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Documentary, Ancient Invisible Cities - Athens -6
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00:00I'm Darius Arya, an archaeologist going in search of the ancient world in three of the most exciting cities on Earth.
00:11Cairo, the gateway to ancient Egypt.
00:16Istanbul, the crossroads between Europe and Asia.
00:21And now Athens, the birthplace of democracy.
00:30Today, Greater Athens is home to almost four million people.
00:34The city has exploded with new life in the past century.
00:37Here's a place that ancient monuments and sites sit side by side with modern architecture and urban renewal.
00:43It's an intoxicating mixture of ancient and contemporary altogether.
00:48I'll be investigating this city's hidden sites to find out how the ancient Athenians created an idea that has endured for over two and a half thousand years.
00:58Democracy.
01:00And I'll use virtual reality to explore this amazing place in a whole new way.
01:07What a view.
01:09Athens is a city with layer after layer of history and mythology.
01:15The ancients called this place the city of the gods.
01:20The city of the gods.
01:21Welcome to Invisible Athens.
01:27The Acropolis.
01:28The Acropolis.
01:29A sacred hill in the center of Athens.
01:34Let's go.
01:365,000 years ago, its cliffs offered protection to Bronze Age settlers.
01:49And in the centuries that followed, the city grew up around it.
02:04Today, it is famous for a series of events that started here in 510 BC.
02:16When the people of Athens overthrew a tyrant besieged on this hillside and did something extraordinary,
02:25they started to create the world's first democracy.
02:29In the golden era that followed, this remarkable society built the beautiful monuments that still stand here today.
02:42I'm walking through the Propylia, the monumental entry hall that leads you forward into the Acropolis.
02:51And it's designed to be theatrical and leave you with a sense of expectation of something greater that lies ahead.
03:00That brings you forward to this exact spot that gives you the most perfect view of one of the most famous buildings in the world.
03:08The Parthenon was built to honor the goddess Athena.
03:23It's been at the heart of what it means to be Athenian for over two and a half thousand years.
03:28Its orderly columns and perfect symmetry became the classical blueprint for architecture that shapes the world to this day.
03:51And right next door is one of the most intriguing buildings in the world.
03:56It might be small, but it's by no means insignificant.
04:00And we're going to find out why it's one of the most important buildings of ancient Athens.
04:08The Parthenon is famous for its symmetry.
04:10But across the way, the Ryktheion is contemporary.
04:13It looks totally different.
04:21This is a structure known for housing the votive statue of Athena.
04:25And many other shrines.
04:26But when we look at the architecture, it's like a mishmash of design.
04:30Even the ancient commentators were confused.
04:34Now, if we look at the individual architectural components, they are beautiful and as refined as the Parthenon.
04:40But overall, for its design, it just doesn't make any sense.
04:44Why did they build it in this way?
04:46Our 3D scanners are going to try to make sense of this quirky little temple.
04:56The team is led by architect Matt Shaw.
04:59Looking over at the Parthenon, that's one kind of structure.
05:04And then this is, like, totally different.
05:08Yeah, classical clarity over there.
05:10And then this confusing little structure without really a clear front or a clear entrance way.
05:17What were all of these different spaces inside?
05:19That's what we're hoping to try and understand with our scanners.
05:22So you've got total access to your outside, your inside, you've got the drones.
05:27What are the real challenges, then, in creating these models today?
05:31The building is the challenge for us, really.
05:32And we've got to use technology to try and unravel it.
05:37To reveal more about the Erechthean setting, Matt and his team are also going to create a 3D model of the Holocropolis.
05:44Using thousands of aero photographs in a digital process called photogrammetry,
05:53they'll be trying to reveal why the Athenians designed the Erechthean in this way.
06:00While the scanning team goes to work, I'm going to have a closer look.
06:05The Erechthean gets its name from Erechtheus, a mythical king of Athens.
06:10He is said to have been killed here by a thunderbolt thrown by Zeus, the king of the gods.
06:17A myth that has been cleverly incorporated in the building itself.
06:23This might look like damage to the roof, but in fact,
06:27it's purposely left open in this spot to remember the point at which Zeus threw his lightning bolt and killed the king Erechtheus.
06:34The temple also tells the story of how the city itself was named.
06:41And according to one version of the myth, it happened right here.
06:46When Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, took part in a duel to become the patron god of the city below.
06:55Each god had to offer something to the city.
07:02Poseidon began. He struck the earth right down below here.
07:07And out burst a spring of salt water.
07:10In response to Poseidon's salt water spring, Athena made grow on this spot an olive tree.
07:21And the king decided that Athena won the competition because the olive tree was much more useful.
07:29And she became the patron deity of Athens.
07:31Today, an olive tree still grows on the site where the city was named.
