

starts to loosen.

- [Martin] As Allied
forces begin closing in,

Mussolini becomes concerned.

He's worried that Allied
air forces will launch

a raid that will
target him personally.

- Publicly, Mussolini
famously declared

that he would never
hide from an airstrike

and he'd bravely ride
it out on his balcony.

But it's rumored
that on one occasion

when he was caught in
an airstrike in Albania,

[explosions boom]

Il Duce ran straight
to the nearest bunker.

- [Danny] Before this
bunker could be finished,

Mussolini's reign
came to an abrupt end.

- [Martin] In July 1943,
Mussolini was ousted from power

and arrested.

Nearly two years later,

he is executed by
Italian partisans

and the bunker is never
completed and never used.

- [Don] For nearly 70 years,

it did what it was made to do.

It remained hidden,
sealed and forgotten,

until a renovation
project turned it

into a once in a
lifetime discovery.

Today, it stands as a chilling
relic of power, paranoia,

and the downfall of a dictator.

- When scuba divers
explore the sea,

they expect to find coral, fish,

and maybe some old artifacts,

but for one group
out for a swim,

what they discover is proof
of an ancient ruler's might.

- [Hugo] In the summer of 1971,

off the coast of
Ronneby, Sweden,

a group of recreational scuba
divers explore the Baltic Sea.

[water splashes]

The water is calm,
visibility is clear.

It's a perfect day.

- They're out there
admiring the marine life

when they see something
that looks out of place.

There are these long,
wooden beams scattered

across the sea floor,

and so they move in closer
to get a better look,

thinking it's an
old fishing boat.

Among the beams, the divers find

dozens of small, metal balls

about the size of golf balls.

- [Danny] Over the
next few decades,

the shipwreck becomes a
popular scuba spot for locals.

- [Micah] Then in 2001,

one of the divers notices
something strange.

Some of the beams appear to
be hollowed out in the center,

and so he contacts
a local museum

and asks experts to come
out and have a look.

- [Danny] When marine
archeologists arrive on site,

it's immediately clear that
this is not a fishing boat.

It's something much
more impressive.

- [Hakeem] This ship is massive,

about 100 feet long
and 30 feet wide.

Those hollow beams turn
out to be artillery mounts

used to support heavy cannons.

And those little golf balls,

those were lead cannon balls.

- [Danny] These are the
remains of a warship

and it's one of the
oldest ever found

in Nordic waters.

- [Micah] This ship
carried very large guns

and breechloading artillery,

which was extremely
cutting edge for the time.

[cannons booming]

It was basically the
15th century equivalent

of a nuclear-powered warship.

- [Danny] No one knows exactly
where the ship came from

or where it was heading,

but what is clear is that it
wasn't just built for combat.

- The archeologists find coins,

a suede slipper, and barrels
full of rare spices.

So there's saffron, and cloves,

and ginger, peppercorns.

And back then, exotic
spices were a real luxury.

I mean, some were literally
worth their weight in gold.

- [Hugo] Over the
next several years,

teams keep coming
back to the site.

They're mapping more of it,

trying to piece together
what this wreck was.

- [Danny] Then in 2015,

a diver finally pulls up

a crucial piece of the puzzle.

- [Micah] It's an
ancient piece of wood

with a painted figurehead,

and it either depicts
a snarling dragon

or maybe a hound
devouring a human.

Testing of the timber dates
this piece to the 1400s,

and that means that this is

the oldest figure head ever
recovered from a shipwreck.

- [Hakeem] With the
ship's design, armaments,

and time period in hand,

the researchers turn to
the historical record.

Only one ship fits the evidence:

the Gribshunden, which is
Danish for Griffin hound.

It's the lost
flagship of King Hans,

the 15th century ruler
of Denmark and Norway.

- [Danny] Around
this time in 1495,

King Hans had his sights
set on the throne in Sweden.

- [Hugo] Hans wanted to unify
the entire Nordic region

under his rule.

To win the throne of Sweden,

he had to meet with
the Swedish Council.

