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00:00A bizarre skeleton is uncovered in Chile's Atacama Desert.
00:05Is this a human skeleton that's been altered somehow?
00:08Or could it be a completely different species?
00:11In the Gobi Desert, researchers discover a massive structure
00:15which had been hidden for centuries.
00:17This was no ordinary wall.
00:19It was one of four ramparts surrounding the remains of a town
00:22or even a small kingdom.
00:24Archaeologists uncover a macabre scene in Peru's Mochi Valley.
00:29About 1,000 feet from the Pacific, they spotted human bones.
00:33In total, they recovered 137 complete human skeletons.
00:38Could this be an ancient burial ground?
00:41Ancient lost cities, forgotten treasures,
00:46extraordinary curiosities once lost to the sands of time
00:51are finally exposed.
00:53As new technology uncovers remarkable tales
00:57hidden beneath the deserts of the world,
01:00the secrets in the sand will finally be revealed.
01:04The Atacama Desert dominates northern Chile's landscape,
01:06extending over 600 miles from one end to the other.
01:10The Atacama Desert dominates northern Chile's landscape,
01:19extending over 600 miles from one end to the other.
01:23The Atacama is one of the driest deserts in the world.
01:27On average, they get less than an inch of rain a year,
01:30and that's partly because of an ocean current in the Pacific
01:33called the Humboldt Current.
01:35That brings up really cold water from the bottom of the ocean,
01:38and that keeps the air above it very, very dry.
01:42So any wind blowing into the desert from the ocean has no water in it.
01:48The desert is also surrounded by the Andes
01:50and the Chilean coastal range.
01:52These mountains block moisture from reaching the desert,
01:54creating a kind of death zone for any living plant or animal.
01:58The extreme environment is almost otherworldly.
02:02In fact, soil samples from the region are comparable to samples from Mars.
02:07For decades now, scientists at NASA have used the Atacama Desert
02:11as a testing ground for instruments designed to explore the red planet.
02:17In the heart of the Atacama, long abandoned buildings have created ghost towns.
02:22The people who once lived and worked here move to nearby cities for a more comfortable life.
02:29While walking the empty streets of one of these towns,
02:32an intrepid explorer makes an astonishing discovery.
02:37In one of the town's abandoned buildings, he finds an extraordinary skeleton.
02:43It's incredibly small, measuring only six inches from head to toe.
02:47The tiny skull is especially striking.
02:50It's elongated and has a distinct cone shape.
02:54And while typical human skeletons have 12 pairs of ribs,
02:58this one only has 10.
03:00It's really bizarre and certainly raises a lot of questions.
03:04Is this a human skeleton that's been altered somehow?
03:08Or could it be a completely different species?
03:11The skeleton soon enters the world of rare artifacts,
03:14eventually landing in the hands of a private collector in Spain,
03:18where it sparks intrigue and controversy.
03:21As it so happens, this collector was a UFO enthusiast.
03:24So it wasn't long before this skeleton caused a big stir in the UFO community.
03:30You had all these UFO believers claiming that this body's unique morphology
03:34only had one possible explanation.
03:37It couldn't possibly be human.
03:39It had to be an alien.
03:40Unsurprisingly, these claims attracted a lot of media attention.
03:45A team of scientists caught wind of the story and offered to sequence the skeleton's DNA
03:50to find out once and for all whether the bones belonged to a human
03:53or to some other, maybe unidentified species.
03:59The scientists began a series of tests on the Atacama skeleton,
04:03now nicknamed Atta.
04:04Their results lead to a resounding conclusion.
04:08Using skeletal radiography, computed tomography, or CT, and whole genome sequencing,
04:15they prove that Atta is beyond a doubt, human.
04:19They even go one step further and identify her as a female.
04:24Looking at the body, you can see that her skeleton was actually mummified.
04:27Was this done deliberately?
04:30Could a burial ritual have resulted in Atta's striking bone abnormalities?
04:35Atta's remarkable preservation may point to a link between this tiny skeleton
04:41and one of the world's oldest mummification rituals.
