- 3 hours ago
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Valley of the Kings.
00:02They discovered the burial chamber to an undiscovered tomb.
00:07But instead of finding the remains of a burial, the tomb was mostly empty.
00:14Is it possible that this mysterious, empty burial ground
00:17was once the final resting place of a female member of the Egyptian royal family?
00:24Extraordinary structures are revealed in the Jordanian desert.
00:27The sheer scale of them shows that they were clearly important.
00:32But what were they for?
00:34On the outskirts of an Israeli town, excavations unearth a strange complex.
00:40At first glance, it looks like just a low, crumbling wall sticking out of the sand.
00:45But after some digging around, they discover that it's actually part of a bigger complex.
00:51All told, the complex covers roughly 10,000 square feet.
00:57So what was this place?
00:59Ancient lost cities.
01:02Forgotten treasures.
01:04Mysterious structures.
01:06As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath the deserts of the world,
01:13the secrets in the sand will finally be revealed.
01:17Spreading over 160 square miles of the Egyptian desert, just east of the Nile River,
01:34the city of Luxor is one of the hottest and driest urban centers in the world.
01:39Summer temperatures frequently hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and its low annual precipitation
01:45is on par with the driest sections of the Sahara.
01:49Luxor has a special place in history as the former city of Thebes, the religious capital
01:54of ancient Egypt.
01:55It's famous for its ruins of 4,000-year-old temples, palaces, and monuments.
02:00Some of those are still standing today, making the city one of the largest open-air museums
02:05in the world.
02:06But the most renowned landmarks are the series of tombs west of the Nile, in an area called
02:12the Valley of the Kings.
02:15The Valley of the Kings was the chosen necropolis for most of Egypt's New Kingdom rulers and
02:21pharaohs.
02:22The Valley of the Kings is a small valley surrounded by these steep limestone cliffs.
02:27That is a topography that is perfect for carving individual tombs into the hillside.
02:34And of the 62 tombs that have been found so far, the most famous is that of the Boy King,
02:40Tutankhamun discovered with most of its artifacts intact in 1922.
02:46A team of archaeologists is working near the western edge of the valley, about a mile from
02:54where most of the rulers' tombs lay, when they come across a surprising discovery.
03:00They found an entrance to a 32-foot passageway, which was almost entirely filled with debris,
03:07so it took a long time to clear.
03:09When they finally got through, they discovered the burial chamber to an undiscovered tomb.
03:18But instead of finding the remains of a burial, the tomb was mostly empty.
03:25There were fragments of clay vessels scattered on the chamber floor.
03:28One of the pottery pieces bore a label indicating it had contained the substance natron,
03:33which was commonly used for embalming.
03:35So that confirmed a burial did take place, at least initially.
03:39The tomb was discovered in an area mostly reserved for the wives, mothers, and daughters
03:45of the pharaohs, the Valley of the Queens.
03:48So it was suggested that it belonged to a woman.
03:51After all, the closest tombs in the vicinity belonged to the wives of King Thutmose III.
03:57Is it possible that this mysterious, empty burial ground was once the final resting place
04:02of a female member of the Egyptian royal family?
04:05A detailed survey and investigation of the inner tomb leads to some critical clues.
04:14In addition to the broken shards of pottery, there were fragments of tiling that had fallen
04:20from the ceiling.
04:21After piecing them together like an ancient jigsaw puzzle, a pattern emerged.
04:26It was a painted blue night sky decorated with yellow stars, a design traditionally associated
04:35with the pharaoh.
04:38More significantly, the walls were decorated with hieroglyphic scenes from the Amduat.
04:42That's this sacred funerary text that describes the sun god Ra as it makes this nightly journey
04:49through the 12 regions of the underworld.
04:51It symbolizes death and rebirth.
04:54And, as with the painted night sky, the Amduat was typically reserved for Egyptian rulers only.
05:02Putting two and two together, this undiscovered tomb was in a section of the necropolis populated
05:08mostly by women.
05:10And yet it bore the distinct hallmarks of a pharaoh's funeral rites.
05:14So, is it possible that this is the secret tomb of a female pharaoh?
05:20Most of Egypt's rulers were men.
05:23One of the few exceptions was Queen Hatshepsut.
