- 1 week ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00A strange tomb is uncovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
00:07But while excavating below the temple, a wooden coffin was discovered, largely intact.
00:13But the most arresting aspect of the mummy was its face.
00:18It was open-mouthed as if screaming.
00:21So who was this person and what happened to her?
00:25A team of archaeologists is studying aerial footage in Iraq when they make a surprising discovery.
00:31The images showed evidence of the subsurface remains of a huge complex that had gone undiscovered up until that point.
00:37But what was this place?
00:39In the vast desert of New Mexico, researchers unearthed an ancient roadway.
00:44But this was no modern road.
00:46Its origins went back roughly a thousand years.
00:50It was assumed the road was somehow connected to the Pueblo's settlements.
00:54But its exact purpose and function was a mystery.
01:00Ancient lost cities.
01:03Forgotten treasures.
01:06Mysterious structures.
01:08As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath the deserts of the world.
01:14The secrets in the sand will finally be revealed.
01:24East of Egypt's Nile River, the city of Luxor spreads across a dry flood plain for 150 square miles.
01:38Like most of Egypt, Luxor has a hot desert climate, making it clear and sunny pretty much every day.
01:46It's so dry that a year can pass without a single drop of rain.
01:50And yes, the Nile does provide water for agriculture, but the surrounding geography is as dry as a bone.
01:56You've got desert landscapes, rolling sand dunes, rocky plateaus, and mountains.
02:02Today, the city is a thriving center of commerce and industry.
02:08But Luxor is best known as the former city of Thebes, capital of Upper Egypt during the Middle and New Kingdom eras.
02:17Thebes first rose to prominence in the fourth century BCE after the Peloponnesian War, when it became a major military force.
02:27And it remained a powerful capital for most of the following 500 years.
02:33Many of the ancient monuments and temples can still be seen dotting the urban landscape of Luxor.
02:38On the west bank is the Theban necropolis, featuring the Valley of the Kings, an ancient burial ground for Egyptian pharaohs, noblemen, and their families from the 18th to the 20th dynasty.
02:51A team of archaeologists is excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings when they make a surprising discovery.
02:58There's a long row of connected mortuary temples in a valley called Deir el-Bahri.
03:03That's an Arabic name for a monastery.
03:05Below the temples is a series of individual tombs, including one temple for the site's architect, Sennenmut, along with his parents.
03:14But while excavating below the temple, a wooden coffin was discovered, largely intact.
03:21The coffin was opened to reveal a mummy, also intact, of an adult female.
03:27It was laying on its back with extended legs, and both arms were angled inward, so the hands were covering the pelvic area.
03:37But the most arresting aspect of the mummy was its face.
03:41It was open-mouthed as if screaming.
03:46So who was this person, and what happened to her?
03:50The mummy was just over five feet in length from heel to crown.
03:53Its reddish-brown skin was hard and thick and intact.
03:57Its fingernails and toenails were also all accounted for.
04:00And while some of the mummy's teeth were missing, those present were large, white, and strong.
04:06Aside from the open-mouthed scream position, the other notable feature was a large, thick wig braided right into the mummy's sparse hair on either side of the skull.
04:17The wig was composed of dark human hair falling to the shoulders, as opposed to being bound, as was the tradition.
04:25So is it possible the mummy's wig could be a clue to her identity and her fate?
04:31The use of wigs and hair extensions is an illustration of the Egyptians' desire to attain physical beauty through lavish accessories.
04:39Wigs and extensions were frequently used in Egyptian funerary rites, along with other symbols of wealth and power, like precious amulets and jewelry.
04:49But those were all also worn by living Egyptians, men and women, for the same reasons, to indicate their socioeconomic status.
04:58Egyptians crafted the wigs from human hair and supplemented them with plant or flax fibers.
05:04It's believed that dark or black hair was preferred, as it represented youthful beauty.
05:12And while a lot of effort went into the aesthetics, such as styling with curls and braids, the wigs were also practical, as they protected shaven scalp from the sun and maintained hygiene by reducing lice.