04:44The Atacama Desert is home to the oldest mummies in the world,
04:48like 2,000 years older than Egyptian mummies.
04:50These astonishing remains belong to the Chinchoro culture.
04:55They're the first marine hunter-gatherers that settled in this desert,
05:00and they settled between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago.
05:04The oldest Chinchoro mummy, known as the Atcha Man,
05:08was found near the city of Arika and is estimated to be over 9,000 years old.
05:12Over the course of the last century, hundreds of these mummies have been uncovered
05:16along perused desert beaches.
05:17Some of the mummies were preserved naturally,
05:20desiccated by the extreme heat and dry conditions.
05:23But others were mummified artificially, according to a precise ritual.
05:27First, the Chinchoro would remove the skin and soft tissue from the body.
05:32The cavities left behind were then stuffed with leaves, feathers, sticks,
05:37and other natural fibers before the skin was sewn back on with wreaths.
05:42The last step involved attaching thick black hair to the mummy's head
05:46and covering its face with a clay mask and openings for the eyes and mouth.
05:51These rituals were performed on both children and adults,
05:55which begs the question, could Atta be one of these Chinchoro mummies?
06:00Could the mummification process have altered her skeleton somehow?
06:03To date Atta's remains, the team conducting her skeletal analysis focuses on the DNA fragments.
06:13The Chinchoro mummies are thousands of years old, and over that length of time, DNA degrades.
06:17You get fragmented samples of low quality, but that's not what scientists see with Atta at all.
06:24Her DNA looks great.
06:27Atta's DNA fragments averaged around 300 base pairs, remarkably large for a specimen that might be very old.
06:34When they compared this data to established DNA decay models, they determined that Atta couldn't be more than 500 years old.
06:39So she didn't belong to the Chinchoro culture, and their mummification rituals weren't the cause of her skeletal abnormalities.
06:46So how did her bones form in this peculiar way?
06:49As genetic testing continues on the skeleton, the team analyzing Atta's DNA makes a breakthrough.
06:56They discovered a series of mutations in seven of Atta's genes.
07:02Many of these mutations are known to be associated with bone development abnormalities, including dwarfism, cranial malformations, rib anomalies, and premature joint fissures.
07:14While these gene mutations have all been documented individually before, this specific cluster has never been seen anywhere else.
07:20It's unlikely that Atta would have survived her many conditions, and we now think that she was most likely born prematurely, at only about 15 weeks old.
07:30While this unique series of mutations seems to explain why Atta looks so unusual to untrained eyes, another question remains unanswered.
07:39Where did she come from? And could her environment have played a role in her unique development?
07:44In the never-ending search for clues about Atta's history, experts returned to the place where she was found, the ghost towns of the Atacama Desert.
07:55These towns were not ordinary settlements. They were mining towns, and they were established to extract one mineral in particular.
08:03Saltpeter. Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, is an essential ingredient for gunpowder and for fertilizer.
08:10And it was once so valuable, it was referred to as white gold.
08:15The Atacama Desert is the world's largest natural deposit of saltpeter, and these small mining communities thrived for decades.
08:22But life here was extremely tough. Long hours in the hot sun meant that working conditions were brutal, and the towns were entirely dependent on the saltpeter industry for survival.
08:31These towns boomed for nearly a century, so much so that saltpeter once accounted for 50% of Chile's total revenue.
08:41But in the 1930s and 40s, German chemists realized they could synthesize the compound in factories, saving time and money.
08:50Almost overnight, the mining towns of the Atacama lost their lifeline.
08:53Atta was found in the oldest of these communities, a town called Lenoria, that was founded in the 1820s and abandoned just after the Second World War.
09:06We aren't sure when Atta was born, but we do know that she's less than 500 years old.
09:12Could she have been from Lenoria, where she was found?
09:15The potential link between Atta and Lenoria leads to new intriguing possibilities.
09:31Besides its use in gunpowder and fertilizer, potassium nitrate is a common ingredient in a ton of different foods and cosmetics.
09:38In small quantities, potassium nitrate is completely safe, but too much of it can be fatal.
09:45It can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and high enough levels of exposure reduces the blood's ability to transport oxygen.