07:42But the myths don't end there.
07:45Jutting out from another side of the Erechtheion is a strange porch,
07:51which our scan team has been given special access to investigate.
07:54It is held up by columns in the form of maidens.
08:01Known as the caryatids, they are guardians of yet more sacred royal ground.
08:10And what they are doing is standing as an offering to mourn the loss of the mythical king, Kekrops,
08:16who is located in his grave down below.
08:19This is an important feature of the Erechtheion, reminding the Athenians that these women are mourning perpetually the loss of the mythic king.
08:31For the ancient Athenians, these buildings were the sacred heart of their city,
08:37created for a belief system that lasted thousands of years and is now lost in time.
08:42But the political heart of their city lies elsewhere.
08:52Sitting just below the Acropolis is a hill called the Pnyx.
08:57Athenian citizens assembled on this hillside to hear speeches and vote directly on every issue.
09:04If anywhere can lay claim to being the world's first democratic meeting place, then this is it.
09:16But this wasn't democracy as we know it.
09:19Only Athenian men were classed as citizens.
09:23And there were no votes for women, nor Athens' army of slaves.
09:27And that makes it difficult now for many of us to recognize this as a democracy at all.
09:34So when we look at Athenian democracy in our own terms, we have problems with it.
09:41But so too would the Athenians look at our modern democratic states and say, what kind of democracy is that?
09:47Every individual citizen doesn't cast a vote for every decision.
09:52This is what Athenian democracy was all about.
09:55This is where it started and it was something unique.
09:58So many of the secrets of ancient Athens are hidden beneath the surface of the modern city.
10:06Our scan team have been hard at work investigating them.
10:10Hey Matt.
10:12Hello, how are you?
10:13All right, I'm looking forward to seeing what you've come up with here.
10:17How are you doing, man?
10:18And now they're ready to show me the first images of the Acropolis.
10:22I mean thousands of individual images and then a good chunk of computing power and we get this quite amazing 3D model.
10:29And obviously dominated by this perfect piece of classical Greek architecture.
10:35But obviously we are a little more interested in its strange sibling over here.
10:40Off to the side there.
10:42Off to the side.
10:44It seems like it's about to tip off the side of the Acropolis there, just pushed off to the side. Look at that.
10:50Let's take this model apart a little bit. We're going to take the Erechthean away.
10:55The first thing to say about this site is that it's not level.
10:58We've got change in elevation of about three and a half meters as we go from the south to the north side of the temple.
11:03Traditionally, if you're building a building, you'd start leveling up that site, right?
11:08Yeah.
11:10But we can't do that here because this is sacred ground, right?
11:13You're stuck with that. You're left to deal with that.
11:15Yeah. So the first one of them is this strange hole.
11:18For them, it was God reaching out and touching this particular monument or space, and that became instantly sacred.
11:30Like this, you really see the connection. It becomes very obvious.
11:36You can see this hole in the ceiling that is directly above.
11:40Oh, yeah.
11:41But, wow, I mean, like that no one's ever seen, which is incredible.
11:47This isn't the only moment of very intentional precision that's going on on the porch here as well.
11:53I mean, if we just look at one of these columns there.
11:56Wow, look at that.
11:58That level of perfection carries on to these details which humans can never see
12:02because this building isn't just designed for humans to see, right?
12:05This is for the gods.
12:06Yeah.
12:07But there's something stopping them, extending the building.
12:10If I just click here, we get Athena's Olive Tree.
12:14Oh, yes.
12:15This is another constraint for the building program here, right?
12:18Mm-hmm.
12:19You can't cut down Athena's Olive Tree.
12:21I mean, we do this nowadays, right? We have tree preservation orders.
12:25Right, I mean, you are not cutting that tree down to build your temple.
12:30And then there's a third real constraint on the site, another mythical moment.
12:35The burial mound of kept crops, right?
12:38With the Caryatids.
12:39Yeah.
12:40By having that space sort of bump out, you're cluing in, you know, the pilgrim that's coming here,
12:46that this is yet another sacred space.
12:49We've got the burial mound of kept crops. We've got a hole for a thunderbolt.
12:54It's a hell of a brief, right?
12:57A spot of ground touched by the gods.
13:01An olive tree created by Athena.
13:05And the tomb of Athens' founding king.
13:09Thousands of years ago, parents would bring their kids here.
13:11They'd be able to tell those stories as they went around this space and if they were privileged enough to go inside and see those very shrines with their own eyes.
13:20And it's like a storybook that just unfolds as you make your way around it.
13:23The rection, it's kind of a mess. I mean, it's these disparate parts, it doesn't line up.
13:29But you've shown with the scans, it can't be symmetrical.
13:32It can't be as obvious as the parthenon across the way.