If he could somehow
win them over,

they would make
him king of Sweden.

- Hans brought his A-game.

He loaded the Gribshunden
with nobles, elite guards,

gold, and spices.

It was a display of
his wealth and power

designed to win over
the Swedish Council.

- [Hakeem] But during his
journey, disaster struck.

When the ship was docked
near the town of Ronneby,

a fire broke out on board

and it quickly spread
down to the hold

where the gunpowder was stored.

[explosion booming]

- [Micah] There is a
massive explosion,

and for everyone on board,
it's literally sink or swim.

Close to 100 mercenaries and
crew end up being killed.

- [Paul] The ship, along with
all of Hans' weapons and wealth,

sink to the bottom of the sea.

Hans himself, though, survives,

through sheer lucky coincidence

because he happened to be
ashore when the fire broke out.

- [Danny] It wasn't just
a maritime disaster,

it was a political one too.

- Without his flagship,
Hans returned home.

It took him two more years

before he claimed
the Swedish throne,

but even then, he only
held it for three years.

- [Hugo] Regardless, King Hans
managed to leave his mark,

even from the
depths of the ocean.

- 1,000 miles away,

another treasure from a
different powerful leader

is uncovered,

only this time, it's
not beneath the waves.

It's buried in
someone's backyard.

- [Andrew] It's
the spring of 2020

and COVID lockdowns
have confined families

across the United
Kingdom to their homes.

One household in
England's New Forest area

decide they're gonna shake
off their cabin fever,

gonna head out to the backyard

and do a little
bit of gardening.

- [Martin] They're weeding,
they're digging in the garden.

They're just trying to come up
with things to pass the time.

When suddenly,

something attracts
their attention.

It glints in the sunlight.

It's small and round and golden.

- They pick it up,
brush the mud off,

and are shocked to see the image

of an angel fighting a
dragon on a gold coin.

- [Andrew] The family
can't believe it,

and so they start sifting
through the dirt, digging,

and sure enough, they
find another coin,

and then another.

- [Danny] By sunset,
they've dug up

63 gold coins and
one silver piece.

- [Hakeem] They call the
authorities and within days,

archeologists show up and
they find six more coins.

- [Martin] Most of these
coins date to the 1400s,

during the reign of Edward IV.

One side of the coin
shows a ship at sea.

The other side shows
the Archangel Michael

defeating a dragon,

a powerful symbol drawn from
the Book of Revelations.

- But four of the
coins are different.

Instead of an angel and ship,

they feature a Tudor rose.

- [Danny] This is the mark

of one of England's most
influential, flamboyant,

and controversial
kings, Henry VIII.

- [Hakeem] Henry VIII was
never supposed to be king.

He was the second son,

the spare, not the heir.

But when his older brother died,

the crown fell to him.

So in 1509, he
ascended the throne.

- Henry didn't simply rule
England, he transformed it.

He broke with the
Catholic Church

and also began rewriting
laws to suit his will.

- [Alex] In 1526, with
Cardinal Wolsey by his side,

Henry overhauled the
kingdom's currency.

He changed the weights and
created a new denomination,

the gold crown, which was
worth five shillings.

- [Danny] Henry also added a
few other details to his coins.

- [Hakeem] He put his
initial H on every coin,

kind of like the
16th century version

of personal branding,

and a total power move.

- [Alex] But he didn't hog
the spotlight completely.

He shared the glory by giving
his queens equal billing.

His wife's initial was
always stamped beside his.

- Famously, Henry
VIII had many wives,

and so the initial stamped into
the coins changed over time.

- [Hakeem] Some of
these rare coins,

including the ones with
Henry VIII's wives' initials,

were recovered from
the family's garden,

buried and forgotten
for almost 500 years.

- [Danny] Today, the hoard
is worth about $24,000,

but why was such a valuable
stash buried in the first place?

- At the time, there was a
lot of turmoil for Henry VIII.

He was seizing land and wealth
from the Catholic Church.

Monasteries were being dissolved

and treasuries
were being emptied.