05:27Hatshepsut was the eldest daughter of the 18th dynasty king Thutmose I.
05:32She was married to her half-brother, Thutmose II, who inherited the throne around 1500 BCE.
05:38Now, when Thutmose II died 13 years later, the throne normally would have just gone straight
05:45on to his son, Thutmose III.
05:47But Thutmose III was still an infant.
05:51So, his wife and half-sister, Hatshepsut, acted as regent for the young king.
05:56By most accounts, her reign was a successful and peaceful one.
06:04She defended Egypt's borders, and her foreign policy was based on trade, not war.
06:11Seven years into her reign, Hatshepsut was given a full royal title, essentially making
06:17her a female king.
06:19Interestingly, it was at this point that she stopped being depicted as a female.
06:22In paintings and sculptures, she began to appear wearing male clothes and regalia, including
06:28a beard.
06:30Scholars believe this wasn't an attempt on anyone's part to pass her off as a man, but
06:34rather to indicate she deserved the respect of a king.
06:39The continued examination and analysis of the tomb's walls and floor results in a breakthrough.
06:45There were small pieces of a broken alabaster jar that probably once contained ointment.
06:52Now, the same jigsaw puzzle approach was used to piece this jar together, but this time,
06:57it revealed a name.
06:59King Thutmose II.
07:02The assembled jar also included his wife, Queen Hatshepsut's name, and the full inscription
07:08clearly indicates, had Hatshepsut buried her husband right here.
07:15This was an incredible turn of events.
07:19First discovery of a royal tomb in the Theban necropolis in a hundred years.
07:25The implications were enormous.
07:28Egypt was at the peak of its power in the new kingdom as it continued to amass great wealth
07:35along with its growing empire.
07:38Plus, this discovery presented an opportunity to study a pharaoh about whom very little was known.
07:48Thutmose II was an 18th dynasty pharaoh who came to power in the 2nd millennium BCE.
07:53Some historical records state that during his reign, he squashed a rebellious uprising in Nubia,
07:58what is now northern Sudan.
08:00There was also an indication that he may have campaigned with his armies to the eastern Mediterranean
08:04as far as Syria.
08:07But Thutmose II was best known for being the king who married the future female pharaoh of Egypt.
08:14So was Queen Hatshepsut truly instrumental in selecting her husband's tomb, as the inscription suggests?
08:20If that's the case, why did she select an area over a mile away from the traditional burial ground?
08:26The Valley of the Kings was the main burial ground of the Theban necropolis for New Kingdom pharaohs
08:34for just under 500 years.
08:37According to tradition, the pharaohs, including future pharaohs in line for the throne,
08:43planned their own funerary rites, sometimes while they were still children.
08:47This included choosing the location and overseeing the full construction of the tomb.
08:54So, Hatshepsut may have overseen the actual burial,
08:59but it was likely Thutmose who had the tomb constructed here.
09:02It also appeared that Hatshepsut had planned to be buried close by,
09:08since an uncompleted tomb just over 1,500 feet away was discovered with inscriptions stating it was intended for her.
09:19But in another twist to the story, when Hatshepsut eventually did pass away,
09:2320 years after Thutmose's death,
09:25she was interred in the Valley of the Kings along with the other male pharaohs.
09:29This was likely because she had acquired the official title and status of king.
09:35There were likely several factors that played a role in Thutmose's unusual tomb location,
09:41and we may never know all of them.
09:43But one thing was noticeable.
09:45Unlike King Thut's tomb, which was discovered overflowing with trinkets, jewels, and other grave goods,
09:51Thutmose's tomb was empty.
09:53So you have to wonder, was it looted by grave robbers?
09:59Tomb raiders were a persistent problem in New Kingdom, Egypt,
10:09and their precious stolen goods were a normal part of the local economy.
10:14In some cases, they were professionals, organized gangs who knew the tombs layup,
10:20how to access them, and how to sell them on the black market.
10:23In other cases, it was the families of the deceased who stole from their tombs.
10:31The problem was so widespread that officials took a range of steps to prevent it,
10:36such as carving curses on doors to scare would-be looters away.
10:40But it seldom worked, and the tomb raiders were frequently brazen and highly disruptive,
10:45smashing sarcophagi and tearing through the mummy's wrapped textiles to access jewels and amulets.