05:27A close examination of the screaming woman's wig leads to a critical connection.
05:31The mummy's wig was cleaved in two halves down the center, much like a middle part of natural hair.
05:38And the braids were tapered slightly at each end.
05:41It was an arrangement that was very similar to that of another female mummy buried nearby, the mother of the tomb's designer and builder, Senen Mut.
05:50Senen Mut is best known today for being the architect of the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh who ruled for more than 20 years starting in 1479 BCE.
06:03Her temple was a stunning example of ancient Egyptian design, with three levels of terraces all connected by ramps.
06:11As chief architect, Senen Mut would have had high status in Hatshepsut's court.
06:18And with that, he was entitled to such privileges as securing a burial spot for his parents among the royals and other elites.
06:28However, while Senen Mut's own tomb was to be built under Queen Hatshepsut's courtyard, along with his parents, it was never completed.
06:39Even more mysterious is the fate of Senen Mut himself.
06:43He left public life abruptly, and we still don't know why.
06:47And his remains were never interred in his elaborate but unfinished tomb.
06:52With so many open questions surrounding Senen Mut, we can't conclude with any degree of certainty that the screaming woman was a relative of the architect.
07:01Professor Sahar Saleem, whose forensic and historical analysis of the screaming mummy, revealed another clue.
07:06All of the vital organs, including the brain of the screaming woman, were still intact, and there was a complete absence of incisions to the body.
07:15This was inconsistent with the traditional Egyptian embalming process for high-status individuals, in which the body's viscera was removed before burial.
07:25It's possible that the people doing the embalming did a sloppy job.
07:28Maybe they were rushed, maybe they just didn't know what they were doing, they were incompetent.
07:31I don't know.
07:32That feels unlikely to me.
07:34I think a better explanation is that the mummy, the screaming woman, just wasn't a member of the royal family or the elite class at all.
07:42That idea is supported by the fact that, aside from two scarab rings on her left hand, there were practically no jewels or ornaments or grave goods on the mummy or surrounding the coffin.
07:54Also, her recumbent body position, where both arms were inclined toward her groin, was inconsistent with other elite women's burials in the New Kingdom.
08:05Female members of the royal family were typically buried with the left arm flexed across the chest and the right arm to the side.
08:11So, is it possible that the screaming woman was some kind of outlier, a commoner buried among the elite of Egypt?
08:27A team of archaeologists is excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings when they make a surprising discovery, the screaming woman.
08:35The Egyptians believed that it was critical to preserve the bodies of their pharaohs and kings in order to ensure their safe passage into the afterlife.
08:45This involved removing vital organs, but also dehydrating the body with salt and then covering the dried skin with a blend of natural substances, oils, fats and resins, to prevent decay.
08:56Samples taken from the skin of the screaming woman revealed she'd been embalmed with juniper and frankincense resin.
09:05Not only were these costly items, but they likely had to be imported from neighboring countries.
09:11Hair fibers from the wig had been dyed red with henna, a rare dye prepared with the powdered leaves of the henna tree.
09:18Taken together, the expensive imported embalming materials plus the well-preserved condition of the screaming woman's body indicate that her burial was consistent with those of the pharaohs and elites that surrounded her.
09:33So, maybe she was a member of that elite class after all.
09:38Although rare, the screaming woman isn't the only mummy in Egypt to be discovered with its mouth open wide.
09:44During the 18th dynasty, Princess Amos Maritamun became the great royal wife of her younger brother, the pharaoh Amenhotep I.
09:54As with the screaming woman, Maritamun's remains were discovered in a wooden coffin in the Deir Elbari section of the Theban necropolis.
10:03Her face also an open mouth death mask.
10:05A CT scan of Maritamun's skeleton revealed the young queen had suffered from sclerosis and arthritis, both of which can result in bone curvatures and constrictions of the body's joints.
10:18These findings indicate she may have died of a heart attack and her body was not found before rigor mortis kicked in.