- [Hakeem] Some historians think
the hoard may have been buried

by a Catholic clergyman

who was hoping to protect
the church's wealth

from the crown.

If that's true,

this coin collection
may very well

have eluded King Henry.

- In 1871, a Swedish
scientist sets out

to study ants,

but ends up stumbling onto
something much bigger than bugs.

- [Micah] On the
shores of Sweden,

entomologist Knut
Hjalmar Stolpe is

digging through the mud,

searching for ancient
ants preserved in amber.

- [Hugo] On the lake
shore, he finds more amber

than he's expecting,

a much greater amount than
should ever occur naturally,

and there's no obvious
explanation for it.

He's in the middle of nowhere

with no people or
businesses nearby.

- [Danny] But Stolpe
recalls hearing whispers

of a lost Viking city in
the area called Birka.

So, he decides to
investigate further.

- [Nicola] Nearby,
Stolpe excavates a pit.

Inside it, he finds
twisted bits of iron.

He finds pottery shards.

He finds animal bones.

- [Micah] He shares
what he's discovered

with a few other scientists,

but to them, he's just
a eccentric insect guy,

and so most of them just
kind of brush him off.

- [Andrew] Determined
to prove them wrong,

Stolpe literally
goes back to school,

earns a degree in archeology,

comes back to the site,

and begins a careful,
years-long excavation.

- [Hugo] His work pays off.

He finds homes,

the remains of a shipyard,

and goods from as far
away as the Middle East.

- [Micah] From the
size of the settlement

to the types of relics
that he's uncovering,

Stolpe becomes convinced
that he's found

the remnants of the
ancient Viking city.

- [Danny] Soon, Stolpe's
theory gets a boost

when he discovers
thousands of human graves,

but one in particular
stands out.

- [Andrew] There's a
skeleton surrounded

by a whole arsenal of weapons,

sword, ax, shields, lances.

Arranged next to
it are two horses,

a mare and a stallion.

- [Nicola] In the
Viking context,

burials this elaborate point

to somebody with
significant status.

- [Micah] There
were also remains

of an iron-framed gaming board

that was complete
with dice and pawns.

Game sets like these
were known to be used

by Viking leaders as
more than just a pastime.

It signaled strategic mastery.

It was the mark of
a true commander.

- [Danny] Stolpe
concludes that this is

the grave of a
very powerful man,

a leader and a
guardian of Birka,

and for over a century,

no one questions that,

until modern science
reveals a surprise.

- [Andrew] In 2019,

researchers run DNA
analysis on the bones.

The analysis reveals
that these bones have

two X chromosomes,

which means that the great
leader of Birka was a woman.

While Viking sagas
speak of shieldmaidens,

women who fought alongside men,

this is the first
historical evidence

that women may have ascended
to positions of power

equal to the greatest
male Viking warrior.

- [Danny] While one ancient
warrior's secrets are revealed

by her burial pit,

a modern ruler's legacy is

nearly lost forever
in a trash pit.

- For 15 years, a man
named David Rose has

worked at a garbage
dump in England.

Every now and then, he
finds a piece or two

that he rescues
from the trash heap,

and one day in 2019,

something catches David's eye.

- [Andrew] Poking out of a pile
of rubbish is a cardboard box.

Dusty, old, but sealed shut.

Thinking that something
interesting might be inside,

David pulls the box from
the trash and opens it.

- Inside, he finds a strange
collection of objects.

There's a small wooden
case with a cigar,

a worn cigar holder,

and an old top hat,

and there's also a
stack of old letters,

more than 140 of 'em.

- [Andrew] Most of the letters
are postmarked to the 1940s

and they're written by a
London woman named Mary Dorgan.

They're addressed to her son,

who she calls "My darling Joe".

He is a soldier in
the British forces

posted to Egypt in the
waning days of World War II.

- [Martin] She writes
to him almost daily,

sharing with him details
of what it's like in London

during wartime:

blackouts, food
rationing, fire watches.

- [John] Mary also
describes her life

working as part of
the domestic staff

in an upper class home.

