- 1 day ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01A mysterious cave along the coast of Scotland
00:04reveals evidence of a dark past.
00:07Despite their isolation, the caves contain evidence
00:10of human activity going back hundreds of years.
00:13They weren't even 10 feet into the entrance
00:15when they noticed hundreds of human bones
00:18strewn across the cave floor just below the surface.
00:22So what are these remains doing
00:24in such an inaccessible location?
00:28Human remains excavated in England
00:31could belong to one of the most storied rulers
00:34in the country's history.
00:36But this was no ordinary excavation.
00:39In fact, it was the result of an extremely specific
00:42and high-stakes, high-profile search
00:44for the remains of one of the most infamous figures
00:47in British history, King Richard III.
00:50Is it possible the two leg bones belong
00:53to this notorious monarch?
00:55A strange manuscript is uncovered in an Italian archive.
01:00While sifting through dusty chests
01:02filled with forgotten manuscripts,
01:04Voynich finds one that sticks out like a sore thumb.
01:07Overall, it seems to be an odd fusion
01:09of science, art, and fantasy.
01:12So what is this book?
01:13And where did it come from?
01:14Buried.
01:15Hidden.
01:16Cursed.
01:17From mystical artifacts and doomed treasures
01:31to mysterious structures and ancient rituals.
01:36Myths and legends that have long been shrouded
01:40in the shadows of history
01:42are finally brought into the light.
01:45These are Secrets in the Dark.
01:52On the shore of Scotland's Moray Firth Inlet,
02:1040 miles east of Inverness, lie the Cove Sea Caves,
02:13a series of sandstone caves carved right into the cliffside.
02:17The Cove Sea Caves run along the tide line,
02:20so they're not only remote,
02:22they're extremely difficult to get to.
02:24If you want to reach them,
02:26you either have to scramble down a 100-foot cliff
02:28or you have to take a really long walk around on the beach.
02:32But the thing is,
02:33that beach is only accessible at low tide.
02:36Despite their isolation,
02:39the caves contain evidence of human activity
02:41going back hundreds of years.
02:43The most famous of them is the Sculptor's Cave,
02:46a reference to the mysterious figures
02:48appearing in the surface rock at the cave's entrance.
02:51The stone carvings date to around 400 CE
02:55and were created by a confederation of tribes
02:57native to Northern Scotland called the Picts,
02:59who were best known for their clashes with the Roman army
03:01when they invaded Britain.
03:03The Picts left hundreds of carvings across the landscape
03:06and the images found at the Sculptor's Cave
03:08include a fish, a crescent and a V-shaped symbol.
03:12There is speculation that the symbols represent
03:15either personal names or tribe names,
03:18but the exact meaning of the carvings is still unknown.
03:21So the cave has long been a source of fascination
03:23for historians and archaeologists.
03:26A group of archaeologists is collecting data
03:29about the Picts' symbols at Sculptor's Cave
03:32when they make a surprising discovery.
03:35They weren't even ten feet into the entrance
03:37when they noticed hundreds of human bones
03:40strewn across the cave floor just below the surface.
03:44Even more shocking and more troubling,
03:47many of those bones appeared to belong to children and infants,
03:50including a line of juvenile skulls near the cave's mouth.
03:56Larger bones are also present like collar bones
03:59and sternums and pelvises.
04:01So what are these remains doing
04:03in such an inaccessible location?
04:06A deeper inspection of the cave site
04:08reveals important clues about the bones' origins.
04:11Scattered among the bones were many small metal objects
04:14that were decorated in a copper alloy.
04:16Bracelets, pins, and even gold-plated rings
04:20that appeared to be personal adornments,
04:22like hair rings, earrings, or rings
04:24for the piercing of the nose and septum.
04:26Similar rings have been discovered
04:28at archaeological sites across northern France,
04:31Belgium, and even areas of northern Britain.
04:33But those artifacts were dated to the Late Bronze Age,
04:37about 1100 BCE to 800 BCE.
04:41And the first known evidence of human activity
04:43in the Cove Sea Caves
04:44doesn't appear until at least a thousand years after that,
04:48around the time of the Pictish tribes.
04:50Bone samples are sent for analysis,
04:53producing some surprising results.
04:56Radiocarbon dating revealed that the remains are,
04:59in fact, from the Bronze Age,
05:01meaning that there was human presence
05:02at the Sculptor's Cave
05:03over a thousand years earlier than previously thought.
05:06And while the cave was selected
05:08as the final resting place for these individuals,
05:10it had not been there first.
