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00:00They lived by wind and wave, and knew these waters well.
00:16Their people were lords of the sea.
00:20Few built finer craft.
00:23Few sailed faster or farther.
00:30But none of that could save this ship.
00:33The sea would rise up and conceal its fate for nearly an eternity.
01:00Deep, up, down, down, down, down!
01:12Come on!
01:13Come on!
04:41Thank you, Dwayne.
04:42How are you doing?
04:43Good.
04:57Now this is great.
04:58This is Cypro Geometric 3.
05:00Now this is most probably an import from Cyprus.
05:03But things were not so clear in the Navy's videotape.
05:08Well when I first looked at it I was a bit disappointed that it was so fuzzy and couldn't really make
05:15out these jars very well because that of course was the key to determining the age of
05:22the shipwreck.
05:23But it seemed to me that they might be early and possibly even 9th, 8th, 7th century B.C.E.
05:34These two handled storage jars called amphoras were first used throughout the Mediterranean around 4,000 years ago.
05:48Distinctive styles evolved in various locales.
05:51A boon for archaeologists who can use the jars as signatures of time and place.
05:59But sometimes two amphoras from vastly different eras can be deceptively similar.
06:08These might be from the 5th century A.D.
06:12But Steger has a hunch they're much older.
06:16He tells Ballard that if this wreck dates to the Iron Age as he suspects, it is the first of its kind ever found in the Mediterranean.
06:26It was a gamble but one that I was at least confident enough in that I would have put down a good sized bet.
06:33More than money would be wagered.
06:39In the summer of 1999 the Northern Horizon sets out for Malta.
06:45Ballard and Steger lead an expedition to relocate and study the mysterious wreck.
06:52At stake is their conviction that the combined strengths of oceanography and archaeology can make history.
07:00Well you know when we found the Titanic, we found the Bismarck, we found the Yorktown, we knew they existed.
07:07They really weren't a discovery, they were a relocation.
07:12These are true discoveries, these are chapters of human history we don't know about.
07:17And I actually think they're much more important.
07:20Still, this expedition begins like any other.
07:25I had my stuff sitting here for two days.
07:27I forgot.
07:28I had that fake alarm.
07:30Okay ladies and gents, make sure your life jackets are right before I shout you out.
07:36Else I'll give you to Albert.
07:38Okay?
07:39Safety training is mandatory for everyone on board.
07:4349 scientists, engineers, programmers, shipmates and graduate students.
07:50When you jump in, what's the correct way to hold your life jacket and your nose?
07:59Smashing.
08:00Why do you have to hold your life jacket?
08:01Landlubber or sea dog, no one is exempt.
08:05No one.
08:06Hey Bob, I thought you could swim.
08:09Larry!
08:10Hello Larry.
08:11Hi.
08:12Here's your captain.
08:13Okay.
08:14Okay.
08:15That's all right.
08:16You can't get any title.
08:17You can't get any title.
08:18You can't get any title.
08:19You can't get any title.
08:20You can't get any title.
08:21You can't get any title.
08:22The Northern Horizon has been transformed into a floating research facility.
08:28Over 55 tons of equipment were shipped from the United States.
08:33Several larger items have been welded to the deck.
08:40For nearly two decades, Ballard has worked with an expert team out of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
08:48In the past, William Bowen and Andy Bowen have been key members of many expeditions.
08:55Right, exactly.
08:56Inside, Steger's archaeology team has established its own headquarters.
09:01Hey team.
09:02Excuse me.
09:03I just got some interesting information from Bob.
09:06He just gave me the coordinates.
09:08They're right on the ancient routes that some have predicted between the cedars of Lebanon
09:16and Egypt.
09:17His team includes four graduate students, as well as an expert on ancient ships, nautical archaeologist,
09:24Shelly Waxman of Texas A&M University.
09:27These ships might have had pretty wide, beamy hulls and so forth.
09:33They seem from all the iconography that we have from this period that the merchant ships
09:37were extremely beamy and broad hull.
09:41Yeah.
09:42If this dates to around 700 BC, this is the first ship ever found that dates to that time period.
09:49And you have to remember that ships tell the story of history.
09:52I mean, there is nothing that man ever made that was not carried on the ship, including
09:56the pyramids.
09:57Stone by stone, not in one shot.
10:02And each one of these are literally a time capsule.
10:06They went down in one moment, like that.
10:08And everything they were carrying on it, at that one time, went down together.
10:13And that tells us the story.
10:18To reach the coordinates provided by the Navy will take about five days.