09:51This causes a bluish tinge to the skin, could cause trouble breathing, collapse, and even death.
09:59Animal studies have found that high levels of saltpeter may have devastating effects on pregnancy.
10:04Over the course of several generations, rats fed a diet high in potassium nitrate began to develop physical malformations, including cleft palates and deformations of the skull and eyes.
10:17The people who lived in Lenoria would have been exposed to exceptionally high levels of saltpeter during the mining process, as well as in day-to-day life.
10:26So the environment Atta's parents lived in may have likely contributed to her skeletal anomalies.
10:31Despite years of research, Atta remains an enduring mystery.
10:38Now we don't fully understand whether Atta's malformations are the result of those toxins, or whether they're just random mutations.
10:46And we also don't know a lot of other very basic things about her.
10:50And the main reason for all of that is that she's held in a private collection, and she's not accessible for further study.
10:56All in all, Atta's this really special situation that has sparked a ton of controversy.
11:03Ever since she entered the spotlight, people around the world have called for Atta to be returned to Chile.
11:08Her genetic analysis suggests that she was likely of Chilean descent, which raises the very real possibility that she may have descendants still living in the country.
11:15Maybe more genetic testing can be done to find them and bring Atta home.
11:22To this day, Atta's story haunts the Atacama Desert.
11:26As calls for her repatriation continue, she remains a powerful symbol of our responsibility to honor the dead.
11:33The steps and sand dunes of the Gobi Desert stretch for a thousand miles from northern China to southern Mongolia.
11:53It gets its name from the Mongolian word for waterless place.
11:56The Gobi isn't the largest or even the driest desert in the world, but it is the Earth's most northerly desert.
12:07It's also the least populated and least visited environment outside of the polar caps, no doubt due to its harsh conditions.
12:16Extreme fluctuations in temperature make it inhospitable, and punishing sandstorms from the West can bury everything in their path.
12:27Despite this, the Gobi Desert boasts a rich human history, from the clashes of ancient Chinese dynasties and the Mongol Empire,
12:35to the Silk Road trade route that facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas and beliefs between East and West.
12:42To the outside world, the Gobi has largely remained unknown.
12:48While there have been folktales and rumors about lost cities and civilizations buried under the sand,
12:54aside from a handful of European and American explorers, most of the desert secrets have stayed with its inhabitants.
13:01A team of explorers is conducting research in western Inner Mongolia, downstream from the Aegean River,
13:08when they come across something unexpected.
13:12There was an enormous sand dune partially covering a man-made mud-brick structure.
13:19As the sand was cleared away, the structure was revealed to be the corner of two large walls.
13:27After the rest of the sand was removed, they discovered the corner wall was 13 feet thick and 30 feet tall.
13:34So this was no ordinary wall. It was one of four ramparts surrounding the remains of a town or even a small kingdom.
13:42The massive walls roughly form a rectangle, 1,200 feet across north to south and almost 1,450 feet from east to west.
13:52There are two openings or gates on the east and west sides.
13:56And inside this rectangle, the crumbled remains of the town are pretty much everywhere.
14:02The buildings to the south are smaller and appear to be former dwellings, while the larger buildings to the north are more decorated and official-looking.
14:11Clearly, this is some kind of settlement that had been occupied for a long time at one point in the region's long history.
14:17But when? And by whom?
14:21As a team of archaeologists proceeds with an excavation, vital clues about the city's identity are uncovered.
14:28The first structures within the city walls to be cleared were five temple-like buildings to the north.
14:35They resemble pagodas, which indicates a Chinese influence.
14:42But they're actually Tibetan Buddhist temples called stupas.
14:47But it's what was within the stupas that was truly stunning.
14:51Hundreds upon hundreds of artifacts, statues, and painted murals filled with Buddhist iconography and beautifully rendered calligraphy.
14:58Much of it was in shockingly good condition, since the desert climate had prevented moisture.
15:05And most of the artifacts were buried and preserved by the sand.
15:09The researchers turned their attention to the city's south end, which leads to more surprises.
