Original subtitles

In 2010, construction on New York City's

Freedom Tower comes to an abrupt halt

after workers make a surprising discovery.

Buried in the soil were what appeared to be

curved planks of wood from a boat.

When the original towers were built,

it appears this wreck had gone entirely unnoticed.

So the big question is, where did it come from?

In Oxford, England,

archaeologists uncover a disturbing site.

A careful excavation uncovered up to 38 skeletons

piled on top of one another.

This site had all the hallmarks of a mass grave.

So who were these men?

And why were they killed in such a brutal manner?

In Warsaw, Poland,

excavations reveal a series of hidden wartime spaces.

In one of the basements,

a burnt library of Hebrew texts

alongside religious objects were found.

But how exactly were these spaces used,

and what can they tell us about the lives of those

who once passed through them?

Below the busy streets of the world's cities

exists a hidden realm of wonder.

Sprawling ancient complexes,

mysterious tombs,

top-secret military bases,

strange structures,

and lost artifacts,

buried beneath our feet and long forgotten,

until now.

Underground marvels are exposed to reveal what lies...

Hidden Beneath the Cities.

New York's bustling Lower Manhattan area

is home to the city's historic Financial District.

The Financial District is one of the most

iconic neighborhoods in New York City.

It's the location of St. Paul's Chapel,

where George Washington attended a service

after he took the presidential oath of office

for the first time on the balcony at Federal Hall

right nearby, which was serving as the US Capitol building.

Just steps away, you'll find Wall Street,

the economic center of the country,

home to the New York Stock Exchange

and some of the biggest banks in the world.

This district is unfortunately

burned into modern memory

because of the infamous September 11th terrorist attacks

in 2001, when two commercial airplanes

were deliberately flown

into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the tragedy

that day, making it one of the most consequential dates

in US history.

The 9/11 attacks would forever change

the country's political trajectory

and lead to global conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A lot of America's political leaders were pretty determined

to rebuild at Ground Zero where the towers had fallen.

And in 2006, construction began

on what was ultimately called the Freedom Tower.

This thing was going to be the tallest building

in New York City, and the symbolism was super clear.

This was a sign of defiance from the United States

that it would rise from the ashes of 9/11

even stronger than it had been before.

But in July of 2010,

construction of the Freedom Tower

suddenly grinds to a halt

when workers make an unexpected discovery.

Buried in the soil 22 feet deep

were what appeared to be curved planks of wood from a boat.

Eventually, an archaeological survey uncovered

600 of these pieces.

And what emerged from the soil

was the wooden frame of a remarkable sailing vessel.

The ship was 50 feet long and 18 feet wide

and had what's called a shallow draft design,

which means it was intended to sail

in bays, lakes, and coastal waters.

The boat was made from hickory, spruce, pine, and oak,

but the knotty wood that was selected for the hull suggests

that finishing the boat quickly was prioritized

over finding high-quality construction materials.

Iron fasteners were used to hold the planks together

instead of durable wooden pegs.

This is likely because the boat wasn't expected

to have a long period of use.

When the original towers were built,

it appears this wreck had gone entirely unnoticed.

In fact, the ship's hull had been bisected

by one of the Twin Towers' massive subterranean walls.

And because it had essentially been sealed up,

the vessel and its artifacts were remarkably well preserved.

The keel showed signs of wear and tear,

probably from repeated landings in shallow rocky waters.

But here's what's really neat:

there were munitions found among the ship's remains,

including 56 musket balls and 251 pieces of bird shot.

If this vessel had ever had cannons or guns,

they had been removed before it was buried.

So the big question is: was this a military boat used in warfare?

And if it was, where did it come from?

Scientists look to answer those questions

by analyzing the tree ring patterns

on the boat's wooden planks.

The results are then compared with a master list

of old growth trees in the eastern US.

Using this method, the point of origin for the wood

was determined to be near Philadelphia during the 1770s.

This was the time of the American Revolutionary War.