10:23This is the calm before the storm.
10:27We are very relaxed right now, which is great.
10:31I mean, people are charging their batteries, getting sleep.
10:34We just did the testing of the ship.
10:37Everything's proceeding smoothly.
10:39But once we get on site, it'll kick in to around the clock.
10:44And you'll see people break up into three watches.
10:47And there will always be a team at work 24 hours a day.
10:51Susan and Michael have the most difficult schedule in some ways,
10:54because they work from 12 noon to 4 p.m.
10:57And then from 4 p.m. to midnight, they have to sleep.
11:02And that's a tough time to go to sleep at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
11:04But the reason they have to do that is because at 12 midnight,
11:07they have to get back up and work the 12 midnight to 4 a.m. shift.
11:10And go to the van.
11:11Exactly.
11:12And that's where everything's happening.
11:13Yep.
11:14Yeah.
11:15It sounds like, from what they said, that the midnight to 4 a.m. shift
11:17actually is a time when a lot of things do happen.
11:26On the northern horizon, navigation involves a global positioning system
11:31and computer-controlled propulsion.
11:36But a few thousand years ago, a sea captain had to rely on somewhat higher powers.
11:47The very heavens were his guide.
11:52He probably spent a lifetime committing constellations to memory,
11:57observing the shifting angle of the sun.
12:03The special temper of each wind and the season of its coming.
12:08The powerful currents hidden beneath the waves.
12:12All these may have been the secrets of his trade.
12:18Surely he watched for seabirds, heralds of an approaching shore,
12:23and for landmarks familiar as a friendly face.
12:28But the nearness of land was not necessarily a comfort.
12:33And he likely kept his ship at quite a distance.
12:37Well, generally, the common wisdom has it that for safety,
12:41the ancient mariners hug the coast.
12:43But when you think about it, the last thing an ancient mariner ever wanted to see
12:47during a storm was a quickly approaching lee shore.
12:53Plus, there was piracy.
12:54And piracy wasn't the type that you see in the movies in the Caribbean
12:59where you're just sailing around in the middle of nowhere
13:01and suddenly another ship comes out.
13:03But rather, they would watch from shore.
13:06So you don't want to stay too close to shore,
13:08and if somebody comes out to attack,
13:10you want to have that leeway to get out of the way.
13:13It's day five and nearly midnight when the northern horizon arrives on site.
13:21The coordinates provided by the Navy are only approximate.
13:25Margin of error might be up to a kilometer.
13:31Ballard's team deploys a deep-water side-scan sonar.
13:35The hope is it will pinpoint the same pattern of large objects detected by the Navy.
13:43Slip his line. Slip his line.
13:48As the sonar is towed, its fiber-optic cable carries signals to the control van,
13:53nerve center of the expedition.
13:56All right, we are not ready for the first time.
13:58Are you ready to go?
13:59Sonar screens are not inherently exciting.
14:03As the first watch hunkers down, everything starts to go wrong.
14:09Okay, this course is going to take us into deep water.
14:12It already has increased.
14:15The ship can't seem to stay on track,
14:18and the sonar is pitched at an angle.
14:21We're going to pull it and fix it to plants.
14:24Or the...
14:26The generator is not going to survive a whole lot longer,
14:30so we have to shut the generator off.
14:33This is the ship now?
14:34Yes, the ship.
14:35The ship has lost the generator.
14:38Our speed over the ground is five knots.
14:40Five knots?
14:44I'm shocked.
14:45If there's a current like four knots,
14:49we ain't doing this site.
14:52It could be a big showstopper right there.
14:57Unless the winch is rewired to another source of power on board,
15:01the expedition is dead in the water.
15:06Time to improvise.
15:08There's no way we can feed any power from below
15:12through Scania circuit, right?
15:14Because I have someone now disconnecting the cable.
15:17Just a moment, the chief engineer come and ask us to...
15:20Okay.
15:21No estimated timing.
15:24Okay.
15:25Hopefully, quickly.
15:26Okay.
15:27Got the hand crank?
15:29No, we're not going to go on like this all in the journey.
15:40Such are the risks of trying out a brand new winch.
15:44We're doing things we've never done before,
15:47but that's why we're here.
15:49We're always pushing the envelope.
15:51The challenge is always the desire on the part of the scientist
15:55to do things that have never been done before,
15:57and the operator's side not wanting to change anything.
16:01Because it works.
16:03It's a miracle.
16:04That's the only guy that...
16:05That's a problem.
