Ancient Wonders: The Forgotten Monuments of Our World

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
If you had to pick seven ancient wonders of the world,
which ones would they be? We've compiled a list of
our top seven, from the soaring heights of the Great Pyramid,
through the statues of Easter Island, exotic Mayan temples, a
Roman Amphitheater, and the Great Wall of China. The next

(01:00):
two hours, we'll explore some of the most awesome ancient wonders,
each rich in stories of mystery and intrigue. Will take
part in the summer Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, walk the
Great Wall of China, and join archaeologists in Mexico as
they hunt for treasure in the Maya Temples. By searching

(01:25):
for clues hidden within these historic monuments, we can begin
to unlock their secrets and reveal the marvels of these
ancient wonders of the world. The three Pyramids of Giza

(02:05):
have stood on a high plateau by the Nile for
more than four and a half thousand years. These wonders
were built by the ancient Egyptian king Trufu, his son,
and his grandson. Kufu's Great Pyramid is the largest and

(02:27):
most impressive of them all.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
The pyramid has magic admestry, and I always say, if
you come by to visit the Giza plateau and just
walk and you can see the pyramid for the first time,
your heart will be going up and down because it's
something that cannot be explained. The Great Pyramid of Kufu

(02:53):
is immortal.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Amazingly, these ancient wonders are only a few minutes from
downtown Cairo. The Pyramids at Giza are the planet's original
tourist attraction.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Awesome to think that you are standing on ancient history
and seeing it in person.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
This is so much better than any kind of picture
or television or anything.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Today millions of visitors from around the world come to
marvel at the pyramids.

Speaker 6 (03:50):
You know, I have always been thinking about pyramids since
I was a little kid. For me, it's kind of
a dream come true.

Speaker 7 (04:05):
I tried to read up on ahead of time, and there's.

Speaker 8 (04:07):
Just no way to.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Prepare yourself for this, which is absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
One scene, these ancient giants are never forgotten.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
All of this Lily capture the heart of everyone who
come to visit the ship. And therefore, when you got
to Paradise, God will say the only mistake that you
do in your life that you did not visit the.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Great Pyramid is the largest monument ever built. The
base is bigger than any temple or cathedral, and until
the Eiffel Tower was finished in eighteen eighty seven, it
was the tallest structure for over four thousand years.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
When we did an estimation a few months ago, we
found out that the stones of the Great Pyramid are
one million and three hundred thousand blocks. This the pyramids
were massive, built of massive stones.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
The precision of their construction is astonishing. The four sides
were aligned almost exactly with true north, southeast, and west,
and the outer casing blocks were so skillfully laid that
even a knife blade won't fit between them. Robert Bouval,
born in Egypt, has been fascinated by the pyramids all

(05:29):
his life. He's a construction engineer and full of admiration
for the amazing skills of the ancient pyramid builders.

Speaker 9 (05:38):
There is no question that the Disneycropolis is the largest
engineering project in the world in history, and omal sky
Rise will contain something in the order of two hundred
thousand tons of material. This is six million tons. You're
talking about ten to fifteen times greater. So they're the
giant skycrapers of history.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Four and a half thousand years on, we still have
no real idea how the Egyptians managed to construct these
gigantic monuments, the largest stone structures ever built.

Speaker 9 (06:12):
The thing that makes them special is the father that
we know very little about them. We don't know exactly
who build them, we don't know exactly how old they are,
we don't know why the building, So it's a huge
question mark that looms in the desert. Some of the
blocks that we use way up to sixty tons. These

(06:34):
blocks are made of granite. Granite is imported from six
hundred miles to the south of Egypt down the Nile.
Can imagine sixty tons. Sixty tons is sixty family cars,
you know, compacted into one block. So this is the
kind of problems that we see, and they seem to
sort of tease us with this mystery.

Speaker 10 (06:54):
It is a.

Speaker 9 (06:55):
Challenge to future generation to say, figure out how we
did it.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
All three pyramids at Giza were originally cased with polished
white limestone. Over the centuries, most of this limestone has
been pillaged, but a few blocks remain around the base
of the Great Pyramid and on the summit of King
Kaffra's pyramid.

Speaker 9 (07:28):
You can't see the pyramids today from Bianzidan, but with
this reflective surface they would have been sparkling, so you
can imagine when they were new, they would have been
absolutely staggering.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
If their size remains a marble, their purpose remains one
of the greatest mysteries. The traditionally accepted view is that
they were built as tombs for the mummified bodies of
the pharaohs.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
The pyramid was a tomb, but it was also a
national project of the whole nation. Every household in the
north of Egypt and the south participated in building the
pyramid by sending workforce, grain food to help the king.
Because the pyramid will help that the birth of the king.

(08:22):
It would make the king as a god. When they
put the cap stone in the top of the pyramid,
it meant that the pyramid was finished and everyone dance
and sing.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
But Robert Bouval has a controversial alternative theory, which he
began to formulate twenty years ago. His first seeds of
doubt were sown deep inside the pyramid. The experience of

(08:58):
climbing through this ancient ructure is unforgettable and completely impossible
if you suffer even the tiniest degree of claustrophobia. Close

(09:19):
to the heart of the pyramid, the tiny passageway opens
up into the grand gallery. Over the centuries, the pale
limestone has been blackened by the soot from countless candle flames.
It was here in the King's chamber that Boval first
questioned the Orthodox view that this was a tomb for

(09:42):
King Kufu's mummified body.

Speaker 9 (09:50):
The Gyptologists say that this is a coffin for a
dead body, but it may not be a coffin. It
may be a place where great resurrection rituds take place.
In fact, it may be something that served for the living,
not for the dead.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
No human remains have ever been found inside any Egyptian pyramid.
Boval believes this suggests that the monuments were built not
as tombs, but as a grand setting for symbolic resurrections.
He was also intrigued by the curious layout of the pyramids.
The two largest are set along a southwest diagonal line,

(10:33):
but the smaller pyramid of my Serinas was slightly offset
to the east. Why was the third pyramid both smaller
and built out of line.

Speaker 9 (10:48):
It was one of those things that being an engineer
and being a surveying engineer was totally puzzling. I had
a hunch that it had something to do with the
stars the started engine.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Boval followed up his hunch by taking a closer look
at a completely different pyramid at the ancient side of Sakara,
twenty five miles from Giza. This small pyramid was built
for King Unas two hundred years after the Great Pyramid.
It may look decrepid, but it holds some of the

(11:27):
most revealing testimonies of the ancient Egyptian culture. Apart from
some insignificant graffiti, the Pyramids of Giza are completely devoid
of writing. But deep inside this pyramid are the Pyramid Texts,

(11:47):
the oldest religious writing in the world. Two tiny rooms
are crammed with magical spells, prayers, and hymns about the
rebirth of the king and his reunion with the gods
in the afterlife.