Philadelphia was the political center and de facto capital

of the forces that were looking to free themselves

from British rule.

It was in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776,

that the Continental Congress in Independence Hall

formally adopted the Declaration of Independence

of the United States.

Incredibly, the wood from the Ground Zero vessel

matches samples of timber taken from Independence Hall.

Now the boat may have been deployed from Philadelphia,

but there's evidence that it sailed a lot farther than that.

The hull has holes in it,

and those holes come from these mollusks called shipworms,

people call them the termites of the sea.

But here's the thing: the species of shipworm

found on this vessel normally thrives in the warm salt waters

of the southern seas,

not the fresh waters of the Delaware and Hudson Rivers.

The story of this boat's journey and service

may be a complicated one, but there's a possibility

it was never intended to be a military vessel.

With its single mast and headsail,

this boat is what's known as a sloop,

and it may have initially been a privately owned merchant ship.

As the war escalated, so-called privateers were commandeered

by the Americans to help fight the Royal Navy.

With the US Navy still in its infancy,

these refitted vessels became an essential part

of the American maritime war effort.

In 1775, General George Washington commissioned

a small fleet of schooners to attack British supply ships.

Eventually, 1,800 privateers were authorized for combat

by the Continental Congress.

This boat may have been one of them.

But how do you explain the damage from the shipworms?

There's certainly historical precedent for privateers

operating along the American coast

and even throughout the Caribbean.

In 1776, the Philadelphia privateer Hancock

sailed to the West Indies and managed to overtake

a large British vessel that was bound for London.

Perhaps the Ground Zero ship had been deployed

to a similar locale.

It may have been built

to terrorize the Royal Navy,

but there's evidence that the Ground Zero ship

may have later fallen into British hands.

There were hundreds of artifacts excavated

with the ship's remains,

including shoe buckles and drinking canisters.

But the most interesting artifact was a button.

Just this one flat, pewter button,

but it was stamped with the number 52 on it.

That's a big deal, because it suggests that this was part

of the British Army's 52nd Regiment--

that's a company that was active in the Revolutionary War

between 1775 and 1778.

Notably, the 52nd Regiment had taken part

in the occupation of Philadelphia.

So maybe this stray button

fell off a British soldier's jacket

while he and his battalion

were seizing this ship from American sailors.

The British would have seen this boat

as particularly useful.

A sloop could have more easily navigated the shallow waters

within the West Indies,

where the British were warring with the Spanish and the French

over island resources.

It could have provided this vessel

with a dramatic second act.

Island goods such as sugar

were arguably more important economically to the British

than the 13 American colonies were.

The 1782 Battle of the Saints is an example

of a massive naval battle with the French,

where the British would have likely redirected

many of their ships to the Caribbean.

Service in these warmer waters would explain the presence

of shipworms on this mysterious boat.

The history of British naval warfare

in the Caribbean Islands is well documented,

but there are no historical records

that link this ship to a southern voyage.

A passage in a logbook or from colonial reports

out of this area may one day prove this theory,

but for now it's based on purely circumstantial evidence.

Ultimately, the tree rings that mark the timbers

of the ship are the clearest signifiers

of the ship's origin and its mission.

We know that our mystery ship was likely built

in a Philadelphia shipyard in the 1770s.

And in the summer of 1775, the Continental Congress

reportedly approved the construction of 13 warships,

one for each colony.

Each of those was outfitted with between 24 and 32 guns.

And included as part of that hastily assembled fleet

were four merchant vessels that were converted into gunships.

So it's entirely possible that the Ground Zero gunboat sailed

alongside these first ships of the Continental Navy.

The flat pewter button is the best evidence

that the boat later encountered British aggressors.

In 1777, American boats failed to stop

the Royal Navy's approach along the Delaware River,

and interestingly, historical records indicate

that at least one American warship was captured

by the British during the battle.

You can imagine the newly commandeered gunship

serving in the southern waters for a period of time

before returning to British-occupied New York

to be decommissioned and stripped for parts.

