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00:00Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:19our own feet.
00:23And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:30Tonight, famous discoveries from a missing masterpiece.
00:37Out of nowhere, members of the media begin calling Susan, asking, where did you find
00:42it?
00:42And most importantly, did she know what she had?
00:46To an incredible national treasure.
00:49As the appraiser starts reading, some familiar words start to jump out at them.
00:54But there's more, because at the bottom, there's a signature.
00:56To one of the most famous lost ships of all time.
01:01This is the holy grail of found shipwrecks.
01:06People have been searching for it for over 70 years.
01:09Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:13We've all done it.
01:25Brought a book and forgot to return it.
01:28For one family, this slip-up leads to finding a long-lost literary treasure.
01:35In 1990, Barbara Testa is going through some old boxes and bags in her attic.
01:44As she digs and rummages through the clutter, she comes across some old family letters and
01:50some of her grandmother's handwritten poems in an old steamer trunk.
01:53It's a sentimental and nostalgic trip through family history.
01:59But then Barbara pauses.
02:02Tucked between the familiar stories and memories are pages in a handwriting she doesn't recognize.
02:09As she's reading the pages, they appear to be a part of a manuscript, and the words are becoming more and more familiar.
02:18Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
02:20And a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better.
02:26Barbara's uncovered a handwritten manuscript of Mark Twain's masterpiece,
02:31The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
02:33Barbara reaches out to Sotheby's, who sends an armored truck to her home to collect the book.
02:42Sotheby's works with the Mark Twain Papers Project at UC Berkeley.
02:47They compare the handwriting, style, and structure to other authenticated Mark Twain manuscripts.
02:53Sure enough, the handwriting matches perfectly.
02:57But there's a twist.
02:58It's only half the book.
03:00The rest is missing.
03:02So how did this part end up in Barbara's attic, and where's the rest?
03:08Barbara tells the researchers that her grandfather, James Fraser Gluck,
03:12was the curator of a library in Buffalo, New York.
03:16And the man was a zealous collector.
03:19He was collecting manuscripts from some of the world's most famous writers,
03:23people like Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott.
03:26And everything he collected, he donated to the library.
03:29Researchers discovered that, back in the mid-1880s, Gluck had contacted Samuel L. Clemens,
03:38better known as Mark Twain, requesting the manuscript for his collection.
03:43Twain, who was a former resident of Buffalo, New York, agreed to send Gluck the handwritten
03:47manuscript of a Huckleberry Finn, but he only finds the second half of the book.
03:52So that's what he sends over to Gluck, which remains in the library to this day.
03:56And that's where the story is thought to end.
03:59But it turns out, in 1887, unbeknownst to everybody, Twain did find the first half,
04:06and he sent it to Gluck.
04:07Except for some reason, it never makes it into the Buffalo Library's collection
04:11to join the second half of the book.
04:13We do know that Gluck died suddenly in 1897, and the whereabouts of the manuscript were
04:21unknown.
04:22It's not until Barbara's discovery, over 100 years later, that the lost half is found.
04:28One rare book collector calls it the greatest literary find of the 20th century.
04:34Twain lovers are ecstatic, and so are Barbara and her sister, who plan on auctioning it off
04:40to make a pretty penny.
04:42But before the bidding even starts, they get a notice from the Buffalo Public Library,
04:47claiming they own the rights to Barbara's half of the manuscript.
04:52While Barbara wants to sell the book, the library wants to keep it with the other half
04:57in their collection.
04:59After some legal back and forth, the two sides finally reach a deal.
05:03Barbara and her sister get a finder's fee of $1 million, and the library promises to put
05:09Twain's complete manuscript on display, just as her grandfather intended.
05:13So all in all, everybody ends up getting what they want, 114 years later.
05:19Meanwhile, another crew isn't digging through paper.
05:23They're pulling something far stranger from the ground.
05:26It's 1872 in Los Angeles, and Major Henry Hancock has set up an operation quarrying natural asphalt
05:40from his property.
05:43Large pools of the black, sticky liquid are all over his ranch near the surface, and there's
05:49a big demand for this substance right now.
05:51It's needed to pave roads, tar roofs.
05:54Los Angeles, at this time, is a growing city.
05:59But as workers start digging out the tar, they come across a large bone.
06:05Then they find another.