05:11The bodies had been stored and curated
05:13at another location for a short period
05:15immediately after death,
05:17and then transported to the cave.
05:19Some of the juvenile skulls had been cleaned
05:21and polished before being brought here
05:23along with the other remains,
05:25possibly as part of a funerary ritual.
05:27This explains the presence of copper
05:29and gold-plated trinkets and rings,
05:31which were probably grave goods.
05:33But there was a troubling question
05:35about the identity of the dead to reconcile.
05:38Bone analysis confirmed over 85% of the remains
05:41were from children and infants,
05:43hardly a representative cross-section of the community,
05:46not to mention the line of juvenile skulls
05:49near the cave entrance, as if on display.
05:52It's a horrific thought,
05:54but were these children the victims of human sacrifice?
05:57The ritualistic killing of children to appease a deity
06:01has been a feature of civilizations across the globe,
06:04from the Incan Empire and Aztec to ancient Rome.
06:08In its time, child sacrifice was viewed
06:11as an extension of the idea
06:13that the more important the object of sacrifice,
06:15the more devout the person rendering it.
06:17By today's social codes, of course,
06:19everything about the practice is beyond reproach.
06:22It's murder.
06:23But for many ancient societies,
06:26it was considered both a civic duty
06:28and an honorable way to die.
06:30However, the remains discovered inside the mouth
06:33of the sculptor's cave were late Bronze Age bones,
06:36and there's no record or evidence of children
06:38being sacrificed until the Roman Iron Age,
06:40over a thousand years later.
06:42So there has to be another explanation
06:45for the overwhelming presence
06:47and percentage of juvenile remains in the cave.
06:49Certainly, whoever brought them to this spot
06:52went through a lot of trouble to get them here.
06:54Is it possible the answer lies in the cave itself?
06:58A closer look at the sculptor's cave
07:00and its physical surroundings offers some insight.
07:03Structurally, this cave is totally different
07:06from the other caves along the coastline.
07:08It's got this distinctive twin entrance,
07:10and then it's got this long passageway
07:12that continues about 30 feet,
07:14and then it opens into this large cathedral-like space.
07:18It's a huge area.
07:20It's about 50 feet wide, 35 feet long,
07:23and there's more than enough room
07:24for people to stand up in it.
07:26The ceiling is more than 15 feet high.
07:29Throughout history,
07:31caves have frequently been seen as liminal spaces
07:34between two worlds, the living and the dead.
07:37Legends from both ancient Greece and Rome
07:39record stories of mortals
07:41who entered the netherworld through caves.
07:44Both Hercules and Aeneas visited the underworld
07:46through a cave at the edge of Lake Avernus
07:48on the Bay of Naples.
07:50Add to that the presence of the ocean.
07:53At high tide, the sculptor's cave
07:55was only reachable by boat.
08:01Perhaps not coincidentally,
08:02many society's folklores feature the ferryman,
08:05who takes us to the other side,
08:07across the water by boat,
08:08as a symbol of journey from the world of the living
08:10to the world of the dead.
08:13Seen this way,
08:15the cave was likely a sacred final resting place
08:17to honor those who died too young.
08:19In other words, children.
08:23While there's no concrete way to prove this theory,
08:25it would explain why many of the bones
08:27were first stored and curated elsewhere
08:29before being brought to the cave.
08:31Further excavation in the large cathedral section
08:35deep inside the sculptor's cave leads to another discovery
08:39that deepens the mystery.
08:42There, they find another substantial collection of bones.
08:47But these ones are different from the Bronze Age discovery.
08:51These are overwhelmingly the bones of adults, not children.
08:54And weirdly, they're made up of different body parts
08:58than the bones in the first group.
09:00The first collection of juvenile bones were mostly of the pelvis,
09:05breast bone, shoulder blades, and skulls.
09:09This second grouping consisted largely of bones
09:12from the spine, ribs, hands, and feet.
09:16This suggested not only a different ritual,
09:19but possibly one from a different era entirely.
09:25As with the first discovery,
09:26the interior collection of bones was mixed with ornaments and trinkets,
09:29likely part of funerary rites.
09:31Right.
09:32There were glass beads, pins, and shards of red-glazed pottery.
09:36But the most significant find was over 200 Roman coins,
09:39dated as recently as 364 CE.
09:43Is it possible this one remote cave in the Scottish cliffside
09:46contained the remains of two different groups of people
09:48who lived over a thousand years apart?
09:50Analysis of the bones confirms their origin as being from the Roman Iron Age,
09:57and also reveals something sinister.