10:25And Maritamun's open mouth was likely due to the natural post-mortem muscle relaxation.
10:30So, it's possible that the screaming woman's open mouth was a direct result of a serious health condition or disease.
10:38If that's the case, is that what killed her?
10:41A CT scan performed on the mummy leads to a breakthrough.
10:44The opening and closing of the mouth is controlled by a bunch of muscles around the temporomandibular joint.
10:50Ordinarily, when those muscles relax, like when you're asleep or after you die, the mouth opens a little bit.
10:55But this extreme gait, this wide open mouth, suggests that the muscles were firing.
11:01So, did that happen after death from rigor mortis, or is this something that happened during death?
11:06To keep the mouth closed for burial, Egyptian embalmers typically wrap the deceased mandible around the skull, keeping it shut.
11:17But the screaming woman's mouth was discovered in an unnaturally wide position, as if she had been crying out in agony when she died.
11:26And there's a biological phenomenon that supports this possibility.
11:30A rare event called a cadaveric spasm, which causes muscles to freeze in the position the person was in at the time of death.
11:38Not unlike rigor mortis.
11:40Cadaveric spasms are usually associated with brutal, violent deaths, under extreme physical conditions and emotions.
11:47So, while the exact cause of death can't be determined for the screaming woman, nor her identity, the expression on her face certainly aligns with intense suffering and pain.
12:00The screaming mummy remains a fascinating curiosity, and its discovery offers a true time capsule for just one of the human mysteries of ancient Egypt waiting to be solved.
12:11Roughly 185 miles southeast of Baghdad lies Talo, Iraq, a city in the Dakar government.
12:32The region is known as the cradle of civilization, because it was home to the Sumerians, the oldest known culture in Mesopotamia.
12:39They were responsible for a host of human advancements, including the development of cuneiform, one of the earliest known writing systems that involved engraving pictograms and symbols into clay with a reed stylus.
12:52The Sumerians were also pioneers in math, science, architecture, and societal organizations, all of which helped to build the foundations for future civilizations.
13:01Archeological evidence tells us that the Sumerians built about a dozen city-states in the fourth millennium BCE.
13:08These urban centers are the first known cities in world history.
13:12One of them, known as Ghirsu, stood where the modern city of Talo in Iraq is located today.
13:18At its peak, around 2500 BCE, Ghirsu was the heart of the Lagash city-state.
13:25The walled city covered an area around 600 acres, and some estimates put the population at between 15,000 and 20,000 people.
13:33Ghirsu was first discovered in 1877 by a French archaeologist, and it was extensively excavated over the next 56 years.
13:43But political instability and armed conflict in the area put a halt to any further exploration in the 1930s, and Ghirsu was largely forgotten about.
13:55But not by everyone.
13:57A team comprised of British and Iraqi archaeologists are analyzing drone footage of Ghirsu when they notice something unexpected.
14:05The images showed evidence of the subsurface remains of a huge complex that had gone undiscovered up until that point.
14:11So what was this place?
14:15Cuneiform tablets discovered by the French excavations claim that Ghirsu was considered a sacred city,
14:22because it was said to be home to the sanctuary of Ninjirsu, the Sumerian god of war,
14:28who was revered because he was believed to battle mythical beasts,
14:32which ensured the spring rains would come and provide water for the irrigation-based agricultural systems of the region.
14:39But the French teams were never able to locate this legendary temple dedicated to Ninjirsu, leaving some doubt as to whether or not it even existed.
14:50So is it possible that the complex detected by the drone images is this elusive structure?
14:55In 2020, archaeologists investigating an area of Ghirsu known as Yuruku, which means the sacred city, unearthed evidence of ceremonial practices dedicated to Ninjirsu.
15:13It was a huge find.
15:17Over 300 broken ceremonial ceramic cups, bowls, jars, spouted vessels, and many animal bones.
15:25One of the artifacts found was a fragment of a vase with an inscription dedicated to Ninjirsu.