10:50After a thorough assessment of the tomb, the possibility of a raid was ruled out.
10:58There's no evidence of looting, no signs of forced entry.
11:01So if the grave goods aren't there and they weren't stolen,
11:06they must have been moved to a different location.
11:08So the question is, why?
11:10A closer look at the history of ancient Egypt's funerary practices reveals a possible answer.
11:20During the Old Kingdom from approximately 2700 to 2200 BC,
11:26the pharaoh's preoccupation with death and the afterlife led to the creation of the Great Pyramids.
11:34The more valuable artifacts and offerings within the tomb, the better prepared for the afterlife.
11:42But this came at a cost.
11:44The mere sight of a pyramid essentially announced the location and the opportunity for tomb raiders to plunder.
11:50Eventually, officials were unable to protect the mummies of the Old Kingdom rulers.
11:54This, in part, is what led New Kingdom rulers to opt for concealment and secrecy
11:59by digging hidden tombs deep in the hills of the Theban necropolis.
12:04Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep the new location of the tombs a secret,
12:12looters eventually caught on.
12:14Officials were bribed, and many of the workers who built the graves got conscripted by gangs to help them.
12:19In response, New Kingdom priests and royalty began to secretly remove the mummies from the underground tombs
12:26and take them to a second, even more hidden location, referred to as the Royal Cache.
12:32But the Royal Cache was intended as a temporary hiding place for the mummies.
12:37This wasn't an attempt to reconstruct entirely new tombs for each of the pharaohs.
12:42In the case of Thutmose II, it's hypothesized that an undiscovered second tomb likely does exist somewhere,
12:51and that all those missing valuable grave goods are probably just sitting somewhere waiting to be uncovered.
12:58An extended search of the surrounding area leads to a curious discovery.
13:05An enormous man-made mound was discovered not far from the original empty tomb,
13:11made up of piles of limestone rubble reaching 75 feet in height.
13:16It appeared that the mound was deliberately constructed to conceal something underneath.
13:22Could it be the opening to Thutmose's second tomb location?
13:26The excavation of the limestone mound is still pending.
13:30In the meantime, the discovery of Thutmose II's original tomb represents a crucial missing piece
13:37in the history of Egypt's 18th dynasty.
13:41And while it helps solve one enduring mystery about the ancient pharaoh,
13:45it continues to pose new questions about his fate and his legacy.
13:50The basalt flats of the Arabian Peninsula extend tens of thousands of miles
14:06across the borders of Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
14:10These basalt fields are known as harats, which comes from the Arabic for stony area or lava field.
14:17They formed millions of years ago, when the Arabian Plate began to shift away from the African Plate
14:22along the Red Sea Rift.
14:24This gradual movement thinned the Earth's crust
14:27and allowed magma to rise from the Earth's mantle to the surface.
14:31An archaeologist conducting aerial surveys above the sprawling lava deserts of Jordan
14:39spots something strange.
14:42He began to notice enormous structures stretching across the harats.
14:46They were relatively uniform in their shape and clearly man-made.
14:51But what stood out the most was their size.
14:53The structures are essentially huge rectangles formed of two thick bands
15:00connected by much longer, thinner rows of rock.
15:04Today, we know these structures as mustatils or gates because of their unique shape.
15:12Early surveys of the harats showed that the gates were often clustered in groups of two or three.
15:19But the total number remained a bit of a mystery
15:21until Google Earth changed everything.
15:24With mainstream satellite images available to the public,
15:28archaeologists around the world could explore the desert from their own homes.
15:33So far, more than a thousand of these gates have been found.
15:37We can't be sure, but we believe they were built by nomadic tribes thousands of years ago,
15:42the ancestors of the modern-day Bedouin people.
15:46The sheer scale of them shows that they were clearly important.
15:49But what were they for?
15:53These extraordinary gates aren't the only monumental sculptures on the Arabian Peninsula.
16:00South of the Jordanian basalt flats lies the Harat Khaibar,
16:05one of Saudi Arabia's largest lava fields.
16:09Among the volcanic cones, vast stone shapes known as kites have been sculpted into the landscape.
16:15Over 900 of these kites have been spotted in Harat Khaibar alone.
