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00:01Twisted cords, concealing secrets to an ancient mountain empire.
00:07A quest of mythic proportions carved into a mysterious runestone.
00:13And a universal ruler intentionally hidden for all eternity.
00:21Throughout the course of human history, many kingdoms have prospered and expanded their territory
00:27only to one day collapse into the sands of time.
00:31And with their demise, secrets as to how these cultures lived, fought and ruled simply vanished.
00:40Fortunately, tantalizing clues left behind offer historians and archaeologists
00:48the opportunity to piece together what remains of the ancient past.
00:53For instance, what can an intricate gold artifact from a mountain lake
00:59or a towering megalithic pyramid reveal about the people who made them?
01:06Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
01:22The Andes Mountains, Peru.
01:26Perched precariously on a mountaintop nearly 8,000 feet above sea level,
01:31lies an ancient city that looks like it's floating in the clouds.
01:37Built around 1450 A.D., this curious engineering marvel stands as the crowning achievement of the Inca Empire
01:45and is known as Machu Picchu.
01:50Machu Picchu is a technological marvel.
01:53For one thing, it's a fairly good-sized city and it was built at an incredibly high elevation.
02:00And it's sculpted into the mountains. It takes a bit of time to even get up there.
02:04The moment you walk in, you think to yourself,
02:07how did anyone build this on top of sheer cliffs?
02:14It's a perilous journey. The mountainside is straight up and down.
02:19And so after climbing up to this huge height, you see that the buildings themselves seem to blend into the
02:26landscape.
02:27As an archaeologist who has worked on sites around the world and seen incredible engineering achievements,
02:36Machu Picchu kind of blows it all away.
02:38We're talking massive, multi-ton stones shaped and moved into place and they fit together perfectly.
02:49And this mountain site somehow was transformed into an enduring city
02:55and survives 500 years later in absolutely perfect condition.
03:02Perhaps the greatest mystery of Machu Picchu is why did the ancient Incas choose to build a sprawling city
03:11in such an inaccessible mountain location?
03:16The Incas had an incredibly sophisticated culture.
03:19We know that in the Ink Empire, when a building was built,
03:23it had to be made strong in the spiritual world as well as in the physical world.
03:29As you walk through, you can see how the Inca artists echoed the shapes of all the mountains in the
03:37construction of Machu Picchu,
03:39in honor of the mountain gods around it.
03:42On the other hand, just saying that only tells us a little bit.
03:46There is still a huge amount of mystery about what Machu Picchu was for.
03:50Some believe that Machu Picchu's true purpose may be connected to the great ruler who ordered its construction,
03:57Emperor Pachacuti.
04:00Machu Picchu was built by the Emperor Pachacuti,
04:04who's known as really the founder of the imperial phase of the Inca state.
04:09One thing to remember is that in the Inca Empire,
04:12the emperors were considered divine.
04:15They were considered like gods.
04:17And when an emperor died, his body was mummified,
04:21and it was treated as if he was still alive,
04:25so that their worship could continue.
04:28And so after Pachacuti's death, his family would still go and use Machu Picchu,
04:35and we believe that when they did so, they brought the mummified body of the emperor with them.
04:42Did Emperor Pachacuti build Machu Picchu to be a sacred site in the mountains
04:48where his mummy could rest for all eternity?
04:51It seems like a reasonable theory, but there's just one problem.
04:56Pachacuti's remains have never been found.
05:01However, in recent years, some have suggested that the emperor's mummy may be hidden
05:08in a secret chamber at Machu Picchu.
05:14In 2010, a French engineer by the name of David Crespi
05:19was doing some measuring work within the city of Machu Picchu,
05:25and he noticed what was quite clearly a doorway blocked up by stones,
05:32and it clearly was blocking the entrance into some kind of chamber.
05:37He reported it immediately to the authorities,
05:41and people have suggested that this might well be the entrance into some kind of tomb.
05:47We could be looking at a royal burial.
05:51So, is it the tomb of Pachacuti?
05:56Now, they did more tests, more scans,
05:59and they found what appeared to be gold-lined steps going down into this area.
06:05They wanted to push forward and excavate this
06:08because this would have been, without doubt,
06:10the most important discovery ever found at Machu Picchu.
06:13But then, apparently, the Peruvian government kind of put a block on it
06:18and stopped the progression of this
06:20because they were concerned if it was dug into, it may collapse.
06:24Are Pachacuti's mummified remains, and with them, the secrets of Machu Picchu,
06:29concealed in this chamber?
06:31For now, the answers may lie sealed behind a stone wall.
06:37But perhaps there's another way to solve the mysteries of Machu Picchu.
06:42Although the Inca did not leave behind any written records,
06:45they did encode information in strange threads that are known as kipas.