15:30The items were in or near a ritual pit known as a favisa that was around 8 feet deep.
15:38The vessels found were probably used in a ceremonial banquet before being ritually thrown into the pit,
15:45while the bones were likely the remains of animals that were either eaten or killed during sacrifices.
15:50The area also had a thick layer of ash, believed to be the remnants of large ritual fires.
15:58The ceremonial ceramics, the evidence of fire, and a favisa indicate that this is where religious gatherings took place,
16:06and where the people of Ghirsu gathered to feast and pay respects to their gods.
16:09In 2024, researchers discovered a cuneiform tablet from the 15th century BCE at the Alalakh archaeological site in Rehanli,
16:20a southern Turkish city near the border with Syria.
16:24At the time the tablet was inscribed, Alalakh was the capital of the kingdom of Mukesh and the largest city in the region.
16:32It was occupied by the Amorites, a culture from western Mesopotamia.
16:36The tablet itself is tiny, measuring only 1.6 by 0.6 inches, and weighing just 28 grams.
16:46It's written in Akkadian, one of the oldest known Semitic languages,
16:51and it's one that's no longer spoken anywhere in the world.
16:54Akkadian's cuneiform script was made up of around 600 signs,
16:58some of which represented full words, while some were just single syllables.
17:02When they translated the tablet, it was discovered that it details the purchase of chairs, tables, and stools by an unknown buyer,
17:13basically an ancient receipt or bill of sale for furniture.
17:17While it may seem like kind of a mundane item,
17:20it actually offers insights into the economic systems of the region during the Late Bronze Age.
17:25So maybe the tablets discovered at Yersu tell a similar story, and the complex isn't a temple, but rather a marketplace for business transactions.
17:37Sure enough, they unearthed the mud brick walls that make up the mystery complex, and the scope of it is staggering.
17:43This was no simple structure.
17:46They are what looks to be the remains of different buildings and multiple rooms and chambers.
17:52But that still doesn't tell us exactly what it was and what purpose it served.
17:57The cuneiform tablets are analyzed in the hopes that they will provide some answers, and the researchers are stunned by the results.
18:04The tablets are essentially the government's administrative archives of Yersu from when the city was under the control of the Akkad dynasty from 2300 to 2150 BCE.
18:15This is an incredible find.
18:17It's the oldest physical evidence of the first empire in recorded history.
18:23Yersu was one of the Sumerian cities conquered by the Mesopotamian king Sargon around 2300 BCE.
18:30Sargon developed a new form of government by vanquishing all the Sumerian settlements and creating what many call the first empire in the world.
18:41Until the discovery of the tablets, information on this empire was scarce.
18:46The only documented records were fragments of royal inscriptions or copies of unreliable Akkadian inscriptions recorded much later.
18:55The tablets could be called the spreadsheets of the empire.
19:00And they reveal a complicated bureaucracy.
19:03Deliveries and expenditures on everything from textiles and precious stones, to fish and domesticated animals, to flour and barley.
19:12Some of the tablets even have maps of canals, architectural layouts of buildings, and other plans.
19:16Believed to have been built around 4,500 years ago, the Lord Palace of the Kings was the centerpiece of the grand city of Gersu.
19:26But it had been lost for centuries.
19:29The palace complex would have been a central part of Sumerian city life, with the king and his court residing there.
19:34It was also an administrative center, a hub for governing the city and its surrounding territories.
19:41Incredibly, other excavations at Gersu finally uncovered the main temple dedicated to Ninjirsu, called Inunu, also known as the Temple of the White Thunderbird.
19:52It was located near the palace complex, showing just how intertwined religious and imperial life were during the Sumerian period.
20:02Before these excavations, the existence of the palace and temple was only known because of passing references made to them that were discovered by the early French excavation.
20:12The Lord Palace of the Kings discovery sheds light on the history, culture, and governance of the ancient Sumerian civilization.
20:21And offers valuable insight into the daily life of one of the oldest cities on the planet.
