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00:01Archaeologists in Rostock, Germany uncover an ancient artifact shrouded in mystery.
00:07It had faint markings on it. Was this some kind of secret message or code?
00:11Is it possible the message on the Rostock scroll was intended as an evil spell of some kind?
00:16An artifact discovered off the coast of Cape Cod may finally end the search of a wreck that claimed the lives of over a hundred men.
00:24Just how old was this thing? And more importantly, were there more artifacts down below from the same ship that could help identify it?
00:31In Edinburgh, Scotland, young boys discover a cave containing an eerie secret.
00:37Someone put a lot of time and effort into making these things and hiding them. But who? And why?
00:47Buried. Hidden. Cursed.
00:54From mystical artifacts and doomed treasures to mysterious structures and ancient rituals.
01:04Myths and legends that have long been shrouded in the shadows of history are finally brought into the light.
01:15These are Secrets in the Dark.
01:19Located 120 miles north of Berlin, the bustling port of Rostock is the third largest city on the German Baltic coast.
01:44Its mainland is surrounded by a dark and dense wooded forest known as the Rostock Heath.
01:51The Rostock Heath has remained unchanged for hundreds of years.
01:55It still contains the remnants of an ancient forest that once stretched from the Netherlands to the German state of Pomerania.
02:01In 1252, the townspeople of Rostock bought the entire heath after a raging fire destroyed most of the town's buildings.
02:10The wood from the forest was used to rebuild what was lost in the fire.
02:14It was just one of Rostock's many malevolent fires over the years, a legacy that only adds to the city's turbulent history.
02:23In 1161, King Valdemar I of Denmark burned Rostock to the ground in an attempt to control trade in the Baltic Sea.
02:31Rostock was eventually settled by German traders hoping to leverage the strategic port location as they fought for a share in the growing economy.
02:38Today, the city is a busy and modern metropolis, but there's still plenty of evidence of its medieval past from the Gothic architecture and stone streets to what's buried underneath.
02:53Archaeologists are excavating a construction site at Rostock's town hall when they make a surprising discovery.
03:00They found the remnants of six medieval gabled houses, specifically the cellars and latrines of these houses, and they were able to date them as far back as the 13th century.
03:10They also established the houses had been rebuilt after yet another Rostock fire, this one in 1677.
03:17Some of the finds retrieved from the houses included jugs and bronze beer taps.
03:23The researchers also discovered wooden boxes embedded right into the floor, which were probably cisterns, either for storing water or for storing beer.
03:35All this together suggests this place was a medieval tavern.
03:42Beneath the latrine of one of the cellars, they found a small piece of lead that looked like ordinary scrap metal.
03:48But this scrap was rolled up like an ancient scroll, which was highly unusual, not to mention a bit mysterious.
03:57They unrolled the lead tablet to its full length of three inches and saw that it had faint markings on it.
04:02Markings that someone had deliberately inscribed.
04:05Was this some kind of secret message or code?
04:08And what was it doing down here at the bottom of a latrine in a medieval tavern?
04:11By the 15th century, northern Germany had shifted from an agricultural economy to one based on trade and industries like shipbuilding, metallurgy and wood carving.
04:27As a growing port, Rostock invited commerce, competition and fierce fighting between tradesmen.
04:33There was also a new brand of class warfare.
04:36As the trades took over agriculture, the rich got richer and the poor became very poor.
04:41There were taxes on items like beer that only benefited the upper classes.
04:46And the so-called lower classes attempted many revolts, but most of them failed.
04:49There was also this constant political tension between church and state.
04:56The Pope's Holy Roman Empire and various German kings and princes frequently had these violent, drawn-out clashes.
05:06What emerged was a city in turmoil based on family loyalties, secret allegiances and lots of scores being settled.
05:11Sure, it was a time of growth and expansion, but it was also filled with bitter rivalries and dark acts of revenge.
05:24As the archaeologists get a closer look at the scroll, it's not immediately obvious what the message says.
05:31To the naked eye, the markings are completely indecipherable.