13:35This is a much more complex structure and you've teased out so many of those details.
13:39Today, modern Athens is a vivid and colorful city with a strong connection to the sea.
14:04It's the bustling capital of a democracy struggling to keep up with its neighbors.
14:13And in the time of the first democracy, Athens also had to fight for its place in the world.
14:23In 490 BC, Athens was a Greek city-state surrounded by rivals.
14:29Agena, Corinth, and the militaristic Sparta.
14:37The greatest threat of all lay to the east, where the Persian Empire was growing in power and ambition.
14:44But Athens had one great advantage over many of its rivals.
14:50The entire peninsula of Attica was under its control.
14:56And 50 miles to the south of the city lay extensive seams of precious silver.
15:01Very deep in the hillsides of an area called Laurion.
15:13In the 5th century BC, this was an industrial landscape given over to silver mining.
15:21A lucrative business run for the benefit of Athens and its citizens.
15:25But carried out by the city's army of slaves.
15:33To find out more about this dark underbelly of Athens, I'm going to go inside one of the ancient mines.
15:39My guide is archaeologist professor Andres Capitanos.
15:46Wow, it's pretty low.
15:48This is, whew, it's not a very big entrance just getting inside here.
15:52It's just the beginning.
15:54We have to go through that gallery over there, you can see.
15:57Wow, it looks pretty tight.
15:59See, it's narrow and low.
16:02Oh, hell yeah.
16:04And it is not built for my size.
16:07It looks like a giant onto a little pipe.
16:13Hey Darius, have you noticed these deep tool marks?
16:17The tool marks all around.
16:19Yeah.
16:21You see, this is a kind of step.
16:25They're pretty gnarly right here.
16:27So we have to crawl from here, okay.
16:29Okay.
16:32This is doing limbo on your stomach.
16:35Yeah.
16:38If I get stuck, you're going to help me, right?
16:40You're not going to leave me by, right?
16:43This is a place where you'd really want to be an expert.
16:47I have no idea where I'm going.
16:48I need to stick with Andreas.
16:50So we move that way.
16:52Okay.
16:53Are you coming?
16:54Yeah, I'm on my way.
16:55Okay.
16:58The rare access I've been granted to these tunnels
17:01really brings home to me the plight of the people
17:03who hacked them out by hand two and a half thousand years ago.
17:06This was a label done by tens of thousands of slaves.
17:14Slaves were captors in wars or they were bought in markets.
17:20Slaves were very valuable.
17:22That's why they were valuable tools.
17:24Only by scanning will the scale and complexity of this grim labyrinth of tunnels and galleries become clear.
17:34But it's going to be the hardest challenge Matt and his team have faced yet.
17:38I do think we've got a while in here.
17:41Yeah.
17:42I think we've got about six hours probably.
17:43So you guys will be here all night.
17:45Yeah, I mean it's teamwork, right?
17:46One of us has got to creep through these holes and the other one's got to pass the equipment.
17:50And then we're going to creep again and pass again and creep again and pass again.
17:55Crawling around through here, getting a sense that this is an awful existence.
17:58You don't want to be a slave and this is pretty much the bottom of where a slave would be.
18:04Although the people that worked here were anonymous.
18:07They're part of a long, complicated organization in existence to make democracy in Athens work.
18:16This is part of it.
18:18This is a very dirty part of it.
18:22And through here, getting a wider space.
18:29Is there anything left of the good stuff, let's say?
18:31No, nothing is left of the good stuff, but I have some in my pocket.
18:35I can show you a piece.
18:37But you need four tons of this to produce two kilos of silver.
18:41Two kilos, like five pounds.
18:45These are the Silicon Valleys of classical Athens.
18:53Our scans show the interior of the mine in extraordinary detail.
18:59And reveal the labyrinth of tunnels to be hundreds of yards long.
19:07Cut by hand as miners and slaves followed a thin seam of silver ore into the hillside.
19:13Above the ground, the scan team also captures the mine's processing plants.
19:28Here the ore would have been washed, then ground into tiny pebbles before finally being heated in a furnace nearby to coax out the precious silver.
19:37This is just one of at least 30 silver mines hidden under the hillsides of Laurion.
19:45And in the 480s BC, they provided Athens with a bounty of nearly three tons of silver.
19:51An unexpected boost to Athens' new democracy.
20:04I have come to Athens' harbor district, called Piraeus, on the trail of that silver windfall.
20:09It created a huge debate here among the citizens.
20:16In 483 BC, a heroic general and leading politician called Themistocles put forward a case that the money should be spent on a fleet of warships.
20:27But others wanted to divide up the windfall and give all the citizens an equal share in hard cash.
20:38And it was settled with a vote.