By 1790, seven years after the Treaty of Paris

had formally recognized the Americans' victory

over the British,

New York was working to expand its Manhattan shoreline.

This mysterious gunboat from the Revolutionary War

likely became part of the landfill.

In the end, after being hidden from view

for two centuries,

the story behind the Ground Zero gunship's life

during wartime remains a confounding secret.

After the ship was pulled piece by piece

out of the rubble from Ground Zero,

it underwent a 14-year process of analysis and documentation.

In the spring of 2025,

the ship was brought to the New York State Museum in Albany,

where it remains on exhibit today

as part of the institution's permanent collection.

From the Revolutionary War

to the ruins of the World Trade Center,

this vessel's greatest journey may be the unexpected link

created between these two monumental moments

in American history.

In south central England,

just 50 miles from London,

lies the historic Oxford University.

Teaching at Oxford University is believed

to have begun as early as 1096, which would make it

the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

Its alumni includes 31 British prime ministers,

and its relationship to the monarchy

goes back for centuries.

The Oxford area began

as a 9th century settlement under King Alfred the Great,

who established it as a fortified town called a burh.

Its defensive ditches and walls were intended to provide defense

against Viking raids.

In the 17th century,

King Charles I set up his headquarters

at the university during the English Civil War.

The university remains

one of the most prestigious in the world.

Much of the research at Oxford has helped shape

our modern world from political philosophy to quantum computing.

It's an institution that remains at the forefront

of social and scientific studies.

In January of 2008, a new student housing complex

is set to be built behind

the university's St. John's College.

The city had requested that an archaeological survey

be conducted at the site before construction began.

And just hours into the excavation,

something strange was found buried beneath the soil.

It appeared to be an enclosure

approximately 400 feet in diameter.

But two months later, there was another find.

And it was a shocker.

Buried haphazardly just below the enclosure

were human remains.

A careful excavation uncovered up to 38 skeletons

piled on top of one another.

There were no coffins and no gravestones

found inside the trench.

So these people were apparently buried

without any tradition or ceremony,

sometimes face down, sometimes on their side.

This site had all the hallmarks of a mass grave.

An analysis of the remains

determined that they were all male.

But aside from the jumble of human bones,

there were very few other clues

to their identities buried inside the pit.

No grave goods, weapons,

or remnants of clothing like buckles or pins,

which suggested these men were stripped before burial.

And further to that, all of the skeletons

showed horrific evidence of traumatic injuries.

Some of the victims suffered

cracked and broken skulls.

Many of them had puncture wounds to the spine and to the pelvis.

Some of them had marks that showed they were attacked

on all sides, and at least a dozen of them

looked like they'd been stabbed in the back.

Shockingly, one individual

had been fully decapitated, and at least five other skeletons

showed evidence of multiple failed decapitation attempts.

What's more, several individuals appeared

to have suffered severe burns

on their heads, backs, and pelvic regions.

All of this painted a disturbing picture of a scene

that must have been unspeakably violent.

So who were these men,

and why were they killed in such a brutal manner?

The enclosure is called a henge,

likely a site for religious ceremonies,

and its craftsmanship dates it to the late Neolithic period,

around 4,000 years ago.

But the human remains appear to be

from a different era entirely.

An examination of the remains placed the burial

sometime in the early 11th century.

During that time in England, the Anglo-Saxon monarchy

was ruled by a king named Aethelred the Unready,

and his nickname is a translation

of an Anglo-Saxon word that means "poorly advised."

He got the name because his reign was marked

by ill-advised domestic and foreign policy decisions.

He probably wasn't the king you would have wanted

in charge of the country during a particularly tumultuous time.

Before Athelred's reign, a significant part of England

had been occupied by Danish settlers

after being conquered by one of the country's arch enemies:

the Vikings from northern Europe.

After decades of relative peace,

the kingdom was suddenly suffering from a fresh wave

of attacks from marauding Viking armies.

King Aethelred made a highly questionable decision

to pay off the Vikings with thousands of pounds of silver

in exchange for peace.