10:00Nine vertebrae from the upper neck showed signs of decapitation.
10:03So some of these individuals had entered the Sculptor's cave alive
10:07and were killed right there on site, execution style.
10:11The question is, who performed the execution?
10:13At this time, the military arm of the growing Roman Empire
10:18didn't reach this far north of Scotland.
10:21The Roman influence in the region was mostly cultural and political,
10:26which explains the coins.
10:28So these individuals were not killed by Roman soldiers.
10:32It's possible they were the victims of a local skirmish between warring tribes.
10:36The analysis gives this surprisingly narrow window for the deaths,
10:42all spanning about 115 years, likely between 220 and 335 CE.
10:50So this suggests that there was either one violent event
10:55or multiple executions over a very short period of time.
11:01Isotope analysis suggests a fairly homogenous group
11:04with a similar diet to the Late Bronze Age individuals 1,000 years earlier.
11:10So if the victims were local,
11:13it could be the result of powerful political shifts,
11:17possibly even a defeated family line abruptly snuffed out.
11:21But there's no way to know with any degree of certainty.
11:25We may never learn the true identity of these people
11:29or the specifics around their gruesome deaths,
11:31but their discovery adds to the growing mystery surrounding the Sculptor's Cave,
11:37which has lured and captivated people for thousands of years.
11:40Rome, often referred to as the Eternal City,
11:43boasts a rich and unparalleled history
11:46that spans over 2,500 years, shaping much of Western civilization.
11:52As the heart of the ancient Roman Empire,
11:53it was a cradle of innovation, culture, law, engineering, and architecture.
11:55It was a cradle of innovation, culture, law, engineering, and architecture.
11:58Iconic landmarks, such as the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon,
12:02stand as testament to the ancient Roman Empire.
12:03Rome, often referred to as the Eternal City,
12:06boasts a rich and unparalleled history that spans over 2,500 years,
12:12shaping much of Western civilization.
12:15As the heart of the ancient Roman Empire,
12:18it was a cradle of innovation, culture, law, engineering, and architecture.
12:22Iconic landmarks, such as the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon,
12:27stand as testaments to its grandeur.
12:30Rome is a spiritual center of Christianity,
12:33and home to Vatican City,
12:35seat of the Roman Catholic Church and residence of the Pope.
12:39At the Vatican Center is one of the holiest sites of the Catholic tradition,
12:44St. Peter's Basilica, erected over the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle.
12:48This, plus Rome's vast number of historic churches and catacombs,
12:54showcase its lasting role as an important center of faith.
12:58Just outside of Rome, at the Jesuit college of Villa Mondragone,
13:03rare book dealer Wilfried Voynich uncovers something out of the ordinary.
13:07While sifting through dusty chests filled with forgotten manuscripts,
13:11Voynich finds one that sticks out like a sore thumb.
13:13It looks like a modern book rather than a scroll.
13:178.9 by 6.3 inches printed on vellum, the skin of an animal.
13:23Flipping through the book's 234 pages,
13:26Voynich is astonished by what he sees.
13:29It's filled with flowing, looping handwritten text
13:32in an unfamiliar language,
13:34arranged in short, strange paragraphs.
13:37Many are punctuated with decorative stars and symbols,
13:39adding to the strangeness of this manuscript.
13:43The book is brimming with unusual illustrations of otherworldly plants,
13:49naked women, astrological symbols, and miniature human-like figures
13:53immersed in baths or even strange structures.
13:57It's unlike anything he's ever seen before.
13:59The imagery comes to life with shades of green, blue, red, and yellow,
14:06though the pigments have faded over time.
14:09Some pages unfold into larger diagrams, hinting at a deeper complexity and intent.
14:15Overall, it seems to be an odd fusion of science, art, and fantasy.
14:19So what is this book, and where did it come from?
14:24His interest peaked.
14:26Voynich purchases the book,
14:28and enlists the help of experts in an attempt to decipher its meaning.
14:32It seems to be divided into distinct sections,
14:35each featuring unique illustrations and themes.
14:38The botanical section contains drawings of unidentifiable plants,
14:42paired with text, suggesting an herbal or medicinal purpose.
14:45The astronomical section includes circular diagrams resembling zodiac signs,
14:52star charts, and celestial imagery,
14:55possibly reflecting astrological or cosmological knowledge.
15:00There's a biological section containing small, nude female figures
15:04that appear to interact with strange, tube-like structures,
15:08or bathed in pools connected by intricate plumbing systems.