16:06Yeah.
16:07Power has been rerouted, and the hunt is on.
16:10Looks like great.
16:11Looks pretty good now.
16:12You see something there, you believe?
16:16Yeah.
16:17The sonar displays targets as subtle smudges.
16:18Still adding up to about...
16:19It takes a trained eye to tell a shipwreck from a rock heap.
16:23They're dead ahead.
16:240-3-7.
16:25It's on the screen now, just starting to appear.
16:30displays targets as subtle smudges.
16:33It takes a trained eye to tell a shipwreck from a rock heap.
16:40They're dead ahead.
16:41037.
16:43It's on the screen now, just starting to appear.
16:52There's something coming in, but it's to the right here.
16:55Oh, yeah.
16:57There's something there.
17:00You're certainly within the range of Jason to see it.
17:03It's about the right length.
17:04It looks like it's maybe 30 meters.
17:07It's roughly in the right place.
17:08It smells right.
17:09Within 12 hours, the team locates three targets
17:12that line up in a similar configuration to the Navy's,
17:15but offset by half a kilometer from their quarters.
17:19They're in the right place.
17:21Within 12 hours, the team locates three targets
17:24that line up in a similar configuration to the Navy's,
17:27but offset by half a kilometer from their coordinates.
17:33Hi.
17:34Back to you, Larry.
17:35Yeah, I know.
17:36I think we did it.
17:38I think we did it.
17:39Looks good.
17:40Okay, okay.
17:41The weather's nice.
17:42I think you've done it.
17:43That's good.
17:44I think we'll go to phase two.
17:50It's a conditional victory.
17:52Until they actually look at the targets,
17:54they won't know if they've hit pay dirt.
17:59There's plenty of work ahead.
18:01Better get something below to eat.
18:05As one shift gives way to the next,
18:07notions of time begin to blur.
18:14Day six.
18:15The team prepares to launch an extraordinary robot named Jason,
18:20designed and built at Woods Hole,
18:23and championed by a man with a lifelong dream.
18:27Robert Ballard can't remember a time he wasn't obsessed with the deep sea.
18:32My idol as a kid, and perhaps still is, was Captain Nemo.
18:42He first dove in a submarine in 1969.
18:48Later, he was part of the historic expedition that discovered hydrothermal vents
18:53and surprising life forms on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
18:57But he's always had a healthy respect for the deep.
19:02Diving in a small submarine can be very dangerous.
19:05Pressure is a funny thing because you look out the window and you can't see it.
19:09But it's there, and the slightest mistake in a failure of your porthole
19:14or anything would be a catastrophic implosion.
19:17It would just poof.
19:18You'd just vanish.
19:22Ballard began to think that remote-controlled robots might be the answer.
19:26The idea led to a prototype called Jason Jr.,
19:32rigged with four motors, a 30-meter tether, and an electronic eye.
19:42In 1986, on the Titanic, Jason Jr. proved himself a nimble explorer.
19:49Maneuvered by Martin Bowen from within a submarine,
19:54the little robot descended the grand staircase and danced beneath a chandelier.
20:05That success launched a flurry of innovation at Woods Hole.
20:09By the 1990s, Jason had become a technological wonder, weighing just over two tons.
20:20In a sense, he remains a work in progress, forever refined and improved.
20:26But even his standard features are impressive.
20:29Seven thrusters allow for precision maneuvering underwater.
20:32Titanium components can withstand depths of 6,000 meters.
20:39Leave it there and put the whole thing back.
20:45Jason's video, film, and electronic cameras can be remote-controlled by an experienced pilot.
20:53Likewise, his articulated arm, which can lift up to 15 kilos.
20:58You know, right about here, Andy, by my foot.
21:05To fire up such a complex machine takes teamwork and time.
21:10Yeah.
21:12Jason won't be ready to launch until well after dark.
21:15It's a breathless moment just before Jason hits the water.
21:31If a single component leaks, it could short-circuit the entire electrical system.
21:36Okay, the pan's released.
21:50But tonight, it's all systems go.
21:55Jason dives toward the most promising of the three sonar targets.
22:00And we're off.
22:02Roger, make it slow.
22:04No, that's not too close of a radius.
22:06You're, uh, you're 110 meters out to the target.
22:10Right, uh, I'm not...
22:13At the controls is pilot Will Sellers.
22:16He adjusts Jason's buoyancy by dropping ballast weights.
22:24Amazing.
22:25Jason's own forward-facing sonar now scans the bottom.
