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00:00i've spent years investigating the seven wonders of the ancient world this just has to be one of
00:10the best views in the world the unique list of monumental masterpieces first written down
00:172 300 years ago unbelievable oh my god now i'm heading on a thrilling journey to explore them
00:25following the trail of ancient travelers i love cleopatra and adventurers across three continents
00:34deciphering the mysteries of who built them and look was a lesson to artemisia how this was the
00:42space this was his workshop exactly and why this statue was all about the seething power of potential
00:49with exclusive access to brand new discoveries it's not just any city gate it's the one that leads to
00:56one of the wonders of the world absolute to bring the wonders back to life exactly where they once stood
01:03so far i've investigated four extraordinary wonders
01:11from the legendary great pyramid in egypt there's 2.3 million limestone blood to greece's triumphant
01:21colossus of roads this feels right the journey doesn't end here i'll explore a technicolor tomb
01:28a global first these very steps in this ramp would have been running with blood the lush enigmatic
01:37hanging gardens of babylon do you feel like you're eating the gardens i do it's what they would have
01:43eaten and a massive temple funded by a king with limitless gold the whole thing was twice the size
01:52of the famous parthenon temple in athens
01:55i'm traveling to the western coast of turkey
02:07four day sail from my last wonder to modern bodrum heliconassus for the ancients home to one of the
02:18longest standing of the seven wonders that dominated this skyline for a thousand years
02:25my next wonder is a secret favorite of mine because it holds the key to the story of an
02:32extraordinary power couple a king and queen mausolus and artemisia and the monumental tomb that they
02:42built that gave the world the word mausoleum mausolus and artemisia spearheaded a pioneering
02:51energetic new dynasty
02:54mausolus was a bold operator who ruled 2400 years ago and when he came to power one of the first
03:09things that he did was to move his capital down here to the coastline which was a real signal of
03:15his international ambition and the fact that his was a dynasty on the move from this maritime base
03:23mausolus and his family reached the benefits of trade with egypt persia and greece splashing out on
03:31treasures like this exquisite golden headdress and growing a cosmopolitan statement city
03:38visitors to ancient heliconassus would often seek out a little kind of expert or escort to take them
03:46round then they did it by mule or donkey or horse and carriage if they could afford it hi hakan but
03:53hakan my mate here has got a beautiful moped safety first fantastic chop sal great let's go
04:02huddy huddy hakan's given me a right to the site of the wonder tomb oh it's so great here how can i
04:11love it i really love it i think we're going down there it's easy to take a wrong turn in these ancient streets
04:24and look mosulet and artemisia hello
04:30our wonder building couple weren't just husband and wife but in true game of thrones style also brother and
04:37sister perfect fantastic brilliantly the foundations of the mega mausoleum still exist above ground
04:48helping us decode what it looked like so this is what we've come here to see let me just explain
04:56what's going on so basically this is the footprint of the entire tomb the burial chamber itself is right
05:04in the middle there and these walls pretty much mark where the original walls would have been which
05:10were all over a hundred feet long with the entire tomb rising 140 feet into the sky
05:24combining ancient eyewitness accounts and scattered remains we can rebuild the skyscraper tomb
05:31the original mausoleum a mash-up of international designs created by superstar architects with greek-style
05:42columns topped by a mini pyramid as high as a 14-story building with king mausolus and queen artemisia
05:53driving a horse-drawn chariot into the sky
05:56i think what's going on is that because mausolus is part of a new dynasty he's saying what makes us
06:05strong and special is the fact that we sit right at the center of east and west 400 exquisite sculptures
06:15telling stories of international influence amplified mausolus and artemisia's cosmopolitan brand
06:22most sculptures have been lost or taken but some tantalizing remains survive
06:33so if you come in here um this is where some of the replaced fragments the remnants of the actual
06:40mausoleum are stored and this one up here is my absolute favorite what you're looking at
06:47is one slab from what was originally a whole freeze that went right the way around the the mausoleum
06:53and it tells the story of the battles of amazons who were warrior women who some people think were
07:00legendary in the ancient world i actually think they were real and they were fighting against
07:04ancient greek heroes and even though it's really damaged and and eroded and weather beaten
07:10you can just kind of feel this stone pulsing with power and energy