16:21These structures are even larger than the gates,
16:23with some measuring over a quarter of a mile long.
16:28Many of these structures date back roughly to the Holocene humid period,
16:33which spanned roughly 9,000 to 5,500 BCE.
16:37Back then, the desert belt of North Africa and Arabia was far greener and more fertile,
16:46an ideal hunting ground for people living in the area.
16:50And these structures weren't just random formations.
16:53They were built with a clear and deliberate purpose.
16:57These kites have been referred to as megatraps, and that's exactly what they were.
17:04It's believed the ancient nomads used the kites' long walls or strings
17:08to drive herds of prey toward the head, where they would become trapped.
17:13The traps would have taken weeks or even months to build
17:19and would have required a huge amount of manpower.
17:23Just like the gates, they demonstrate an advanced early engineering,
17:27which makes us wonder whether they served a similar function.
17:30Could the gates farther north have also served as huge hunting traps?
17:35When archaeologists on the ground get a closer look at the desert gates,
17:42they see just how intricate these structures are,
17:45and they discover a hidden feature.
17:48Taking a closer look at the Mustatils,
17:50we can get a sense of how much care was taken in their construction.
17:54Each of the gates' long bars is made of two parallel lines
17:58of specially chosen flat stones placed on their edges facing each other.
18:02The space between these larger rocks was then filled in with rubble.
18:09At the top of the Mustatils, we find the head,
18:13a platform filled with rocks that once stood several feet high
18:18and formed the thickest band in the structure.
18:23At the very center of the heads of most gates lies a hidden chamber.
18:28These chambers are relatively small,
18:30typically 10 to 30 feet wide.
18:34While excavating the walls of one Mustatil,
18:37a team of archaeologists makes a shocking discovery.
18:47While excavating the walls of one Mustatil,
18:50a team of archaeologists makes a shocking discovery.
18:54They began to uncover human bone fragments.
18:58The bones belong to nine separate individuals.
19:02Two infants, one child, a teenager, and five adults.
19:06So could these structures be something other than animal traps?
19:11Could they actually be elaborate funerary monuments?
19:14The search for answers leads to another nearby site,
19:20where ancient roadways in Northwest Arabia are flanked by mysterious stone sculptures.
19:27These aren't gates or kites, but keyholes.
19:30As the name suggests, they're made up of two main components,
19:33a circular section at one end, placed at the point of an elongated triangle.
19:38Nearly 18,000 of these keyholes have been found over roughly 100,000 square miles of the Arabian desert.
19:45Like the gates, the keyholes are often grouped in elaborate formations leading away from a central corridor.
19:55It's believed that they may have been used to shepherd animals into specific pastures.
20:01But they also serve another more symbolic function.
20:06Inside the circular ends of these structures, we find piles of stones called cairns.
20:12These aren't decorative. They actually mark tombs.
20:17Looking at them from above, you can see that the tombs have been deliberately organized,
20:22with a central roadway running through them near the widest point of the triangle.
20:27Today, we now know these arrangements as funerary avenues.
20:33It could be that people wanted to bury their loved ones on frequently traveled routes
20:37so that their memory would be kept alive by people passing by.
20:41Could the monumental gates in Jordan have served a similar function?
20:47Excavations of ancient gates in Saudi Arabia unearth yet more skeletal remains.
20:53But these bones point to a different possibility.
20:57It turns out that many of these mustatillos contain thousands of bone fragments.
21:02But the vast majority of these bones aren't actually human.
21:07They're animal bones.
21:08There's evidence that some of these animals were wild, like gazelles,
21:12but most appear to have been domesticated.
21:15Cattle herding would have played a central role in the lives of ancient people living in the region at the time,
21:41providing a vital source of food.
21:44But why were they buried here?
21:45Why go to the trouble of building such an elaborate burial ground for animals?
21:50As work on the mustatillos continues,
21:53researchers working a site at Yemen's Wadaha Subdistrict,
21:56within the Sanaha government,
21:58come across another remarkable cattle burial.
22:01They found a ring of more than 40 cattle skulls that had been planted nose-down in the earth.
22:08At the centre of the ring, there was one more skull, also buried facing downwards.