20:41The people made the extraordinary decision to back Themistocles.
20:45Instead of spending the windfall, they decided to invest the silver and build a fleet.
20:49Over 100 new warships like this were commissioned, known as triremes because of their three rows of oars.
21:02At 40 yards long, they were light and fast.
21:07And fitted with bronze battering rams, they were formidable weapons of war.
21:10And here on the waterfront, we can peel back the layers of history to show the importance of the Athenian fleet for several centuries.
21:25The scan team is already investigating.
21:28How's it going?
21:29So how are the challenges here in this particular location?
21:32We have a tricky one, okay?
21:33So we know something is hiding away in the basement of this structure over here.
21:36And then we know those structures actually start in the basement, but they came some way out underneath.
21:42Right, even underneath us.
21:43Exactly.
21:44And out into the water.
21:45Now scanning in the water is a wee bit tricky.
21:47Yeah.
21:48So we're taking to the air for this one.
21:50Okay.
21:55While the scan team gets to work, I'm going to access a remarkable site with marine archaeologist Dr. Bjorn Levine.
22:02We are now walking into the very space of the ship sheds.
22:07It's right underneath this modern apartment block.
22:10Oh, wow.
22:12Yeah.
22:13From outside, I got no sense of it.
22:15But here it is.
22:16And this is an incredible archaeological site.
22:18Totally hidden away.
22:19Yeah.
22:20Welcome to one of the secret sites of Greece.
22:22Totally invisible.
22:23Everyone's going by.
22:24You don't know what's underneath here in this basement.
22:26Dry dock ship sheds, like this one, seem like a simple enough idea, but they were vital to the success of Athens Naval Fleet.
22:37If you stand on this column base.
22:40Okay.
22:41Yeah.
22:42I'll walk through this here.
22:43Okay.
22:44All the way over to the other colonnade.
22:47So between the two of us, we have one ship sheds.
22:52My God.
22:53So in this space, there would have been a trirema.
22:56And you'd be able to slip in a warship right here between us.
23:00Yes.
23:01If you join me over here.
23:02Yeah.
23:03Next to the ramp, there's a working space where the people pulled the warships in and out of the ship sheds.
23:10You're doing that labor.
23:11You're actively giving hundreds of guys, I imagine.
23:14Yeah.
23:15I mean, we know from a source from the 5th century BC that it took 140 men to pull a trirema out of the sea.
23:23And then you multiply that by the number of sheds, by the number of ships.
23:27It starts to become an enormous neighborhood, right?
23:30It is a major operation.
23:33I mean, the ship sheds are all important because it maintains and preserve the warships and makes sure that it is operational when it's sent out on missions.
23:43The drier and the more well maintained your ship is, the faster it is in battle.
23:52Our scans show how the modern apartments are built right on top of the ancient ship sheds.
24:03Using data gathered from our drone, we've been able to map remains, now underwater, that reveal how the ship sheds extend into the harbor.
24:19And our graphic shows how they once stood all around this cove.
24:24In 480 BC, the Athenian navy was 200 ships strong, just as Athens was about to face a mortal threat from the most powerful empire in the ancient world.
24:49A little down the road from where I was exploring the ship sheds is Athens' modern port.
24:54And this is where a decisive sequence of events began.
24:57A massive army of at least 200,000 Persians was on its way to invade Athens and crush its democracy.
25:11With the entire population at risk, Athenians had to decide whether to stay and fight in the city or to retreat by sea.
25:19Themistocles realized it would have been disastrous to wage a land battle against a much more massive Persian army.
25:30So the extraordinary decision was made to evacuate the city of Athens and all the lands of Attica.
25:37Women and children were taken to safety and every male citizen of military age took his place on a trireme and prepared to face the Persians at sea.
25:53The Athenians withdrew their fleet just a short distance across the water from the city, into a secluded bay where they could plan their next move.
26:10Here they were joined by allies from across Greece.
26:17And in late September, 480 BC, they prepared to make a last stand.
26:24The battle that followed, the Battle of Salamis, saw not just Athens' future, but the future of Western civilization hang in the balance.
26:39Because if Athens fell and democracy was extinguished, it may never have caught flame again.
26:46Until recently, barely any remains dating from this moment were thought to have survived.
26:55But in 2017, Professor Ioannos Loulos discovered evidence that helps explain what this little bay might have been like at the time.
27:03On the eve of the Sea Battle of Salamis, the united Greek fleet with over 300 triple-decker warships was stationed in this bay.
27:16So we have documented the existence of a harbor.
27:21This is a fortified harbor, including a long wall with a round tower at its end.
27:29Can you help me reconstruct what it would have been like?
27:34The Athenians could see from the heights surrounding this bay their city in flames, including the Acropolis.