07:19it celebrates female strength
07:24roman writer pliny tells us the royal couple hired the very best artists commissioning sculptures
07:30right across their territory including these marvels for their father hecatomus's tomb
07:38the ambition behind this glorious monument to death and life was huge
07:48i'm curious about what drove mausolus and artemisia to invest
07:52so much in a building they would only occupy in death
07:55i think clues might lie in a royal hideaway they adored
08:10i'm on the west coast of turkey investigating an ancient wonder the mausoleum of halicarnassus
08:18and asking why king mausolus and queen artemisia built such an epic tomb
08:25in search of clues i'm heading into the hills to explore labranda a sacred site also decorated by
08:33stellar artists including those behind the mausoleum this place really short circuits you into the heart and
08:42soul and spirit of mausolus and artemisia and the rest of their family
08:50this was the dynasty's spiritual home and mountainside retreat there are huge
08:57banqueting halls for luxurious drug-fueled feasting in honor of the gods roman author elian even describes
09:05ponds with bejeweled fishes and eels earrings and necklaces glinting in sun and lamplight
09:14this opulent lifestyle provoked jealousy and worse
09:20because this was a sanctuary all weapons had to be left outside at the gates
09:26but clearly that didn't quite go according to plan because we're told that one night
09:31there was a terrible attempt on mausolus's life now we know that he was notorious for imposing really
09:37heavy taxes on people which made him unpopular and given how expensive the mausoleum must have been to
09:45build maybe that was the reason that someone tried to murder him here this brush with death may have
09:54sharpened mausolus's focus on his legacy discoveries here suggest that like other wonder makers he was
10:03obsessed with making his mark
10:09so here he is this is mausolus's name
10:15and you know for me this is one of the most thrilling moments in my search for the seven wonders because
10:21here i am face to face with the man who built one of the wonders of the ancient world actually i'm just
10:29going to have a cheeky moment and cut it beautiful for me sacred grapes from the sacred site of mausolus
10:44and artemisian thank you so much bye brand new discoveries are building a body of evidence
10:56nice to see you great to meet you archaeologist jem ardul has agreed to show me his very latest find
11:04more proof that mausolus was determined no one would forget his name unbelievable
11:11oh my gosh that says mausolus up there isn't it yes mausolus
11:18so mausolus i can see and hecatomnus son of hecatomnus yeah gave the andron and what is inside
11:27to disease labrandus and that says he's labranded on there so the andron was um one of these kind of
11:33dining rooms isn't it normally things like this have been dug up hundreds of years before
11:40how did how did you come across it we just saw this small part of the corner of the marble yeah it
11:47was perfectly cut jem it's pretty it doesn't happen every time for an archaeologist on a dig does it
11:55something like this it's a perfect day a perfect day it's a beautiful thing perfectly preserved
12:02and is that the red to the original red paint on it the inscriptions were painted at that time yes
12:08yes but this is 2400 years old must be yes yeah and it looks like it was made yesterday
12:15this paint is a fantastic clue to how the mausoleum was decorated when the sculptures at the site were
12:27first unearthed they too showed traces of pigment exactly like this one which has been found around
12:35here only a couple of weeks ago and it's a reminder of how incredibly gaudy and colorful the mausoleum
12:42would originally have been and because the ancients often painted their marbles in colors they used
12:47things like cinnabar and red matter to give a kind of plumping effect to the lips they had white
12:54highlighter on the cheekbones and jawbone new revelations like this confirm just how vibrant the
13:03mausoleum was this was a vivid technicolor tomb using surviving fragments of the amazon freeze
13:12and the latest research we can recreate their original gaudy glory
13:23mausoleum never saw his wonder completed he died in 353 bce evidence found at the site reveals his burial
13:34would have been a real spectacle with artemisia in charge of the funeral as the king's body was
13:41processed down these steps a huge sacrifice was ordered a whole flock of sheep five oxen eight lambs
13:50and birds were all slaughtered so these very steps in this ramp would have been running with blood
13:57the stories go that artemisia was so wracked with grief she drank mausoleus's ashes mixed with water
14:09and pined to death but the reality was very different within two years she finished the tomb complex
14:18complete with walled wildlife park right in the center of the city ensuring their dynasty's legacy
14:25the tomb wowed visitors for 1700 years but despite cleverly designed interlocking columns
14:37by the 15th century ce earthquakes had toppled much of the gorgeous masonry and sculpture