05:35They were worn and faded and small to the point of being microscopic, but using a method called reflectance transformation imaging,
05:45a bunch of computer-generated photographs are produced of the tablet under different lighting conditions,
05:50and that allows researchers to create this enhanced image.
05:55The deciphered markings were revealed to be text written in Gothic miniscule,
05:59a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century.
06:06The question is, what does it say?
06:10Analysis of the computer-generated images reveals a dark message that startles the researchers.
06:17It says, Satanus, Taleke, Beelzebuk, Henrik, Berit.
06:24Satanus is Satan, Beelzebuk is Beelzebub,
06:28and Berit is a reference to another demonic spirit from medieval folklore.
06:32So, you've basically got three evil figures in one short phrase.
06:39The other two words were the names of two people, a man named Henrik and a woman named Taliki.
06:43So, who were they? And why were they included in a list of evil spirits?
06:49Or, on the flip side, was it possible they were the ones creating some sort of devil worship or witchcraft?
06:55Medieval German culture was rich with elements of magic, sorcery, and the dark arts.
07:02Even though most of the Holy Roman Empire had been Christianized, including Western Europe,
07:07many citizens believed in magic and used it to connect with the world around them.
07:14Historically, the church tended to regard anything spiritual outside its own Christian theology as either pagan or sacrilegious.
07:21But in the Middle Ages, even monks and priests practiced several types of magic by using charms, herbs, and potions for spiritual healing and divination.
07:29Now, that was the positive or benevolent use of magic, but just as prevalent was the darker or black magic of sorcery and devil worship that the Catholic Church was eager to quell.
07:42Practices like incantations, curses, invoking demons and evil spirits to cast a spell.
07:48All of that was seen as a real threat to the Catholic religion.
07:55Is it possible the message on the Rostock scroll was intended as an evil spell of some kind?
08:00And if so, did Henrik and Taliki create the spell? Or were they the intended targets?
08:07Further research and comparative analysis revealed that the small lead artifact is a medieval curse tablet.
08:15A curse tablet is pretty much what it sounds like. A flat tablet with a curse written on it and directed at a specific person or people, usually by invoking evil spirits or some kind of demon.
08:30The tablets were small, no bigger than a business card or playing card, and deliberately placed in underground locations such as a well or a grave.
08:37It was believed these subterranean places were a conduit through which the curses could reach the underworld.
08:45The origin story of cursed tablets starts way before the Middle Ages. Those things first appear in ancient Greece between 800 BCE and 600 CE.
08:55At the time, much of what we would now call magic was just religion. They had rituals that involved Hades and Persephone. Those are gods from the underworld closely connected to ghosts and the dead.
09:09The Greek curses could be personal, one individual to another, or used on a civic level, so a city could curse its enemies.
09:17Occasionally, the curses called for the destruction or death of an entire family.
09:21But for the most part, the curses tended to be binding, a curse that would limit the curse's ability to perform a task by injuring them.
09:28In the early 1950s, a team of archaeologists excavating the ruins of an ancient theatre in Israel found a 1500-year-old curse tablet with Greek engraving.
09:45The curse on this tablet called upon several demons to inflict harm on a dancer named Mana, who likely performed at the famous Caesarea Maritima Theatre, built by Herod the Great.
09:55Exorists believe Mana was to perform at a prestigious competition that would have brought him fame and recognition.
10:03The person cursing Mana did not want him to win, which suggests he might have been a rival dancer.
10:08And he wasn't messing around. The curse called upon the gods to twist, darken, and bind down Mana's eyes, hands, and feet.
10:16It makes you wonder how that dance competition went down.
10:19The tablet was dated to the sixth century CE. That's a time when the Byzantine Empire controlled the city.
10:24And as with medieval Germany, Christianity was the dominant religion of the Byzantine era.
10:31But that didn't stop the use of curse tablets.
10:35The tablet found in the theatre ruins had a clear reference to a known individual, making it easier for historians to learn about that specific moment in time.
10:44Unfortunately, with the Rostock tablet, there was only the name of one man and one woman.
10:50Plus, the nature of the curse was unclear.