15:11The pharmacological section features drawings of plant roots in apothecary jars,
15:16hinting at early medical practices.
15:19But while some of the book's subject matter seems evident,
15:22early attempts to decipher it fall flat.
15:25Maybe it has no meaning at all.
15:27Throughout history, several books, initially shrouded in mystery,
15:32have been revealed as hoaxes,
15:34with one of the most famous being the Aurelinde book.
15:37It was written in an old Frisian dialect,
15:40a language closely related to Old English that was used by the people of Frisia,
15:45a region that spanned the North Sea coasts and islands of modern-day Germany
15:49and the Netherlands during the early to late Middle Ages.
15:52The text claims to document historical, mythical, and religious themes
15:57spanning from the ninth century CE back to the third millennium BC.
16:02Initially, the document was celebrated as a groundbreaking source on Europe's dark ages
16:07and earlier history.
16:09And a Dutch expert in ancient Frisian published a translation in 1872,
16:13confidently declaring it authentic.
16:15However, doubts arose from the start,
16:18and by the time the translation was released,
16:20the book had already become the center of heated debate,
16:23with many scholars dismissing it as a fraud.
16:25The text portrays the Frisians as a noble, advanced, and morally superior people
16:32with a significant role in shaping European history.
16:35This could have been intended to elevate Frisian cultural pride
16:39and establish them as central figures in European heritage.
16:42The book's content contained many historical and linguistic inconsistencies,
16:48elements that didn't belong to the time period.
16:51Certain words, phrases, and ideas reflected 19th century influences,
16:55rather than the ancient Frisian past,
16:57and the Aurelinde book eventually became widely known as a fake.
17:01Could Voynich's manuscript also be a hoax?
17:05To determine whether the Voynich manuscript is fact or fiction,
17:10its text must be deciphered, and its history carefully traced.
17:14Carbon dating places the book's origin between 1404 and 1438 CE,
17:20and it appears and disappears throughout history,
17:24from the library of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II
17:28to a Jesuit scholar who tried to decipher it.
17:31Cryptologists studying the manuscript believe its writing exhibits the structure of a real language,
17:36with letters and letter combinations appearing in consistent patterns.
17:40The text follows linguistic rules not found in randomly generated sequences,
17:46suggesting this is the real deal.
17:49But if it's not a hoax, what could its true purpose be?
17:53Could it be a codex waiting to be deciphered?
17:56A codex is an ancient style of book that has pages bound together along one side,
18:02rather than being rolled like a scroll.
18:05A codex would need to be translated if its language, script, or symbols were either unknown,
18:11encoded, or in a lost dialect, which might be the case with the Voynich manuscript.
18:17There are plenty of examples of codices being found all over the world
18:21that scholars couldn't decipher until they found other pieces to give them answers.
18:27One of the most fascinating stories of a codex is the Handbook of Ritual Power,
18:32a 20-page document written in Coptic, the last stage of the Egyptian language,
18:37primarily used by Egyptian Christians.
18:39It's now a dormant language that's no longer widely spoken,
18:43largely replaced by Arabic following the Arab conquests of Egypt.
18:45Dating back approximately 1,300 years, the codex contains a collection of magical spells and formulas,
18:54including love spells and instructions for performing exorcisms.
18:58It's believed it may have been written by Sethians, an ancient Christian sect that revered Seth,
19:05the third son of Adam and Eve.
19:07The Handbook of Ritual Power was likely used by early Christians, possibly the Sethians or another mystic group in Egypt.
19:17It was probably used as a practical guide for performing rituals rather than just a theological text,
19:23serving both spiritual and supernatural purposes.
19:27Could Voynich's book be a codex as well?
19:31Just missing what type of language was used in it?
19:33It's possible. The language has no relation to known shorthand or variation of medieval Latin, English, French, or any other known language.
19:43Maybe ancient scholars were trying to create an alphabet for a language that was spoken, but not yet written.
19:49Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is famous for its moai, the massive stone statues that puzzled European explorers in the 18th century.
19:59The mystery language of Rongo Rongo was also discovered there, when a missionary noted the island's wooden tablets and staffs covered in strange, hieroglyphic-like symbols.
20:11The Rongo Rongo script remains a mystery, with only about two dozen surviving examples now housed in institutions worldwide.
20:18Radiocarbon dating on four pieces held by a Catholic convent in Rome, revealed that while three date to the 18th or 19th centuries, one dates back to between 1493 and 1509, which is over 200 years before European contact.