20:26The northwestern region of Arabia extends tens of thousands of miles between modern day Jordan and into the ecoregion of Iraq.
20:46This is a vast, incredibly arid ecoregion with annual rainfall generally between just two and eight inches.
20:53There are also extreme temperature variations with lows of just 35 degrees in winter and highs reaching up above 100 degrees in summer.
21:04Plants like small shrubs and certain hardy desert flowers do actually grow here.
21:10And the animal species in the area include predators like foxes, caracals, and honey badgers, as well as herds of ibexes and antelopes.
21:20These animals graze alongside domesticated herds of cattle, sheep, and goats who belong to the nomadic pastoralists who lived throughout the desert.
21:31In fact, despite the inhospitable climate, the region has a rich history of human presence dating back thousands of years.
21:39In Saudi Arabia, a team working at the Al-Natar archaeological site notice an unusual structure rising out of the desert landscape.
21:49The outer reaches of the site are marked by the remains of an enormous wall.
21:53In some places, there are only a few piles of brick to tell us where it stood, and other parts are covered in piles of rubble.
22:02Still, based on the existing evidence, it's estimated to have once been over nine miles long.
22:07The southern reaches of the site show us how formidable this wall really was.
22:13Here, the ruins are up to 19 feet thick, and two large towers were added.
22:18A fortification this huge, with defensive features like these, was likely built for protection.
22:22The question is, from what?
22:33Excavations in the central area of the Al-Natar site yield another discovery that raises more questions.
22:39There's a group of tall, circular towers with high stepped walls.
22:45The overall look of these monuments is somewhat reminiscent of the monumental stepped tombs found in ancient Egypt.
22:52When the team entered the towers, they discovered that they contained burial chambers, just like the pyramids.
22:59These stepped tombs have been deliberately built in groups to form an impressive ancient necropolis.
23:04A term that comes from the Greek nekros meaning dead person, and polis meaning city.
23:12In both ancient Greece, and later in ancient Rome, necropolises would often line the roads leading in and out of major cities, dividing the living and the dead.
23:22We can see the same trend in ancient Egypt, where huge necropolises sit along the banks of the Nile, directly across from the cities they were associated with.
23:30The Al-Natar necropolis was built during the third millennium BCE.
23:35Most Greek and Egyptian necropolises built around the same time are associated with large cities that were home to thousands of permanent residents.
23:44But things were totally different on the Arabian Peninsula.
23:48Unlike ancient Rome, Greece, or Egypt, this region was dominated by nomadic pastoralists, who would travel across the peninsula with herds of grazing animals.
24:00Thousands of years ago, these groups developed their own unique burial traditions, constructing elaborate funerary avenues where their dead would be laid to rest under mounds of stones called cairns.
24:13But the monumental tombs at Al-Natar aren't anything like these graves.
24:17The enormous wall and elaborate necropolis at Al-Natar aren't at all consistent with nomadic traditions.
24:27Instead, both of these features point to a sedentary population, raising the possibility that a permanent settlement once existed here.
24:35Excavations in the eastern part of Al-Natar turned up thousands of pottery shards.
24:41Most of them were from simple bowls and jars, some of which were once used to store food.
24:46There were grinding stones too, all of which would have been crucial for cooking during the Bronze Age.
24:51The pottery was associated with the remains of ancient buildings.
24:56Up to 70 of them once stood here, lining narrow streets that would have measured only six feet across.
25:03The amount of domestic kitchenware found tells us that these buildings were likely homes that made up a residential quarter.
25:10The existence of this extraordinary walled settlement tells us there were two competing ways of life being established here.
25:19A nomadic culture that traveled through the desert and a sedentary population that decided to lay down permanent roots.
25:27History is filled with examples of clashes between sedentary and nomadic peoples.
25:32Like during the Ming Dynasty, when the Great Wall of China was massively expanded to keep northern steppe nomads from moving south.
25:41Based on the level of fortification at Al-Natar, it could be that the town also came into conflict with the surrounding nomads.