At the same time

Aethelred had been paying off Viking armies,

he'd also been hiring Danish mercenaries

to defend the country's coastal borders

from other Viking raiders.

But in 997 CE, some of those mercenaries flipped

on the king and began raiding England's southern counties.

Searching for answers,

researchers analyzed the remains at a subatomic level

to determine their origin.

A laboratory analysis of 13 victims

revealed a diet high in fish, which would have been

more common for a seafaring community.

Further to this, tooth enamel from the skulls was examined

to help trace the geology and climate

these individuals might have been raised in.

The results indicated the people in the pit were not Anglo-Saxon.

These men had come from a colder climate consistent

with northern Europe.

So was this mass grave the final resting place

for a group of Vikings?

All of the men were determined to have been

between 16 and 35 years old.

The areas where the bones would have attached

to the victims' musculature revealed that they were

not only in great physical condition,

but many were unusually tall.

In addition, some skeletons exhibited battle scars.

All of this strongly suggested that this was a group

of military men from northern Europe.

One could imagine a Viking raiding party

making an incursion into this area of Oxford

only to be defeated by Anglo-Saxon armies.

In this scenario, about 38 Viking raiders could have been

captured and executed

before being buried in the pit at Oxford.

These men would have met a grisly fate.

One year after the remains were discovered

on Oxford's campus, just over 80 miles away

in the town of Dorset,

archaeologists dug up another mass grave.

And the similarities to the Oxford site were striking.

The grave in Dorset contained the remains

of 54 military-aged men from the late 10th or early 11th century.

And once again, the men were determined

to have originated from northern Europe.

But unlike the Oxford grave,

every single one of these males at Dorset was decapitated.

When we consider that both Oxford and Dorset

were under the control of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom,

maybe the men found in both of these grave sites

were considered a threat and summarily executed by the state.

So it is possible that these are the bones

of a Viking raiding party, but there's no historical account

of any massacre that fits the bill.

So we do have to be open to other possibilities.

Historical records suggest the Viking mercenaries

who had betrayed King Aethelred

had themselves become marked men.

After the king's use of the mercenaries backfired,

Aethelred issued a royal decree

that would have far-reaching and bloody consequences.

The king claimed that he had uncovered a Danish plot

to overthrow his kingdom and called for what he referred to

as a "just extermination" of all Danes in England.

His decree led to the infamous St. Brice's Day massacre,

which saw countless Danes slaughtered across the country.

This was an incredibly dark day

in the history of England.

And the age of the bones in the Oxford grave

certainly lines up with the date of the king's proclamation.

It suggests these men were likely executed

as part of a countrywide sweep of Danish enemy combatants.

Perhaps they were from a garrison of mercenaries

stationed outside of Oxford

that had once been in the king's employ.

Arguably, the St. Brice's Day massacre

was retribution for their treachery.

There's documentation of a high-ranking earl

named Pallig Tokeson, who served as one of the king's mercenaries

before joining up with a Viking garrison.

After Aethelred's decree, Pallig's wife was reportedly

murdered during the St. Brice's Day massacre.

So, turncoat mercenaries and their associates

were clearly on the king's hit list.

So, are these skeletons Danish settlers

that were rounded up and massacred?

Are they Viking raiders that were defeated and then executed?

Or are they mercenaries who double-crossed the king

and got dispatched by a mob?

We don't know!

Documented evidence from the king himself

could point to a horrifying story behind the mass grave.

After the St. Brice's Day massacre,

a letter from Aethelred reported that a number of Danes in Oxford

had escaped a violent mob by taking refuge in a local church.

The mob responded by setting the church on fire.

Those Danes who weren't killed in the fire

were hunted down and slaughtered.

After that, we can assume that the bodies were stripped

of their clothing before being unceremoniously buried

within the remnants of the ancient enclosure.

The king's story could be interpreted to mean

that the men in this mass grave were not enemy combatants,

but rather members of the local Danish population

living in or around Oxford.