20:36It's believed that the Rapa Nui islanders developed Rongo Rongo on their own, without influence from European writing systems, because the glyphs have no similarity to European letters.
20:48Rongo Rongo has been studied for a century and a half, but it has never been deciphered.
20:54So maybe that's the case with the Voynich manuscript. It's written in a language that may never be understood.
21:02Currently housed at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Voynich manuscript continues to fascinate researchers, and there's no shortage of theories about who created it and what it means.
21:14But the book's true story remains locked within its undeciphered pages.
21:19Located in England's East Midlands region, the city of Leicester lies across the River Soar, just a hundred miles near the city of Leicester.
21:45The city of Leicester lies across the River Soar, just 100 miles north of London.
21:51Leicester is best known for its rich history of conquerors and the conquered.
21:57When the Romans invaded the East Midlands in 43 CE, they encountered an Iron Age settlement
22:02that had developed since the second century BCE.
22:06Following the Roman conquest, the Anglo-Saxons settled in the Roman ruins, only to be overthrown
22:11by the Vikings in the early Middle Ages.
22:15But the period of history that is most commonly connected to Leicester is the 15th century,
22:20the late Middle Ages.
22:22This includes the War of the Roses, a brutal civil war over control of the throne that culminated
22:28in the slaughter of King Richard III and the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.
22:33Some of the houses and structures from the Middle Ages still remain in downtown Leicester,
22:37thanks to the city's restoration and preservation efforts.
22:41Most of the medieval buildings have either been buried and paved over or were destroyed,
22:46such as the Catholic monasteries demolished by King Henry VIII in 1538.
22:50A team of archaeologists is excavating one of three trenches in a Leicester car park when
22:56they make a stunning discovery.
22:58It's the first day of the project, and they're just six hours into the dig.
23:02Ten feet below the surface, they find a single human leg bump.
23:07And at first, they thought, maybe it's just there all by itself, but you don't need a
23:12PhD in forensic anthropology to know that if you find a human leg bone buried underground,
23:16you're probably going to find another leg bone.
23:19And sure enough, that's what they found.
23:22Ordinarily, this might get a reaction of surprise or even shock, but this was no ordinary excavation.
23:29In fact, it was the result of an extremely specific and high-stakes, high-profile search for the remains of one of the most infamous figures in British history, King Richard III.
23:40Is it possible the two leg bones belong to this notorious monarch?
23:47Richard Plantagenet, the Duke of Gloucester, became King of England in 1483 when he was 30 years old.
23:54He ruled for only two years, but those 24 months were marked by chaos and destruction.
24:00King Richard III left no legitimate or political heirs, ending the Plantagenet dynasty that had ruled England since the 1100s.
24:11History hasn't looked favorably upon his short, chaotic reign.
24:15Most historians agree it was a bit of a disaster.
24:19But it's how Richard III came to power that played such a big part in his reputation as a villain and a false king.
24:29He wasn't even in direct line for the throne when his older brother, Edward V, died suddenly.
24:35The next two in line were Edward's sons, Richard's nephews, who were only 9 and 12 at the time.
24:41Richard claimed to be the boy's protector, but later had them murdered and snatched the crown for himself.
24:47Scholars have recently produced a more balanced re-evaluation of Richard,
24:53focusing on his loyalty to England, his commitment to justice, and even his reforms to help the poor.
25:00He was a courageous warrior who wasn't afraid of joining the battle himself.
25:04It was at the Battle of Bosworth Field that he led a mounted charge against Henry Tudor in an attempt to end the conflict.
25:11But Richard was surrounded by Tudor's men who cut him down.
25:16Since there's no doubt that Richard died in the Battle of Bosworth Field,
25:22why was the excavation site focused on a seemingly random car park in the city of Leicester, over 13 miles away?
25:28A closer look at the events immediately after Richard III's death provides several clues.
25:35After Richard was slain by Tudor's men, the corpse was butchered, but his face was left untouched,
25:42because the new king, Henry VII, wanted proof that it was his body that they were looking at.
25:48Richard was stripped naked, flung across a mule, and paraded for display in the town of Leicester.
25:55All of this was part of the Tudor's attempt to shame and humiliate this former monarch and tarnish his reputation.
26:04Richard's reputation wasn't helped much by William Shakespeare,
26:08who in his 1594 play about the king emphasized not only Richard's cold-blooded villainy,
26:14but also his physical deformities, which included a severe curvature of the spine,
26:19which gave him a hump shoulder and a slight limp.