25:49But what could have caused these tensions between the nomadic and the settled way of life in the first place?
25:55A look back at ancient climate patterns may shed light on the origins of these extraordinary settlements.
26:00Humans have inhabited the Arabian desert for thousands of years.
26:05For a long time, the climate was relatively mild, and savannah-like grasslands spread over huge areas.
26:11But roughly 6,000 years ago, things changed dramatically.
26:15Around 4,000 BCE, a phenomenon known as rapid climate change caused a massive decrease in precipitation across the peninsula.
26:24The environment transformed and left humans to figure out how best to adapt.
26:30Many continued to live nomadically, but over time, others chose to settle.
26:36During the Bronze Age, this region would have been greener than other areas of the desert and would have seemed a natural place to build a permanent town.
26:46And it wasn't alone.
26:49Across Northwestern Arabia, several other oases reveal intriguing similarities to the settlement at Al-Natar.
26:56Karaya is a huge archaeological site, stretching over 750 acres.
27:03The area is marked by a massive brick wall, which once surrounded the entire oasis.
27:09Over time, a residential area also grew here, just like the one at Al-Natar.
27:14During the Bronze and Iron Ages, these settlements appeared around oases across Northwestern Arabia.
27:21Many of them were designed similarly, with internal ramparts dividing the various sections of the town, which were big enough to accommodate hundreds of permanent residents.
27:30The people who lived inside these walled oases built wells and intricate channels to collect surface water.
27:37They used the water to grow crops, orchards, and olive trees, as well as to support local craft production.
27:44These fortified towns flourished in large part due to their strategic location.
27:49Each town functioned as one node in an entire network, right at the intersection of the major powers of Egypt, the Levant, and Southern Arabia.
27:58A comparison of the walled oases to other Bronze Age settlements shows an intriguing trend.
28:04The oases settlements are thought to have supported a population of a few hundred people, which makes them much smaller than some of the cities growing around the same time.
28:15Like the Egyptian capital, Memphis, which would have been home to thousands of residents.
28:21Despite being relatively small compared to major cities, these settlements represent a huge shift in the history of the Arabian Peninsula.
28:28When slow urbanism radically changed the desert landscape over the course of hundreds of years.
28:35The settlement at Al-Nata seems to have persisted for roughly a millennium before the town was more or less abandoned.
28:42The reason why is still a mystery.
28:44Today, Al-Nata provides us with an invaluable glimpse into the past, where these extraordinary walled oases formed a bridge between the region's nomadic past and its increasingly urban future.
28:58Nestled in a remote corner of northwestern New Mexico, the Chaco Canyon carves its way through 10 miles of ancient sandstone.
29:17With an elevation of 6,200 feet, during the summer, Chaco Canyon is a sun-scorched desert with temperatures frequently reaching the mid-90s Fahrenheit.
29:32The winters are long and can get bitterly cold.
29:36And on top of that, the canyon only gets about two to five inches of rain per month.
29:40Despite the harsh conditions, there's evidence of human activity in the area going back as early as 2900 BCE.
29:49These groups were largely nomadic until around 200 AD, when the first farmers settled and built small pit houses.
29:58Then, around 850 CE, the Pueblo peoples began to build permanent homes and ceremonial structures in the area.
30:05And that changed the entire landscape.
30:09The Pueblo, who were the native ancestors of the Hopi and Akoma of today, among others, constructed massive stone and mortar buildings called Great Houses, which soared to four or five stories and contained hundreds of rooms.
30:22Construction on the Great Houses continued for 300 years, until about 1150, when the area was abruptly abandoned.
30:29Today, the Chaco Canyon is one of the most researched sites of the ancient Americas.
30:33The whole area is rich with cultural artifacts from early Pueblo settlers, and the walls of the canyon itself are embedded with fossils going back thousands of years before that.
30:4550 miles south of the canyon, a New Mexico gas company is collecting data for a future pipeline, working in tandem with a team of archaeologists, when they make an unusual discovery.