27:45That night was the zero hour of Greek history.
27:50Using the new research, our scan team has managed to fix the coordinates of the archaeological remains here at Salamis.
28:03Our graphic model of the harbor wall and its defensive tower shows how it extended 160 yards into the bay.
28:09This is where over 300 Greek trireme warships gathered to take on a Persian force three times that size.
28:19One source says that Themistocles lured the Persians into the narrow straits beyond the bay, where superior numbers counted for nothing.
28:32The Greek triremes pounced and rammed into the Persians, smashing their fleet apart.
28:39The Greeks lost 40 ships that day, but the Persians lost 300.
28:49It was a stunning victory for Athens, one that allowed the world's first democracy to survive.
29:00But victory came at a high price.
29:07The people returned to a city that had been razed to the ground.
29:15Over 30 years, the Athenians lived amongst the ruins.
29:21They didn't rebuild the city for all that time, because they wanted that destruction to serve as a reminder of what had happened to them.
29:30Actually, they did build one thing, and I'm looking for it right now.
29:35It's right around the corner.
29:38This is the road.
29:57It's supposed to be right over here, kind of to the left of the bathroom.
30:02And there's supposed to be a staircase going down.
30:07Today, this parking garage is right in the heart of a sprawling metropolis.
30:11But it was once the city limits of ancient Athens.
30:18Oh, look at this. We made it.
30:20I mean, it's not every day you walk in an underground parking lot and find something like this.
30:24This is a circuit of wall that's over 2,500 years old.
30:29It's been constructed thanks to Themistocles.
30:32And it's about 80 feet long or so, and it's still in place.
30:37You can count, what, about five courses here of stone.
30:40Think about the effort, the manpower that's employed to construct this.
30:44Just as every Athenian citizen had been expected to row in the Battle of Salamis,
30:56now they were expected in the city of Athens to build walls, these walls.
31:02And they put it together and circled the entire city in record time.
31:07Our scans reveal that these walls, concealed inside the parking garage,
31:17were just the beginning of a series of building projects that would transform Athens
31:22and allow its citizens and their way of life a chance to thrive.
31:26First of all, they enclosed what remained of the city.
31:35Then six miles away, they fortified the vital port of Piraeus.
31:41And then, most impressively of all, they linked the two with a fortified corridor
31:50that ran all the way from the port to the center of Athens.
31:56A system of long walls, 500 feet apart, and said to be 11 feet high.
32:11With the building of the long walls and linking them to the city walls,
32:15like the section over here underneath the parking lot,
32:17you now had a total defensive system for Athens, defending both the city and its harbor.
32:23To observers at the time, looking at Athens, it now looked impregnable.
32:38The Athenians decided they didn't want to live in their rubble anymore.
32:42It was time to rebuild, finally.
32:44They wanted to build their city bigger, better, more magnificent, more beautiful.
32:50Oh.
32:53Everywhere you look, lots of chunks of marble.
32:56It's incredible. I'm driving on a road of marble chips.
32:59They turned to this landscape in Attica.
33:02In particular, Mount Penteli, where I'm driving.
33:07And they decided to take out the stone, the marble from here.
33:12Beautiful white marble.
33:15Pentelic marble.
33:20And the quarry that dates from that time is still here.
33:25That is really impressive.
33:26Oh.
33:27I feel like I've stepped back in time.
33:29I mean, this quarry's abandoned, but it's abandoned back from 2,500 years ago.
33:35And I can see the tool marks that get a sense of the precision that was involved.
33:41The organization and the dangers, really.
33:43Because, I mean, this is a massive, massive quarry using, you know, pretty rudimentary tools.
33:48It is just, you know, overwhelming to see all of this.
33:52The rebuilding program that drew on the marble from here would give Athens a new identity.
34:04An identity fit for a city that was on the cusp of a new golden age in architecture, engineering, philosophy, politics, and culture.
34:13A golden age that would make Athens the most influential city in the world.
34:18Our 3D model shows how the gleaming marble from Mount Penteli was used to create brand new monuments on the Acropolis.
34:34First came the Parthenon, started in 447 B.C.
34:38Then the Propylaya, and a temple to Nike.
34:43And finally, the Eurektheion.
34:48All completed in one remarkable 40-year burst of creativity and confidence towards the end of the 5th century B.C.
34:56I've come down to the heart of the old city of Athens, where archaeologists discovered intriguing artifacts from a system that Athenians evolved to keep their democracy strong.
35:15Dr. John Kamp was one of the experts involved in the excavations that brought them to light.
35:26We're standing in what we think is the world's first public art museum.
35:30Just behind it, we found lots of ostraca.
35:33An ostracon is just a broken piece of pottery.
35:36These particular ones, these are replicas, of course.