Speaker 9 (12:06):
They're intensely astronomy. They speak of the stars, they speak
of the sun. It seems it's all about the sky,
which is not surprising because this was the afterlife destiny
of the king.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Many of the hieroglyphs tell of the king making his
afterlife journey to the stars, in particular the constellation of Orion.
The Egyptians believed Orion was the representation of Osiris, the
god of regeneration and symbol of eternal life. So Boval

(12:41):
wondered if there could be a link between Orion and
the unusual layout of the pyramids at Giza. After the break,
we reveal Boval's ingenious solution to the mystery. Author Robert
Bovell's brain wave about the unusual alignment of the pyramids

(13:04):
of Giza came during a chance conversation in the desert.
His friend was contemplating the three stars of Orion's belt.

Speaker 9 (13:13):
And he pointed specifically about the stars, and he referred
to them as the three stars in a row. And then,
just as an afterthought, said, but the third one is
offset to the left, and the penny dropped. Suddenly, there
was a correlation in my mind as to why this designed,
this layout of the three pyramids had been said this way.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
With mounting excitement, Boval began to formulate his theory that
the ancient Egyptians based the layout of the pyramids on
a plan of the stars When he got back to Giza,
Boval found further proof that the pyramids were designed to

(13:58):
assist the king's afterlife journey to the stars. In the
King's chamber of the Great Pyramid, a so called ventilation
shaft is aligned directly with the peak position of Orion's belt,
as it would have been seen in the ancient Egyptian
night sky, and similar shafts originating from the center of

(14:23):
the pyramid point directly towards other constellations that also had
important significance in the ancient Egyptian star religion. By now,
Boval had enough evidence to construct his controversial theory.

Speaker 9 (14:38):
That the whole machinery of the religion was how to
ensure that their pharaohs after death would manage to undertake
this celestial journey and return to the stars, and these
monuments are the agency to produce that results. They are
launching pads, if you like, for the pharaohs to reach
the stars.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
How famous Orian correlation theory took the world by storm
and reopened the debate about the mystery of the pyramids.
Most Egyptologists stand firm in their belief that the pyramids
were built as tombs, and they've completely dismissed Boval's star theory.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
It's beautifully written, it's beautifully made, its computer analysis, but
it's strong because those people they come and smell the dirt,
like I always say that those people they go and
ride this box in an air cordition room in London
or in America. But we excavate and our perfume is

(15:41):
a dirt.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Whichever theory is correct, there remains an unsolved mystery what
happened to the mummified corpses of King Kufu, his son,
and his grandson. If Boval's theory holds true and the
pyramids weren't used as tomb, the mummies might have been
buried somewhere nearby.

Speaker 9 (16:04):
Perhaps one day they will pop out. I mean one
has to bear in mind that you're looking at the
tip of the iceberg here, because there are still a
lot of unexcavated sites. I mean, they keep on finding
things all the time. They say that seventy percent of
what was here is still underground, so they may still
pop out.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
There are many questions still to be answered about the
pyramids at Giza, and it's likely that these ancient wonders
will always be shrouded in mystery. Perhaps rightly so, they
will remain one of the greatest enigmas of our time.

(17:07):
The Tower of London is the oldest palace and fortress
in Europe. Behind this facade of respectability, like dark, blood
curdling tales of terror, sinister acts born of ruthless ambition.

(17:34):
For over nine hundred years, these monumental walls have overshadowed
the city of London. Even today, the Tower of London
is one of the capital's most prominent landmarks. Standing on

(18:01):
the banks of the River Thames, this great royal fortress
is one of the most popular attractions in Britain, with
two million visitors every year.

Speaker 5 (18:12):
Well, I've been working at the Tower of London as
an assistant curator and archaeologist for six years and the
place never ceases to amaze me how much there is
to discover here. And one thing that I still can't
get my head round is the fact that we have
buildings here from every century, from the eleventh century to
the twenty first century. I can't rethink of anywhere else
in England or Europe, or anywhere else in the world

(18:34):
that can say that. It's just immensely exciting.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
The White Tower is the center of today's castle. In
the twelfth century, the monarchy, inspired by the design of
European castles, built the first perimeter walls. At the end
of the thirteenth century, Edward the First, one of the
greatest castle builders of all time, constructed a second concentric

(19:00):
wall and dug a new moat, giving us the shape
of the castle we see today.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
One of the most long lasting functions of the Tyer
of London, and the one that's impressed itself most on
people's memories, is its function as a prison ah ah ah.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
For prisoners jailed in the tower, this would have been
a dreadful place.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
They are kept, probably in solitary confinement, and food will
be brought to them by their jae. They won't be
able to talk to anyone. Sometimes prison must have been very,
very unpleasant business.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Indeed, many of the tormented prisoners left behind engravings and
the walls of their cells that can still be seen today.
The intricacy of these gruesome carvings reveals the depths of

(20:04):
their suffering. Their misery was sometimes made much worse by
merciless torturers. These cruel acts were often the result the

(20:29):
ambitious desires of the monarchy.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
It's very, very important to be aware that torture in
this instance was done only by royal warrant, and the
interrogators did it out of sadism. They did it because
they needed to get information.

Speaker 11 (21:00):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
The Tower of London was founded by the first Norman
King of England, William the Conqueror, soon after he invaded
England in ten sixty six.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
We know from writers at the time that he thought
that the people of London were a huge, fierce and
fickle population, and for that reason he felt that he
needed to protect himself within the city, and so he
built the Tower of London.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Next up gruesome tales of treason and treachery at the tower.
As the Tower of London grew in size, a variety
of intimidating defenses were added to resist attack.

Speaker 12 (21:53):
The reason why this one particular art was so securely
defended is because all those hundreds and hundred of years ago,
this was the only entry into the Inner Wars into
the Royal Palace itself.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Since the fourteenth century, the castle has been protected by
jumen warders. Today there are thirty eight of them, all
former non commissioned officers from the armed forces, and they
live with their families within the Tower Wars.

Speaker 13 (22:20):
Most people call us beef Is. That's the nickname. No
one's really sure where it came from. The nearest week
you get to it is that certainly during the reign
of Henry the eighth we were partly paid in beef.

Speaker 12 (22:32):
Ladies and gentlemen were now down beside one of the
most famous infamous skates for that hatter in the history
of the world. For before you lie, straight escape, And
for all you lovely Americans, do you know what it was
originally called?

Speaker 13 (22:44):
Water Gate? We are the tower Guardians. We are more
or less a policeman. We're responsible for everything within the tower,
the safety, the security of everything and the people that visit.
But our main job is the security of this great
royal palace.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
As well as being watched over by Yeoman warders, the
tower is also secured by military guards from the same
regiment as those at Buckingham Palace. Their most important duty
is to guard the Crown jewels that are kept secure
in the Waterloo barracks. And there are other residents of

(23:23):
the tower that have an historic role to play in
defending the castle. The Ravens, Yeoman water Derek Coyle is
the raven master.