10:52It called upon two devils and one devil's disciple to harm Henrik and Talike.
10:56But why?
10:57Were Henrik and Talike husband and wife?
11:00Was the curse created by a jealous suitor who wanted to break them up?
11:04Was it intended to harm both of them, or just one?
11:08And then there's the question of location.
11:10The bottom of a latrine in what was most likely a tavern in a thriving medieval port town.
11:16What role does that play in solving the identity and the curse of Henrik and Talike?
11:23The discovery of five separate curse tablets in Piraeus, a port city north of Athens, Greece, offers an important clue and a possible link to the Rostock tablet.
11:36The tablets were discovered in the bottom of a woman's grave.
11:41And it might be tempting to imagine that the deceased woman played some role in the story, but researchers don't think that's the case.
11:47They think that that grave was just an ideal and accessible location for whoever did place the curse to put the tablets as close as possible to the underworld.
11:58Four of the tablets were engraved with curses that invoked the names of several thonic or underworld gods.
12:03And each of the curses was asking them to target four different husband and wife tavern keepers in Athens, in extremely descriptive language.
12:12One possible explanation is that the person who created the curse took a highly moral and righteous stand against taverns, which were seen by many as unsavory dens of debauchery and sin.
12:24But a more likely story is that the curse was created by a competing tavern owner looking to harm some of his or her rival proprietors.
12:31Which dovetails very nicely with Henrik and Taliki, seeing as the Rostock tablet was found at the bottom of an alehouse.
12:38It's entirely possible they were a married couple, or at the very least owners of this medieval German tavern.
12:43But we'll never know for sure.
12:44The Rostock tablet is just one of many dark and secret histories buried below medieval Europe.
12:54Stories of demons and evil spirits all contained in a single artifact, the size of a playing card.
13:00From the northeastern shore of the United States, the peninsula of Cape Cod stretches dramatically into the Atlantic Ocean.
13:18For 25 miles.
13:32The Cape has provided work for mariners and recreation for tourists for hundreds of years.
13:37The whole Cape Cod area of Massachusetts has evolved from a trading and whaling hub to this major destination for wealthy families, for celebrities, and for tourists like you and me.
13:52And the reason for all that is simple. It's gorgeous there. Natural beauty, beaches, coastal bluffs.
13:58But the Cape has a dark side.
14:06Due to its precarious location exposed in the Atlantic, Cape Cod is frequently hit with punishing storms called nor'easters.
14:16The warm Gulf Stream from the south slams into the cold Labrador Current from the north, which can result in deadly Category 2 and 3 hurricanes.
14:24In addition, the ocean surrounding the Cape is riddled with shallow sandbars and shoals.
14:33Historically, most shipping and sea trade between Boston and New York had to pass through the area.
14:40What looked like a sheltered bay could turn violent and dangerous very quickly.
14:45Ships constantly risked running aground on the sandbars or getting smashed into the shoals.
14:50And because of this, the Cape is littered with shipwrecks.
14:55It's a hotbed of diving activity.
15:05A team of ocean archaeologists is diving off the Cape Cod town of Wellfleet when they make a surprising discovery.
15:11They were towing a high-powered metal detector called a Proton Precision Magnetometer across a suspected shipwreck area to identify any iron or steel.
15:21Sure enough, the device signaled a positive hit for an object between 10 and 30 feet below the seabed.
15:25After dropping anchor, the team lowered several propeller devices called mailboxes around the area to clear away sand and debris.
15:34The powerful weight created a large pit and exposed several small artifacts, and one larger one.
15:40A cannon.
15:46Just how old was this thing?
15:48And more importantly, were there more artifacts down below from the same ship that could help identify it?
15:57Cape Cod is home to over 3,000 shipwrecks.
16:00Many of those ended up being pushed onto the shore by gale force winds.
16:05But many vessels disappeared under the dark Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again.
16:11Long ago, when a ship carrying loads of goods crashed into the beach,
16:16it was really common for everybody around to just run down to the beach and grab whatever they could get.
16:22Wine, coffee, gold, spices, whatever the ship was carrying was fair game.