Following the king's decree,

maybe these individuals were rounded up and butchered

by members of Oxford's Anglo-Saxon community.

The king's story of the burning church

correlated directly with the charred remains

found at the Oxford site.

And the haphazard wounds found on many of these individuals,

including the blows to the back of the head,

are all indicative of a frenzied mob.

It's a stunning example of ferocious anti-Danish sentiment

that had escalated into state-sanctioned murder

after Aethelred's decree.

The mass grave is one of the most significant finds

in Oxford's recent history,

but the full details of what happened here

may never fully be known or understood.

Though many questions remain unanswered,

the discovery could provide a chilling example

of what happens when a country's leaders

give its people a license to kill.

On the banks of the Vistula River,

in east central Poland, lies Warsaw,

a city shaped by centuries of expansion,

invasion, destruction, and rebirth.

Warsaw's roots trace back to the 10th century,

but by the late 1200s, the community shifted north

to a village called Warszawa, which was protected by a castle.

By the 14th century, Warsaw had walls, a council,

and the stature of a growing town.

In the 15th century, it was crowned the capital of Mazovia,

and soon after, the capital of Poland itself.

I think what a lot of people don't realize

is that Warsaw was one of the world's biggest hubs

for the Jewish people.

By the early 20th century, Warsaw had grown

to a city of 1.3 million people,

and that included 400,000 Jewish people.

That made it the largest Jewish community in Europe.

And if you look worldwide,

it was number two only to New York City.

But after the German invasion of 1939,

Jews in occupied Poland were systematically targeted.

They were stripped of their property,

they were fired from their jobs,

they were forced to wear armbands,

they were barred from going to school, going to synagogue,

they were forced into labor,

and they were even forbidden to walk on certain streets.

In October 1940,

375,000 Jews were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto,

a district of just 1.3 square miles,

surrounded by a 10-foot wall topped with barbed wire.

At its height, more than 450,000 people were crammed inside.

And by mid 1942,

more than 80,000 people had died in the ghetto.

In 2022, archaeologists working

within the former Warsaw Ghetto unearthed the first clue

to a far more complex story waiting underground.

The first thing they found was a small glass

that had been buried for 80 years.

Further excavations uncovered the cellars

of pre-war tenement houses

that once stood between Mila and Muranowska Streets.

From these basements came at least 3,000 objects.

Cups, bottles, pans, an iron,

candlesticks, even a handbag;

everyday possessions of middle class residents.

One of the houses had a reconstructed cellar,

a concrete room with electrical and water fittings

and corridors branching out beneath the rubble.

In another location, they found religious objects

and everyday items dating back to the 19th century.

The site was first identified in 2019

through geophysical surveys, but later work in 2021,

including a bunch of techniques--

electrical resistivity tomography,

ground penetrating radar, handheld LIDAR--

all of that confirmed

that much of the underground infrastructure had survived.

These excavated cellars

are the physical remnants of how people reshaped their world

under impossible conditions.

But how exactly were these spaces used

and what can they ultimately tell us about the lives

of those who once passed through them?

In the Warsaw Ghetto, resistance took on many forms,

and some evidence suggests these spaces

served a deeper purpose in the struggle to endure.

In one of the basements,

a burnt library of Hebrew texts

alongside religious objects were found.

Handwashing cups, a Torah pointer,

and fragments of the Talmud.

Finds like these reflect a wider pattern of spiritual resistance

in the ghetto, where people fought to preserve belief

and dignity amid starvation and terror.

So, is it possible this cellar functioned as a hidden space

for prayer, study, or cultural activities?

Even under the most brutal conditions,

Jewish life in the ghetto persisted.

Children studied in hidden classrooms,

adults gathered for secret lectures,

and confiscated books were quietly recirculated.

In some ghettos, leaders organized trade schools,

hoping that practical skill in carpentry, tailoring,

and metalwork might offer a chance at survival.

By 1940, as many as 600 underground prayer groups

existed in Warsaw.