Speaker 12 (23:39):
Bit of a wall name. See two of our ravens.
The one million is called Mooning, the one just behind
her is called Cedric. It's my job to look after
these birds. Now, whilst we're on about them. They are
not tame. They are semi wild. You go into their territory,
they'll attack. Put your finger out. They're allowed to take
the finger and straight off. Look at the bags on
them as well as not their talons. I raise the shop.

(24:02):
So please give these birds the respect that they deserve.

Speaker 13 (24:10):
All right, come on, hondy, good boy.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Ravens have lived here for hundreds of years, and tradition
holds that if they should ever leave, the White Tower
will be destroyed and a great disaster will befall England.

Speaker 13 (24:24):
Go on, so a good boy.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
In sixteen sixty Charles the Sid took this belief so
seriously had he decreed that at least six ravens should
be kept here at all times. Today these birds have
their wing feathers clipped so they can't fly away. These

(24:53):
famous residents of the tower get five star treatment, and.

Speaker 13 (24:58):
That's what they get.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Luck.

Speaker 13 (25:00):
Prime hard raven's are magnificent, whereas they're very humorous, they're
very mischievous, and they're very very intellivision. Oh I love them.
Come on, then, come on then.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
The London was originally built as a royal palace and
was used as a royal residence until Elizabethan times. Many
kings and Queens of England were treated to a lavish
lifestyle here, but some of the aristocracy were brought to
the tower for a much more sinister purpose, to be

(25:39):
locked up.

Speaker 5 (25:45):
It's very important to know that this isn't just any
old prison. This is a very important prison of state,
and most of the people who are brought here are
people who are either too important or too dangerous to
be kept anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Prisoners at the Tower were expected to pay for their
own cheap Wealthy royalty and noblemen could afford to live comfortably,
bringing in their own possessions and buying themselves extravagant meals.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
Most of your prisoners would be living in houses, or
would be living in towers. It's not like Alcatraz. It's
an awful lot more like living under house arrest. And
that's what it would be like.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Sir Walter Raleigh, famous explorer of the Americas, was imprisoned
in the Bloody Tower for thirteen years after his alleged
involvement in a plot against King James the First. He
lived here with his wife and two sons, wrote the
history of the world, and even grew tobacco in the
tower garden, and then he was finally executed in sixteen eighteen.

(26:54):
The most notorious prisoners were brought to the Tower by river,
often at night, where they entered the fortress through the
now infamous Trader's Gate.

Speaker 12 (27:03):
Many and a leed traitor when it comes from these gatesphere,
including four Queens of England, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howell,
Lady Jane Gray, the unprowned Queen of nine Days Only,
and of course the young Princess Elizabeth, who later became
Queen Elizabeth First.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
For prisoners such as Anne Boleyn, this journey would be
their last. Anne Berlyn was the second wife of Henry
the eighth, and after her conviction for adultery, she was
brought to the tower. Ironically, her lodgings were the same
rooms she had stayed in just three years earlier to

(27:41):
prepare for her coronation. Anne was condemned to execution by beheading.
At her request, a swordsman from France was summoned to
deliver a swift death with a sharp sword rather than
the traditional axe, which could take several blows. On the
morning of the nineteenth of May fifteen thirty six, she

(28:04):
was finally given the dignity of a private execution on
Tower Green. Only seven prisoners, the most prestigious, were beheaded
within the tower walls. All other unfortunates were executed outside

(28:29):
the perimeter walls in full view of the public. Up
until the nineteenth century, no one knew what happened to
the bodies, but in eighteen seventy six workmen restoring the
tower's chapel made a gruesome discovery. Fifteen hundred corpses were

(28:50):
lying under the flagstones.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
They are still there now in the area of the alta,
with a new Victorian pavement laid over the top of them,
bearing their names in the coats of arms of the
important people buried in that area, and Catherine Howard, Lady
Jane Gray, the Earl of.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Essex, and many others. Some of the royal victims still
haunt the castle today. The tale of the Two Little
Princes is one of the saddest stories of the tower.
After their father Edward died in fourteen eighty three, the

(29:31):
boys were lodged in the tower while the eldest was
prepared for coronation, but their uncle Richard declared the boys
illegitimate and had himself crowned as King Richard the Third.
The princes were soon to mysteriously disappear. The common belief

(29:52):
is that they were murdered, and many suspected that the
dreadful crime was sanctioned by King Richard. Reports at the
time stated that the youngest boy was smothered to death
and his older brother fatally stabbed, but the full truth

(30:20):
will never be known.

Speaker 5 (30:25):
There's an aftermath to this story that in the year
sixteen seventy four, some workmen doing some work near the
White Tower, quite by accident, came upon the burials of
two small children. The authorities at the time convinced King
Charles the Second, then on the throne, that these were
none other than the bones of the two missing princes
in the tower, and they were taken to Westminster Abbey,

(30:46):
where even now they're buried, interred within a marble urn
in a place called Innocence Corner.

Speaker 13 (30:57):
Every stone Every brick in the wall has its own
little story to tell. And when you think that I
walk around every day where kings and Queens of England
have walked, some for their last walk, it just brings
it home to you. It's a great traditional place and
long mates stay.

Speaker 6 (31:13):
That way as well.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Coming up, we relived the glories of ancient Rome and
the greatest amphitheater ever built. The Colosseum, a marvel of
Roman engineering and the greatest amphitheater ever built. This huge

(31:43):
stadium was designed so that as many Romans as possible
could watch the most cruel and violent games the world
has ever seen. Thousands died here in the name of
popular entertainment. The Colosseum stands in the heart of Rome,

(32:04):
the vibrant capital city of Italy. Rome and its architecture
is a must see on the Grand Tour of Europe.
It's a living museum, overflowing with ancient wonders. Throughout the

(32:30):
city are relics of over two thousand years of history,
dating back to before the time of Christ. The most
awe inspiring of all these ancient monuments is the inaugurated

(32:55):
in eighty a d. This sporting arena was the brainchild
of the emperor Flavius Vespasian, and was originally called the
Flavian Amphitheater. The building is divided into four levels, the
first three of arches and the fourth divided into compartments
with windows.

Speaker 5 (33:19):
I've seen pictures and everything, but they really can't capture
how big it really is.

Speaker 14 (33:22):
The fact that an ancient people were able to construct
something so incredibly huge, it's just incredible to me.