16:27When it comes to the lost vessels, divers and prospectors have attempted to locate these so-called ghost ships for as long as they've been missing.
16:37And over the years, many interesting discoveries have been made near Massachusetts and elsewhere on the Atlantic coast.
16:46In 1996, five cannons called Six Pounders were discovered in the Beaufort Inlet off the coast of North Carolina.
16:53The guns turned out to be from the Queen Anne's Revenge, a pirate ship that had been commandeered by none other than Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard.
17:08Blackbeard sailed the ship from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean, mercilessly attacking British, Dutch and Portuguese merchant ships along the way.
17:16The Queen Anne's Revenge was eventually scuttled by Blackbeard himself when he deliberately grabbed the vessel in 1718,
17:23stranded his crew and allegedly made off with a vast treasure.
17:28So, is it possible that the cannon found off the Cape Cod coast has an equally dark and scandalous past, perhaps as part of some lost pirate ship?
17:40The team continues to dive and dig at the site, and eventually their persistence pays off.
17:50What they found was nothing short of the motherlode of buried treasure.
17:56Hundreds of pounds of gold and silver, pewter plates and brass buttons, all worth about 400 million in today's dollars.
18:03And all of it hidden below the seabed.
18:06The sheer size and scope of the artifact certainly make it look a lot like a pirate's booty, but that still doesn't tell us what ship it came from.
18:18As the research team broadens the scope of the excavation, they make an astounding discovery, linking the site to a local legend.
18:26It's on a ship's bell ripped from its original placement on the galley.
18:30And right there on it is the inscription, the Wieda Galley, 1716.
18:37The Wieda was a 28-gun pirate vessel from the early 1700s that was loaded down with stolen treasure from at least 50 other ships when it sank in a massive nor'easter in 1717.
18:50Eyewitness accounts describe storm gusts topping 70 miles per hour and waves reaching over 30 feet.
18:58The captain of the Wieda was a cunning and ambitious young pirate named Black Sam Bellamy.
19:04When the storm hit, he tried to sail the ship farther away from shore, but it got caught up on a sandbar.
19:09The mast snapped like twigs and the whole thing just tipped over so quickly that all but two of the 146 crew members died in the wreckage.
19:27The discovery of the Wieda closed one chapter of the story for the team, but it also presented a series of new questions and mysteries to solve.
19:36On one of the dives, they brought up a large, curious-looking mass of hardened material called a concretion.
19:43It's a rigid mineral clump that forms around undersea objects and calcifies over time.
19:49But this particular concretion had a bone sticking out of it, a human leg bone.
19:55X-rays and thermal imaging revealed more of the skeleton, which had several broken bones.
20:02The images also revealed that this person had been clutching a pistol and likely had gold, along with some other precious metals, in his pockets at the time of his death.
20:11It's believed that the man's broken bones were injuries sustained as the ship capsized.
20:18It's also believed that the crew must have known the ship was about to go down and stuffed as much of the stolen treasure into their pockets as they possibly could.
20:26But the burning question is, could these be the remains of the captain himself?
20:31Is this Black Sam Bellamy?
20:37Thanks to advances in DNA technology and genealogy, the team can put the theory to the test and find out once and for all if the skeleton in their possession is the pirate captain.
20:48They connected with one of Sam Bellamy's living descendants and collected a sample of their DNA.
20:54They then compared that to DNA extracted from the leg bone.
20:58But as it turned out, it wasn't a match.
21:01And while that may have been disappointing to some, the result they did get and what they learned from it was pretty interesting.
21:07The pirate was of eastern Mediterranean descent, which supported the belief that Bellamy was constantly recruiting new crew members as he sailed from one destination to the next.
21:14The size of the bone sample combined with bits of clothing retrieved from the WIDA suggests that the average height of a pirate in the 1700s was around five feet, four inches.
21:25Not exactly the dashing swashbucklers depicted in Hollywood movies.
21:30This is basically the dream for anyone interested in shipwrecks.
21:34It's a literal pirate ship full of treasure with a dead pirate on board.
21:39I mean, it's basically Goonies.