They gathered in cellars or in attics

with lookouts posted at the door.

In these hidden spaces, prayer served two roles.

It was a way to connect with God and practice the religion,

but it was also an act of defiance.

It was a refusal to let the Nazi regime break their spirit.

Less than half a mile away,

the post-war discoveries of a hidden cache

shows how underground spaces were vital for preserving

Jewish life, culture, and resistance.

In 1939, historian and activist Emanuel Ringelblum

began collecting Jewish testimonies

through his work with self-aid organizations.

But after the Warsaw Ghetto was sealed in November 1940,

his efforts expanded into a wide-reaching organized network.

The archivists gathered things like diaries,

testimonies, underground newspapers, ration cards,

tram tickets, and even menus from ghetto cabarets.

Together, these fragments created a vivid portrait

of daily life under Nazi rule.

Refugees arriving in Warsaw added reports

from across occupied Poland,

making the collection one of the most detailed records

of Jewish life during the Holocaust.

Determined to preserve the truth

for future generations,

the group took great risk to bury the archive.

And when it was recovered after the war,

they had preserved some 35,000 documents.

It remains one of the most important testimonies

of the Holocaust.

The Ringelblum Archive shows how underground spaces

could preserve culture and belief.

But in the cellars uncovered in 2022,

the evidence is less clear.

The artifacts hint at prayer or study,

but as conditions in the ghetto deteriorated,

they probably served a more basic function.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, hidden passageways and spaces

kept goods, information, and people moving,

leading some to suspect that these cellars

played a more material role in the struggle to survive.

Excavations at the site revealed a cellar

altered from its original design with concrete block walls

and a reinforced ceiling,

along with traces of pipes and an electric cable.

Given the extent of these modifications,

could this space have been part of the smuggling

and communication networks that sustained daily life

inside the ghetto?

From that room, a corridor extended west

and then south, linking multiple cellars.

These connections formed a concealed route

that would have allowed multiple people

and perhaps goods to move discreetly within the ghetto.

Couriers were a lifeline between Jewish communities.

Many were young women from youth movements

who maintained underground networks across occupied Poland.

They traveled under false names with forged papers,

carrying mail, newspapers, money,

and information into the ghettos.

They also smuggled in weapons, guns, grenades, and ammunition

hidden in food parcels or on their bodies.

Roughly 170 miles southwest

at Auschwitz-Birkenau,

a similar kind of network became the foundation

for one of the Holocaust's most daring revolts.

Róza Robota was a member of the Jewish Underground

assigned to a clothing detail

where the belongings of murdered Jews were sorted.

Her unit operated beside Crematorium 4.

That's the area where the Sonderkommando Jews worked.

That's the name given by the Nazis

to a group of Jewish prisoners who were forced to participate

in the extermination process-- removing bodies, cutting hair,

searching for hidden values, and running the crematoria,

all while knowing that they, too, were soon going to be

lying among those bodies.

In the spring of 1944,

the underground turned to Róza Robota for help

smuggling explosives from a munitions factory.

She enlisted three young Jewish women

who worked in the gunpowder section.

They hid small amounts in matchboxes,

scraps of cloth or paper, and on their bodies.

Over time, nearly 20 others joined the effort.

Robota passed the powder to the Sonderkommando,

and they secretly stockpiled enough of it

to build crude grenades from food tins packed with nails,

stones, and glass, sealed with plaster and makeshift fuses.

On October 7, 1944,

the Sonderkommando launched a revolt.

Their explosives killed several guards

and destroyed parts of the crematorium

and the adjacent gas chambers.

In the reprisals that followed,

around 450 prisoners were executed.

Smuggling networks that supplied groups

like the Sonderkommando

showed us how crucial secret supply lines were

to Jewish resistance, both in the ghettos and in the camps.

We know that one of the excavated cellars was first used

by smugglers to store goods,

but as German control intensified

and anger swelled in the ghetto,

these same underground spaces took on new and shifting roles.