30:5850 miles south of the Chaco Canyon, a New Mexico gas company is collecting data for a future pipeline, working in tandem with a team of archaeologists.
31:15They identified a long segment of road extending from southeast to northwest in a perfectly straight line.
31:28The road was excavated directly into the sandstone bedrock for roughly 250 feet, at which point it entered the valley flats below, where all visible traces of it disappeared.
31:39But this was no modern road. Its origins went back roughly 1,000 years.
31:48Based on a nearby archaeological site featuring several Pueblo communities to the southeast, it was assumed the road was somehow connected to the Pueblo settlements.
31:58But its exact purpose and function was a mystery.
32:04Given that the great houses required large amounts of heavy raw materials to build them, is it possible the ancient road was a former transport route for the construction of Pueblo settlements?
32:12The design principle behind the great houses was a unique blend of form and function.
32:19They were geometric constructions made with careful craftsmanship, with walls of stone and adobe plaster covered with timber roofs.
32:28Now, those wooden roofs are long gone now, but the walls have done surprisingly well through the passage of time.
32:33The houses were feats of brilliant engineering, often including water collection systems, storage units, and sight lines that allowed for rapid communication.
32:47Entrances were generally south or southeast facing, which provided shade from the summer sun and warmth from the winter sun.
32:55At the center of most complexes, there was an open plaza, which was believed to serve as a gathering space for communal and religious purposes.
33:06One of the best known great houses was also the largest, located at the Pueblo Benito site, also within the Chaco Canyon.
33:15It was built in stages between 850 and 1150 CE, with stone wall materials that had to be transported from off-site, and timber that came from a wooded area of ponderosa pines surrounding the settlement.
33:30In addition to the building foundations, archaeologists at Pueblo Benito found traces of Mexican cacao and pottery shards, imported from Central America over 1200 miles away, likely intended as offerings for rituals and ceremonies.
33:46So it's possible the newly discovered road was used both as a pathway for building materials and as a trade route.
33:53But further examination of the ancient road presents a bigger puzzle.
33:57It was lined on the north side by a raised strip of land called a berm, created from fist-sized clumps of sandstone and earth.
34:06It was determined that the digging of the road into the sandstone, along with the creation of the elevated berms, would have required over 6,600 cubic feet of bedrock to be removed.
34:17This would have demanded a massive amount of labor, which indicated the road's importance.
34:23But the most baffling aspect of the road was its width.
34:29At over 20 feet across, it exceeded all practical necessity for a society with no wheeled vehicles and no pack animals.
34:39Put simply, this road was much bigger than it needed to be, especially if its only purpose was the transportation of goods.
34:47So, is it possible it served another purpose?
34:52A deeper dive into the spiritual traditions of the Pueblo peoples reveals a compelling explanation.
34:57Pueblo Native Americans practiced the Kachina religion, a belief system that featured hundreds of divine beings, acting as intermediaries between the human world, the gods, and the celestial world of astronomy.
35:10The religion was also at the center of civic life, as Pueblo villages were governed by Kachina religious councils.
35:20Spiritual practices didn't just impact daily life.
35:23Many Pueblo buildings and structures are believed to have been built with archaeoastronomy in mind, which means they were built specifically to align with solar and lunar cycles.
35:33Entire villages were specifically planned with consideration of celestial alignments like the sun's path during a solstice or during an equinox.
35:44One of the most famous examples is the Sun Dagger, a Chaco Canyon discovery that was originally created to focus the sunlight onto an elaborate rock carving.
35:55Three large stone slabs were set against the cliff to channel the sun's rays onto two spiral petroglyphs marking the solstices, equinoxes, and the lunar standstills of the 18.6 year cycle of the moon.
36:15It's believed these events formed the basis of important Pueblo rituals and ceremonies.
36:21Is it possible the ancient road was created for a similar celestial purpose?
36:35A survey of the surrounding area leads to a critical clue into the spiritual traditions of the Pueblo peoples.