21:40Honestly, it's a great find and it gives a little more context to those amazing stories of pirates on the high seas.
21:47And it also adds another rich layer to the tapestry of stories that make Cape Cod such an amazing place.
21:55The discovery of the WIDA is just one ghost ship containing a true pirate's riches.
22:00But there are still many more vessels lurking below the dark ocean waters, each with their own secret past.
22:30In the heart of the ancient city of Edinburgh, Scotland, lies Arthur's Seat, the rocky peak of a long extinct volcano carved by ice sheets over thousands of years.
22:43The site is home to many myths and legends surrounding Edinburgh, tales woven into Scottish folklore.
22:53According to legend, a huge ferocious dragon used to fly around the city terrorizing people and eating their livestock.
23:00Until one day he ate too much, laid down to sleep and never woke up.
23:04The dragon's sleeping body became the hill that is now Arthur's Seat, or so the story goes.
23:11The origin of the name Arthur's Seat is shrouded in mystery.
23:16Some have claimed that the hill is the site of the legendary Camelot, home of the famous King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
23:22But there's no evidence to support this idea.
23:26The more likely explanation is that the name derives from Gaelic, probably Arthur's Seat, which means place on high ground.
23:35Every May 1st, local women climbed the top of Arthur's Seat at dawn and washed their faces with dew from the hillside, a custom said to bring eternal beauty, health and happiness for the coming year.
23:47It's a pagan tradition dating back centuries, one of the many rituals and ceremonies rumored to have taken place at the site over the years.
23:56Some a little darker than others.
24:01A group of young boys are out hunting rabbits on the northeast face of Arthur's Seat when they make a bizarre discovery.
24:08Dug into the side of the cliff, they found a small cave about a foot in height and roughly 18 inches wide, closed off by three thin pieces of slate stone.
24:21Inside were 17 miniature wooden coffins arranged in three tiers, the bottom two with eight each and a single coffin on the top level.
24:28The coffins are about four inches in length, around one inch wide and cut from a single piece of wood.
24:36They even have lids that are nailed down with pieces of wire or brass pins and decorated with small tin ornaments.
24:44Someone put a lot of time and effort into making these things and hiding them on Arthur's Seat.
24:49But who is he? But who? And why?
24:55After the boy's schoolmaster, a member of the local archaeological society, catches wind of the discovery,
25:02he collects the remaining coffins from the cliffside and brings them home, where he carefully pries the lids up with a knife.
25:10What's inside leaves him stunned.
25:12In each coffin is a human figure made of wood. They have intricately carved faces and are dressed in single piece suits made from fragments of cotton cloth that were molded around them and sewn in place.
25:27They're almost identical in size and not really varying significantly in height, but oddly, some of them are missing arms.
25:35The feet are painted black to represent ankle boots. Each figure can be stood upright because of a slight weight on its front, which is strange because if they were intended to be laid down to represent corpses, then there would have been no need to ensure they were able to stand.
25:52Some of them have slight indentations around their heads indicating that they were probably wearing hats at some point. And if you look closely, you can see a hole where the missing arms were screwed in.
26:06So given this, plus the uniform size of the figures, the painted on boots and evidence that they once wore hats, it's likely that they weren't custom carved, but rather repurposed toy soldiers dressed up and put into these tiny coffins.
26:20Why on earth would anyone do that?
26:25Although no formal dating analysis has been performed on the figures, based on their appearance, researchers tentatively date them to the turn of the 19th century.
26:35One of the figures clothes had been sewn with a three ply cotton thread, which didn't come into use until the 1830s.
26:43So it's reasonable to assume that this was around the time the burial took place.
26:47The coffins on the lowest here were far more degraded than the ones on the upper levels, which some took to mean that maybe they were buried at intervals over a long period of time.
26:59But it could just be that the bottom ones came into contact with more moisture.
27:03So we know roughly when the coffins were put in the cave, but that doesn't tell us who put them there or why.
27:12There are several possibilities, though.
27:15It could be that it was an imitation of an ancient Saxon tradition of burying an effigy of people who died while away from home.