22:32105 meters.
22:35Okay, it's off to the left.
22:3740 meters.
22:3940 meters off to the left.
22:41Is that it coming in?
22:43That's it coming in?
22:45That's it.
22:47That's it.
22:48Okay.
22:50Let's see what we got.
22:54A lot of bits.
22:55No, that's just noise.
22:57There it is.
22:59That's not geology.
23:01That's it.
23:03That's it.
23:05That's it.
23:07That's it.
23:09That's it.
23:11That's it.
23:13That's it.
23:15That's it.
23:16That's it.
23:20There it is.
23:21Whatever it is.
23:22Set ahead.
23:23Off to the right slightly.
23:29That's an anchor.
23:31Yeah.
23:33There's the chain.
23:35Yep, there's the chain.
23:37Follow that chain, Will.
23:38Okay.
23:39To the right.
23:40Come right.
23:42There's the chain.
23:43Is that the anchor?
23:44Yeah.
23:45Right.
23:47Metal chain, modern anchor.
23:50This is no ancient ship.
23:53So it's the other guy.
23:55Yeah.
23:56That's the Queen Victoria.
23:58That was target AA, right?
24:00Yeah, so it means AC.
24:02AC.
24:03The brightest one.
24:04The one that looked like it.
24:05Is going to be the oldest one.
24:07Yeah.
24:08All right.
24:09Well, there you are.
24:11Anyway, it was a hit.
24:13Okay, so we don't care about this guy.
24:16And we want to drive the AC.
24:18Okay.
24:19Fast as you will let me know.
24:20Head to AC.
24:21Let's head over there.
24:22Take us a while.
24:23We'll go have coffee and celebrate.
24:25We got a ship.
24:27The wrong one.
24:29This means we know where the right one is.
24:34My knees are weak.
24:36From standing to the excitement.
24:38The excitement.
24:43And then the anchor and then the chain.
24:44Right, the chain.
24:46Those apparently don't start before 1820.
24:49Right.
24:50So, you know, we might have a Victorian ship.
24:52We might not.
24:54Who cares at this point?
24:57It's two hours' transit to the next most likely target.
25:01Break this over.
25:02For some, a very long two hours.
25:11Move to Medea and we have main compensator, electrical harness and terminations.
25:19All set.
25:21Day 7, 5 a.m.
25:23Jason is back in action.
25:25The control van is flooded with anticipation, exhaustion, and adrenaline.
25:32That must be that bright spot.
25:35Mm-hmm.
25:36That's the bright spot, Zed.
25:37That's it.
25:39Still going down, aren't you?
25:41At 9 now, probably a little while.
25:44Magic.
25:45The brightest thing on the screen.
25:47Yeah, especially on the sonar.
25:50That's got to be the big one.
25:51Oh, that's the mother load.
25:53That's the mother of all ships.
25:56Okay.
25:5880 meters.
25:5980 meters.
26:0080 meters.
26:01Yeah, you're racing ahead.
26:02Oh, oh, oh.
26:03Holy cow.
26:04That's better.
26:05Remember that movie when the alien is being tracked and it's coming towards you?
26:19Yeah, but the alien is approaching our cabin, Captain.
26:2345 meters.
26:27And closing.
26:2918 meters.
26:31I didn't want to come down on it.
26:33Holy cow.
26:35There she blows.
26:37All right.
26:38All right.
26:44Look at that.
26:45Left cuts.
26:46Oh, dear.
26:47There we go.
26:48There we are.
26:49Oh, yeah.
26:50Now we can see the map isn't being that's 8th century.
26:52That's...
26:53Now your problem, Larry.
26:54Oh, yeah.
26:55My problem.
26:56It's a problem I like.
26:578th century.
26:58This is the first Iron Age ship that's ever been found in this.
26:59Oh, yeah.
27:00Oh, yeah.
27:01Oh, yeah.
27:02Oh, yeah.
27:03Oh, yeah.
27:04Oh, yeah.
27:05Oh, yeah.
27:06Oh, yeah.
27:07Oh, yeah.
27:08Oh, yeah.
27:09Oh, yeah.
27:10Oh, yeah.
27:11Oh, yeah.
27:12Oh, yeah.
27:13That's ever been found in this one.
27:15All right.
27:17All right.
27:18Whoo.
27:19Hi.
27:20And it's the biggest one.
27:21I mean, there's nothing bigger.
27:23Look at the corks.
27:24Oh.
27:25Are they corked?
27:26No.
27:27No.