14:46the wonders ruins were preyed on by a military christian order
14:50the knights hospitaller to help build their nearby fortress saint peter's castle
14:58what the knights did is they went straight to the site of the mausoleum and plundered huge amounts
15:04of building material so the ancient wonder is physically mortared into these walls
15:14some sculpture was saved for decoration like these lions
15:17more was ground down for building lime the castle was constructed slap bang on top of mausolus and artemisia's
15:27ancient palace
15:32so this wonder lives on in unexpected ways in architecture and stories and the hundreds of
15:38mausoleums across the world giving mausolus and artemisia the immortality they strove for
15:47the next wonder on our ancient list lives vividly in our imaginations
15:54arguably the most famous of them all the luscious hanging gardens of babylon
16:00black granites and quinces next to each other
16:04i'm traveling an ancient roadway that connected the mediterranean to the great kingdoms of the east
16:11over 1500 kilometers from the mausoleum is the ancient land of mesopotamia
16:182 600 years ago babylon was the largest city in the world
16:27it's really interesting when you talk to people about the seven wonders often the first one that springs
16:32to mind um is the hanging gardens of babylon but the thing is we don't actually know precisely where
16:40they were that's because so far archaeologists excavating ancient babylon haven't found definitive
16:48evidence of the hanging gardens but there is a wealth of detailed descriptions by ancient travelers
16:56there's a lovely romantic story that the gardens were constructed as a towering slope by one babylonian
17:05king for his homesick wife who was pining for the mountains of her homeland
17:15our sources also give us tantalizing details of the garden's design which means we can bring them back to
17:22life picture plant and tree stacked terraces possibly reaching a breathtaking 100 meters into the sky
17:32this man-made hillside curved like a theater was built of brick expertly waterproofed with the
17:38petrochemical of the day bitumen and filled with rich fertile soil you can just imagine can't you
17:46with this dense planting of trees and herbs and flowers and shrubs all cascading down how incredibly
17:56impressive this must have been to any visitor i mean it would just have seemed magnificent but if you dig
18:03a little deeper into the sources there's an intriguing problem the thing is some of our wonder writers who
18:12describe ancient babylon don't even name check the gardens and kings of babylonia who are not shy about
18:20coming forwards on their achievements don't mention them either so it's all a bit of a mystery
18:32as the archaeological evidence is elusive i'm going to have to jigsaw puzzle together our other clues
18:38stories so this is nuts because there's a lorry in front of me that's carrying whole trees and we know
18:45that's what the kings of babylon and the assyrian kings would do because they boasted about it the
18:50whole time that they'd literally uproot mature trees and put them on carts and bring them back to their
18:56palaces just to prove that they had power over nature and somebody's doing exactly the same thing right now
19:02probably to decorate a beautiful garden they'd actually just follow that van maybe it will lead
19:07me to the hanging gardens seeking inspirations and clues for this wonder i'm visiting istanbul
19:15ancient bryzantium i just love istanbul it's such a gorgeous city and one of its enduring charms has always
19:25been its gardens right for its foundation visitors who came here would talk about this kind of tapestry of
19:31green and mosaic of the color of flowers running down woodwinds and it's been particularly famous for
19:38its royal gardens and those royal gardens have got something in their dna that owe a lot to the great
19:46gardens of mesopotamia possibly a few gardens available dolphins 12 o'clock always a good omen in the ancient
19:57world hopefully they're blessing my quest they're definitely leaving them
20:06ornate palace pleasure gardens built first by the byzantines and then the mighty ottoman dynasty
20:12were inspired by ancient tradition including from babylonia
20:18although the actual location of the hanging gardens is uncertain um one thing that is really solid is
20:28a tradition in the east of rulers constructing gardens on a massive scale images like this one from a
20:36palace of the region show royals relaxing in the shade of lush vegetation
20:41the climate of babylonia the climate of babylonia didn't make it easy garden builders had to battle
20:49drought and torrential floods so they devised ingenious engineering solutions inscriptions described
20:59screw systems that pumped water from the rivers to the gardens upper slopes creating lush green oases
21:08protected within palace walls our word paradise actually comes from an eastern term for walled garden
21:19places that nourished a blissful soulful sensory experience
21:27these wonder gardens would have been stunningly beautiful
21:30and highly practical stocked full of food