22:13This deliberate arrangement suggests the skulls represented some kind of ritual or symbolic significance.
22:21The cattle remains were found near a stone platform and surrounded by several hearths.
22:27The skulls and hearths combined paint a vivid picture of some kind of ritual feast,
22:34one that seemingly involved the sacrifice of domestic animals.
22:41The discovery of ritual cattle sacrifice in Yemen
22:44leads to a revelation for experts working on Arabia's colossal stone gates.
22:51We now believe that these huge stone gates were built to host similar rituals.
22:56Each of the gates has a narrow entrance built into its base.
23:02These are typically less than three feet wide,
23:05which may have been to encourage people to enter the structure in single file.
23:11We can't be sure, but the large courtyards inside the gate
23:15could have accommodated lots of people,
23:18perhaps an audience for the animal sacrifices.
23:21It's thought that these mustatils are some of the oldest monuments built by these Neolithic cattle cults.
23:30They've been found over an area of just under 80,000 square miles,
23:34which tells us that their beliefs and rituals were extremely widespread during the late Stone Age.
23:41Over time, the ritual significance of these sites appears to have changed,
23:47with animal sacrifices slowly giving way to human burials.
23:51There isn't any evidence to suggest that the humans buried here were sacrificed themselves.
23:57Instead, the continued use of these monuments as graveyards
24:01only emphasizes how important these spiritual landmarks were to the people who built them.
24:09Today, work continues to excavate and date even more of these enigmatic gates
24:15to chart the lives of the ancient Arabian cattle cults.
24:18But who or what these cults worshipped remains an enduring mystery.
24:23Around 35 miles southwest of Jerusalem,
24:36in Israel's Negev Desert, lies the Bedouin town of Rahat.
24:41With a population of just over 75,000, it's the largest of the Bedouin cities,
24:46but roughly 60% of the people who live there are under the age of 18.
24:50So its nickname is the City of Children.
24:55It's on the edge of a desert, so it has a hot, semi-arid climate
24:58and sees only about 10 inches of rain each year.
25:01The city is surrounded by small rolling hills made up of lois,
25:05a fine material comprised mostly of silt and dust distributed by the wind.
25:12On the southern outskirts of town,
25:14a team of archaeologists is carrying out excavations
25:17in advance of a future construction project
25:20when they unearthed something surprising.
25:23At first glance, it looks like just a low, crumbling wall
25:27sticking out of the sand.
25:29But after some digging around,
25:31they discover that it's actually part of a bigger complex.
25:35It consists of several rooms of varying sizes joined together,
25:42some rectangular, others more square,
25:44and they're all separated by walls made up of stones cemented together.
25:50All told, the complex covers roughly 10,000 square feet,
25:56a large area, and looks to be very old.
25:59So what was this place?
26:00Another stone structure was discovered
26:11not too far from the complex of Rahat.
26:16Researchers determined it to be
26:18one of the oldest rural mosques ever found.
26:23It's mostly just one small square room,
26:26around 65 square feet.
26:27But one of the walls isn't a straight line.
26:29It has a half circle jutting out of the middle of it,
26:32facing south,
26:33the direction of Mecca, the holy city of Islam.
26:36The half circle is a prayer niche called a mirab.
26:40Using pottery and coins discovered at the site,
26:43researchers figured this dates to the late 7th century
26:46or early 8th century CE.
26:49Now, it's known that Islam did originate
26:51about 100 years before that,
26:53in what is now Saudi Arabia,
26:54but it didn't become the dominant religion
26:57in this region for at least 200 years.
27:00So finding a mosque this old is rare.
27:05Given the mosque's proximity to the complex
27:08and the similarities in construction style,
27:11I think it's safe to assume that the complex
27:14was from around the same period around 1,200 years ago.
27:19But what was it?
27:20As the team explores the complex further,
27:27something strange happens.
27:29When they knock on some of the stones,
27:31they hear an echo emanating from beneath the ground.
27:35They're able to create a small hole to lower a camera down
27:39and are shocked at what they see.
27:41There's an incredible underground complex of vaults.
27:46They're built out of limestone blocks
27:48about 18 feet under the ground
27:50and measuring roughly 8 feet tall.
27:53The compartments are linked by tunnels
27:56and have arched ceilings,
27:58also constructed out of stone.