She gives updates
about her boss,

what mood he's in and
what he's up to every day.

- [Andrew] As David
rummages through the box,

underneath all of the
items and the letters,

he finds an autographed
photo of none other than

Winston Churchill.

- [Danny] Could this box
of items really belong

to one of history's
greatest leaders?

- [John] Winston Churchill rose
to become Prime Minister in 1940

and quickly became the
face of British resilience.

His fiery speeches

and unwavering leadership
helped carry the nation

through the darkest
days of the war.

[crowd cheering]

- [Martin] Looking for
answers, David contacts

World War II historians.

They confirmed that
Mary Dorgan was

an Irish immigrant who worked

in Churchill's household
during World War II.

- Her stories of his
moods and habits are

things that only
someone who worked

in his household would know.

- [Danny] Incredibly, the
letters don't just capture

Churchill's private life.

They place Mary at his side

during some of his
most defining moments.

- [Martin] She writes about
Churchill's 71st birthday.

She's there for the day
Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies.

She's there for VE Day.

- She writes to her
son about gifts

that Churchill gave
her, including a cigar

and one of his
signature top hats.

- [John] No one is certain how
this box of Mary's mementos

ended up getting
tossed in the dump.

But for David Rose,

who spent 15 years
combing through

things that other
people have thrown away,

it's the find of a lifetime.

- Late night scrolling
on your laptop

often leads to memes, cat
videos, or random trivia.

But for one student,
it uncovered

the remnants of a
once-powerful empire.

- [Andrew] It's 2024
at Tulane University

in New Orleans, Louisiana.

A doctoral archeology student
named Luke Auld-Thomas is

doing what students do
best: procrastinating.

- [Hugo] He's supposed to be
working on a research project,

but instead, he's letting
his curiosity wander.

He's scrolling through
some old lidar surveys

of the forests of Mexico
and Central America.

- [Micah] These scans have been
made more than a decade earlier

by a team of researchers
who were studying

forest density in the
Yucatan Peninsula.

Essentially, they
would fly overhead,

firing these lidar
lasers toward the ground,

which produced a 3D
image of the terrain.

- Once the scientists had
finished their research,

these lidar surveys
were quietly filed away

and eventually forgotten.

- [Danny] To a lot of people,

the images look like
a tangle of trees,

but Luke sees something
else entirely.

- [Andrew] In one
scan, he notices

an odd depression in the ground.

It looks like something carved,
not naturally occurring.

So with a few quick keystrokes,

he's able to remove
most of the forest

as well as the shadows
from the image.

- [Hugo] Luke is shocked
when the thick jungle canopy

suddenly dissolves into a
grid of geometric shapes.

These are clearly the outlines
of manmade structures,

and there's a lot of them.

- [Andrew] He's able to identify
roads, residences, a ball court,

and even the outline of
stepped temple pyramids.

Luke believes that he
has just discovered

a lost Mayan metropolis.

- [Hugo] Luke brings
the potential discovery

to his professors,
and they agree

that he's found something
worth looking into,

so they assemble a
team and get to work.

- [Danny] The team
names the city Valeriana

after a nearby lagoon,

and quickly realize
it's far larger

than they ever imagined.

- [Andrew] Using
the lidar archive,

the team is able to map
out 6,000 structures

hidden beneath
the forest canopy.

The city is arranged
in what's called

the E-group formation.

This was the classic design of
Mayan cities before 150 A.D.,

arranged so that if you were
to look at the city from above,

it would look like a capital E.

They even find evidence of a dam

that would've regulated the
water supply to the city.

- [Nicola] The Maya who
built Valeriana were

extraordinarily
sophisticated for their time.

Not only did they have

an advanced understanding
of engineering,

they also used astronomy
and mathematics

in order to calculate
lunar and solar cycles.

- [Andrew] They had a system
of hieroglyphic writing.

In agriculture, they understood

principles like crop rotation,

needing to keep the land fertile

so you could support a
large population of people.