21:39hi back here hello how are you doing hello hello hello he's so excited to see you oh it's so cool
21:47i've challenged ex-archeologist and vegan master chef bakhtiar to conjure up a hanging gardens feast
21:54we do in where the magic happens perfect in the kitchen yes great i've handed over a 2 700 year old
22:04babylonian ingredients list an official record of the edible plants in the royal gardens it's like i'm
22:12leaving it you know and recreating it it is the taste of history you know yes yes i call it edible history
22:20yeah today we are making history out of amazing shallots mint onion beetroot and leek and many more
22:30all featured in the gardens i'm glad there's so my daughter's called so yeah so that's i don't think
22:36of her when it's going and this is the crest yeah maybe like would you like to try it strong
22:41taste peppery like really peppery what about those really weird standing plants so you know there
22:51is like hound's tongue the bird's dung bird's dung slave girls buttocks buttocks dear horn yeah did you
23:01did you find any of those i found a image of a flower which looks like a bird dung i'm not sure that a bird
23:09dung salad would go down so well bird dung aside i'm hoping soon i'll be tucking into a feast fit for a
23:17babylonian king i'm on a mission to get a taste of the hanging gardens of babylon
23:31chef bactia has prepared a meal using ingredients grown in royal babylonian gardens now it's time for
23:43tasting i can't believe i'm about to try what kings who created this wonder would have eaten
23:48i think get some leeks too yeah definitely got some leeks
23:58oh that is delicious did you like it oh that is delicious what's the what's the dressing on there
24:04dressing is a coriander and dates dates these pleasure gardens would have been filled with dates
24:12the staple energy source of the day amazing and our inscription evidence shows copious amounts of
24:19alcohol do you feel like you're eating the gardens i do oh it is it's what they would have eaten
24:29if we pile in for the stew
24:31that is delicious well it's so fragrant did you taste juniper no i just get some bite of it and it's
24:43really strong it's just exploding in your mouth that has just exploded in my mouth move over caesar salad
24:54the hanging gardens wonder salad is here let's let's make a toast to the seven wonders
25:00to the hanging gardens of babylon and to the what was it a salad for kings
25:04salad for kings and queen in front of me
25:14we've learned the kings of babylon could engineer water flow nurture whole mature trees and stock
25:20a natural larder all in terraced pleasure gardens but there's a fascinating chance the hanging gardens
25:28were actually in babylon there's another really intriguing possibility if you go 400 kilometers
25:36north of babylon to the ancient city of nineveh modern day mosul there were also gardens within a
25:44palace there and and we know that because they're written about and because of this amazing stone carved
25:50decoration so to have a look at this these were gardens created by a king called sennachery
25:56they've got mature trees they've got water channels for irrigation and they've even got a pleasure
26:03pavilion up at the top these are incredibly similar to the written descriptions of the hanging gardens of
26:10babylon so this could be an image of the actual hanging gardens but why would history locate them in
26:18babylon instead of nineveh you know what i wonder i wonder if maybe there are actually a number of
26:26really impressive royal gardens in ancient mesopotamia which was also called babylonia and that just down
26:34time as people have talked about them they focused on the big box office name the more famous city
26:39babylon so we've ended up as one of the wonders being not the hanging gardens of nineveh
26:45the hanging gardens of babylon whether one or many these gardens which hosted power brokers and
26:55visitors from across the known world were a slice of paradise on earth no wonder they continue to
27:03thrive so vividly in our imaginations
27:12it's time to leave the gardens and istanbul behind and head 800 kilometers south to the final marvel on my
27:20seven wonders list to the magnificent ancient city of ephesus
27:31the crowning jewel of the city was one of the most revered temples in the ancient world
27:37i'm going to pay my respects to the feisty female force who inspired it
27:42this is the great goddess artemis her body is packed with symbols of power and meaning
27:51there are grapes on the vine and curious mythical creatures and her chest is covered with what are either
28:02breasts or testicles or sacks of honey
28:06she was the inspiration for one of the most popular of all of the seven wonders
28:15and you can see it up there at the top of her crown it's the temple of artemis at ephesus
28:23ephesus was an ancient boom town founded in the stone age ruled for a while by the greeks it became
28:35capital of a vast roman province and home to over a quarter of a million people
28:44these streets thronged with locals and with travelers traders and pilgrims from across the ancient world
28:53and i'm looking for something that makes ephesus truly special the site of the great temple of artemis