15:16Many everyday items were found, like bits of broken pottery, coins, tools, and more books and religious artifacts.
15:24Many of the items were from Eurasia and further afield, which strongly suggests a once vibrant hub of busy trade and cultural exchange.
15:35Historical records have indicated the presence of a legendary lost city called Karakoto, somewhere in the Gobi Desert.
15:43But its location has never been known.
15:45So is it possible that this is Karakoto?
15:48Also known as the Black City, Karakoto was an enclosed settlement built in 1032 CE by the Tangut, a distinct ethnic group of northwestern China.
16:01Despite the harsh desert conditions, the city grew into an important mercantile trade hub and became a key stop along the Silk Road.
16:10The Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected China to the western Mediterranean world and even beyond.
16:16It didn't only spread goods and spices, but also cultures, languages, and beliefs across continents.
16:23Karakoto became a bustling commercial and cultural epicenter because, according to records, it was strategically located.
16:31The only stop in the desert for hundreds of miles.
16:34Tradesmen making long treks across the sand for weeks would stop to do business, but also to rest and get supplies like food and water.
16:41But there's a shroud of darkness surrounding the city. After flourishing for hundreds of years, by the late 14th century, Karakoto had vanished without a trace.
16:52As the researchers begin to delve into the treasure trove of relics collected from the Karakoto, they come across a significant clue.
17:07In addition to the religious artifacts, there were stacks and stacks of manuscripts, written texts, and scriptures in the temples.
17:17But they weren't just Tibetan. These manuscripts were also written in other languages, including Chinese and, most tellingly, the rare Tangu script.
17:26This definitely tracks with the year 1032, when Karakoto was said to be a Tangu stronghold of the Tibeto-Burman tribal union.
17:38Taken in total, all signs point to the conclusion that this is the mysterious dark city of Karakoto after all.
17:46But one question remains. How did such a thriving center just disappear?
17:51Karakoto wasn't the first ancient city on the Silk Road that suddenly ceased to exist.
17:58One of the most famous stops along the trade route was the walled city and kingdom of Laolan, located in Western China's Xinjiang region.
18:07Laolan was referred to as an oasis state due to its proximity to the lake waters of the Lopner.
18:12However, at some point between the 3rd and the 7th century, the city vanished, and its whereabouts remained a mystery until the early 1900s, when a Swedish explorer discovered it below the desert sand.
18:26It was initially believed Laolan's demise was a result of climate change.
18:33As the lake waters of Lopner dried up over the years, Laolan was abandoned since the survival of the city depended on a water supply.
18:41But more recent studies have shown that the environmental crisis was partially man-made.
18:47Irrigation practices of the time also contributed to the draining of the lake.
18:52Could this have happened at Karakoto too?
18:54Karakoto was located next to a water source, the Aegean River.
19:00And while the Aegean did eventually suffer from a reduction in water flow, there's no proof it was the cause of Karakoto's demise, with or without human intervention.
19:13A closer look at the region's history may prove it was human activity that brought Karakoto to its premature end.
19:21The human act of war.
19:25Although Karakoto was established in 1032 and continued to thrive under the rule of the Tengut-led Western Shia dynasty, the city functioned as a peaceful sanctuary for several different cultures and religions.
19:37But just to be safe, the exterior walls and ramparts were built to defend against potential invasions, which may have allowed the city to thrive where other settlements fell to enemy attack.
19:51However, Karakoto wasn't going to stay immune forever.
19:55After a series of punishing attacks from the Mongols, a nomadic tribe from Central Asia led by Genghis Khan, Karakoto was captured in 1226.
20:05And a year later, the Tanguts surrendered.
20:10If the Mongols didn't have any use for the Silk Road, then Karakoto's reason for being would have no longer existed.
20:17It's possible, as one of the rumors suggested, that the city fell into ruin shortly after the Mongols seized it.
20:23But the aftermath of the Mongol invasion tells a different story.
20:29The reality was that Karakoto not only continued to prosper after the Mongol conquests, but the Mongolian Empire was instrumental in growing the Silk Road even further.
20:39This would have resulted in more traders passing through the city.