26:23Richard was finally laid to rest with little fanfare in the church at Greyfriars Abbey,
26:28a monastery in Leicester.
26:31By looking at existing historical maps of the former abbey,
26:35it was determined its ruins were likely somewhere under the present-day car park.
26:40But where exactly?
26:42Working carefully not to tamper with evidence,
26:45the archaeologists continue to uncover body parts.
26:49The next thing to appear was a human skull,
26:51which was in the correct position, anatomically speaking, above the leg bones.
26:55However, the skull was several inches higher in the ground and turned in an awkward position.
27:02It wasn't lying flat.
27:05So based on this, it was possible the skull wasn't connected to the same individual as the leg bones at all.
27:11But as more of the surrounding debris was removed,
27:14there appeared to be a full skeleton, including the skull,
27:18which was connected but was raised up on one side of the grave.
27:21The arms and the hands were crossed over the chest and they were placed on top of the pelvis,
27:27which was a very unusual posture for a medieval burial.
27:31The bizarre positioning had several implications.
27:35The grave appeared to be too small for the full skeleton,
27:39which had to be twisted and contorted to fit in.
27:42It's possible the body was placed in haste without much care or even respect for the deceased individual.
27:48The hands crossed over each other could signify they had been bound together at the time of burial.
27:55But the most astonishing aspects of the skeleton were the spine and vertebrae.
28:00They demonstrated a pronounced curve, as Richard was reported to have had,
28:04and was made famous by Shakespeare.
28:07A series of carbon dating tests is performed on a bone sample to determine its age.
28:13The results revealed the time of death being between the years 1455 and 1540.
28:19Richard III was killed in 1483.
28:22So in terms of carbon dating, the skeleton passed the test.
28:25But we still don't have proof this is Richard III.
28:29We know the skeleton has a curved spine, but maybe that happened after death.
28:34Maybe it was just the result of being placed in a cramped grave that was too small.
28:38To confirm officially that this was Richard III, the most accurate and effective method was a DNA test.
28:46This involved taking a sample of DNA from the skeleton's bone tissue, which was relatively easy,
28:52and comparing it to the DNA of a known living descendant of the king, which was going to be more of a challenge.
28:59DNA has been used to solve several mysteries that have previously baffled historians for centuries.
29:05One of the most famous was the 200-year-old story of Caspar Hauser.
29:10Hauser was a German youth who appeared out of nowhere in 1828
29:14and who claimed he had grown up in captive isolation in a dungeon,
29:18looked after by a mystery man he never saw.
29:21Unable to speak or write, he carried an anonymous letter stating he had been kept in isolation since he was a baby.
29:28The story captured the public's imagination and made Hauser a celebrity.
29:33The attention increased when the king of Bavaria, Ludwig I, ordered that he be guarded day and night for his own protection,
29:40fueling speculation, gossip, and rumors.
29:43One theory suggested Hauser could be the son of Grand Duke Karl, and that he was kidnapped and swapped as a newborn.
29:51This would have positioned Hauser as the rightful heir to the throne and altered the line of succession of the Grand Duchy of Batten.
29:58Using preserved blood samples and hair, a team of forensic scientists analyzed traces of mitochondrial DNA,
30:04which has passed down the mother's line, and were able to prove unambiguously that Hauser's DNA type
30:09did not match that of present-day members of the Grand Duchy of Batten.
30:13Although the true identity of Hauser remains a mystery, modern science proved he wasn't a prince after all.
30:18As the search continues for a living descendant of Richard III, there is suddenly a new historical plot twist that needs to be reconciled.
30:27A compelling and conflicting account of what happened to Richard's body.
30:32In 1611, a document published by a historian named John Speed insisted that Greyfriars Abbey was not the final resting place of Richard III.
30:40Speed wrote that when the church was demolished by the Protestant King Henry VIII,
30:44Richard's body was removed by an angry mob and thrown into the river off the Bow Bridge.
30:49Although Speed didn't provide any proof, by the 1800s many people accepted it as truth.
30:54This was reinforced when a skeleton was found at the riverbank.
30:57If there was any truth to that story, then this whole excavation at the car park would be fruitless.
31:03But, closer look at the life of John Speed reveals that right before writing his version of what happened,
31:10he traveled to Leicester to search for Richard's remains and to map the Greyfriars Abbey.
31:16And here's the catch. In the map that Speed created, he put the Greyfriars Abbey in the wrong location.
31:23He confused it with the Blackfriars Abbey, and so he went looking for the grave in the wrong church.
31:29When he couldn't find Richard's grave, he simply made up the story about the Bow Bridge.