28:00These vaults were probably used as storage areas.
28:04But for what?
28:06The area around Rahat
28:08was once an ancient farming community.
28:11There's evidence to suggest
28:12that the Negev had large-scale agriculture
28:15between the 4th and 11th century CE.
28:18This was no easy task
28:20considering the environmental factors.
28:22I mean, there was always the threat of a drought
28:23and a drought could last for several years.
28:26But the people who lived here
28:28had extremely clever ways of managing water.
28:32They used a damming technique,
28:34building stone terraces into hillside plots of farmland
28:37and also had a system of channels
28:39for collecting runoff from slopes.
28:42Using these methods,
28:43they were able to grow various legumes and grains,
28:46including wheat and barley.
28:47So maybe the structure discovered at Rahat
28:49was used for storing food supplies
28:51or even a produce marketplace of some kind.
28:55Further investigation of the site
28:57reveals architectural details
28:59that may just support this theory.
29:01The western area has a series of big rooms
29:05and the eastern side contains a large open hall.
29:09These spaces would be ideal for conducting commerce
29:12or further storage beyond the underground vaults.
29:15But if the complex was for storing food products
29:19or used as a marketplace,
29:21there would probably be evidence left behind.
29:24But all they found in the vaults
29:26were some clay shards from oil lamps.
29:28So I think it's unlikely that the structure
29:31was used for that purpose.
29:33It must have been for something else.
29:37Given its size and location on the outskirts of the city,
29:41maybe the building had a military function
29:43for protecting Rahat from invading armies.
29:45The vaults could have been for storing weapons
29:47or a system of defense.
29:48In central Turkey's historic Cappadocia region
29:53is Derenkuyu,
29:55an ancient city with extensive underground complexes
29:58that some experts believe were vital to its defense.
30:02During the Byzantine period,
30:04Christians were under constant threat of attack
30:06from the Romans.
30:08And it's thought that these tunnels
30:09were built to hide the people of the city
30:12from persecution.
30:13Some of the tunnels are not very big,
30:18which might appear to be a design flaw.
30:21But it was likely done on purpose
30:22so that if attackers tried to enter,
30:26they would have to be in a single row
30:28and punched over,
30:29making it easier for defending soldiers
30:32to kill them.
30:34Maybe the underground system at Rahat
30:36served a similar purpose.
30:38But there's no historical documentation
30:42to indicate that this was an important town
30:45that needed defending back then.
30:47It was a simple, rural, agricultural community.
30:51And there's also no archaeological evidence of conflict.
30:55No military artifacts were discovered.
30:58As the team continues to investigate the site,
31:01they find certain items
31:02that may just provide some answers.
31:08They came across two ovens.
31:23Now, that might not sound like a big deal
31:24because people had to cook, right?
31:26But these ovens are way bigger than conventional ones.
31:29Too big to be just for preparing regular family meals.
31:33And right next to one of them is a water cistern.
31:36Olive pits were also found at the site.
31:38All of this adds up to one thing.
31:41On top of being a residence,
31:42this complex was probably used
31:44to manufacture soap.
31:47The ovens were likely used
31:49to cook up a mixture of ingredients.
31:51They would have needed olive oil,
31:53which explains all the olive pits.
31:55And they would have needed water.
31:56And lo and behold,
31:57one of the ovens is right next to a cistern.
32:01This was the perfect location for soap making
32:04with all the necessary ingredients
32:07found in the surrounding region.
32:10Old soap recipes require saltwort plants,
32:13which are indigenous to the Nejiv desert.
32:15And olives were extensively available
32:18in the nearby South Hebron hills.
32:21Soap making in the ancient world
32:25goes back much farther
32:27than the early Islamic period.
32:29Soap first being used for personal hygiene
32:31dates back to the ancient Egyptians,
32:33around 1550 BCE.
32:36They created a soap-like substance
32:37by combining animal and vegetable oils
32:39with alkaline salts
32:41for both cleaning their bodies
32:42and treating skin conditions.
32:44As Islam spread to become
32:47the primary religion in the Middle East,
32:50an emphasis on hygiene and cleanliness emerged.
32:53Islam is a very ritualistic religion.
32:56And certain hygiene-related customs
33:00are expected to be followed.