Speaker 8 (33:36):
The idea of it, the immensity of it, the enormous
at the engineering of it, just absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
What we see today is nothing compared to what the
spectacular Amphitheater would have looked like in ancient Rome. In
its prime, the colosseum was faced with marble, and each
portico was filled with an ornate statue of an important
Roman face. At the very top of the building, there
were two hundred and forty masts which supported an enormous

(34:06):
canvas awning known as the valerium. On sunny days, it
was stretched over the top to provide shade for the spectators.
The Amphitheater had a capacity of over fifty thousand people.

(34:28):
Archaeologists like Lynn Lancaster have worked out how the coliseum
was designed to cope with such large numbers of spectators.
They would have entered through one of eighty different entrances.

Speaker 15 (34:43):
Above each of the arches on the ground level there
is actually a Roman numeral and they go from one
to seventy six. Through these numbers, you would know where
to go into the building, and then so if you
were sitting over there, you wouldn't want to come in
over here and then wander all around. You would want
to come in on one of the gates there. And
this was one of the really clever things about the

(35:04):
building is that they were able to organize very large
groups of people to get to the right very quickly.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Despite the size of the building, more than fifty thousand
people would have been able to reach their seats within
a matter of minutes. Where the people sat was determined
by social class. The highest class senators would sit nearest

(35:34):
the arena, and wealthy men would sit in the second
tier above that, poorer men would sit in the third tier.
Women in slaves were restricted to the very top, where
there were only uncomfortable wooden benches. There were also two boxes,
no longer preserved, one for the emperor and one for

(35:55):
the sacred priestesses, the best of virgins.

Speaker 15 (35:59):
Now these would be the only women who would be
sitting low down, and these were prime seats or the
vesta virgins. Gave up a lot to be vest of virgins,
but they got something in return.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Each day's bloodshed was divided into three parts. Professor Roger
Wilson from the University of Nottingham has researched the day's events.

Speaker 16 (36:21):
Fest of all, in the morning you had the animal shows.
This was if you liked the order. This was the
warming up of the people. And then at midday, if
there were criminals to be executed, then they would be executed.
And then after a pause, there would be the afternoon entertainment,
and that was what people were really waiting for, the

(36:43):
gladiatorial combat. I think you've got to imagine a good
deal of noise, the roar of the spectators. We're talking

(37:04):
about fifty thousand people packed into that arena, making one
hell of it.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
In to provide this dramatic entertainment, there was a large
working area underneath the arena. Hidden elevators and trapdoors with
a complicated system of counterweights and pulleys allowed animals, men
in scenery to appear from underground.

Speaker 15 (37:32):
The cage would pop up through the floor, and so
this is one of the ways they could to make
it more spectacular. They could have scenery or gladiators or
animals sort of coming up from nowhere.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Up next the most sensational and bloodthirsty games ever, the
most sensational games at the coliseum in Rome were in
one hundred and seven AD. Ten thousand gladiators fought to
the death in a blood bath that lasted one hundred
and twenty three days, an.

Speaker 16 (38:06):
Enormous amount of entertainment. And also there were no less
than eleven thousand animals butchered in the course of that
one hundred and twenty three days. At the end of

(38:29):
the games, when they had all been slaughtered, one of
the fascinating questions is what happened to the carcasses. When
you've got an elephant dead in the arena, Okay, you
can drag it out, but what then do you do
with it? Whether they were cut up and given to
feed other animals that were waiting their turn, we simply
don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
The dead animals and corpses would probably have been taken
to one of the many buildings surrounding the Colosseum. In
nineteen thirty seven, the remains of the Ludus Magnus, the
largest gladiatorial school in Rome, were discovered. Next door to
the Colosseum, a mini arena has been partly excavated, and

(39:13):
this is where the gladiators were subjected to a strict
program of training, watched over by their trainers, who would
have sat on their surrounding seats. The gladiators would have
lived here in a permanent state of captivity.

Speaker 16 (39:30):
Gladiators were either slaves or they were criminals. In either house,
they were expendable. It was a very hard life. They
lived in pretty harsh conditions. I'm sure they were pretty
abysmally treated, but if the alternative was either straight execution
or condemnation to the mind, then frankly, perhaps it was

(39:53):
a better life being a gladiator. At least you had hope.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
They walked to the games through an underground tunnel that
led directly from the Ludus Magnus to beneath the Colosseum.
The ultimate prize was a gladiator's freedom, but this was

(40:19):
rarely granted.

Speaker 16 (40:22):
The pinnacle of gladiator's achievement if they'd really been successful,
was that they would go on winning, They go on
getting adulation in the amphitheater, and as we know from inscriptions,
they were the equivalent of the pop stars.

Speaker 17 (40:35):
Of the day.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
The Colisseum is so well preserved that it's not difficult
to imagine the gory events of two thousand years ago.

Speaker 14 (40:48):
Once you stood down on the floor and looked up
at where Caesar sat, you can imagine what it's like
to be a gladiator and be fighting for your life
in there. Quite amazing.

Speaker 5 (40:58):
It seated fifty thousand people, but pretty much for the
wrong reasons.

Speaker 8 (41:02):
So excited people being killed, we would be mold. But
drama and fiercer and excitement. To me, everything was here, well,
light was here.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Construction of the Colosseum began in seventy a d. And
this masterpiece of engineering took ten years to build. Around
three hundred thousand cartloads of huge stone blocks were used
to build the outer walls. Towards the top of the monument.
The stone was replaced by much smaller and lighter bricks

(41:34):
held together with mortar.

Speaker 15 (41:37):
Roman mortar is particularly strong, much stronger than say the
mortar they would use in Greece, because there's a volcanic
material in the area called Potslana. You can actually see
the potslana in there. It's the little dark speckles, but
it has chemicals in it that will bind with the
lime and it'll create a mortar that's eight to ten
times stronger than the regular mortar.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Since its heyday, the Colosseum has suffered from plundering and decay.
The outer wall was partially destroyed when it was damaged
by an earthquake in the fourteenth century, but some of
the damage was much more deliberate.

Speaker 15 (42:30):
Because people often ask me why the Colosseum looks like
a bunch of Swiss cheese, because it has all these
holes in it, and these holes are robber holes. The
whole monument was put together, at least the stone parts
were put together with the iron clamps and iron dowels,
and in the medieval period when they needed to have
lots of iron to melt down for cannon balls or whatever,

(42:52):
they would go to ancient monuments and they would dig
out the ancient iron and then melt it down into
whatever they needed.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
It's a marvel that this huge building is still standing
without any of the original iron clamps and dowels.

Speaker 15 (43:06):
Once they put the arches all the way around. Then
it forms sort of a unified hole, and so it's
not nearly as unstable, and so even when you take
the pens out, it's not going to fall down because
it's structurally sound.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
The more archaeologists learn about this grand monument, the more
respect they have for the skills of the ancient Roman craftsmen.