27:28They're sediment?
27:29What is there?
27:30Well, they're filled.
27:31Well, they can sediment that way.
27:32Well, they're filled.
27:33They're filled.
27:34Yeah, yeah.
27:35Yeah, yeah.
27:36Yeah, yeah.
27:37No.
27:38Unless they've been excavated.
27:39I don't think so.
27:40You can't fill them that way.
27:41Look at those things, they're still, still stacked.
27:45Look at those other pods, too.
27:47You didn't see those in the...
27:49Unbelievable, isn't it?
27:50Oh, wow.
27:52That was an absolutely perfect one.
27:55It's...
27:56Oh, yeah.
27:56Don't get your other back.
27:57Don't reach it.
27:58Absolutely.
28:02I was nervous that if we were going to relocate it,
28:05and then when I saw those amphores,
28:08I stopped looking at the ship at that point.
28:10And I'm looking at Larry,
28:12because he's the one that knows what we have.
28:14And when you saw that big smile,
28:16that we got the ship we wanted.
28:19As far as I was concerned, the cruise was over.
28:22Look at that.
28:23Oh, wow.
28:24There's the anchor.
28:25There's the anchor, yes.
28:27Up to the right.
28:28Yeah.
28:29Stone anchor.
28:30There's stone anchor.
28:31More than a night to remember.
28:34It was ecstasy.
28:36Haven't been so happy about an archeological discovery in years,
28:42maybe a lifetime.
28:43Look at that.
28:44You see the ridges on the high neck.
28:46Yeah.
28:47You know, when you have those kinds of moments,
28:48you never forget them.
28:49And this was mine.
28:50Look at that.
28:51Oh.
28:56For me, something that was incredibly evocative
28:58were the two cooking pots with,
29:00you know, maybe the last supper,
29:02the end of them,
29:03before the ship went down.
29:04Yeah.
29:05I do think about the people who went down.
29:21Like a messenger from the future,
29:23Jason sheds light on a vessel that sets sail around the time
29:28Homer has said to have written the Odyssey.
29:31When the Greeks began to celebrate the Olympic Games,
29:35and a pair of twin brothers, according to legend,
29:39founded a city called Rome.
29:52The archeologists need a detailed overall view,
29:56but Jason's lights can't illuminate the entire wreck.
30:00To map the site,
30:02the robot moves over the ship in small increments
30:05and takes some 800 electronic close-ups.
30:14On-board computers help merge these images
30:17into a black-and-white high-resolution photo mosaic.
30:21It speaks volumes about the world's oldest deep-sea shipwreck.
30:28Some 300 amphoras preserve the shape of a long-vanished hull.
30:34About 18 meters long, it was heading west when it sank.
30:39A stone anchor marks the bow, cooking pots the stern.
30:43All this, plus the style of the amphoras,
30:45suggest it may be a Phoenician merchant ship
30:47brought in the beam with a curved horse-head bow.
30:53Such ships are known from Assyrian carvings,
30:55and from a detailed description in the Bible in the Book of Ezekiel.
31:00Of the Phoenicians, little tangible has been unearthed.
31:17They lived along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
31:20from before 1200 BC through the Roman period.
31:25But their real domain was the sea.
31:29The greatest maritime merchants of the ancient world,
31:33they traded with pharaohs, Greeks, and Romans
31:36and left traces of colonies as far west as the Strait of Gibraltar.
31:42Their rich purple dye was much prized,
31:45as were their cedars of Lebanon.
31:49It was the Phoenicians who provided lumber and expertise
31:53when Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem.
31:56Their skill at carving wood and ivory was unrivaled.
32:10Sadly, only shreds of Phoenician literature survive,
32:13but their simple alphabet was widely adopted
32:17and would evolve into the Roman alphabet we use today.
32:24Still, it was as seafarers
32:26that the Phoenicians most impressed the world.
32:31A Greek historian claims they first circumnavigated Africa.
32:36Others believe they even reached England.
32:38It's as if the Phoenicians entrusted all their secrets to the sea.
32:43Until now.
32:48Day eight.
32:50The team drops a rig called an elevator to the bottom.
32:56Later, it will raise precious cargo to the surface.
33:01There's that.
33:02Well, the main constipator's pulled from.
33:07Okay, we'll come back to that.
33:10Okay, we'll come back to that.
33:16So, there are the pots right there.
33:20Today's goal is retrieval.
33:22With hundreds of amphoras to choose from,
33:24the two lone cooking pots are top priority.