36:42A large crescent-shaped wall of stacked stone was discovered on a flat section of earth adjacent to the road.
36:47Measuring 35 feet east to west and 46 feet across, south to north, the round structure was created from fist-sized chunks of sandstone connecting directly to the ancient road.
36:59The structure was identified as an erradura, that means horseshoe, and we've seen those before.
37:06They're essentially roadside shrines for the Pueblo, typically identified as such by their shape and by the shards of pottery and ceramics that are found in the vicinity.
37:16These are artifacts widely interpreted as offerings to the gods.
37:20The discovery of the erradura roadside shrine definitely suggested the road was connected to some kind of ritual and that the landscape itself played an integral role in that ritual.
37:33However, up to that point, all the research was based on data collected at ground level, so any available evidence was limited to the road's physical properties and dimensions, what could only be seen by the naked eye.
37:47But the use of cutting edge technology leads to a breakthrough.
37:52When the size and scale of the investigation increased to include entire landscapes, a decision was made to use an imaging process called LIDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging.
38:03It's a remote sensing tech that creates digital 3D models of environments by measuring the relative distance of objects to the earth with pulsing laser light.
38:12For the road south of Chaco Canyon, a filter was applied to the images that made it look like light was coming from different angles and altitudes.
38:22And what emerges from that is this 3D picture of the landscape that exaggerates anomalies, making things visible to the human eye that normally would not be.
38:33The LIDAR images deliver not one, but two surprising revelations.
38:37First, the data showed that the ancient road extended for at least another three and a half miles.
38:46It continued in a straight line, regardless of where the road led, over earthen ramps, descending into valleys, even incorporating man-made staircases cut right into the rock.
39:00Even more shocking, the LIDAR revealed the presence of a second straight road parallel to the first one and about 115 feet directly southwest.
39:12The second road also displayed evidence of an Eridura roadside shrine, and it too was uncharacteristically wide, measuring almost 20 feet across.
39:21Initially, the two roads appeared to run perfectly parallel to each other.
39:28However, a closer look revealed they slowly came together to a point in the distance.
39:35At the near end, the wisest space between the two roads was roughly 120 feet.
39:40From that point, the roads seemed to converge, measuring just 50 feet across at its most narrow.
39:47An enormous amount of effort went into the planning and building of both roads.
39:52So, given the Pueblo emphasis on sacred topography, plus the significance of celestial events in their calendar,
40:00is it possible that these two roads were pointing towards an important spiritual landmark on the horizon?
40:10A survey of the surrounding area provides the answer.
40:13From the perspective of the first Eridura Shrine, as well as various points along the second road,
40:21both roads form a clear visual trajectory towards a single landmass directly southeast, Mount Taylor.
40:32And Mount Taylor is an eminently sacred mountain among contemporary Pueblo and Diné living in northwestern New Mexico.
40:41The survey also indicated that both roads ran at an azimuth of approximately 120 degrees,
40:46and that the second road corresponded with the position of the winter solstice at the original Gasco site.
40:52As the shortest day of the year and the longest night,
40:55winter solstice marks the point at which the sun reaches the most southerly position in the sky
41:01over the course of its entire annual cycle.
41:05Suspecting the sun would rise over Mount Taylor in alignment with both roads during the winter solstice,
41:11researchers returned to the site on the morning of December 21st.
41:14As anticipated and as if on cue, the sun rose dramatically over the mountain in perfect alignment with the two road corridors
41:24when viewed from the center of the road bed.
41:27For the Pueblo peoples, the awe-inspiring view of the sun rising over Mount Taylor
41:33likely symbolized the powerful relationship between the natural and spiritual worlds
41:38and exemplifies the role the celestial calendar played in guiding religious life.
41:45The ancient roads of the Chaco Canyon reveal the Pueblo to have been masters at imbuing urban planning,
41:53with a deep connection to the sacred and a keen understanding of cosmology.
41:57of cosmology.
41:58of cosmology.
42:00of northern
42:05northwest women
42:09of cosmology.
Be the first to comment