20:45The Mongols held on for another 150 years until the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols were expelled from China, with one exception.
20:56A large holdout army fled to Karakoto to plan a counterattack.
21:00And the Chinese learned of this, they sent thousands of soldiers, and in 1372, defeated the last Mongols within the city walls.
21:09It's just one of the many stories and possible explanations for an ancient city that continues to inspire speculation even after its discovery.
21:19While it's generally accepted that Karakoto fell into decline at some point after the Chinese reclaimed it from the Mongols, we may never know the exact reason for its disappearance.
21:30The discovery of Karakoto revealed a compelling blend of the rich cultural, political, and religious life of ancient China and Mongolia.
21:41A testament to human resilience and the transient nature of empires.
21:46The city continues to beckon explorers and historians eager to uncover more of its secrets.
21:51The Mochi Valley stretches along Peru's northern coastline, spreading out from the Mochi River into the La Libertad region.
22:10Despite the fact that it's so close to the Pacific Ocean, Peru's northern coastline is remarkably dry.
22:15That region gets almost no precipitation at all, less than one inch of rain per year.
22:23The dry climate is partly due to the Andes Mountains.
22:27As the winds blow from east to west across Peru, they carry moisture from the Amazon rainforest.
22:33The Andes act as a barrier, trapping the moisture on their eastern slopes, leaving the land to the west much drier.
22:40You might think that agriculture would be impossible in a place this arid.
22:46But actually, people have been cultivating this land since the pre-Columbian era.
22:50The Mochi people, whom this valley is named after, flourished between 100 and 700 CE by building sophisticated canals around the river.
22:58People have lived here and farmed this land ever since, relying on irrigation technology for survival.
23:06On the outskirts of Trujillo, the region's capital, at a site known as Huanchiquito Las Lamas, residents noticed strange objects protruding from nearby sand dunes.
23:17About 1,000 feet from the Pacific, they spotted what looked like human bones, still mostly buried beneath the sand.
23:26An archeological team is summoned and begins to excavate, and it isn't long before they're greeted with an unsettling scene.
23:33An archeological team is summoned and begins to excavate at a site known as Huanchiquito Las Lamas, and it isn't long before they're greeted with an unsettling scene.
23:55There are hundreds of bodies buried here. In total, they recovered 137 complete human skeletons in the sand.
24:06So, considering the sheer number of bodies, could this be an ancient burial ground, maybe built by one of the pre-Columbian civilizations that lived here?
24:14Using radiocarbon dating techniques, the team successfully dates dozens of the Huanchiquito Las Lamas skeletons.
24:21The results showed that the bones are over 600 years old.
24:26The burials date back to the middle of the 15th century, when this land was home to the ancient Chimu civilization, the culture that rose from the ashes of the moche.
24:35The Chimu had enormous influence, ruling over 800 miles of what's today coastal Peru.
24:44Thanks to their advanced irrigation techniques, they transformed the desert valleys into farmland fertile enough to support entire cities.
24:52The Chimu capital, Chan Chan, was the largest city in pre-Columbian America, and it stood just a 15-minute walk from Huanchiquito Las Lamas.
24:59Today, the ruins of the city cover 14 square miles.
25:05For over five centuries, the Chimu kingdom was the dominant civilization in Peru, until an unexpected threat loomed.
25:14In 1470, the Chimu came face to face with the infamous Incan Empire.
25:18The Inca had controlled their own separate kingdom for more than 200 years, until King Tupac Inca Yupanqui set his sights on Chimu land.
25:28The Incan expansion was very strategic.
25:32To minimize the risk of revolution, they forcibly resettled huge populations, scattering distinct ethnic groups and absorbing their major cities.
25:42Using this system, the Incas eventually managed to increase their empire to a population of 12 million people.
25:48Given that the skeletons found at Huanchiquito Las Llamas date back to the time of the Incan expansion, maybe they could be linked to some sort of massacre.
26:01Could these people have been murdered by invading Incan armies as a brutal show of power?
26:05A violent massacre would likely have left behind a chaotic mass burial, with the bodies discarded without ceremony or dignity.