27:22With no body to inter, the deceased's friends or relatives would stage a funeral and bury a non-human representative of that person.
27:32But there's no evidence of such a practice anywhere else in Britain and no historical accounts of this ritual ever being performed there.
27:38Also, there were 17 coffins, not just one.
27:43So it's unlikely that this was a case of symbolic burial.
27:47So there has to be another explanation, maybe something to do with the occult.
27:51From the 16th to the 18th centuries, between 3,000 and 4,000 people were tortured, convicted, and executed as witches in Scotland.
28:05The situation in Edinburgh was especially bleak, with more burnt at the stake than anywhere else in the country.
28:12Arthur's seat has long been associated with witches as a site of ritual and spell casting.
28:19So it could be that the figures were put there as some sort of spell designed to inflict harm or even death.
28:29The problem with that explanation is that in witchcraft, the dolls used to represent people are generally destroyed or damaged in the process,
28:38like sticking pins into voodoo dolls.
28:42But the figures in the coffins were painstakingly dressed in stitched cotton clothing and carefully buried in the cliffside.
28:50They were treated with a certain level of respect and reverence, which isn't typically associated with witchcraft.
28:57The answer may be related to something much more sinister.
29:03In the early 1800s, Edinburgh was a prominent centre for medical studies, and the study of anatomy was vital to this education.
29:12As such, a significant number of cadavers were required for dissection.
29:18The standard source for bodies was criminals who had been hanged for their run-ins with the law.
29:23But the problem with this was the demand for bodies was so great, it began to outpace supply.
29:30So enterprising crooks recognized an opportunity.
29:33Body snatching, the practice of digging up the dead from graveyards and selling them to medical schools, became rampant across Scotland.
29:41It got so bad that relatives would lock coffins with iron mortars for the first six weeks after burial, and those who didn't have the money to do this would go so far as to stand watch at the cemetery.
29:54Enter William Burke and William Hare, two Irish labourers who ended up in Edinburgh and decided to fill the gap in the cadaver market, not by body snatching, but by murder.
30:08In 1827 and 1828, it's believed Burke and Hare sold at least 16 bodies to esteemed lecturer and anatomist Dr. Robert Knox.
30:19It was later revealed that only one of the corpses had died of natural causes.
30:26The others, mostly drifters, had met a grisly end at the hands of the infamous duo.
30:32Ultimately, Hare turned King's evidence, and Burke was convicted and hanged after a sensational trial that captured the public's attention.
30:41After the miniature coffins were discovered at Arthur's seat, speculation began to circulate that there was a connection to Burke and Hare's murder spree.
30:52The time frame certainly fits.
30:55The coffins are thought to have been buried sometime around 1830, just two years after the men were actively killing people.
31:03Also, the number of bodies that Burke and Hare sold matches the number of coffins, 17.
31:09The coffins were believed to have been carved with a sharp hooked knife, and the ornaments on the outside were made of the same metal used in shoe buckles.
31:18So people began to suspect that the burial was the work of a shoemaker.
31:23Burke had tried his hand at shoemaking after struggling to make ends meet as soon as work building the Union Canal came to a close.
31:30One theory is that Burke himself may have carved and buried the coffins as an act of contrition.
31:36But the counterpoint to this is that the two men were arrested right after the last killing, leaving him no time to perform the burial.
31:43Burke's remains have been preserved at Edinburgh University, and a DNA sample was obtained, but no traces could be recovered from the buried figurines for comparison.
31:54So if Burke likely wasn't responsible, the other possibility is that the coffins were placed there by someone who knew him and Hare.
32:03It could have been someone who was involved in the murders and wanted to assuage his conscience by giving the victims a symbolic mock burial.
32:11These people met terrible ends, and this may have been an attempt to restore some dignity to them, or in the Christian conception, allow their souls to rest properly.
32:23It's possible, but the problem with that notion is that 12 of Burke and Hare's victims were women, yet the figures found in the coffins were all dressed in male clothing.
32:35If it was a mimic burial, you would think that whoever took the time to do this would have accurately depicted the sex of the victims.