33:02Muslims are encouraged to perform ablution,
33:06known as wudu, before prayers,
33:09which involves washing the face,
33:11hands, arms, feet,
33:14and rinsing the mouth and nose.
33:17Good grooming and the use of perfumes,
33:19tatyib, are also expected.
33:21A devout Muslim should show loyalty to God
33:23and respect for his fellow Muslims
33:25by smelling good,
33:26particularly at group prayer.
33:29The cleanliness of clothing,
33:31living spaces, and the body
33:32are a high priority.
33:34Researchers believe that the complex at Rahat
33:37may be the oldest soap-making facility
33:40ever discovered in Israel.
33:42At the time,
33:43family recipes were heavily guarded secrets,
33:46handed down from generation to generation.
33:49And as Islam grew in popularity,
33:52the demand for soap grew with it
33:53and made some people extremely wealthy,
33:57including whoever lived
33:59in this once magnificent complex.
34:01Tucked into the northern reaches
34:12of Egypt's western desert
34:13lies the Fayum Basin,
34:15a vast limestone depression
34:17spanning more than 6,000 square miles.
34:21The Fayum Basin is incredibly unique
34:23because it's home to an oasis.
34:25For thousands of years,
34:27humans have been diverting water
34:28from the nearby Nile River
34:30into the basin to irrigate the land.
34:33These irrigation systems supported large towns
34:35during the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom
34:37and the Roman period.
34:39There are dozens of well-preserved
34:42Egyptian, Greek, Roman,
34:44and Coptic Christian sites
34:45dotted around the oasis,
34:47making it an archaeological treasure trove.
34:51As extraordinary as these ancient settlements are,
34:54the oldest remains in the basin
34:55predate humans by millions of years.
34:59One of the best examples
35:00is Wadi Al-Hitan, or Whale Valley,
35:03a stretch of land roughly 100 miles from Cairo,
35:06where archaeologists have found fossils
35:07dating back more than 40 million years
35:10to the earliest aquatic whales
35:12in the final stages
35:13of losing their hind legs.
35:15For years, archaeologists have carefully catalogued
35:19the marine mammals of the Fayum Depression.
35:21But during a dig in the arid desert,
35:25one team spots an entirely different set of remains.
35:31They had been digging for several days
35:33when they spotted a set of huge teeth
35:35sticking out of the desert floor.
35:38They quickly realized the teeth were attached
35:41to a nearly perfectly preserved skull.
35:44It's some kind of mammal,
35:45and this thing is clearly a predator.
35:47It's got these teeth that are sharp
35:49and look like they're perfect for slicing into prey.
35:51Plus, it's got these big crests on the skull
35:54that suggest it had really powerful jaws.
35:58Based on the skull's size,
35:59we can estimate this animal
36:00was about the size of a modern-day leopard.
36:03So what was it,
36:05and how long ago did it roam the Fayum Basin?
36:08The discovery of the predator's skull
36:13prompted comparisons to a set of remains
36:15unearthed in the region 120 years earlier.
36:19These fossils belong to a creature known as Secmatops.
36:24Secmatops was a formidable predator,
36:27roughly the size of a modern-day lion
36:28with a large, heavy head.
36:30It shares many qualities with a newly discovered skull,
36:33including its razor-sharp teeth,
36:35specially adapted to bring down large prey.
36:37So could the creature found in the Fayum Basin
36:40be from the same species as Secmatops?
36:51Searching for answers,
36:52the team performs a detailed analysis of the skull
36:55in the hopes of establishing its age.
36:58And the results are rather surprising.
37:02The skull is around 30 million years old.
37:04This means that this creature is from the Olegocene period,
37:08which spanned from approximately 34 to 23 million years ago,
37:12the same time frame as Secmatops.
37:16So it's entirely possible
37:18that the two animals are closely related.
37:22While it might be tempting to think Secmatops
37:25and the newly discovered animal
37:27belong to the same species,
37:29there are differences between them.
37:30Besides being smaller than Secmatops,
37:34the skull has distinctly feline features
37:36with a shorter, cat-like snout.
37:38The differences between the remains
37:40tell us that we're looking at two distinct species
37:43of an order known as Hyenodonta,
37:46extinct, hypercarnivorous mammals
37:48that lived on virtually every continent.