35:38Pieces like this were used in the ultimate in accountability for politicians.
35:44Once a year, all the Athenians could get together.
35:46They voted, is anybody aiming to overthrow the democracy?
35:51And they brought with them their ostracon.
35:53Scratched on it the name of the person they thought represented a threat to the state.
35:58And the man with the most votes lost, and he was exiled for 10 years.
36:03Then today, you know, in the contemporary world, we use the word ostracism.
36:08Yeah.
36:09That's from this.
36:10Yeah.
36:11This is designed to counteract tyranny once the concept of democracy has been invented.
36:16Yeah, so the phenomenal thing then, when we look at this, considering modern politics, it doesn't exactly work that way.
36:22Maybe it's not a bad idea.
36:24Accountability would be good.
36:26With a system of checks and balances designed to keep power in the hands of the citizens, democratic Athens thrived.
36:44It became the dominant city-state in ancient Greece, and began to extend its influence across the Aegean.
36:51Oh, look at that view.
36:52My God, look at that.
36:53And this is how it's meant to be seen.
36:54This is it.
36:55This is, it's this arrival from the sea.
36:56It's very romantic.
36:57Cape Sunan is about 50 miles from Athens.
36:58For sailors returning to the Athenian territory after trade or military expeditions, in the Aegean, or throughout the Mediterranean, the first glimpse of the Aegean,
37:20the first glimpse of that rocky cape meant the voyage was over and they were almost home.
37:30But something of a mystery has grown up around Sunan.
37:35Thanks to the Temple of Poseidon that sits on the hill, it was mostly known as a sacred site.
37:40And until recently, that overshadowed the strategic role it played in Athens' empire.
37:48Hi.
37:49Nice to see you.
37:50How are you doing?
37:51Good.
37:52Great.
37:53Now, a team of archaeologists, including Dr. Kaliopi Vaika, are discovering how important it really was.
38:01There was a settlement with important naval base and part of it now, it's submerged.
38:06Here, we're standing in front of a building and a huge one.
38:10Actually, you only see part of a wall that is continuing the sea in the water.
38:14And this is massive architecture right here.
38:16Yeah.
38:17And this is leading then, so why is it leading into the water today, I mean?
38:19Because we have a relative sea level change of at least two and a half meters to three meters.
38:25That means that most of the classical coastal sites are now submerged.
38:30So it's invisible, but at the same time, you know that it's there, so it's worth taking an opportunity to explore.
38:36You can see it yourself.
38:37Okay.
38:41It's only in the past couple of years that the importance of this site really has been understood.
38:48Here, we have a strategic lookout post.
38:52It operates in a network of naval bases.
38:56That means from here, a ship could reach the message to Athens that an enemy fleet is approaching in only one hour.
39:07The water is clear, but I'm having trouble finding the remains of the settlement.
39:15Yes, the vertical lines, the small structures from this way.
39:24And finally, here they are.
39:27Massive sections of the city wall, still recognizable after 2,500 years.
39:37And just beside them is one of the berths of the ancient naval base, cut into sheer rock.
39:50And right by the shore are these fine marble blocks from what must have been impressive structures in this fortified outpost of Athens.
39:59Ah, this is amazing.
40:05We've got a city submerged.
40:09Look over here on the coastline, I see part of a wall.
40:13But on the water, it's massive.
40:15It's about eight feet wide, and it extends for a pretty great distance.
40:19Fortified naval bases like Sunnion helped Athens extend its empire through the Greek islands and into Asia Minor.
40:40But like every great empire, its ambition brought it into conflict with rivals.
40:44None more so than Sparta.
40:54From the top of the cliff at Sunnion, you can look out towards the territory of Athens' arch rival.
40:59Undemocratic, militaristic, and every bit as ambitious as Athens, the Spartans challenged Athenian supremacy.
41:13They were at war here for 30 years.
41:16Until the Spartans finally defeated Athens at sea, starved the city out, and in 404 BC forced the Athenians to surrender.
41:33The golden age of the world's first democracy had come to an end.
41:37Athenian democracy burned brightest for around just a hundred years.
41:48But the ideals and achievements from this golden age would never be forgotten.
41:54And that was partly thanks to the Romans, who arrived here in the second century BC.
41:58They razed most of the city to the ground, but they spared the city's temples and architectural treasures.
42:06And over the next two centuries, Athens became for them a kind of finishing school and cultural theme park.
42:12In the second century AD, the emperor Hadrian was one of Rome's most passionate admirers of all things Greek.
42:29Behind me is Hadrian's Gate.
42:32And on the opposite side, it says that Athens is the city of Theseus, the mythical king.
42:37But on this side, it reads that Athens is not the city of Theseus, it's the city of Hadrian.