32:42That being said, this theory probably makes the most sense, but the bottom line is we still don't know who made these coffins and buried them at Arthur's seat, or why they did it.
32:55Just over 180 years after they were thought to have been buried, the curious case of the miniature coffins took one last strange twist.
33:04Only eight of the coffins survived over the years, and they're on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
33:13In 2014, a box with no return address was delivered to the museum, and it contained a near-perfect replica of the coffins, complete with the metal ornamentation on the lid and a carved figure inside.
33:25There was also a note in the box that read 18, implying that it was the 18th coffin of the collection.
33:30It also quoted Robert Louis Stevenson's 1884 short story, The Body Snatchers, which was based in part on Burke and Hare's murderous rampage.
33:41It further thanked the museum for caring for our national treasures, which is what these tiny coffins have become.
33:50The fairy coffins, as they're now called, continue to beguile endless visitors to the National Museum of Scotland.
33:57These tiny pieces of Edinburgh's mysterious history represent a puzzle that may never be solved, but it certainly won't be from a lack of trying.
34:07Greece's strange floss with a traditional famous
34:08rendered
34:20howana
34:26Athens, the capital of Greece, is known as one of the world's oldest cities, with a recorded history spanning over 3 000 years ago.
34:34with a recorded history spanning over 3,000 years.
34:40This ancient city is regarded as the birthplace of Western civilization and democracy.
34:46The ancient Greeks made important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy,
34:51and medicine that influence us today. They even gave us the Olympic Games.
34:56The ancient Agora was the heart of the city's public life. It was used for social gatherings,
35:01it was a marketplace, but most importantly it was the space for the development of Athenian democracy.
35:09That's where you would go to vote, to debate, and to participate in any government affairs.
35:14Because of the historical importance of the Agora, the area has been thoroughly excavated,
35:18allowing historians to piece together how the ancient Athenian people lived.
35:24As one team of archaeologists worked tirelessly to excavate the land,
35:28they discover a simple water source that had been lost to time.
35:34Located outside the northwest corner of the Athenian Agora, and measuring just under 40 inches in
35:40diameter, the Agora well drops into the ground and is lined with terracotta tiles.
35:48At around 42 feet down, bones are discovered. A lot of bones. There are skulls of dogs,
35:54pigs, horses, boars, even a ram. And most shockingly, there are human skulls and bones.
36:04As they get further and further down the well, they find an abundance of human and animal bones
36:09all mixed together. Most startling is that the majority belong to 450 infants, and just a few of
36:16them belong to older individuals. So why are all these bones here? And what happened to these children?
36:24The city of Athens has had its fair share of battles and occupations over the millennia,
36:33and one of those could be responsible for this massive burial site.
36:38One of the most famous and brutal attacks on the city came from Rome in 86 BCE,
36:43known as Sulla's Siege of Athens. This was during the First Mithridatic War, which was sparked by
36:48escalating tensions between the Roman Republic and the King of Pontus, Mithridates VI, who wanted to
36:53expand his power and challenge Rome's control in the northeastern Mediterranean.
36:58Not happy about this, Rome sent General Lucius Cornelius Sulla to clean up the mess and restore
37:05Roman authority to Greece. Athens was one of the first cities he had in his sights, and he was going
37:11to make an example of that. Sulla cut the city off from supplies and reinforcements, leading to famine
37:19and desperation among the population. Then his army looted Athens' treasures, while brutally slaughtering
37:26not just soldiers, but also civilians. Athens was left in ruins, with its population decimated,
37:37and its cultural and political prominence severely diminished. This period could have led to mass
37:43grave burials of small children, especially if the city was barely left standing.
37:50As the remains in the well are further studied using advanced technology, researchers are able
37:55to establish a time frame for the deposits. The bones are dated to between 165 and 150 BCE,
38:03so they can't be from the siege of Athens, which brings up a different possibility that is honestly
38:10even more disturbing. Sacrificial practices have been a key part of human history, serving religious
38:17and cultural purposes. From animal offerings in ancient Greece and Rome, to human sacrifices in
38:23cultures like the Aztecs, these rituals were performed to appease their gods, seek favour, or maintain
38:29balance against bad weather, drought, or anything suppressing a group of people.