31:34The team persists in their pursuit of identifying a living descendant of Richard III's,
31:39but faces an uphill battle because he had no heirs.
31:43Their only hope will be to follow the matrilineal line,
31:46like the method employed by the Caspar Hauser researchers.
31:50And the exhaustive work paid off. Two living descendants were finally identified and verified through Richard's matrilineal family tree.
31:57That's no small feat, given it represented 23 generations of women.
32:02One was a descendant of Richard's sister, Anne of York, and the other, his mother, Cecily Neville,
32:07both of whom agreed to submit to a DNA test.
32:10No doubt they had their fingers crossed while they were waiting for the results, but there was no need to worry.
32:15The sample DNA of all three was a perfect match.
32:18They had the same sequence of mitochondrial DNA.
32:22Ultimately, the remains of King Richard III were officially declared authentic.
32:27The discovery of Richard III's remains buried in obscurity solved the mystery that has fascinated historians for centuries,
32:35and revealed the final missing chapter of England's most notorious and nefarious king.
32:4120 miles north-west of Warsaw, the tiny Polish village of Pomichowek lies in the dead of Warsaw.
33:0320 miles north-west of Warsaw, the tiny Polish village of Pomichowek lies in the dense green valley of the Wachrol River.
33:13Pomichowek has a population of less than 10,000.
33:17And while there's some agricultural activity and a direct rail line to Warsaw,
33:22it's a quiet village, best known for the surrounding dark forests of the Mazovia region.
33:27With no hills and very few lakes, one-fifth of the entire Mazovian landscape is covered by mostly coniferous forests.
33:37The peace and quiet of Pomichowek today stands in stark contrast to its turbulent and bloody past.
33:44The area has been a crossroads for regional conflicts in Europe going back centuries.
33:49In 1410, Polish troops were overpowered by a Lithuanian-Russian coalition.
33:55On two separate occasions spanning 500 years, the Poles were defeated by Swedish troops under Kings Charles X and Charles XII.
34:04Even Napoleon's Grand Army fought and defeated the Russians here in 1806.
34:11Pomichowek was also an important trade route.
34:14Its strategic position in the center of Poland made it an obvious hub for merchants traveling between Eastern Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia.
34:23There were even rumors of a Roman trade route in a forested region right outside the village dating back as far as 95 BCE.
34:31But it had never been found, mostly because people were hesitant to look for it,
34:36given the area was known to have live explosives left over from World War II.
34:40A group of historical researchers is looking for evidence of this ancient Roman road when they find something unexpected.
34:52With a combination of courage, curiosity, and a large supply of metal detectors,
34:57six ancient silver coins were discovered just a few inches below the floor of the forest.
35:02These coins were large, about the size of half a human palm, and they appeared to be well-preserved.
35:07At first, they were thought to be Kopecks from the Soviet Union, since Soviets were known to be in the area in the Second World War.
35:15But a closer look told a different story.
35:17These coins were hundreds of years old, possibly even thousands of years old.
35:22The metal detectors picked up more signals, and eventually a shocking 17 silver coins were retrieved,
35:30all of them close to where the ancient Roman trade route was rumored to be.
35:34Is it possible these coins were proof of Roman merchant activity going back two millennia?
35:41It wouldn't be the first time silver coins from the Roman age were discovered in Europe.
35:48The tiny Italian island of Pantelleria is just a dot on the map, located about halfway between Sicily and Tunisia.
35:55But despite its size, the island has a rich archaeological history.
35:59It's also an ideal place to stop during a longer sea trade voyage.
36:04Cleaning and restoration work was being done on the two main structures of the Acropolis at Pantelleria,
36:09Santa Teresa, and San Marco.
36:12When a stretch of heavy rain fell on the island, a large piece of the earthen wall collapsed and slid right off.
36:19The mini landslide revealed an ancient hiding place filled with pieces of denarii,
36:25a silver coin introduced in 211 BCE.
36:29A total of 27 denarii were collected, analyzed, and dated.
36:34This was during the era of the Roman Republic,
36:37a busy time for trade contracts and political activity.
36:40So it's entirely possible that the coins were collected to be used in a commercial transaction.
36:46But given that the coins were placed behind the structure's wall,
36:49it was also possible that they were deliberately hidden in haste during an ancient pirate attack.
36:54There were frequent raids against the villages along the coast and on the islands at that time.
37:00So it's easy to imagine someone stashing the money if and when a pirate ship approached.