26:13These burials were anything but. The bodies had been carefully arranged, with many buried in groups of three.
26:19Traces of cotton left on the remains tell us that they were likely wrapped in shrouds before being placed in the ground.
26:25As the archaeologists carefully excavate the vast gravesite, they come to a grim realization.
26:31Looking at the remains, this one really chilling detail stands out right away.
26:37These skeletons are small. In fact, all but three of them belong to children.
26:42Most of them seem to be between the ages of about 8 and 14, but some of them are as young as 5.
26:49Strangely, among the children's skeletons, it was determined that the remains likely belong to roughly 200 llamas.
26:57Typically, when we find humans and animals buried together, there's a reason for it.
27:03For instance, elite burials might feature pet or livestock sacrifices designed to sustain the dead and accompany them in the afterlife.
27:11But even if that's the case here, how do you explain the fact that the vast majority of these remains are children?
27:18The research team analyzes the skeletons for any clues that might reveal just how these children died.
27:27And it leads to a disturbing discovery.
27:30A lot of the skeletons show evidence of clean cut marks across the sternum and signs of broken or missing ribs.
27:37That suggests that the rib cage was forced open to retrieve vital organs, most likely the heart.
27:46And that really only leads to one possible explanation.
27:49These are the remnants of a massive human sacrifice.
27:52A sacrifice of this scale would have come at an enormous cost to the Chimu, who prized their children's lives above all else.
28:03Not only did children represent the future of Chimu communities, but they also embodied a high level of spiritual purity.
28:11Llamas were also extremely valuable, essential for travel, trade, clothing production and food.
28:17So what could have warranted a sacrifice of this magnitude?
28:22One theory suggests that the Chimu may have inherited the practice of human sacrifice from their moche ancestors, who lived in the area hundreds of years earlier.
28:31The moche frequently depicted these rituals in their artwork, often decorating ceramic vessels with an image known as the presentation scene.
28:39A few miles from the Chimu sacrifices stands the Huaca de la Luna, a sacred moche monument.
28:48Archaeological digs here have revealed the bodies of roughly 70 sacrifice victims.
28:53Cut marks on the skeletons indicate that the bodies were mutilated and dismembered before being swept into large pits and abandoned.
29:01Based on the bone and tooth analysis of the remains at Huaca de la Luna, it seems unlikely that the Chimu child sacrifices were connected to these moche rituals.
29:14There's one glaring difference. The moche victims were mostly fully grown men. Many of them were in their 30s and 40s.
29:21So these were likely warriors who had been captured during territorial battles.
29:25New theories point away from moche culture to the Chimu's own myths and legends.
29:33The Chimu left no written records of their spiritual beliefs, but we do know that they worshipped a legendary character known as Taikanimo.
29:40According to myth, he was the founder of the Chimu people, who emerged from the sea after hatching from a golden egg.
29:48Stories tell of Taikanimo protecting his people from the sea by calming storms and teaching them advanced agricultural technology.
29:55In light of this mythical story, the orientation of the sacrifice victims starts to make sense.
30:00Almost all of those children are posed facing the same direction, and that direction is west toward the sea.
30:08So could it be that these children were sacrificed in the name of Taikanimo?
30:11In an effort to learn more at Juanchiquito Las Llamas, the researchers begin to investigate the burial grounds, taking samples from the earth surrounding the skeletons.
30:31This leads to a startling revelation.
30:36The burials were dug through a layer of mud so thick that it actually preserved the footprints of the people traveling through the area.
30:44Footprints leading back to the ruins of the Chimu capital, Chan Chan, can clearly be seen.
30:49This may well be the evidence of a macabre procession, where the children would have walked to their deaths from the city.
30:59Beneath the layer of mud, there's loose sand, indicating that the mud was most likely linked to an isolated weather event.
31:05It would have required a huge amount of water, either rainwater or coastal flooding, to produce this mud.
31:12To the Chimu, who relied on dry weather and their sophisticated irrigation systems for food, this event would have had profound significance.
31:22Every few years, the northern coast of Peru is battered by a phenomenon known as El Nino.