06:07Then dozens.
06:08Then hundreds.
06:10Then thousands.
06:11This land used to be a Spanish ranchero, so people first assume that these are the remains
06:21of cattle or horses that accidentally stumbled into the tar.
06:25Hancock wants to know just what is going on, so he calls his geologist friend named William
06:31Denton to come and take a look.
06:33Denton looks at many of the fossil bones and starts to realize they're too large, not shaped
06:39correctly for cattle at all.
06:40Denton also finds a very large fossilized tooth, much bigger than any mountain lion or other
06:49cat native to the area.
06:52After further research, he determines that the tooth fossil comes from a saber-toothed
06:58cat that went extinct in this area over 9,000 years ago.
07:02The discovery is fascinating, and it's just the beginning.
07:07Over the years, more massive bones are unearthed.
07:11Then, in 1901, a geologist named W.W. Orcut takes over, and he's determined to find even
07:19more.
07:20He sets up a major excavation and research operation to remove and catalog the thousands
07:28of bones that are still being pulled from the asphalt.
07:30Orcut and his team find skeletons from thousands of different species, all from the Pleistocene
07:38epoch between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago.
07:41These include mammoths, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, and other massive megafauna that ruled
07:50the world during the Ice Age.
07:52The area eventually gets named the La Brea Tar Pits, and it's a gold mine, one of the biggest
07:58deposits of prehistoric bones in the world.
08:03But how did so many end up in one spot?
08:06Researchers believe that animals were lured to the area to drink from nearby streams and
08:11then would get trapped in the black, sticky substance.
08:15Researchers have even found bones from entire families, meaning they obviously got caught together
08:21and perished in this tarry trap.
08:25Exploration of the area continues for decades.
08:28Then, in 2006, another project stirs up something brand new.
08:36The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, next door to the La Brea Tar Pits, decides that they
08:41want to build an underground parking garage.
08:44They bring in these cranes and heavy earthmovers to begin the task, and as soon as they do, what
08:49do they find? But, you guessed it, more bones.
08:54Altogether, the workers uncover 16 new fossil deposits. But by far, the most important discovery
09:02is an 80% intact adult mammoth skeleton.
09:07This is the most complete set of mammoth remains to come out of the tar pits, and one of the
09:12most complete adult specimens ever found anywhere in the world. The animal is given the affectionate
09:19name Zed. Researchers determined that he died around the age of 48, nearly 37,000 years in the past,
09:27probably from injuries sustained fighting over a mate.
09:30Today, you can go see Zed at the La Brea Tar Pit Museum, one of the most famous natural sites
09:36in Los Angeles, and one that attracts around 400,000 visitors every year.
09:41Antiques, old clothes, dusty heirlooms. That's all one woman thought she'd find, cleaning out
09:53her dad's house. But what she had covered turns out to be worth far more than just memories.
10:02It's 2004 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Susan Hendry Chirot is going through the belongings
10:07of her late father, Basil Hendry Sr. They're going through antiques and old clothing and
10:14some religious artwork that he had collected. Susan keeps a few paintings that have sentimental value,
10:21and then assigns the rest to a pile that she's willing to sell, including a dark, old, gloomy
10:30painting of Jesus Christ. So a year passes, and Susan finally gets around to having these paintings
10:36appraised. The appraiser isn't really blown away by any of them, but he thinks that that one of Jesus
10:42could maybe get $750 from the right collector. The piece has been heavily overpainted, maybe even
10:49multiple times. It looks almost cartoonish. Plus, the painting's condition is deteriorating, so Susan
10:57is eager to get rid of it, and she puts it up for auction. When the painting hits the auction floor,
11:03something happens that shocks everyone. The bidding starts low, but several paddles go up,
11:10blasting past the $750 mark. They start going above $2,000, $3,000, and eventually this painting sells for
11:21roughly $10,000. Ten grand isn't going to change her life, but it's certainly a lot more than she'd hoped
11:28to get from cleaning out some of the old family belongings. So Susan pockets the money, and she really
11:32doesn't think much more about it. A few years later, Susan's phone starts ringing off the hook.