- [Micah] Using the density and
the layout of its structures,

researchers estimate that at
its peak in the ninth century,

Valeriana would've been home
to close to 50,000 people.

As far as Maya cities go,

only the mighty
capital of Calakmul

would've even compared.

- [Danny] But even a city
this powerful couldn't escape

the collapse around it.

- By 900 A.D., Valeriana
was beginning a decline,

something that we see in cities
all across the Mayan Empire

in this period.

Not long after that, it was
swallowed by the forest.

- [Andrew] What's crazy
about this site is

that it's only a 15-minute
walk from the nearest highway,

but despite the fact
that people in cars are

going by every day,

archeologists had no idea
about Valeriana's existence.

So it has to make you wonder

what other secrets
might be hidden

nearby in the dense jungle.

- A discovery in
Jerusalem brings

a powerful name connected
to the crucifixion of Jesus

back into focus,

through evidence no
one expected to find.

- [Sami] On the outskirts
of Jerusalem in 1990,

bulldozers are clawing
their way through

a rugged hill in
the Peace Forest

making way for what
will become a waterpark,

but then suddenly,

[machinery rumbles]

that ground just gives
way beneath them.

- [Hugo] Luckily,
no one is hurt.

They halt the machines and
they all curiously approach

the gaping hole in the ground.

Through the dust,
the workers realize

that they've broken
through the limestone roof

of a hidden chamber.

- [Adam] Down through
the darkness,

amidst the dust and
the shattered rocks,

workmen see several stone boxes,

so the foreman
shuts down the site

and makes a call to the
Israel Antiquities Authority.

An archeologist by the
name of Zvi Greenhut

immediately recognizes
these boxes

for what they are.

These are ossuaries,

stone containers for bones,

used in ancient burial rites.

- Now, ossuaries were actually
a secondary burial box.

The way the burial would work is

that the deceased would
be laid out in a tomb.

After a year has passed and
decomposition is complete,

the remains of the individual,

specifically just their bones,

are then placed to
rest in this stone box,

sort of a final,
final resting place.

- [Danny] Most of the
ossuaries Greenhut examines

are simple and plain,

but one tucked in the
back grabs his attention.

- [Hugo] This ossuary
is marked with a name:

Caiaphas.

- [Adam] In the New Testament,

Caiaphas is one of the
high priests of Jerusalem

in the first century.

- [Hugo] He wields
immense religious

and political
power in Jerusalem.

He's the person who's
in charge of the temple

when Jesus comes,
according to the gospels,

and drives out the money
changers and merchants

who are there.

Caiaphas would have viewed
that as a direct affront

to his authority,

and he strikes back.

- [Sami] In the Gospel
of Matthew 26:3,

it says that the religious
leaders at the time

gathered together to
conspire to kill Jesus,

and that this
gathering took place

in "the palace of the high
priest who was called Caiaphas."

- [Danny] Could this
be the same Caiaphas

referenced in the Bible?

- [Hugo] As Greenhut
looks deeper,

the connections grow.

Inside the box, Greenhut finds

the remains of
multiple individuals,

two small infants,
a young child,

a teenager, an adult woman,

and a man of around
60 years of age.

- [Sami] Caiaphas was said
to have a big family,

at least five sons,

and he lived to be about 60.

So, the details are slowly
starting to line up.

- [Nicola] This type of
reburial is fairly easy to date

because this was
a Jewish practice

that started around 100 B.C.

and continued up only
until the Roman destruction

of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

- [Danny] This leads
many scholars to believe

these are the actual
bones of Caiaphas.

- It is one of the few
artifacts ever found

that is directly
connected to a figure

written about in
the New Testament.

- [Hugo] Today, the remains
that were found in the ossuary

have been reinterred on
the Mount of Olives,

but the box itself is on display

at the Israel
Museum of Jerusalem,

and it's this stunning link

to a story that is read by
billions of people today.

- From a warship centuries
ahead of its time,

to a lost city hidden
beneath the trees,

one thing is clear:

true power can stand
the test of time.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching
Mysteries Unearthed.