31:27The surface waters of the Pacific become abnormally warm, leading to increased evaporation and massive amounts of rain and flooding.
31:33These sacrifices were likely performed in a desperate attempt to stop torrential rains from destroying the Chimu's precious crops.
31:41Until the discovery at Huanchiquito Las Lamas, there was little evidence that Chimu practiced human sacrifice at all.
31:49But new discoveries at the nearby Pampa La Cruz archeological site proved that this was far from a one-time ritual.
31:57To date, they've found over 300 child sacrifices at Pampa La Cruz.
32:02But unlike the sacrifices at Las Llamas, these children weren't all killed at the same time.
32:09They were spread out over the course of several centuries, with the earliest remains dating back to 1100 CE, and the most recent, dating to about 1500 CE.
32:17So all of this is really strong evidence that child sacrifices were very much a part of Chimu culture.
32:25These children undoubtedly gave their lives in order to ensure the survival of a much larger community, maybe even the entire empire.
32:34As researchers continue to dig at both the Huanchiquito Las Lamas and Pampa La Cruz sites, the remains of these child sacrifices stand as a stark reminder of a lost people struggle for survival in one of the world's driest climates.
32:51Located on the western delta of the Nile River, just 50 miles southeast of Alexandria, the Egyptian city of Hash-Isa stands alone in the district of Al-Bihara.
33:12Al-Bihara is extremely arid and sandy, despite being so close to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the Nile River tributaries.
33:21It's also hot. In the summer, the temperatures can regularly get to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, and it only receives an average of 1 16th of an inch of rainfall per month.
33:30Now today, it's mostly rural and poor, but this area has a rich history going back more than 4,000 years.
33:39It's home to some of the first Coptic Christian monasteries, a royal palace, and several ancient fortresses.
33:47Not surprisingly, Bahara is also home to a number of archaeological sites.
33:51It has a long history of ancient discoveries. The most famous find was the Rosetta Stone in 1799.
33:59This was a slab that was inscribed with three different and distinct scripts.
34:04This led to the translation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for the first time.
34:10A group of archaeologists is excavating a section of Hash-Isa when they make a surprising discovery.
34:16They were digging into a wide, flat area of sand when they unearthed what looked like the corner of a mud brick structure.
34:26As the surrounding debris was brushed away, what at first appeared to be just a couple of densely packed bricks turned out to be the foundation of a building with several rooms and chambers.
34:39So what is this place?
34:40Other mud brick structures like this one have been discovered and identified across the Western Nile Delta of Bahara, including archaeological sites containing evidence of the Roman occupation of Egypt, which lasted about 700 years, starting around 30 BCE.
34:58West of the Rosetta Nile tributary, a large survey project with 14 dig sites found examples of a distinctly Roman cultural practice.
35:07Two of the sites, Com Alamar and Com Wasit, were discovered to have walls of mud and red brick buried below the desert surface.
35:16When the walls were cleared and cleaned, the unmistakable form of an ancient Roman bath complex called a tholos was revealed.
35:23Smaller artifacts were also retrieved from the bath's immediate surroundings, including shards of pottery, brick fragments, and several coins with dates consistent with the Roman occupation.
35:38So maybe the structure at Hosh Issa is also from the Roman era.
35:43Further exploration of the dig site tells a different story.
35:46When they analyzed the samples taken at Hosh Issa, they figured out that this mud brick composite predates the Roman Empire by at least a thousand years.
35:56They figured out that this structure had to be between 3,000 and 3,200 years old.
36:02That corresponds to an era known as the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom.
36:08That goes from about 1290 to 1190 BCE.
36:11The 19th Dynasty was a tremendously important time in Egypt's history.
36:17It was a period of massive expansion of the empire.
36:20And this was only achieved by centuries of aggressive military conquest combined with the ability to repel attacks from enemy forces.
36:28As the excavation continues, several intriguing artifacts are uncovered within the building's many rooms and chambers.
36:36Some of the rooms had pottery containers and storage vessels filled with fish bones, animal remains, and other food provisions.