33:30It won't be easy.
33:33Pilot Matt Hines is first to test Jason's new hand,
33:37nicknamed Deep Spank by the team.
33:40You get it just like that.
33:43You're that thin.
33:44Yeah.
33:45Hold it like that so the weight's sitting on that.
33:47Yeah.
33:48Okay.
33:49We'll see if we can nudge it under there.
33:51And avoid the handles.
33:53Yeah.
33:55They're not up to taking weight like that, probably.
33:58No one is quite sure how the pot will hold up.
34:01First time that one's been moved in 2,700 years.
34:11Yeah.
34:13I think it's, the food's ready.
34:18It's lost.
34:20Okay, we got to recover.
34:23Change out.
34:25Okay.
34:32For now, Deep Spank disappoints.
34:37It was a new modification that didn't work.
34:43Engineering on the fly.
34:47It's back to an old die hard.
34:49It scoops in underneath and then you close down on top.
34:53We call it the cow catcher.
34:55It works.
34:57Within hours, Jason is back on the bottom with a priceless cooking pot in his cow catcher.
35:07Now this is our geology.
35:10Quick and beautiful.
35:20That dog can hunt.
35:22That dog can hunt.
35:23It's a triumph of technology each time Jason deposits an artifact in the elevator.
35:33But it also means the wreck site has been altered.
35:37Careful records must be kept.
35:40Archeology is a destructive science.
35:43It's like tearing pages out of a book.
35:46Once you've removed something, if you haven't recorded it, you've lost it forever.
35:51Work continues until the elevator is full, then begins a slow ascent that will bridge nearly 30 centuries.
36:04There it is, right here.
36:05Oh no!
36:06You know, we made a mistake, Bob.
36:07Never put both of those cooking pots on the same load.
36:08Since there are only two of them.
36:09Yeah.
36:10Is that the right thing?
36:11You know, we made a mistake, Bob.
36:12Never put both of those cooking pots on the same load since there are only two of them.
36:13Yeah.
36:14Is that the right place?
36:15Is that the right place?
36:16Is that the right place?
36:17Is that the right place?
36:18Right this setting?
36:19Okay let them just come straight up.
36:20Take some of those things and take some of them.
36:21You know, we made a mistake, Bob.
36:26You know, we made a mistake, Bob.
36:30Never put both of those cooking pots on the same load.
36:34Since there are only two of them.
36:35Yeah.
36:37Is that the right place?
36:38Is that the right place?
36:39Is that the right place?
36:40Yeah.
36:41Right in the center.
36:42Right in the center.
36:43Okay, let him just come straight up.
36:46Take slack off.
36:48Okay, straight up.
36:50Okay, just don't tilt it.
36:53Just stop it if it starts to swing.
36:57Okay, don't pull hard, guys.
37:00Let him try to get it vertical first.
37:03Oh, the beautiful cooking pots.
37:06They're so glorious.
37:08Watch the guys.
37:12Make sure the objects don't come down on anything hard.
37:17Thank God they're here.
37:20Did you see blackening under them?
37:23I tell you, I was very happy to see those cooking pots arrive.
37:28Yeah.
37:29The empress forgot more of them.
37:32What were they cooking at?
37:33What kind of meal?
37:34That's the one you do your one-pot stew in.
37:37It isn't as though you did one thing here, one thing there.
37:40You may just throw it all in as a stew.
37:42Refrigerator soup, my wife's mother calls.
37:45Yeah.
37:46Whatever's in the end of the week is still in the refrigerator.
37:49Well, this is in beautiful shape.
37:52Yeah, that's great.
37:53That's gorgeous.
37:54There's something special about touching something that has been untouched by humans for almost
38:003,000 years.
38:01I mean, to the time of Homer.
38:03Wow.
38:04That's pretty far back.
38:06Okay.
38:07Here comes the pot, so don't jump up, Dan.
38:10Stay right there, Dan.
38:15Two years after scrutinizing a fuzzy video, Steger finally enjoys a close encounter.
38:22Two little sea creatures attached to it.
38:27It's an unmistakable form.
38:30Well, my great wish came true that it was 8th century and not something Byzantine.
38:39You know, the other possibility for it was that it could date, oh, maybe 1,100, 1,200 years
38:48later, in which case we have lots of wrecks and lots of material from that period.
38:54But rarely, if ever, find this on land complete.
38:59Even if they're more or less complete, they've all been shattered.
39:02You have to put them together to make up the whole.
39:05But out here, a whole shipload of them intact.