On April 19, 1943,

around 750 members of two Jewish resistance groups

fought German forces with smuggled guns, grenades,

and homemade petrol bombs

in what became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The corridors found in the cellars

lead toward what is now Anielewicz Mound.

That's a place named for Mordechai Anielewicz,

who was the commander of the Jewish Combat Organization

who led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

People's testimonies state that up to 300 people

sheltered in a bunker on Mila Street,

spread across several properties

between Mila and the now vanished Muranowska Street--

that's a street that the Germans destroyed

during the 1943 uprising.

So is it possible that these basements

are surviving traces of that stronghold?

Months before the uprising,

when German troops entered the ghetto in January 1943

to round up deportees,

members of the Jewish Combat Organization under Anielewicz

launched a sudden attack.

Most were killed,

but their resistance disrupted deportation orders,

which were essentially death sentences,

and gave thousands a chance to scatter.

In the wake of the incident, survivors dug new bunkers

determined to be ready for the next time.

That's when the Jewish Combat Organization moved

its headquarters to 18 Mila Street,

a smuggler-owned bunker with six rooms, six exits,

hatches, and a ventilation system.

This bunker became key to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

beginning in April.

But on the 8th of May, Nazis discovered the bunker.

They spread gas inside and circled the exits,

prompting many to take their own lives instead of surrendering.

In the end, families suffocated or burned

in the very bunkers built to protect them.

Thousands were killed in the ghetto,

and thousands more were deported to Treblinka.

Yet the uprising's legacy reached far beyond

its immediate defeat.

It showed that even with almost no hope of survival,

resistance could still be an act of dignity,

a refusal to let the oppressor decide

the terms of life and death.

The full extent of Anielewicz's Bunker

has yet to be uncovered.

But the cellars on Mila Street reveal how ordinary basements

were reshaped in crisis

to become spaces of resistance, refuge, and survival.

Southeast of mainland France, Corsica rises

as the Mediterranean's fourth largest island--

a rugged crossroads between France, Italy, and Sardinia.

Corsica's recorded history begins around 560 BCE

when Greeks founded Alalia on the east coast.

Carthaginian rule followed in the early 3rd century BCE

until Rome conquered the island

in a series of campaigns between 259 and 163 BCE.

From the mid 6th century CE,

the island fell under Byzantine influence

and then papal rule in the 8th century.

In 1077, the papacy granted the Bishop of Pisa

authority over Corsica, and as a result,

more than 300 churches were constructed on the island

in the following two centuries.

In the Middle Ages,

Corsica and Sardinia lay between rival powers.

A papal bid to unite them under Aragon failed,

and by the 16th century, Genoa controlled Corsica.

In 1768, Genoa surrendered the island to France,

and within a year, French forces secured it.

That same year, 1769,

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica's capital, Ajaccio,

a moment that tied Corsica's turbulent story

to the fate of Europe itself.

In 2021, archaeologists working

in the center of Ile-Rousse

uncover something extraordinary beneath the modern streets.

They found a necropolis of more than 40 graves

spanning between the 3rd and 6th century CE.

That basically spans the ultimate decline

of the western Roman Empire.

We've identified three main types of graves.

Some are simple, rectangular cut pits

where the dead are laid to rest and covered with earth.

Others reuse fragments of roof tiles arranged

to form sort of a rough enclosure.

But the third type is the most distinctive of all:

burials inside amphorae.

Now, amphorae are jars that are used to transport wine

and olive oil and brine and stuff like that.

But here they're used for burials.

In one case, two vessels were even fitted together

to hold a single individual.

Jar burials appear across the Mediterranean,

but the Ile-Rousse necropolis breaks the mold.

Unlike the more common child amphora burials,

adults were interred in these jars.

Corsica in late antiquity was shaped

by shifting empires and powerful trade routes.

At Ile-Rousse, the origins of imported amphorae

raised questions about who these people were

and where they may have came from.

From the 4th to 7th centuries,

Corsica imported wine, oil, and brine in amphorae,

shipped from Carthage or present-day Tunisia.