Speaker 15 (43:28):
This building is overwhelming at times. Every time I come here,
I see something new. It's really exciting to be here.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
For over three hundred years, this was Rome's premiere killing ground,
but towards the end of the Roman Empire and the
onset of Christianity, the Romans began to grow unhappy with
the savage role call of brutality. In four hundred and
four a d. The Emperor Honorius finally banned gladiator shows forever. Today,

(44:04):
this triumph of Roman architecture is surely one of the
most monumental ancient wonders of the world. Next up, we
investigate the mysteries of the oldest structure on Earth. Deep

(44:30):
in the heart of the English countryside lies what is
possibly the oldest structure on Earth. This is Stonehenge. It
was built by a prehistoric man and yet amazingly, this
extraordinary monument is aligned with the cosmos. The arrangement of

(44:54):
the stones can predict exactly when the sun and the
moon will eclipse, and on the longest day of the year,
they line up precisely with the Midsummer sunrise. Stonehenge stands
on the bleak expanse of Salisbury Plain. On the eve

(45:22):
of the longest day of the year, thousands of people
gather together at Stonehenge to party through the night and
celebrate the dawn of the Summer solstice. For Celtic priests
known as Druids, this is the time of year when
the lure of these ancient stones seems to reach its

(45:43):
greatest power.

Speaker 18 (45:46):
Druids have always been at Stonehenge and celebrating the birth
of the longest day, which is a major part of
our religious experience, and what we as Drewids believe is
that at the Samerson Stice, Druidsagans, Christians, Hindus, Jews, it
doesn't matter, have a focal point in the British landscape
where they can gather to celebrate what is the longest

(46:08):
day of the year.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
It is believed that this ancient stone circle has long
been a spiritual focus.

Speaker 18 (46:23):
And going back to a time in ancient Britain and
the pagan faith was predominant, and they celebrated the changing
of the seasons, and they went to specific places and
sacred sites to celebrate that. So Stonehenge has always been
a gathering point of the summer's solstice.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Stonehenge is the most complete megalithic monument in Europe, older
than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The site dates back
five thousand years. That's two and a half years earlier
than even the first Druids, and there is nothing else
like it anywhere in the world. The magnetism of these

(47:12):
stones draws more than a million visitors every year to
ponder the questions who built this ancient monument, how was
it built, and why.

Speaker 17 (47:25):
Stonehenge is one of the great wonders of the world.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
So we're here in the midst and the rain.

Speaker 19 (47:29):
To see it.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
My first impression is on the road coming up here
and you just see them in the distance, and I
was really excited over it. You know, that's pretty incredible.

Speaker 17 (47:37):
Yeah, and then it's awesome for it.

Speaker 20 (47:43):
Pandalous to think that it's British has been there so long.
I mean, you know how did they do it?

Speaker 1 (47:52):
The intriguing enigma of Stonehenge has left a lasting impression
on many generations of visitors.

Speaker 5 (48:00):
It is unique.

Speaker 21 (48:01):
Stonehenge is recognized around the world. I mean, you draw
the Triliathan symbol out and people recognize that in the
same way as you draw the pyramid out. They recognize
those things. It is an internationally known monument. It's become
that sort of icon. The mystery is what was it
used for? Why was it built? There is no written evidence,

(48:23):
so we'll never actually know the motives behind it. And
I suppose the fun about Stonehenge because we don't know,
you can speculate.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
There are plenty of theories. Some believe that this site
was designed for sacrifice. In the Middle Ages, people thought
the monster as stones have been put up by giants,
and since then there have even been theories that this
is a UFO landing.

Speaker 14 (48:50):
Site, rising to the old.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Perscyd Ruined priests are firm in their belief that stone
was built as a temple.

Speaker 18 (49:03):
How Stonehenge got there and how it was built is
lost in the mystery of time. But I firmly believe
I know what it's there for, and that is as
a place of worship at the turning of the seasons
of the year of our name.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
What we do know is that it was built with
astounding precision, and the alignment of the stones will accurately
predict the turn of the seasons. In the outer ring
of stones, one of them is half the width of
the others, creating twenty nine and a half stones. These

(49:41):
may well represent the twenty nine and a half days
in a lunar month. Four stationed stones set outside the
stone circle mark the most northerly and southerly positions of
the risings and settings of the Sun and the moon.
Around the outside of the stones, there are fifty six
pits known as Aubrey holes. Using a model of Stonehenge,

(50:04):
Robin Heath can demonstrate how these pits could have predicted
a lunary clipse.

Speaker 10 (50:10):
We imagine that the Earth is the center of Stonehenge.
The temple represents the Earth. Then we can say that
the outer diction bank represents the sky.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
By moving a marker for the moon by two Aubrey
holes each day and a marker for the sun once
every thirteen days, the model behaves like an astronomical calculator.
When the two markers coincide. The Aubrey holes predict an eclipse.

(50:44):
When we return, we get fired up with the Druid priests.
Four five hundred years ago, prehistoric man began the extraordinary
feat of positioning the stones at Stonehenge. At first, there
were just the smaller bluestones, named after the bluish color

(51:07):
of the rock. These were erected inside a pre existing
earthwork in the shape of a double crescent. Two or
three hundred years later, the much larger stones, the Sarsen stones,
were brought from the Molbra Downs twenty miles away. These

(51:31):
huge boulders were arranged in a closed circle with five
immense trilithons and a horseshoe shape in the center. Mysteriously,
the smaller bluestones were then completely repositioned within the circle.
Hauling the Sarzen stones to the site would have required
heroic effort. They weighed anything up to a massive fifty tons.

(51:58):
In nineteen ninety six, a large group of volunteers conducted
an experiment to find out how it could have been done.
They were limited to the tools of the prehistoric age, ropes,
wooden levers, and brute force. They successfully hauled the replica

(52:21):
sarsen stone along a sledge guided by wooden tracks. Then
there was the problem of how the ancient craftsmen could
have stood the stone upright. The team exploited some basic
principles of weights and balance. Root force was needed to

(53:01):
stand it straight, but the original builders still had the
daunting task of raising the lntil stones. The outer circle
of sarcen stones once supported a complete ring of thirty

(53:24):
lntels fifteen feet above the ground. This was one of
the greatest engineering achievements of prehistory. One solution is that
the lentils were raised by progressively adding to a temporary
timber platform. Then the craftsmen had to line up holes

(53:44):
carved out of each end of the lintel with a
protruding tennin on top of each upright stone.

Speaker 10 (53:52):
I think that was a precarious operation. You had to
slide the lintel from the cradle onto two upright stones
with tennin joints in them and get it right. And
they did get it right.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
An hour before dawn, the solstice festivities reach a climax.
The druids lead the torchlit procession in a complete circle
around the stones, symbolizing the Earth orbiting the sun.