36:43There were also large granaries and pottery ovens, which had clearly been used for cooking and baking.
36:49In other rooms, they found items that were a little bit more personal.
36:51Things like beaded pendants and amulets with these intricate carvings of scarab beetles.
36:57Now, those were really popular throughout Egypt at this time.
37:02The scarab beetle was associated with the sun god Kepri, and that meant that it had protective powers for whoever wore it.
37:10Taken as a whole, the site's inventory included domestic items for cooking, jewelry, and other adornments for personal wear, as well as more practical items like tools and swords.
37:20In other words, this was an extremely wide variety of objects found within a concentrated and contained space.
37:27So could these recovered artifacts be proof of some lost or forgotten city?
37:31A group of archaeologists is excavating a section of Hashisa when they make a surprising discovery.
37:47It wouldn't be the first time a contemporary archaeological dig led to the discovery of an ancient Egyptian civilization.
37:54Close to the historic city of Thebes, known today as Luxor, a team of archaeologists were looking for the undiscovered mortuary temple of King Tut when they found something just as remarkable.
38:09They unearthed the remains of a 3,000-year-old city so sprawling it invited comparisons to Pompeii.
38:17The city was called Atain, or Dazzling Atain, after yet another Egyptian sun god.
38:21There were sections of mud brick walls that fan out in all directions.
38:28When it was finally cleared, the site revealed completed rooms filled with items from daily life, similar to the Hoshisa site.
38:37With most of the excavation work at Hoshisa completed, the layout of the emerging structure shocked the team of archaeologists.
38:46This was no city like Atain, with individual buildings spread over a large area.
38:52The structure at Hoshisa appeared to be one single building.
38:56But given the sheer size and scale of its foundation, plus the number of rooms, it must have served a great civic purpose.
39:04Or could it have been some kind of grand house or palace?
39:06The layout and design of the building was unique.
39:11In fact, it was made up of two large buildings connected by a single narrow passageway.
39:17The two separate structures were identical in size and shape.
39:22But that's where the similarities ended.
39:24As the excavation continued, it was revealed to have been used as a storehouse for food and provisions.
39:30This was where the granaries and animal remains were found.
39:33But more significantly, the first building also stored a large cache of weapons.
39:38Much more than was needed for any one household.
39:41More like an army.
39:42And it was the second building that ultimately revealed its true purpose.
39:47There were rows and rows of mud brick soldiers' barracks carved out of the sand.
39:53This building was a military fort.
39:56And it was totally unlike any fort that had ever been discovered before.
40:01For one thing, the fort was a standalone structure.
40:03It wasn't connected to any other buildings or storage units or infrastructure.
40:06Nothing.
40:07So why was such an isolated fortress built here?
40:13A closer look at Egypt's military history during the 19th Dynasty offers some clues.
40:20Throughout the 19th Dynasty, Egypt was under the constant threat of attack from two main adversaries.
40:26One of them was tribes from Libya, who first attempted to invade the Nile Delta from the west in 1208 BCE.
40:33The second threat was a collective force known as the Sea Peoples.
40:39A coalition made up of tribes of the Shardana, Shekelesh, Akawasha, Luka, and Tersha.
40:48Together, the Sea Peoples terrorized the northern coast of Africa for almost a century with brutal naval attacks from the Mediterranean Sea.
40:57In response, Egypt doubled down on its defense by building impenetrable forts along a line of strategic outposts.
41:05The fort at Hoshisa was built on a military route called Western War Road for the sole task of defending Egypt's northern and western border.
41:13And given its well-preserved remains, it appeared to have succeeded in that task.
41:17This fort was standalone because it contained all the necessary supplies and infrastructure within its fortress walls.
41:26The picture that emerges is a self-sufficient military complex filled with enough food and equipment to outlast any enemy.
41:33That's a brilliant strategy, and it worked. The Sea Peoples were eventually wiped out by the Egyptians.
41:41Having successfully served its purpose, the remarkable fort at Hoshisa was likely abandoned and then lost to time until now.
41:50As experts continue to dig into its past, more clues will likely be revealed about the lives of the soldiers who lived and fought there.
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