37:05It's possible the coins in the Polish forest were also deliberately hidden beneath the earth's surface.
37:11But were they from the Roman Empire?
37:15The coins recovered in the Mazovian forest are given a preliminary inspection with surprising results.
37:22A few of the 17 coins were too worn to identify date of origin.
37:26But most of them were revealed to be from the late 1500s to the mid 1600s.
37:32The oldest coin was made between 1564 and 1587.
37:37And the most recent one was dated to 1641.
37:41Several of the coins could be identified as specific currencies,
37:45including two well-known types, the toller and the patagon.
37:49Tollers were large silver coins used throughout Europe for centuries.
37:53It's also the origin of our word dollar.
37:56The patagon, also a large silver coin, was used in provinces held at the time by Spain,
38:02including modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
38:07But some of the coins were so rare that there were no known examples in historical catalogues to compare them with.
38:14So while these silver coins weren't from the Roman age after all,
38:18they did present a compelling mystery.
38:21Why were they collected, then seemingly concealed in the woods, as if hoarded, then hidden?
38:27Who did they belong to?
38:29And how did they end up buried in a dark forest in Poland?
38:33Precious coins of the same era have been discovered in secret hiding places throughout Europe.
38:38In a quiet farming hamlet in Dorset, England,
38:41a married couple was removing the concrete floor of their kitchen
38:44when they discovered a glazed pottery bowl filled with 400-year-old coins.
38:49The cash contained gold coins with James I and Charles I,
38:53as well as silver half-crowns and silver shillings in sixpence displaying Elizabeth I.
38:59The coins were sent to the British Museum,
39:02where it was determined that they'd been hidden in the farmhouse at some point between 1642 and 1644.
39:09This coincided with the English Civil War, which was a conflict between supporters of the king, Charles I,
39:15and supporters of Parliament, who believed that the king had too much power.
39:20At the end of the war, Charles was executed and his son exiled, leading to a short-lived republic.
39:26But during the war, supporters of both factions frequently seized each other's property and goods.
39:32So it's thought that whoever hid the coins in the house was likely trying to protect their assets.
39:38All of this makes sense both in terms of the Dorset location and the provenance of the coins themselves.
39:44They were all British currency.
39:46In regards to the 17 Pamichua coins, one question kept coming up.
39:51How did so many coins from different countries end up together, only to be ditched in the woods?
39:56A closer look at each coin's origin provides a critical clue.
40:01One of the coins was a Polish toller minted in 1630.
40:05Another 1641 toller was from Prussia.
40:08Two were from Austria, and others were from Saxony.
40:12Five 1621 Patagons were from the Spanish Netherlands, and so on.
40:17Taken in total, the wide variety reflected a period when European economies and currencies were decentralized,
40:24which resulted in an abundance of unique and localized mint issues.
40:30They were also a reflection of the turbulent and unstable times, and the rapid changes in the political landscape.
40:37And while Poland was at the center of the conflicts geographically,
40:41that still doesn't explain why all the different coins were discovered together.
40:47Maybe the answer lies in the constant warfare between battling European countries.
40:53It was a common practice for armies to hire mercenaries.
40:56Paid soldiers who may not have had an allegiance to any one side, they were loyal only to their paycheck, or their cash of silver coins.
41:05The dates of the 17 coins cover a particularly bloody period of European history called the Thirty Years' War.
41:14The Thirty Years' War refers to a series of conflicts between 1618 and 1648, during which time Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Bohemia all clashed over religious, territorial, and commercial supremacy.
41:29By the time the war ended with the Treaty of Westphalia, the map of Europe had been completely redrawn.
41:37Only seven years later, in 1655, a Swedish invasion of Poland, called the Deluge, lasted another five years.
41:46One of the battles between the Swedish army and the Polish crown forces took place at Novi Dvor Mazowiecki, which is only 10 miles from Pomičiwek.
41:57Both wars featured armies that hired mercenaries, many of whom would fight for more than one faction over time,
42:04and so would receive currency from different sources.
42:07The mercenaries also survived by adopting a wolf strategy, living off the land and plundering and devastating villages as they went.
42:16Seen in this context, there are suddenly countless possible scenarios of foreign soldiers hiding their pay near the battlefield, intending to collect it later.
42:25It's also possible that local villagers took to the forest with the cash of their own coins and buried them to keep them safe from the wolf pack of mercenary soldiers.
42:35While we may never know the real answer, the discovery of the coins at Pomičiwek sheds light on one of the many unwritten stories and mysteries of 17th century European warfare.
Be the first to comment