Speaker 18 (54:29):
These stones have been used as a gathering point for many,
many millennia, and it's in that that they have gathered
their own power and their own mistake, and it's that
that draws successive generations to them.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Over two hundred generations have passed since Stonehenge was erected,
yet great Wonder is still here for us to admire
and marvel at. Its construction. Built across mountain ranges up

(55:21):
to eight thousand feet high, the Great Wall of China
is a feat of engineering unparalleled in the world. It
extends over four thousand, five hundred miles from North Korea
to the wastes of the Gobi Desert. The same distance
is from Miami to the North Pole. The Great Wall

(55:46):
of China is the longest man made structure on the planet.

(56:11):
Two hundred and fifty BC, China was a nation of
warring states. After decades of fighting, the Emperor Chin chewand
succeeded in joining the different kingdoms into a single, unified China.

(56:33):
But the victorious emperor needed to protect his new country
from marauding tribes from the north, and two hundred and
twenty one BC he ordered the building of the Great
Wall of China. So good was the quality of construction

(56:56):
that many sections are still standing two thousand years later.
It has been calculated that the wall would have cost
two hundred and sixty billion dollars in today's money. In
nineteen ninety nine, a group of British tourists set off
on a hundred mile hike along the wall to raise

(57:17):
money for charity. This was to be the adventure holiday
of a lifetime.

Speaker 20 (57:34):
I really thought it would be a straightforward walk in
the park kind of thing. Trust me, it was amston.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Their plan was to walk along the most treacherous parts
of the wall. Just get up to the wall itself
involved a tough two hour height, the rough terrain, and
the only way was up.

Speaker 20 (58:08):
As coached the wall, it looked about a million feet
high and I thought to myself, and they want me
to get up there, now I'm going back up.

Speaker 22 (58:21):
No one could get on it by themselves, and it
was much higher than I was, probably about six seven
foot high in some places where we wanted to get on.
So we had to have two people on the top
of the wall two people below and they sort of
pushed you up and had to get you on top.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Reaching the top was a momentous achievement for Aid, who
suffers from vertigo.

Speaker 20 (58:44):
Actually got up on a wall and I said, I
made it. I made it, and that was just ecstatic.
Simply just being there.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
Just really takes your breath away. It's so exhausting, but
such an achievement when you actually.

Speaker 17 (59:02):
Get up there.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
The Hagers have been given permission to walk sections of
the Great Wall normally off limits, and in parts it
was crumbling and dangerously precarious.

Speaker 4 (59:21):
The parts of it that were crumpling that we walked on,
that was the best bit because you're out there on
your own, and parts of it were a bit scary.
Luckily I don't suffer from vertigo or anything, but it
was still scary even for me.

Speaker 20 (59:34):
At one stage, I was walking up and someone said
to me, right, I now looked behind you, and I
felt as if I was on the moon looking down.
I didn't realize i'd gone that far up.

Speaker 22 (59:54):
Chinese people are generally much shorter than all of us,
and to think that they actually built the wall and
climbed along it was just amazing. So it really made
you think about who was building it and how they'd
actually managed to lug all of these big blocks of
stone and actually build the wall.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
When the Great Wall was initially built during the Qin dynasty,
it was made of compacted earth and reads. Emperor chinchewand
used three hundred thousand soldiers and five hundred thousand conscripts.

(01:00:33):
He built the three thousand miles of the wall in
just ten years. One of the world's leading experts on
Chinese history is Krol Michaelson.

Speaker 23 (01:00:46):
Chinchi Hondi has been both revered and reviled throughout Chinese history,
but generally his building of the Great Wall was regarded
by most people as one of the most abhorred things
that he did because an awful lot of people died
building it. Many people were sent many hundreds of miles

(01:01:08):
away from their home and never made it back again.
There are millions of bones buried under the foundations of
the Great Wall to help strengthen it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
In the sixteenth century, in response to the thread of
invading Mongols from the north, the Great Wall of China
was substantially renovated and extended.

Speaker 23 (01:01:34):
It was during the Ming dynasty that the wall that
we see in China today was reconstructed and rebuilt made
of brick and stone. Special kilns being set up to
bate the bricks in each place in order to make
it sturdier than it had been. It is the brick
and stone reconstruction that the astronauts could see from the

(01:01:56):
moon and that the actual tourists who go to China today,
and this is a very much sturdia more impressive wall
than the original Great War would ever have been.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Up next, the Chinese Army defends the war against marauding
invaders from the north. Today, the Great Wall of China
is an accessible tourist destination and attracts people from all
over the world. Most tourists visit the reconstructed sections close

(01:02:31):
to Beijing. In nineteen seventy two, Richard Nixon was the
first American president to visit China. Stop at the Wall
provided the perfect photo opportunity.

Speaker 10 (01:02:47):
We've come a long way, but I would say it's worth.

Speaker 12 (01:02:50):
Coming sixteen thousand miles just to stand here and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
See the Wall. In nineteen ninety eight, Bill Clinton was
equally impressed.

Speaker 22 (01:03:00):
More magnificence than I had imagined it would be, and
there are much more sudden changes in altitude than I thought.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
The sheer size of the Great Wall ensure that it
was rarely breached but during the early years it was
constantly attacked by enemies from the north. Soldiers send coated
smoke signals along the wall to warn of potential attack.
When the wall was rebuilt in the Ming dynasty, watchtowers

(01:03:31):
were constructed every two hundred yards, and extensions of the
wall were built at right angles, so the soldiers could
attack the enemy from two sides. If the wall was breached,
the Chinese troops could retreat and take cover behind specially
designed buttresses. If all else failed, they could take refuge

(01:03:58):
in the heavily fortified watchtowers. But it was the Chinese
invention of gunpowder that was eventually used by the enemy
to effectively attack the wall.

Speaker 23 (01:04:19):
Once they could use cannons, they could breach the Great
Wall very easily, and by the end of the Ming
dynasty it was perfectly obvious that building this wall was
fairly useless if in fact it could be breached by cannons,
and so at the end of the Ming dynasty in
sixteen forty four, the reconstruction of the Great Wall basically ended.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
After six days, the charity walkers completed their one hundred
mile hike, reaching the end of such a unique adventure,
an emotional experience.

Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
It's very, very emotional. We'll hugged each old. You know
we've made it.

Speaker 17 (01:05:08):
Vistisnal.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Anyone who visits the Great Wall of China cannot fail
to be impressed by the vastness of this ancient wonder.

Speaker 23 (01:05:18):
It's just such an amazing feat. The fact that they
were able in two hundred BC to build such an
immense project is testimony to the greatness of Chinese civilization.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
This is one of the most isolated places on Earth,
yet every year twenty thousand tourists make the journey here
to see some of the strangest wonders of the world.

(01:06:18):
Easter Island is over two thousand miles from the nearest
habitation in Chile. It's a place with a tragic history
where the events of the past almost destroyed an entire population.
Eight hundred and eighty seven gigantic statues dot the island.