38:33In modern-day Trujillo, Peru's northern coastal region, archaeologists unearthed the remains of over
38:40140 children and more than 200 juvenile llamas, all killed at the same time. The llamas were all facing east
38:49towards the Andes Mountains, which suggests they were most likely sacrificed to please their gods.
38:54The children were identified as victims of human sacrifice due to cut marks found on their bones.
39:03But the infant's remains found in the Agora well show no signs of extreme violence like hearts and
39:08ribs being removed. So I think we can rule out human sacrifice. Examples of mass graves of children are
39:17not uncommon in history. Along the shores of Israel's Mediterranean coast, in the ancient seaport of
39:24Ashkelon, an archaeological exploration of the city's sewers uncovered a significant collection of
39:30small bones, totalling over 100 infants from the Roman era. An examination of the remains showed no
39:39signs of illness or disease, suggesting that the infants were healthy when they died. They also
39:44discovered that none of them had lived longer than a week. In Roman times, infanticide was actually
39:50fairly widespread. It was often used as a practice for limiting family size that was both effective
39:56and safe for the mother. In most cases, a Roman woman who did not want her newborn would practice
40:02exposure, abandoning the infant to either be taken in by someone else or left to die.
40:09It was believed that the fate of the child was in the hands of the gods,
40:12who would decide whether the infant would be saved or not. Investigations revealed that in the sewer where
40:19those infant remains were found, those were probably babies from prostitutes who didn't have the means to
40:25look after them. So is it possible that the babies in the Agora well were also unwanted orphans?
40:32But the Agora was primarily devoted to civic, social and religious activities, including marketplaces and
40:40temples, making it an unlikely location for bathhouses. Those would be close to a gymnasium or wrestling school.
40:49Additionally, while numerous structures have been uncovered in the Agora,
40:52no substantial remains of bathhouses have been identified in the area.
40:57Though we might not know exactly why all of these infant bones are together in the Agora well,
41:05new technologies are helping to uncover what might have caused their deaths.
41:10All but three of the infants were less than a week old at the time of their death,
41:14with one-third showing signs of neonatal meningitis, as evidenced by reactive endocranial bone deposition in
41:22their skulls. This finding highlights the role of viral diseases in neonatal mortality during that
41:28period, which is considered the most vulnerable time for a child's survival.
41:34It could be that the well was just used as a place to discard these infants' bodies,
41:37who might have died during childbirth or close to it. Most likely, a midwife took the remains
41:42to a secret place in the middle of the town, but in an out-of-the-way and deserted corner.
41:46The Agora well might have been the perfect place for this strange act.
41:49Two similar wells containing animal and human remains were later found in the Greek town of
41:56Eritrea. So maybe this wasn't unique to Athens. When they looked carefully at the remains in those
42:01other wells, they found bones from babies about the same age as the ones found in the Agora,
42:07who probably died of similar illnesses. So maybe the Agora was just a more extreme example
42:14of something that was practiced more widely.
42:15The Agora bone well remains a fascinating and mysterious glimpse into life in ancient Athens.
42:23While the exact purpose of the well is unclear, it shows how ancient societies dealt with life,
42:29death, and survival. However, interpretations can vary widely, and the motivations behind these mass
42:37burials remains the subject of ongoing archaeological and anthropological debate.
42:51According to this, many of the
42:52sources we have got to do about the mythology of our history.
42:52The book that took place in the past four years were vague,
42:54it's not anticipated to be the fact that, and the fact that,
42:56that seems to be the case that, at the time why we have taken a chance to be the elements of a
42:59B-seller somewhere, in a place where we have to unglaublia's story.
43:00So I'd say, get stuck in the past two years of the book that I found in the past four years,
43:00and see you, get stuck in the past four years.
43:01Today, get stuck in the past six years of the book that I found out for the book that I had to
43:02the book.
43:03It is a good place that I found in the past few years for years,
43:03and I think that I experienced it.
43:04That's the best way that I found the actuality that I found,
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