39:09It's marvelous.
39:13Bathed in a solution of fresh and salt water, the artifacts are now the concern of conservator
39:19Dennis Piotta, his son James, and assistant conservator Catherine Giangrande.
39:27Sampled and sifted for future analysis, sediments might yield traces of a meal,
39:33or fragments of the ship's hull.
39:36You're not afraid of a couple of worms, are you?
39:40I'm getting 7.2 millimeters.
39:44Preservation of this pot will take months, but its digital doppelganger is ready for study.
39:52It's equally possible the amphoras contained olive oil or wine.
39:56Then, Giangrande spots the residue of tree resin used for sealing amphoras of wine.
40:07It's as fine a discovery as any to toast.
40:11Not a bad millennium.
40:12Terrific wine.
40:16The superb condition of the amphoras leads Ballard to a theory about the fate of the ship that carried them.
40:22The ship is not busted up.
40:27There's very few amphoras that are broken.
40:30So it wasn't like they were tossed around and flipped around.
40:33They were swamped.
40:37You know, when you get in trouble, you tend to run with the sea, hoping you can outrun the storm and get away from it.
40:43But you can then have a very powerful wave come over the stern and just swamp you.
40:49We call them rogue waves.
40:51I've been in two of them in my life.
40:53We took one head-on right over the bridge.
40:55Took out the bridge, took out the map, all but sank us.
40:58On my first expedition, 40 years ago this summer, I almost went down in a storm.
41:02Understanding the wreck site has also consumed the computational energies of the team.
41:11Now, we've got the map crushed.
41:14Good.
41:16Using data collected by a sensor on Jason, Dana Yerger has produced a three-dimensional map.
41:22It shows the wreck is sitting in an oval depression nearly two meters deep
41:27and helps explain something that's been puzzling Ballard.
41:31Because, you know, one of the things we're probably having a problem with is all the amphoras are full of mud.
41:35And you figure out how could they be full of mud.
41:38But what you've done is it was buried.
41:42When the ship was swamped, it probably sank to the bottom like a weight
41:47and buried much of its hull in the soft mud.
41:49In time, wood-boring organisms ate away any exposed hull or mast.
41:59The amphora's unbaked clay stoppers simply dissolved.
42:05As wine escaped, water and sediments poured in.
42:11Over the centuries, deep water currents scoured the surrounding seafloor,
42:16excavating the wreck and laying bare its amphoras.
42:26So much revealed in so few days.
42:30The team has earned a bit of fun.
42:32Steve, we're still a little apart. I don't know. About an eight. Something like that.
42:47Woo!
42:50Get all the children out of the water. Get back to work.
43:04It's fun!
43:05Day nine. The team heads for the coordinates of the third sonar target.
43:16It was three.
43:18Three, two, seven.
43:20Three, two, seven.
43:22Let's see what that is.
43:24The expedition leaders have been keeping nearly 24-hour shifts.
43:27But there's no sign of fatigue when a target appears on Jason's sonar.
43:33Well, let's go.
43:35There's something.
43:37There's our friend.
43:39That's the guy off in the west.
43:41Down to 75.
43:43I don't know. It's looking like geology.
43:45I see. I see.
43:47Trash right there.
43:49I see.
43:51No, there's something else.
43:53That's a 55-gallon drop.
43:55That was a decoy.
43:57They always drop drums to throw people off their trail.
44:00Let's go back to 400.
44:02Just do a spin turn and see what you got.
44:05As Jason rotates, he picks up something far more promising.
44:10There's something right there.
44:11Yeah, right there.
44:15Some trash.
44:16We expect that.
44:21Okay, here it is.
44:23Here it is.
44:24It's it.
44:25It's Amphor.
44:26It looks like Amphor.
44:27Yes!
44:33We already measured this.
44:35It's the same.
44:36The same Amphor.
44:37It's a fleet.
44:38It's another bunch of...
44:41Let's see if we can...
44:42It's the same guys.
44:44They had a bad day.
44:45Look at that.
44:47That wine company went bankrupt.
44:49It's exactly the same.
44:52Eighth century.
44:53Same guy caught the same storm.
44:55In the same direction.
44:57This is more laid out, spread out.
44:58Yeah, this is...
44:59A little more static.
45:00You see there's more diversity.
45:01All right.
45:02Bonus.
45:03Definitely.
45:05A survey reveals a ship eerily similar in size and shape to the first wreck, facing west and carrying the same cargo.
45:18But here, more small personal items seem to be exposed.