(01:06:40):
Some perch on top of beautifully crafted platforms called ahu,
and the statues face inland towards the island community. These
mysterious figures all have similar features an elongated head, long ears,
prominent nose, and determinedly pursed lips. Some are crowned with

(01:07:05):
enormous cylinders of red stones, and they all have an
eerily human like stance.

Speaker 19 (01:07:13):
If you look at these tattoos, you can see portraying
their image. The presence of an elder person is not
a friendly person that kind of look into your eyes
and smiling, but somebody either mean or authoritarian and too
arrogant to look close to you. So it's an attitude
of in a sense of the Polynesian style.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Easter Island, known as Raphanui by the locals, has an
area of just sixty square miles, about the size of Boston.
The original inhabitants were Polynesians who sailed from distant islands
sometime before eight hundred AD. Soon after their arrival, the

(01:07:58):
islanders began to build these extraordinary statues. Their original purpose
has been lost in time, but the Rapannui population today
believed they were built as a representation of their Polynesian ancestors.

Speaker 19 (01:08:16):
In many of the Polynesian islands, the representation of the
ancestor were doed with small figurine, sometimes within piles of rocks.
A Rapnoi we have the image of the ancestor, and
it grew in size and style from a small roundhead
figure all the way to the largest of twenty two

(01:08:36):
meter high.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Most of the platforms with statues are sighted along the coast,
but there are many more statues inland. The world's leading
expert on the island statues is Joanne van Tilberg, an
American archaeologist. She's been surveying and documenting the stones for

(01:09:02):
the last twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
East Island has probably been the most important project I've
ever worked on. I didn't come here intending to work
as an archaeologist, but once here I think, well, I
fell in love.

Speaker 17 (01:09:19):
Yeah, we have to check a.

Speaker 5 (01:09:20):
Couple of these.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
One sixty one, sixty three to the exact one sixty
three to the mottom.

Speaker 16 (01:09:30):
Of the deck.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
By taking hundreds of careful measurements of each statue, Ben
Tilberg has built up an intimate knowledge of their individual features.

Speaker 17 (01:09:39):
And on the side of the neck.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
Even though the statues at first glance appear all the
same and appear standardized, they have individual design characteristics, and
they have in fact individual personalities, so that now I
can see what the revenue people have always said, which
is that these are the faces of their ancestors.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Most of the statues were carved from compressed volcanic ash
concentrated in this extinct crater known as Rano Roraku. There
are three hundred and ninety seven statues stranded in various
stages of completion in this quarry.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
I think the quarry for everybody who comes here. It
is sort of the beating heart of the island. It's
the place where the energy is concentrated in terms of
the numbers of statues, in the size of statues.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
This rock was never used to build houses or even walls.
The mountain was a revered site that provided the Rapanui
with the precious material to build statues.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
It was a place of tremendous energy and production, but
it was also a sacred place, a place that was scary,
that was filled with spirits. Come around at night. They
seem a little.

Speaker 17 (01:11:00):
A little spooky.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
The original Rapanui islanders lived in complete isolation from the
rest of the world until Easter Sunday seventeen twenty two,
when a Dutch navigator yakup Roe Vane, landed on the
shores and named the place Easter Island. These explorers marveled
at the statues, but if they did discover anything of

(01:11:41):
their purpose, nothing was recorded. For posterity. After the break
we revealed a disaster that struck Easter Island. As recently
as twenty five years ago, archaeologists made an intriguing new
discovery about the Easter Island statues. Some of the figures

(01:12:06):
would originally have had eyes made of coral.

Speaker 19 (01:12:10):
We have learned for the first time that the stone
carving on Easter Islands have carried inlaid eyes once they
are placed on the platforms, and that is true throughout
the entire islands. Although fragments of coral has been fined
before by colleagues and even almost the whole eyes, we
did not discover that these are eyes of status until

(01:12:33):
nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
The most enduring mystery that has yet to be solved
is how these huge statues were transported to their specially
prepared platforms. It's believed that some of the smaller ones
might have been rolled on logs, but this would have
been impossible for the largest statues that can weigh anything
up to eighty two.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
Once you get up into these large size statues, there's
a whole other series of problems that come up proportionate
to their size increase, and there has been speculation on
the part of some that perhaps they were in fact
manipulated upright over this terrain and out along the roads.
It hasn't been demonstrated yet that that could have been

(01:13:21):
done here, but it's open to consideration.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
For hundreds of years, Easter Islands supported a thriving community,
and the population increased to around ten thousand. The islanders
built bigger and bigger statues, but then in the seventeenth
century something went terribly wrong. The landscape is strewn with

(01:13:52):
toppled abandoned statues, and many of them seem to have
been deliberately decapitated. Why would the islanders suddenly turn against
their sacred statues. Pollen analysis of samples taken from the
bottom of this lake revealed that the island was once
heavily forested with giant palm trees. Over the years, the

(01:14:20):
islanders cut them down to provide housing, wood for fires,
and logs for transporting the statues. They created an ecological disaster.
As the forests disappeared, the land began to erode and
their crops began to fail.

Speaker 19 (01:14:38):
When that came then, the obvious consequence, among others was
social conflicts, and societ conflict led to inter tribal fightings
and eventually to a total social organization change. So within
this social conflict, the monument were either abandoned or destroyed.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
This was the end of the era of the statues.
The survivors of the conflict had to find new ways
of living on this desolate island. They couldn't escape because
there was no wood to build boats, and there was
worse to come when passing ships began to dock at
Easter Island, Repeated raids by slave traders, and the introduction

(01:15:26):
of unfamiliar infectious diseases almost wiped out the population.

Speaker 19 (01:15:33):
We do know for fact that in eighteen seventy seven
our population on this island was only one hundred and eleven.
Almost two exterminations. We could have lost the entire human groups.
That would be perhaps the saddest aspect of human history.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Now an x by Chile, the island has rebounded from
near obscurity with its current population of more than three thousand.
We still don't understand the original purpose of these statues,
but today they provide an important source of income for
the Rapanui. Tourists and archaeologists flocked to the island to

(01:16:23):
wonder at these extraordinary legacies of the past. In the
eighteenth century, the Spanish priest was sent by his bishop
to explore the dense jungle of Central America, searching for

(01:16:50):
new land to cultivate. He stumbled upon some hauntingly beautiful
ruins rising spectacularly out of the forest. This was the
lost city of Polenke. Lenk lies on the edge of

(01:17:23):
the jungle in Chiappus, Mexico. Vast, mysterious and enchanting, this
ruined city was originally constructed by a long lost Native
American civilization, the Maya. Two hundred and fifty years after

(01:17:50):
it was first discovered, archaeologists are still unraveling the mystery
of what happened to the Maya and why these ancient
people abandoned their city. The ruins date back to before
the seventh century, when the Maya civilization covered large areas
of Central America. Chichanitza, at the tip of the Yukatam Peninsula,

(01:18:16):
is one of the most famous of the excavated cities,
but Polenke, nearly three hundred miles to the southwest, is
even more impressive and intriguing. Many of the buildings on
this sprawling site have still to be reclaimed from the jungle.