37:51These animals varied widely in size and shape,
37:54from 11 pounds to over 1,000.
37:56The new skull represents an entirely new species of Hyenodont
38:02that lived alongside Secmatops.
38:04Following the tradition of naming these ancient carnivores
38:06after Egyptian deities,
38:08this new species was named Bastetodon
38:10in honor of Bastet,
38:12the cat-headed goddess of protection and fertility.
38:16Further analysis of the Secmatops
38:18alongside the Bastetodon
38:21leads to a breakthrough.
38:22When Secmatops was first discovered,
38:25they originally placed the species
38:26within a group of European Hyenodonts
38:29and assumed that that's where Secmatops originated
38:31before migrating to Africa.
38:34But, using the Bastetodon fossils,
38:37that family tree has painted a very different picture.
38:41The results of the analysis prove
38:43that the opposite of what we once believed
38:45was actually true.
38:47Secmatops and the Bastetodon
38:49weren't European in origin.
38:51They represented an entirely new group
38:53of African Hyenodonts
38:55that originated right where they were found,
38:58in Egypt.
39:01Hyenodonts lasted as an order
39:03for approximately 50 million years.
39:07To survive that long,
39:09they had to successfully survive
39:11some of the Earth's most dramatic climactic changes.
39:14One of these extreme changes
39:16occurred around 34 million years ago
39:19when the planet began to cool.
39:22Ice sheets expanded,
39:24sea levels dropped,
39:26and forests slowly transformed into grasslands.
39:30Today, we know this period
39:32as the Eocene-Olegocene boundary.
39:34This boundary is also known
39:37as the Grand Coupure,
39:38or Big Break,
39:39because of its devastating effects
39:41on species across the world.
39:43On the African and Arabian peninsulas alone,
39:46approximately 60% of mammal species vanished.
39:50But Hyenodonts survived,
39:51with new species emerging
39:52in the wake of the disaster
39:54and adapting to the changing environments.
39:56Throughout the Olegocene and the Miocene,
39:59African Hyenodonts maintained their position
40:01at the very top of the food chain.
40:04And this was in part
40:05because of their ability to adapt,
40:07and in some cases, become supersized.
40:11The global extinction of the Hyenodonts
40:13remains an enduring mystery.
40:16But some experts believe
40:18that the answer may lie
40:20in dramatic environmental shifts.
40:23During the Olegocene,
40:24about 26 million years ago,
40:26tectonic shifts pushed the Arabian
40:29and Eurasian plates closer together.
40:31Over millions of years,
40:33these shifts created new land bridges
40:34for ancient species
40:36to spread between continents.
40:38So creatures that were previously isolated in Europe
40:40migrated south into Africa.
40:43During the Miocene,
40:45this faunal exchange really picked up,
40:48and we start to see modern-looking predators
40:50like cats, dogs, and hyenas
40:52appear on the African continent.
40:54Unlike Hyenodonts,
40:56these predators had flexible wrists and forearms
40:59that allowed them to adopt new hunting techniques.
41:03We now believe that these new predators
41:05began to compete with Hyenodonts for prey.
41:09The very same attributes
41:11that once made the Hyenodonts so formidable
41:13may have accelerated its downfall.
41:16Its dentition was extremely specialized,
41:18and the predators' rigid bodies
41:20meant that they relied almost exclusively
41:23on their huge jaws and heads
41:25to bring down their prey.
41:26When competition increased,
41:27these animals may have been physically unable
41:30to adapt to different food sources.
41:32Eventually, they went extinct,
41:34leaving cats and dogs
41:36to take their place at the top of the food chain.
41:38The exact cause of the Hyenodonts' extinction
41:42remains a complex web of unanswered questions.
41:46But with every new species that emerges,
41:49our understanding of this ancient apex predator
41:52grows a little clearer.
41:54We'll be right back to the Hyenodonts' extinction.
Recommended
44:08
|
Up next
42:01
56:14
45:35
29:18
21:56
52:22
55:57
41:24
38:41
38:09
45:37
45:05
48:33
45:06
59:00
41:26
58:07
48:54
36:42
1:37:53
53:23
1:06:47
Be the first to comment