45:19There's a bowl.
45:20There's a dish or something.
45:21These could help confirm the home port of the crew.
45:22Zoom down.
45:23Zoom.
45:24Keep going.
45:25Focus, stop.
45:27I hate that.
45:28Boy, have we got some work to do.
45:29Boy, have we got some work to do.
45:30For the next few weeks, the crew would be blocking the cargo.
45:32The crew would be carrying the same cargo.
45:33But here, more small personal items seem to be exposed.
45:38Now there's...
45:39There's a bowl.
45:41There's a dish or something.
45:42These could help confirm the home port of the crew.
45:45Zoom down, zoom, keep going.
45:49Focus, stop.
45:51I hate that straight and drag it out.
45:53Boy, have we got some work to do.
45:59For the next few days, Jason's busy as a bee.
46:35Watch your step behind you.
47:01Oh, that's a beauty.
47:03A little, a little, okay.
47:07This is terrific.
47:09I thought this thing was too big to be a bowl.
47:13And it's actually a moratorium.
47:15It's for grinding different kinds of spices and herbs,
47:19putting it in the stew.
47:23That's great.
47:27Don't go overboard.
47:39Now we're getting slightly different sizes.
47:45Yeah, this one looks about a gallon more than that one.
47:51I'm not an archaeologist, and Larry is an oceanographer.
47:55But maybe our students will be half archaeology,
47:57half oceanography.
47:59Are these the ones we wanted, or should we put them back
48:01and get some different ones?
48:03They're okay.
48:05You've got people who want to study shipwrecks,
48:07and people who want to build stuff to study shipwrecks
48:09coming together.
48:11And, of course, the technologies that are available now
48:13lend themselves beautifully to this.
48:15Let me look at that.
48:25You see this?
48:26It's like a candlestick boulder.
48:27Yeah, well, you're looking at it upside down.
48:31Actually, the way this would stand, Bob, is like that.
48:36Now, this is most likely a little chalice for burning incense.
48:43To the protectors, the protective deities of the sailors.
48:47They may well have held it this way, added their incense,
48:51and others will be raising their arms like this to Baal.
48:55Baal Hadad, or Baal Safon, the Baal of the North.
49:01Day 14.
49:03Jason's final load yields a distinctly Phoenician calling card.
49:08Now, that's the clincher.
49:14We've been looking for something that is really decisive.
49:18Well, that's it.
49:19That cinches it for a Phoenician ship, a Phoenician crew,
49:24Phoenician origins for this cargo.
49:28This wine decanter, with his fanciful wide lip,
49:31is uniquely Phoenician.
49:34It crowns the final act of a drama
49:37that began nearly 3,000 years ago.
49:40They may well have set sail from the great city of Tyre,
49:48two ships laden with fine wine from the hinterland.
49:53Their destination, perhaps the Egypt of the pharaohs,
49:59or their wine-thirsty compatriots
50:02in the newly founded colony of Carthage.
50:09To bless their journey,
50:11they would have performed age-old rituals,
50:14invoking the gods and perfuming the air
50:17to attract their favor.
50:19For a time, they may have felt protected by divine grace.
50:24A gentle sea guided the rhythm of their days.
50:29Then suddenly, it seemed their gods abandoned them,
50:32and no prayer, no offering,
50:34could win them back.
50:35And no prayer, no offering,
50:36could win them back.
50:39.
50:48The night's kiss.
50:49There will be an infinite amount of time
50:50where they would enjoy the incidents
50:51of the pilgrims.
50:52The night's akties.
50:53This went out to the night.
50:54They were on the night with a local calendar.
50:55The night's eyes.
50:56The night's eyes.
50:57The night's eyes.
50:58The night's eyes.
50:59Thisι©ies.
51:00The night's eyes.
51:01And it's morning in the night.
51:02The two night's eyes.
51:03In the night's eyes.
51:04The night's eyes.
51:05The night's eyes.
51:06Yeah, the night's eyes.
51:07For those who waited on the home shore,
51:37there was no end to this voyage.
51:42No matter how hard they prayed,
51:44the ships would never reappear on their horizon.
51:48The fate of their loved ones would remain a mystery.
51:58Yet centuries later,
52:00two modern-day explorers have raised their story from the depths
52:04and added a new chapter to our understanding of the past.
52:11As future expeditions are planned,
52:14the promise of deep-sea archaeology seems brighter than ever.
52:19For who knows how much history lies hidden on the bottom,
52:24just waiting to be discovered.
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