Finding those same containers reused for burials

suggests a direct link to North Africa

and the powers that ruled there.

It's possible there's a connection to the Vandals,

a Germanic people who captured Carthage in 439 CE,

the richest city of Roman North Africa.

From that new capital, they built a maritime empire

spanning the western Mediterranean

and secured the island of Corsica

as part of their conquest of Roman-ruled islands.

Given this, maybe the dead at Ile-Rousse were settlers

or officials tied to Vandal rule.

It's possible, but archaeological evidence

for Vandal burials is limited,

and it's regionally inconsistent.

So it's difficult to draw any firm connection

to the amphora burials in Corsica.

The austerity of these burials may point

to a community under pressure,

where necessity shaped how the dead were laid to rest.

In times of epidemic or sudden mass mortality,

communities came under immense pressure,

often forcing changes to established burial customs.

Amphorae may have offered a quick solution

if deaths came too fast for formal rights.

Could some of the unusual interments on Corsica

reflect emergency burials

improvised in the face of a catastrophe?

In the mid 6th century,

plague swept across the Mediterranean and Europe.

Beginning in Egypt and reaching

Constantinople in 542 CE,

it returned in waves for more than two centuries,

killing millions.

In the imperial capital, cemeteries overflowed,

so mass pits and trenches were dug, and when even those filled,

bodies were stacked in towers or cast into the sea.

But what we see at Ile-Rousse

is nothing like the chaos of a plague pit.

The graves are generally laid out

in an orderly east-west orientation,

and while certain plague cemeteries

display careful alignment and adherence to Christian norms,

burial responses to mass death vary;

meaning the use of amphorae in Corsica

may point to a very different logic altogether.

Beyond the amphorae, the use of salvaged materials

in some burials may offer the clearest clues

to the cemetery's character.

At Ile-Rousse, some graves were framed

with broken roof tiles,

sometimes mixed with amphora sherds--

a layout reminiscent of building tombs

where reused tiles formed a simple casing around the body.

But here, the construction is far more rudimentary

using low-quality terracotta,

kind of salvaged from ruined buildings nearby.

So you kind of get the impression

that this was an imperfect solution,

kind of making do with what was available.

In Corsica, the North African amphora

found at the site were among the island's most common imports.

But once they served their original purpose,

they were simply reused.

Vessels were broken apart,

sections cut and refitted into a type of coffin.

Rather than discard what trade had made plentiful,

the community seemingly turned everyday containers

into material for burial.

Nearly 400 miles east on the Croatian island of Hvar,

excavations in a town of the same name

uncovered a late antique necropolis

from the late 4th to early 5th century CE.

In an area covering just 700 square feet,

archaeologists documented 20 graves

holding the skeletal remains of 32 people.

Burials at the site range from simple earthenware

and amphora graves to tile-lined tombs,

along with a single masonry tomb holding 12 skeletons,

a striking parallel to the mixed forms seen at Ile-Rousse.

The finds at Hvar

show how 4th and 5th century communities

used amphora and roof tiles in burials,

combining everyday materials in ways that reflect

local adaptation in funerary practice.

They also reveal new insights into ceramic production

and trade networks through imported wares,

some of which are the first documented in the Adriatic.

This reflects a broader Mediterranean practice

known as enchytrismos:

burying people inside terracotta containers.

That was common from the 3rd century onward,

particularly in coastal towns

where there were a lot of terracotta jars,

but by the 5th century, it was very common for child burials

to be done this way in early Christian cemeteries.

That's what makes Ile-Rousse so interesting.

You have adults and infants buried together,

and so far, not a single grave good.

It's a departure from the familiar pattern

that could reflect nothing more than pragmatic reuse

of abundant containers.

Or it may signal beliefs about life and death

that remain beyond our reach.

The necropolis at Ile-Rousse is one of the few

anchors of this region's ancient past.

It preserves a vital record and just as clearly shows

how partial the story here remains.