11:40Out of nowhere, members of the media begin calling Susan, asking her about this Jesus painting that
11:46she sold at auction. They asked, where did you find it? Where did it come from? And most importantly,
11:52did she know what she had? To most, it looked like just another old painting. But as the new owners embark on
11:59a skilled restoration, a very different story comes to light. As they clean it up and remove the dark layers
12:08of paint on the surface, a new, different image starts to be revealed. The group takes infrared
12:16photographs to get a better look at this image that's peeking through. They see what's called a
12:21pentimento, which is basically a tracing of an earlier piece. There's a version underneath the painting
12:27where Jesus's thumb is straight instead of in a curved position. Based on this, the new owners believe
12:35they've uncovered a lost work from one of the most famous artists of all time, Leonardo da Vinci.
12:44As it's carefully restored, the piece becomes easily recognizable as a missing da Vinci known as
12:50Salvatore Mundi, which translates to the savior of the world. The revelation sparks a flurry of headlines.
12:58How did such an important work of art end up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana? Susan believes that her father
13:07acquired the painting from her aunt Millie, but no one ever mentioned that this painting was anything
13:13overtly special. With little to go on, experts dig deeper to better connect the dots. Researchers tracked
13:22down records from a Sotheby's auction in 1958, featuring the estate of James Cook, the grandson
13:29of famous British art collector, Sir Francis Cook. Sure enough, there's a record of aunt Millie buying
13:36this painting for 45 pounds, roughly 120 bucks. Once it's fully restored, the Salvatore Mundi goes back up for
13:45auction in 2017. This time, a member of the Saudi royal family buys it at auction for 450 million dollars,
14:00making this, once discarded painting, the most valuable piece of art in world history.
14:09You'd think if you were spending almost a half a billion dollars on a painting,
14:13you'd want to show it off, but nobody's seen it since the sale.
14:18The rumor is that it is in a high security vault somewhere in Switzerland,
14:23and with the history of the Salvador Mundi of appearing and disappearing, we may never see it again.
14:31Or maybe we will.
14:35In 2012, another revered piece of history falls into one woman's lap.
14:43Marie Mulciotti, who is a book conservation technician at Brown University's library,
14:50is going through a recent donation from the estate of Solomon Drown, who graduated from Brown in the year 1773.
14:59And while going through a book that was published in 1811, called The Modern Practice of Physics,
15:06she finds something unusual. A little slip of paper is tucked in the back.
15:12She carefully unfolds the paper, and she sees a depiction of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.
15:18But at the bottom, she notices an inscription that says,
15:22P. Revere Sculp.
15:24Malciotti can't believe her eyes. She knows that Sculp in a signature stands for Sculps It,
15:32which is Latin for He Engraved It. And she sees the name P. Revere. So she started thinking to herself,
15:39there's no way that this could be THE Paul Revere from the Revolutionary War.
15:45Most Americans know from school that in April 1775, Paul Revere was responsible for warning the colonists
15:53that the British military was on their way. Less well known is the fact that before he became
16:00a celebrated patriot, Revere made copper plate engravings for books and magazines.
16:06Arguably, his most famous engraving was the Boston Massacre in 1770, which was used as a key piece of
16:15propaganda for the American Revolutionary War effort. But this piece is a little different. This etching
16:21is of a religious nature. It depicts Jesus being fully submerged in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.
16:29The piece is titled, Buried with Him by Baptism.
16:33For more insight, Malchody brings the etching to Richard Noble, the Brown University Library's
16:41rare material cataloger. Noble first examines the paper itself. He holds the paper up to the light,
16:48and he sees a ribbed structure, which is a telltale sign of 18th-century paper. Then,
16:54Noble moves on to his next area of focus, looking at who Solomon Drowned actually was. The alumnus who
17:02owned that collection of books, it turns out that he was a contemporary of Revere's. So,
17:08the age of the books, as well as the etching, they both line up.
17:13Finally, Noble discovers that there are actually four other copies of this etching attributed to Paul
17:20Revere. So, he calls the American Antiquarian Society and the Worcester Art Museum to have this
17:25copy compared to the others. Sure enough, they're a match. So, it's an authentic Paul Revere etching.
17:34But there is one difference between this one and the other copies. This is the only one with the full
17:39plate mark visible, making it extremely rare. The exact value of this etching isn't known,
17:45but other Revere works, including one of the Boston Massacre, have sold for over $400,000 at auction. And
17:54this one is even more unique. Now, while this incredible engraving has been featured in numerous
18:00exhibits, you can actually go see it today. Whether you're a history buff or a Paul Revere enthusiast,
18:06it's at the John Hay Library at Brown University, by appointment only.
