- 3 months ago
Documentary, PBS Nova Ancient Invisible Cities - Athens-6
The episode features archaeologist Darius Arya and uses 3D scanning to reveal the hidden wonders of Athens, from the ancient city walls to the silver mines of Laurion and the temples on the Acropolis.
Episode focus: The program uses 3D scanning to show what ancient Athens looked like and to find hidden historical sites.
Key figures: Archaeologist Darius Arya leads the exploration, uncovering the secrets of the city that gave the world democracy.
Specific sites explored:
Ancient city walls (visible within a modern parking lot)
Ancient silver mines of Laurion
Buildings on the Acropolis, some explored through virtual reality
The episode features archaeologist Darius Arya and uses 3D scanning to reveal the hidden wonders of Athens, from the ancient city walls to the silver mines of Laurion and the temples on the Acropolis.
Episode focus: The program uses 3D scanning to show what ancient Athens looked like and to find hidden historical sites.
Key figures: Archaeologist Darius Arya leads the exploration, uncovering the secrets of the city that gave the world democracy.
Specific sites explored:
Ancient city walls (visible within a modern parking lot)
Ancient silver mines of Laurion
Buildings on the Acropolis, some explored through virtual reality
Category
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LearningTranscript
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 going to follow the flow of the water.
45:16It's flowing downhill towards Athens.
45:24This 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.
45:42But 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.
45:54This 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.
46:13And I've asked ancient aqueduct expert Dr. Shauna Lee to shed more light on its construction.
46:19What does it take to actually construct an aqueduct? What's the engineering that's involved?
46:23The engineers would have to survey on the surface.
46:26And 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.
46:35And the idea is that they're supposed to meet.
46:38Yeah. And I'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.
46:54There 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.
47:05Absolutely. Absolutely. Hadrian really made a difference in Athens.
47:10I think it's actually getting more narrow.
47:19The water's getting deeper. It's up to my knees now.
47:23Alright, this is the tightest spot yet.
47:28Where the water's deeper, and I'm happy to go lower.
47:33Really. Woohoo, the water's cold.
47:36Alright.
47:37It's getting a little more gnarly.
47:41I think it's about four feet high at this point.
47:45I've got over my head these big brick tiles that have formed kind of like a pitched roof.
47:51Ah, there's another shaft.
47:56You periodically have these shafts that are dug down.
48:00So you can lift out the debris.
48:03You have to send it down.
48:04Down comes a bucket.
48:05I'm going to load my debris that I've cut through.
48:09The 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,
48:14you're going to be hoisted up as well.
48:16But they don't make you crawl up.
48:18It's an incredible enterprise.
48:20I'm exhausted, and I've only gone through one small section.
48:24It feels good to be able to stand up.
48:42The scans reveal the aqueduct in amazing detail.
48:47This is one whole section, and we can see at both ends those remarkable curves,
48:52where the workmen almost missed each other.
48:55The length of the section we scanned was 90 yards long,
48:59and the water level drops just over a foot across that distance,
49:03a gradient so precise that this aqueduct was used until the middle of the 20th century.
49:09But this was just one of four major aqueducts, dating from as far back as the 6th century BC,
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,
49:36Athens excites the imagination like no other.
49:40Democracy is the gift this city gave to the world 2,500 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.
50:01So, welcome to the Acropolis.
50:03Nice.
50:04Matt'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.
50:27It really is.
50:28Closer up, it's just really something special.
50:34So here we are.
50:35The perfect doll's house model of the Erechtheion, right?
50:39This is, this is amazing.
50:40Now I can really...
50:41Go on through.
50:42Yeah.
50:43Oh yeah.
50:44No rules anymore.
50:45You can step wherever you need to.
50:46And, oh, and I can just pass right through.
50:50And I can see all the different elements.
50:53And, uh, it is like a little dollhouse, isn't it?
50:56Incredible.
50:57All this rich detail.
50:58The real thing.
51:01Huh.
51:02That's funny.
51:05Below the ground level of the northern porch.
51:07Yeah, right.
51:08So you're...
51:09Sneaky.
51:10I can't...
51:11I'm stuck.
51:12We're trapped.
51:13I can't get out.
51:14I mean...
51:15But the world is at the right scale.
51:16Very cool.
51:17This is one to one.
51:18We can look up, and there's our opening in the coffered ceiling.
51:19Should we try and find another super privileged spot?
51:21Oh yes.
51:22Yeah.
51:23Oh!
51:24Oh, we're outside now.
51:25Oh!
51:26Yeah.
51:27Oh!
51:28We pass through that main space.
51:29Nice.
51:30And then, watch out.
51:31Coming at us.
51:32Oh!
51:33Hitting the curiosity.
51:34Whoa!
51:35Now I made it.
51:36Yeah.
51:37Oh!
51:38I mean, this is...
51:39What a view.
51:40These poor caryatids 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.
51:52Oh!
51:53Now I'm...
51:54Now 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.
52:06I almost 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.
52:17But 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.
52:58They 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.
53:15This 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, like the Aractheion and the Parthenon.
53:30But it's become clear to me that it's in the hidden and invisible places, like the aqueducts and the mines, that that is where Athens itself was forged.
53:40That's where its dreams and ideas became real.
53:44Those same ideas and dreams that are fundamental to our lives today.
54:00Next 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.
54:13Okay.
54:15And uncover a Roman fortress.
54:25Ancient 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.
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