42:51Hadrian was on a mission to improve Athens.
42:54And he lavished the city with gifts.
42:56A library, a gymnasium, and something even more crucial to the everyday life of the people.
43:02A feat of engineering so remarkable that it was famous in the ancient world as one of the greatest achievements of its age.
43:17And I've asked rope access expert Tim Fogg to help me investigate further.
43:22This is it, man. Looking forward to this.
43:25So this is the shaft.
43:28Yeah. It's impressive.
43:30You can't see the bottom.
43:32So that's you ready to go now.
43:34Ready to go, man.
43:37Smell the humidity.
43:39OK.
43:41Nice.
43:43This is awesome.
43:45I feel like I'm descending to another world here.
43:47I mean, it's saying goodbye to the sky.
43:49All right. Here we go.
43:50Whoo.
43:53Little more.
43:56This shaft leads down to a 2nd century Roman aqueduct.
44:00TV cameras have never filmed here before.
44:03Tight again.
44:05This is incredible.
44:07Oh, man, it's tight.
44:10There we go.
44:11Oh, man.
44:12This space is tight.
44:22I can't believe it.
44:24After a shaft like that, imagine something a little bit larger.
44:28I've stepped back almost 2,000 years into the time of the Romans.
44:32This is incredible.
44:33It's still flowing right through here.
44:34These channels are supposed to be the width of a man, but I can't hit this in the width.
44:49I'm too wide.
44:51And it's definitely not my height.
44:55This water is crystal clear.
44:59I don't know exactly where I am, but I know where I'm headed.
45:02I'm just gonna follow the flow of the water.
45:04It's flowing downhill towards Athens.
45:07This space is so tight and uncomfortable.
45:13I can't imagine how unpleasant it is.
45:16I can't imagine how unpleasant it is.
45:19It still looks like a normal space in the past.
45:21This space is so tight and uncomfortable.
45:23This space is so tight and uncomfortable.
45:30I can't imagine how unpleasant, how awkward it would be to work down here.
45:35But of course, how could you see what you were doing?
45:37Well, right here, there's a little purpose-built niche.
45:40And it's holding my flashlight today, but in antiquity, we had oil lamps.
45:45That's going to produce a lot of smoke.
45:47It's going to be miserable work, back-breaking labor, and that's your only light source.
45:52This network of tunnels took 15 years to dig out.
45:57Work done by teams of men cutting through solid rock with nothing more than hammers and chisels.
46:07This aqueduct is an astonishing piece of engineering.
46:12And I've asked ancient aqueduct expert Dr. Shauna Lee to shed more light on its construction.
46:18What does it take to actually construct an aqueduct?
46:21What's the engineering that's involved?
46:23The engineers would have to survey on the surface, and then they would dig these shafts about 35 meters apart.
46:31So they would dig all of the shafts along the route.
46:33They would dig towards each other, and the idea is that they're supposed to meet.
46:38Yeah.
46:39I'm looking right here, where I'm like, I came over from this side and, oh, around the bend, there you were.
46:43So it doesn't always match up.
46:45Yes, it doesn't always match up, and so they have to adapt.
46:49And bringing this water in, what would have done to the life of the people in Athens?
46:52You think of Roman bath culture.
46:54Mm-hmm.
46:55There were two Roman baths in Athens before this aqueduct was built.
46:59And after the aqueduct, they had 35.
47:02So life-changing for the average Athenian, for everybody.
47:04Absolutely.
47:05Absolutely.
47:06Hadrian really made a difference in Athens.
47:11I think it's actually getting more narrow.
47:17The water's getting deeper.
47:19It's up to my knees now.
47:21All right, this is the tightest spot yet, where the water's deeper and I'm having to go lower.
47:31Really.
47:32The water is cold.
47:33All right.
47:34It's getting a little more gnarly.
47:35I think it's about four feet high at this point.
47:36I've got over my head these big brick tiles that have formed kind of like a pitched roof.
47:52Ah, there's another shaft.
47:58You periodically have these shafts that are dug down.
48:01So you can lift out the debris.
48:03Yeah, send it down.
48:04Down comes a bucket.
48:05I'm going to load my debris that I've cut through, the soil and so forth.
48:10They're going to haul it back up.
48:12And of course, when you're done tunneling for the day, you're going to be hoisted up as
48:15well if they don't make you crawl up.
48:17It's an incredible enterprise.
48:19I'm exhausted and I've only gone through one small section.
48:26Ah, feels good to be able to stand up.
48:41The scans reveal the aqueduct in amazing detail.
48:46This is one whole section and we can see at both ends those remarkable curves where the
48:52workmen almost missed each other.