18:16Imagine it's 1799. You're a young French soldier, digging near a dusty fort in Egypt,
18:23when your shovel hits something strange. A stone slab covered in symbols no one can read. What it meant,
18:31and who left it there, puzzles historians for decades.
18:38July 1799. Napoleon and his army are marching across Egypt, conquering everything inside. After the army
18:50takes the town of Rashid, they begin to construct a fort, laying claim to this area. Under the blazing sun,
18:58the soldiers are digging a foundation for the fort when they strike something unexpected
19:06in the sand. A large black stone.
19:12This isn't the kind of stone that you skip across a pond. This one is almost four feet tall,
19:18two and a half feet wide, and it weighs over 1,600 pounds. These soldiers have no idea what
19:24they're looking at, so they call over a superior officer. This army officer is not an archaeologist,
19:31but he notices the stone is covered in strange inscriptions. He tells his soldiers to dig it out,
19:40and they bring it straight to Napoleon. Napoleon gathers some of his best scholars
19:45to try and figure out what it says. These scholars have never seen anything like this,
19:51but what they are able to determine is that the inscriptions look like three distinct languages.
19:57One of these languages is ancient Greek, which these experts can read, and it translates to some
20:03kind of text about an ancient pharaoh's accomplishments. The other symbols look like
20:09hieroglyphics and demotic script, a demotic script being a kind of ancient Egyptian language used by
20:16ordinary people, but now lost. So the scholars are able to identify what it is they're looking at,
20:21but they're not able to read it. Before Napoleon's team can decipher the mysterious writing,
20:28the British close in. On March 21st, 1801, in the Battle of Alexandria, the British defeat the French
20:36in Egypt. They seize control of Rashid and the stone right along with it. They ship it back to England,
20:42where King George III decides to place it at the British Museum in London.
20:47The British send copies of the inscriptions on the stone's face to scholars around the world,
20:52hoping someone will be able to unlock its lost languages. One of these copies lands on the desk
20:59of a young French linguist named Jean-Francois Champollion. He's a prodigy who can speak 13 languages
21:06by the time he was 20. Champollion knows the Greek alphabet, so like scholars before him,
21:12he has no trouble reading one-third of the inscriptions. The other two are going to take him some time.
21:20Based on rudimentary knowledge of hieroglyphics, Champollion can already identify where a royal name
21:28occurs. It's surrounded by an oval called a cartouche. He compares the name Ptolemaeus in the Greek text
21:37with a matching cartouche in the hieroglyphics. Then comes the key realization. All three languages have
21:45the same message. That connection helps him begin cracking the code. Not just in hieroglyphics,
21:53but in the middle script as well. Then he discovers that hieroglyphics is a hybrid language. Some symbols
22:01represent words. Others depict objects. But other symbols convey entire ideas. Piece by piece, Champollion
22:10maps phonetic sounds to the symbols, slowly unlocking a language that's been dead for nearly 1500 years.
22:18Essentially, the stone reads like a resume of King Ptolemy V Epiphanies.
22:23It's a chronicle of his good deeds. Everything from tax cuts to restoring peace after a rebellion
22:30during his predecessor's reign. He wants everyone to know about his legacy, and he leaves a record
22:37to prove it no matter what language you speak. It's called the Rosetta Stone, named for the town it was
22:45founded. The Rosetta Stone functions almost like a decoder ring. This allows scholars to finally read and
22:54interpret countless inscriptions, texts, and artifacts, unlocking a wealth of knowledge about one of the
23:01most significant civilizations in history. For many historians, the Rosetta Stone is the best thing to
23:08come from Napoleon's otherwise quite brutal reign. Our next great find takes us from the sands of Egypt
23:17to a Greek island where a farmer stumbles upon one of the world's most famous faces.
23:23On April 8, 1820, a Greek farmer by the name of Georgos Kentrotas is looking for stones to help
23:35build up a retaining wall on his property on the island of Milos. And as he's gathering together
23:40all these stones, he notices that there's one that seems curiously out of place.