(01:18:37):
Julian Miller is one of an international team of archaeologists
who's been unearthing the secrets of this ancient city.

Speaker 11 (01:18:45):
Kolenka is almost a magical place. It has a certain
appeal that other sites don't. It's special between the buildings
and the woods that surround the buildings. It's just a
wonderful place to come and spend time and visit.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
More than a thousand tourists every day flock to this
lost city to admire the elaborate creations of the Maya
tur guide Moyess Morales shows many of them around the site.

Speaker 24 (01:19:18):
Balenka doesn't have beaches, Bananka doesn't have good hotels, Baloonque
doesn't have a niceiscaus. Balenka has nothing but the ruins
and the beautiful nature. So the people that comes to
Palenka they come for the culture of reason. So you
see the best people of the world visiting Palink and

(01:19:38):
that's a real privilege.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
Originally, this city would have supported a population of fifteen
to twenty thousand people. Their wooden houses are long gone,
but the palaces and temples built from limestone have survived
the passage of time. The most spectacular building at Peleenke

(01:20:05):
is the Royal Palace. It was built over several generations
as successive ruling kings added their embellishments.

Speaker 24 (01:20:14):
This is a paradise in the sense that the monuments
are among the most important ones in the world. So
the Maya culture is one of the ten very important cultures,
So what else do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
The Maya culture was very complex. They had their own
form of writing, the Central American equivalent of Egyptian hieroglyphics,
which has still not been fully deciphered even today, and
they had an obsession with blood ritual bloodletting was a
major part of any important event. Human sacrifice was often

(01:20:51):
the climax of religious celebrations and sporting events. Coming up,
we descend to a subterranean world of the dead. Over
the last fifty years, there have been a series of

(01:21:13):
dramatic discoveries in the ancient Maya city of Helenke in Mexico.
One of the most impressive was at the Temple of Inscriptions,
an eighty five foot high eight stepped pyramid. In nineteen

(01:21:33):
fifty two, a Mexican archeologist, Alberto ruz Lulia set about
reclaiming this stone monument from the jungle undergrowth. At the
base of the pyramid, he discovered an entrance to a
dank and eerie staircase blocked by tons of debris.

Speaker 13 (01:21:55):
Royalty.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
After three seasons of intense excavation, he uncovered steps that
led eighty feet down into the heart of the pyramid.
At the very bottom was a vaulted burial chamber containing

(01:22:20):
an intricately carved stone sarcophagus. Inside was the skeleton of
Pakal Vautaan, one of the great ruling kings of the city.
His face was covered by a mosaic j death mask.

(01:22:43):
The carvings on the massive sarcophagus depict Pakal at the
moment of his death, falling into the underworld, symbolized by
a monster's jaws.

Speaker 24 (01:22:55):
The man that is veries here was the most important
person in the half of the war during his life.
When this man was alive the seventh century, there was
nothing in Europe, and there was nothing in the Pacific.
There was nothing in the American continent but the Maya
saw in the western ward. There is nothing more important

(01:23:18):
in the seventh and eighth century than the Maya culture.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
This was the very first pyramid tomb ever discovered in
the Americas and is still the most important and impressive
here at Polenke. There are more than a thousand buildings
still to be reclaimed from the jungle, but by the
laws of Mexico, you're not allowed to excavate a building

(01:23:46):
unless you intend to restore it. For Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Morales,
it's a time consuming process.

Speaker 7 (01:24:02):
The restoration is very slow, it's very tedious, it is
very expensive. We can tell that fifty structures had been
uncovered in two hundred years. It will multiply by the
non number of structures. It will take us three thousand,
six hundred years to do the side of Polinka.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
One of the latest projects involves restoring a pyramid that's
become overgrown by trees. The Maya had ingeniously covered a
natural hill with limestone blocks and built a temple on top.
When Julia Miller and her team surveyed the site with
ground penetrating radar, it revealed a tomb hidden fifteen feet

(01:24:42):
beneath the temple. To investigate further, they dug and exploratory.

Speaker 11 (01:24:49):
Pits about the before.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Dusting at the bottom of the pit. They located the
corner of the tomb and the archaeologist. We're able to
insert a video camera by digging out a small hole.

Speaker 11 (01:25:12):
It's looking towards the northwest corner. Right now, it's at
the roof. I can see the doors at the southern
end of the tomb.

Speaker 5 (01:25:20):
How's that?

Speaker 11 (01:25:21):
I think, Yeah, that's a little bit better. And if
you can turn it there we go. Okay. I can
see four pots. I can see some jade beads that
are on the floor. There's a lot of debris that's
fallen onto the floor. It looks like the debris from
the walls. It is really exciting because most tombs have

(01:25:43):
something of pottery. They'll have jade, they'll have shell, they'll
have lots of different kinds of artifacts. But this tomb
is really special because it has mural paintings.

Speaker 17 (01:25:51):
On the walls.

Speaker 11 (01:25:53):
Yeah. Now you can see one of the figures on
the west side of the tomb. It's a man who's
wearing an elaborate head dress with lots of feathers on it,
and he's got a necklace, probably with jade beads, and
he's wearing a kilt.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
The Maya didn't mummify their dead, so the body in
the tomb has long since decomposed.

Speaker 11 (01:26:15):
We don't know whose tomb it was. At this point.
We can't see any hieroglyphic writing on the walls or
on any of the ceramic vessels. I see what I
think I can still see is but the shape of
the ceramic pots tells us that the tomb came from
about five hundred and forty a d.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Mysteriously, sometime during the eighth century, the Maya civilization at
Polink collapsed. Nobody really knows why. Ecological disaster, war and
famine are possible causes. But whatever the reason, these majestic

(01:26:54):
monuments were deserted and left to decay under a shroud
of tangled vines and foliage over a thousand years later.
Pilenk has a mystical charm that will enchant tourists and
archaeologists forever.

Speaker 11 (01:27:11):
When Pelenki empties out at the end of the day
and the sun is setting in the west, it's just
a beautiful, beautiful place. The monkey start howling, the birds
start singing, and you just want to sit and soak
in the atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Around the globe, there is a rich heritage of magnificent
monuments left behind by our ancient ancestors. These amazing feats
of engineering have survived the ravages of time and outlasted
entire civilizations. They stand as a testimony to the triumph

(01:27:57):
of human endeavor.

Speaker 15 (01:28:04):
Stiddy sim evitevisivis