29:10although there's not much to see now it's mainly ruins excitingly because so many people have written
29:16about it we can recreate it construction began in the sixth century bce it was the first of its kind
29:29the original mothership of all greek temples stretching an impressive 130 meters long and 70 meters wide
29:40this place was huge with a whole forest of columns 127 of them framing an inner sanctuary with an altar at the
29:53front and a sacred precinct surrounded by a colonnade and the whole thing was twice the size of the famous
30:03parthenon temple up on the acropolis in athens all dedicated to artemis goddess of wild animals mountains
30:13the hunt and the cycle of life it was so gigantic the lintel stone was said to have been lifted into place
30:21by the goddess herself headaments and column bases were adorned with finely carved sculptures
30:29the temple also operated like a bank packed with treasures like these found buried at the site
30:39on special occasions the wooden image of the goddess would be brought out and dramatically revealed
30:45at a window right up in the pediment there and it must have looked gorgeous because it would be
30:51decorated with gold and flowers and the woods would be moisturized with oil and milk like it was real
30:58human skin and that whole process was called cosmesis which is where we get our modern word cosmetics
31:08a three kilometer avenue separated the protected grove of the temple from the city
31:16hello hi bethany and there's brand new evidence of how artemis drew the wonder worshipers in
31:22this welcome to our latest site director of excavations martin steskail has agreed to share these latest
31:32finds this is so exciting decode this what am i looking at here looks like a road gate rose it's
31:38both the road and a gate it's one of the three major city gates of ephesus we've been looking for that gate
31:43for a very long time the road is actually 11 meters wide so it's a massive road here and you can
31:50see very nicely still the traces of the carts that were commuting there this really shows you how
31:56intensively this road was actually used where does it lead this road this gate is the connection point
32:04to the artemis temple it's fantastic so fantastic it's not just any city gate it's the one that leads
32:09to to the sanctuary of artemis to one of the wonders of the world if this is the main road down to the
32:15artemis temple this also becomes a sacred way absolutely we know that you know the most important
32:22festival in ephesus that took place once a year was a a procession for artemis and that is the
32:29festival of the city amazing amazing to imagine it here this new discovery means we can plot the
32:37ancient way to the temple processions along this road would have been a sight to behold
32:45led by the city's young girls dressed in their finest clothes alongside dogs and horses with
32:51clouds of heady incense all accompanied by rousing music but it's really important isn't it just
32:59psychologically to think when people come through this gate for them they're not just part of a kind
33:04of bit of theater it's not just a festival of fun it really matters they're going down to that
33:10temple to to seek the protection of the goddess absolutely whoever found asylum in this sanctuary he
33:17was really protected yes so this is an extremely important sanctuary
33:21when you walk through countryside in this part of the world it was a pretty good idea to have um
33:36a stick because the wild dogs and the sheep dogs even can be quite lively but you might be wondering
33:44why i've got some red string tied around my stick and it's because if you came here as an ancient asylum
33:51seeker then you'd wrap red wool around a star to prove that you were in sanctuary in the temple of
33:58artemis um an asylum is actually an ancient greek word a sillier means someone or a place that you
34:06come to seek sanctuary so it's a really ancient idea but the temple of artemis was where it was known
34:13you could come and sleep as a refugee so isn't that an incredible thing this sort of compassion that
34:20carried on for centuries here but the great goddess couldn't keep everyone safe there's a terrible
34:32true story that proves that artemis's protection didn't always work princess arsinoe the fourth the
34:40sister of the famous cleopatra was hiding here seeking sanctuary in asylum but cleopatra must have
34:48paid someone off and ordered for her to be dragged out of the temple and murdered right here on these steps
34:59so we know that people flocked here to worship the goddess and seek her protection
35:06but what's the backstory of how it transformed into a wonder worthy mega temple
35:12who was it who provided the cash to supersize the sanctuary so that could earn its place on the
35:23greatest wonders of the world list to find out i'm following the money to one of the richest cities
35:33in the ancient world on the trail of the king with the midas touch
35:49i'm on a journey to the original seven wonders of the world exploring the temple of artemis at ephesus
35:57and tracing the steps of ancient travelers across western turkey