23:44He gets closer, brushes some dirt away, and he realizes he's found a smooth piece of marble sticking
23:54up from out of the earth. The island of Milos is known for rich mineral deposits, things like
24:00sulfur or obsidian, but not marble. As the farmer continues to look for rocks to build his wall,
24:08he finds another piece of marble, and another. And before you know it, he's got a pile of marble,
24:15and he can't believe his eyes. Coincidentally, a French naval officer named Olivier Voutier is
24:23exploring the ruins of an ancient theater nearby. He notices the farmer's reaction to the strange
24:30stones that he's finding in his field, and so he goes over to see what Kentrotas has discovered.
24:34The two men sort through the pile of stones, and they realize that some of them actually might fit
24:41together. It takes a little trial and error, but they slowly reassemble something very surprising.
24:51In front of them is the torso of a beautiful naked woman, although they're unable to find her arms.
24:57Voutier, however, knows enough about ancient relics to recognize something valuable when he sees it,
25:03and so he contacts officials back in France, urging them to purchase this piece.
25:10The French ambassador arranges to purchase the statue, and soon it's on its way to Paris,
25:16where she is presented to King Louis XVIII.
25:19The king donates the statue to the Louvre, where experts identify the statue as Aphrodite,
25:26the Greek goddess of love, who's also known as Venus in Roman mythology.
25:31This identification gives the statue her iconic name, the Venus de Milo.
25:37This masterpiece is carved from two distinct pieces of marble and then carefully joined together,
25:46and when it is, the Venus de Milo stands at an imposing six feet, seven inches tall.
25:52Today, this statue that once lay in pieces across a farmer's field is seen by about seven million people a year.
26:08You expect to find important pieces of American history in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., or even New York.
26:16But imagine how unexpected it is when one turns up on a quiet farm in North Carolina.
26:26In 2022, the Wood family of Edenton, North Carolina decides to sell their 184-acre estate.
26:34The property is historic, dating all the way back to the 1700s.
26:38So the state of North Carolina decides to buy it and turn it into a landmark.
26:43The house itself is old, and it has some original period items that the Wood family believes probably worth some money.
26:49To prepare for the sale, the Woods bring in an appraiser to see what they might be worth.
26:55As the appraiser surveys a room, he spots a dust-covered metal filing cabinet.
27:02Curious, he decides to take a look inside.
27:05Along with some old and insignificant stacks of paper, one thing stands out.
27:13There's a folder that's holding a very old, creased piece of paper.
27:20And as the appraiser starts reading, some familiar words start to jump out at him.
27:25We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.
27:32This is, of course, the famous first line to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
27:37But there's more, because at the bottom there's a signature.
27:41Charles Thompson.
27:42While Charles Thompson is not a well-known name, the appraiser knows his history.
27:48Charles Thompson is the Secretary of Congress during the Constitutional Convention, when the
27:54Constitution was written in 1787.
27:57The presence of his signature on the document provides a powerful indication that this could
28:02be one of the original copies of the U.S. Constitution.
28:05So how does a document of such historical significance end up in a filing cabinet on a North Carolina farm?
28:17Back in the 1780s, before the Wood family had owned the property,
28:21it was the home of the state's governor, Samuel Johnston.
28:25After the Constitution is ratified by the U.S. Congress in June of 1788,
28:30copies of the document are sent to the governors of the 13 original colonies.
28:35One of those copies ends up at the estate on Governor Johnston's desk.
28:41When the governor passes away at his estate in 1816,
28:44all of his papers and his office is essentially turned into a storeroom.
28:50So eventually all those documents are filed away in that metal filing cabinet,
28:54only to be discovered by the Wood family appraiser more than two centuries later.
29:00Thinking that they might have something really valuable here,
29:02the family decides to put the item up for auction.
29:06The last time that an original state copy of the Constitution went up for auction,
29:11it sold for about $400 in 1891, which in today's money is about $15,000.
29:17So not bad for an old piece of paper, but it's definitely not a fortune.
29:22Now, over a century later, the Wood family hopes for the best as the auction begins.
29:28People are participating in person, by phone and online,
29:34and the price quickly soars past $1 million.
29:38Bids begin jumping by $500,000 increments.
29:42It's a seven-minute frenzy as the family watches the price soar.
29:46When the gavel finally falls, the Wood's Constitution sells for $9 million.