48:55The length of the section we scanned was 90 yards long and the water level drops just
49:00over a foot across that distance, a gradient so precise that this aqueduct was used until
49:07the middle of the 20th century.
49:13But this was just one of four major aqueducts dating from as far back as the 6th century B.C.
49:20that stretched for over 50 miles, bringing vital, life-giving water to the city of Athens.
49:34Of all the cities in the ancient world, Athens excites the imagination like no other.
49:40Democracy is the gift this city gave to the world two and a half thousand years ago.
49:45And it matters as much today as it ever did.
49:50Another beautiful green space for you.
49:52Great to be here.
49:53Now, I'm going to explore the Acropolis in a new way.
49:57Let's go.
49:58Can't wait to see this.
50:00So, welcome to the Acropolis.
50:03Nice.
50:05Matt's team has stitched together thousands of high definition images.
50:09Oh man, that is, that is intense.
50:11To make a model of the Acropolis that I can experience in extraordinary detail.
50:21Yeah, and if I come down over here into the city, and I'm looking up at it.
50:26Oh, it's just gorgeous. Yeah, it really is.
50:29Closer up, it's just really something special.
50:32So here we are, the perfect doll's house model of the Erechtheion, right?
50:39This is amazing, now I can really…
50:41Go on through.
50:42Yeah.
50:43Oh yeah.
50:44No rules anymore, you can step wherever you need to.
50:46Love it.
50:47And I can just pass right through, and I can see all the different elements.
50:52And it is like a little doll house, isn't it?
50:55Incredible.
50:56With all this rich detail.
50:58The real thing.
51:01Huh.
51:02That's funny.
51:05Below the ground level of the northern porch.
51:08Yeah, right, so you're…
51:09Sneaky.
51:10I can't, I'm stuck, we're trapped, I can't get out, I mean…
51:12But the world is at the right scale.
51:13Very cool.
51:14This is one to one.
51:15We can look up, and there's our opening in the coffered ceiling.
51:18Should we try and find another super-privileged spot?
51:21Oh yes.
51:22Oh, nice.
51:23Oh, we're outside now.
51:25Oh, yeah.
51:26Oh.
51:27We pass through that main space and then…
51:29Nice.
51:30Watch out.
51:31Coming at us.
51:32Oh.
51:33Hitting the karyatids porch.
51:34Whoa.
51:35Now I made it.
51:36Yeah.
51:37Fantastic there.
51:38I mean, this is…
51:39What a view.
51:40These poor karyatids have been holding this load up for what?
51:43Two and a half thousand years?
51:44A long time, yeah.
51:45Maybe it's time you jumped up there and gave them a hand, Darius.
51:48Oh.
51:49Alright.
51:50Oh, now I'm…
51:53Now I'm with the ladies right here.
51:56And…
51:57That is amazing.
51:58This is like one to one scale?
52:00This is one to one scale, yeah.
52:01So they are actually quite big, no?
52:02They're pretty massive.
52:03Yeah, go on there.
52:04Give us some fingertip support.
52:05Give them a little hand.
52:06Oh.
52:07Almost got a little too short, but…
52:09Get the idea.
52:10There you are.
52:11That's over, you know, two meters then.
52:13So you think you can hold that position for another two and a half thousand years?
52:16I can give it a try, but it's a pretty amazing spot to be in.
52:23I think it's really here that you get that strong connection between the mythic past and the foundation of Athens.
52:29And the ideas of the golden age of democracy of Athens.
52:34It's quite a view.
52:36The Athenians forged a new world.
52:51They turned silver from their own mines into a fleet of warships to protect their city and its democracy.
52:59They surrounded their city and their harbor with extraordinary walls.
53:07And they created a unique identity for Athens using marble carved from their own quarries.
53:16This bold democracy left a legacy that has never been forgotten.
53:24It's so easy when you come to Athens to be overwhelmed by all the ancient monuments on the Acropolis,
53:29like the Aractheion and the Parthenon.
53:31But it's become clear to me that it's in the hidden and invisible places, like the aqueducts and the mines,
53:37that that is where Athens itself was forged.
53:40That's where its dreams and ideas became real.
53:45Those same ideas and dreams that are fundamental to our lives today.
53:54Next time, Cairo.
54:03I explore the secrets hidden inside the Great Pyramid.
54:07Man.
54:08Investigate beneath an Islamic engineering masterpiece.
54:12That is deep. Okay.
54:14And uncover a Roman fortress.
54:17Ancient Invisible Cities is available on DVD.
54:29To order, visit shop PBS or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
54:34This program is also available on Amazon Prime Video.
54:38Amazon Prime Video dot comairo.
54:52Amazon Prime Video dot comairo.
54:55Now, 눈 would die,
54:57or kamu might be perfect,
54:59com tiè,
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