36:05ephesus was and still is a major tourist attraction but there's another reason travelers came here 2000
36:13years ago the royal road a trading super highway from babylonia in the east to sardis one of the wealthiest
36:23cities in the ancient world and home to the temple's biggest donor the uber rich king croesus ruler of sardis
36:34croesus was overlord of the lydian civilization and as well as the scale of his kingdom the fact that 2500
36:44years after he ruled we still described people as being as rich as croesus gives you a sense of just
36:53how monumentally wealthy he was
37:02croesus was said to owe his fortune to king midas
37:05croesus whose magical touch shot the waters of sardis with gold the truth is even more exciting
37:14the hills above sardis were packed with gold and silver deposits which flowed in a glittering river
37:21right through the city allowing croesus to do something game-changing
37:28croesus as far as we know was the first man in the world to mint a gold coin just like this so that
37:39means that he and his dynasty here in sardis created the cash economy and coined currency
37:47all that wealth would transform artemis's wonder as croesus expanded his kingdom ephesus was a tempting
38:01but contested prize croesus came under attack from of all people his nephew who was the tyrant ruler of
38:11so that said this to divine prize mögeness of ephesus christian Victoria the king who was able to
38:14happen in the VERYR、 massive amount of world and return usa croesus retaliated by mounting
38:15a blistering campaign against ephesus and took the city
38:22one of the very first things that he did in theory in honour of the goddess but i'm sure
38:28to prove that he was the big man in town was to rebuild the temple larger than anything the
38:36world had ever seen before and not only that he also lavished it with gold donating solid
38:44golden oxen and wrapping those columns in gold the columns in the temple's inner sanctuary
38:53were adorned with glittering gold
38:58and the statue of the goddess coated in this precious gift from sardis
39:06it's great there's a gift stall here because ancient travelers used to come and buy souvenirs
39:17when they came to ephesus hi hi good is this a temple of artemis yes yeah 500 500 that's a lot
39:30about 11 quid okay i'll have it thank you we know that they used to sell these little souvenirs in
39:39ancient times because paul who would become saint paul came to ephesus and because he was preaching
39:46about this new son of god jesus he was really really unpopular with the souvenir sellers here
39:53because they knew that if he said artemis wasn't really a goddess people would stop buying the
39:59little temples of artemis visitors didn't just buy trinkets to take home they left their own special
40:08gifts in honor of the goddess have actually brought two things here to her sanctuary um this old amber
40:15bead because when archaeologists were excavating here they found huge deposits of carved amber because
40:23amber was thought to be a stone that had this kind of magic charge to it and it does actually
40:29have static so um it was called electron amber in ancient greek which gives us our word electricity
40:37but amber's really expensive now and it was expensive then so if you couldn't afford amber then ordinary
40:43women would come and just leave a shell as a gift to the goddess so i'm gonna put it here
40:51as a little dedication to ultimate sadly artemis's mega temple wasn't destined to last forever
41:01despite sophisticated engineering after towering for 700 years in 262 ce a catastrophic earthquake reduced it
41:12to rubble you might think the temple's all but vanished but if you look carefully traces survive
41:34a lot of the masonry blocks from the temple have ended up here on this hill
41:39built into this church and the mosque down below and into the fortress walls up above
41:52the magnetic allure of the temple of artemis at ephesus right across time to travelers and tourists and
42:02pilgrims rich and poor alike is just so impressive its vastness and grandeur on a scale the world had never
42:11seen before and its big-hearted attitude to those in need earned its place on the ancient wonders list
42:18my epic journey to follow the trail of all seven wonders has been an extraordinary experience
42:31i've been an eyewitness to new discoveries
42:33this is unbelievable oh my god shared in the awe felt by the original wonder tourists it's really
42:42exciting where we're standing here is where it would have been made and celebrated the ambition and
42:49ingenuity of their creators they're building one of the biggest buildings in the world until the turn
42:54of the 20th century it worked we proved the technology works appreciating why they still matter today
43:04they remind us that impossible dreams can be made real if we collaborate to create extraordinary works
43:12that still inspire today and whose stories and whose stories make our world just that little bit more wonderful
43:26and whose stories make our world just that little bit more wonderful
43:34so
43:48you
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