29:51An anonymous bidder ends up winning the auction, and according to Sotheby's,
29:58pays the highest amount ever for a book, manuscript, or text at auction.
30:04As for the Wood family, this single piece of paper earns them $3 million more than
30:12than the $6 million that they earned on the sale of their entire property.
30:18Up next, a discovery on a whole different scale.
30:23And this one wasn't tucked away in a drawer.
30:26So it's 1984, it's the Reagan administration.
30:31And with renewed tension between the United States and the Soviet Union,
30:35the U.S. Navy is eager to recover the wrecks of two sunken U.S. nuclear submarines,
30:41the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, both of which sank in the 1960s.
30:48The officials are desperate to find these two sunken submarines to ensure
30:54that the Soviet Union doesn't get there first and discover vital nuclear secrets.
31:00The Navy wanted to know the status of their nuclear reactor,
31:04so they went to a man who was one of the most lauded names in underwater exploration, Bob Ballard.
31:12So in August of 1985, Ballard and his team set off on this top secret mission
31:17to locate and survey the wreckage of these two missing subs.
31:21The team uses a deep-toed sonar coupled with the submersibles to search the seafloor in the grid.
31:30In the search, they find the USS Thresher, and two weeks later, they identify the wreckage of the Scorpion.
31:37Ballard and his team complete the expedition 12 days ahead of schedule.
31:43They take the remaining days and they comb the ocean floor, seeing what else they could find.
31:49They continue using this incredible, sophisticated underwater imaging,
31:53and on September 1st, 1985, operators in the camera room observe something unexpected.
32:01It's a debris field on the floor of the North Atlantic.
32:04Ballard follows the debris field for roughly 2,000, 3,000 feet, ultimately culminating at the hull of a sunken ship.
32:15While the ocean floor is filled with thousands of shipwrecks, Ballard recognizes this as perhaps the most famous of all.
32:24Her name, of course, the Titanic.
32:29He can't believe it. This is the holy grail of found shipwrecks.
32:34People have been searching for the Titanic for over 70 years.
32:39But Ballard and his team find the Titanic almost as a footnote on a military mission.
32:45The find makes headlines around the world, makes a celebrity of Ballard,
32:51and reignites interest in this so-called unsinkable ship.
32:57In the years after the discovery, one key detail was kept under wraps.
33:02Only in 2008 could Ballard finally reveal that were it not for the secret search for the thresher and the scorpion,
33:10the Titanic might never have been discovered.
33:20It's 1592, and a team in southern Italy are hard at work digging a ditch for a powerful duke
33:28when they unearth something unusual buried in the air.
33:35A team of workers are trying to excavate an underground tunnel system to bring water from
33:40the Sarno River to a town four miles away called Torre Annunziata.
33:45Workers encounter layer after layer of hardened ash compacted like cement from previous eruptions
33:52of the nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius.
33:59One day, as workers are digging, they find pieces of what appears to be ancient frescoes,
34:04and some have inscriptions on them.
34:06They stop and grab their supervisor, and when he looks at what the workers have found,
34:11he can't believe his eyes. These seem to be ancient ruins, and upon closer examination,
34:20the architect finds ancient walls adorned with paintings and inscriptions.
34:26He petitions the duke for permission to excavate, but the duke is focused on just one thing,
34:31getting water to Torre Annunziata. The site sits untouched for the next 150 years,
34:39until King Charles III of Spain decides to explore it further.
34:44In the mid-1700s, we're in the middle of the Age of Enlightenment, which is a time period where
34:49rulers were literally competing with each other for knowledge and information. As part of that thirst
34:55for glory, the King of Spain wants to be the first to excavate Fontana's worksite.
35:02The site is still buried under tons of hardened volcanic ash and holds little known significance,
35:09but they call in Swiss military engineer Carl Weber to oversee the dig anyway.
35:16As they dig deeper, Weber and his team uncover something shocking.
35:21Right there on one of these ancient walls, workers discover an inscription,
35:26Re Pubblica Pompeianorum, the Republic of Pompeians.
35:37Now, Weber knows without a doubt that they've uncovered something remarkable.
35:42It's the legendary lost city of Pompeii, missing for nearly 1500 years.
35:49Pompeii was perfectly preserved by one major catastrophic event,
35:55the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
36:05This is not your average volcanic eruption.
36:09When this thing blows, experts estimate it releases thermal energy 100,000 times more powerful than the
36:16atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
36:19It erupts so suddenly that many residents don't have time to flee.
36:25They're preserved in the same positions, sitting, standing,
36:29hugging that they were in at the time of the eruption.
36:33In all, most scholars think that 1500 to 2000 people died in the eruption.
36:38But some estimates suggest that as many as 16,000 people died.
36:42They had no chance.
36:44They had no chance. Everything happened so fast, so chaotically.
36:49Pompeii and its citizens are wiped off the map.
36:53Simply put, it's total devastation.
36:55With more than a third of Pompeii still buried, there's still plenty more to be discovered.
37:00And it's all thanks to workers digging a ditch in the 1500s.
37:11It took five years and many dead ends.
37:14But when one of archaeology's greatest discoveries is finally made in Egypt,
37:18it happens by accident, thanks to a young water boy.
37:22In November 1922, 12-year-old Hussein Abdel Rasool does what he does every day.
37:33Carries heavy jugs of water to the dig site of famous British Egyptologist Howard Carter.
37:40Carter's team has been digging at this site, known as the Valley of the Kings, on and off for years.
37:45As you can imagine, digging in the Egyptian desert is a brutal undertaking.
37:51Temperatures reach well over 100 degrees, and all the sand reflects the heat onto the workers at the site.
38:02So Carter and his team rely on water boys like Hussein to bring jugs of water to the dig team all day, every day.
38:10The Egyptian sands can often be unsteady,
38:13and so Hussein and the other water boys will often dig little trenches
38:16in order to place these jugs to ensure that they don't tip over.
38:21One day, Hussein buries a jug of water just as he's done hundreds of times.
38:25But on this day, something is different.
38:29As he digs, he hits something hard.
38:33Something that shouldn't be there.
38:36He clears the sand off it, and there's the shape of a step.
38:39Now, Hussein doesn't know where this leads, but in all his time, he's never seen anything like this.
38:46And so he calls Howard Carter over to take a look.
38:49When Carter sees the step, he can't believe it.
38:52He wants to know where it leads.
38:55He brings the rest of the team over, and they ferociously dig for the next three weeks.
38:59Eventually, they discover a sunken staircase, ending at a heavy stone door.
39:14On the door, he sees something incredible, a seal with the markings of Tutankhamun.
39:21On November 24th, Carter breaks a small hole in the door and peers inside.
39:27Then, silence.
39:29When asked if he sees anything, Carter responds in awe,
39:32yes, wonderful things.
39:37The rest of the team heads down to join him.
39:40And as they enter, they find four burial chambers filled with 5,000 extraordinary treasures.
39:49There are gold-covered chariots, stunningly crafted jewelry, and a sarcophagus inscribed with King
39:57Tutankhamun's cartouche.
39:59This discovery is a dream come true for Carter because he's wanted this for such a long time.
40:05It also captures the public's fascination, and it leads to what many call Tutmania.
40:10Effectively after this, King Tut becomes the first world-famous pharaoh.
40:14Archaeologists spend years cataloging and removing these fragile items, all left to honor this fallen
40:22king who ascended the throne when he was just nine years old and died when he was 18.
40:29Perhaps the most iconic discovery of all is a solid gold mask that once covered the face of King Tut's mummy.
40:38Unfortunately, embalming agents acted like a glue to attach the mummy to the golden coffin around it,
40:44and experts have to dismember Tut's mummy to remove it from the tomb.
40:50Howard Carter goes into the history books as the discoverer of Tut's tomb,
40:55but Hussein Abdel Rasul's role in this discovery is much less known.
41:00Carter purposely leaves him out of his published report and attributes the find to his own workmen,
41:07perhaps to save face so that the world doesn't learn that this expert archaeologist was digging in the wrong place.
41:14Either way, it's fitting that the boy King's tomb is finally discovered by a 12-year-old boy himself.
41:26Some of history's greatest treasures were never meant to be found,
41:30but fate, or maybe just dumb luck, had other plans.
41:34I'm Danny Trejo.
41:36I'm Danny Trejo.
41:36Thanks for watching Mysteries on Earth.
41:39Verse 4
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