06:53Kipas are twisted cords that redefine what writing is
06:58because some of them are incredibly complex
07:01with hundreds of pendants, dozens of colors,
07:04and they have knots that represented words,
07:07and they were read syllable by syllable.
07:10If you're in an empire like the Incas,
07:13where people spoke many, many, many different languages,
07:17if you have a writing system or a communication system
07:20that is not tied to speech but uses symbols, uses ideas,
07:26then people who speak different languages
07:29can come together and understand those records.
07:32And what's really mysterious is that there were narrative kipus,
07:37and supposedly these narrative kipus had biographies,
07:42they had poems, they had histories, they served as letters.
07:46The Incas would have used kipus during the construction of Machu Picchu.
07:50If we could decipher them,
07:52kipus could give us insights into that whole process.
07:56That could really unlock the mysteries of the Incas for us.
08:00Will translating these intricate rope knots reveal
08:03why the Inca built the mountain kingdom of Machu Picchu?
08:08It's an intriguing possibility,
08:10and one that illuminates how important it is
08:13to decipher the relics of the past.
08:16Like in the case of a delicately crafted miniature
08:20found hidden in the jungles of Colombia.
08:23It's a piece of art that many believe tells the story
08:26of an ancient culture with riches so vast,
08:30they built a city constructed entirely of gold.
08:33Its name, El Dorado.
08:41The Andes Mountains, November 16th, 1532.
08:47Spanish conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizarro,
08:51capture the Incan emperor Atahualpa
08:54and kill 5,000 of his men in the course of just one hour.
09:00Pizarro is on a quest to both conquer the new world
09:03and plunder as much gold as he can find.
09:07Pizarro starts to take these gold and riches
09:10from the kingdoms of the Andes,
09:12and this really starts a precedent for conquistadors trying to get
09:15to take riches and send them back to Europe.
09:18This quest for gold is what drives them.
09:22From the European point of view,
09:24once there was the hint of gold up in the hills of South America,
09:29it was an absolute frenzy.
09:33The indigenous people all around them were literally draped in gold,
09:38the likes of which Europeans never would see back at home.
09:45As the Spanish conquistadors encountered indigenous people throughout South America,
09:50they heard stories of a vast city made entirely out of gold.
09:56In fact, the Spanish came up with a name for the golden city.
10:01They called it El Dorado.
10:05The name El Dorado comes from the words, the golden.
10:10That's literally what it translates to.
10:13The Spanish trekked through rain forests and across swollen rivers,
10:18then up icy mountains in search of what they assumed had to be a hidden city of gold,
10:25a place of untold riches just waiting to be plundered.
10:30There were similarities to all of these stories,
10:33and that kept the Spaniards thinking,
10:36well, maybe there's something to this.
10:37Maybe it's not a myth.
10:40And because they don't know exactly where it is,
10:44it starts to be thought of as a lost city.
10:48The Spanish belief that El Dorado was a real lost city of gold was reinforced
10:54when they came into contact with a mysterious civilization known as the Muisca people.
11:01The Muisca were the indigenous people who occupied this particular highland area of the Andes,
11:08which is today Colombia.
11:10And they occupied this area for about a thousand years, beginning in 600 A.D.
11:15And in fact, they were so sophisticated that they really take their place alongside better known empires in the region,
11:23such as the Inca.
11:24The Muisca were incredible goldsmiths.
11:29They were really skilled craftsmen at gold work,
11:32finely wrought, thinly pounded gold.
11:36They made animals.
11:38They made gold that was depictions of their deities.
11:44Spanish conquistadors searching for El Dorado came to believe that it was built by the Muisca
11:51because of a curious ritual they supposedly performed high in the mountains,
11:56a body of water known as Lake Guatavita.
12:01When the Muisca initiated a new leader,
12:04there was a very specific ceremony that they performed on Lake Guatavita.
12:10The leader would plaster his body in gold dust.
12:16He would climb into a raft surrounded by priests.
12:20At his feet was a pile of offerings, gold and jewels.
12:26Once they had paddled out to the middle of the lake,
12:29he would make his offering to the god.
12:32And that involved dropping all of the valuables off the raft into the water,
12:37and then diving in himself so that the gold dust would be washed from his body.
12:44When the conquistadors began to hear about these rituals that involved gold and a golden man,
12:50it stood to reason that this place, El Dorado, a lost city, is going to be somewhere out there.
12:59The Spanish heard rumors that the Muisca had performed this golden ceremony at Lake Guatavita for a thousand years,
13:08since the beginning of their civilization.
13:11The conquistadors believed that El Dorado must be an ancient hidden city where, centuries earlier,
13:18the ancestors of the Muisca had stockpiled vast amounts of gold to be used in the sacred ritual.
13:26As conquistadors kept trying to find El Dorado, they found a lot of gold.
13:32They found gold work made by the Muisca that was really, really elaborate.
13:38And they kept getting just enough to sort of tantalize them to know or believe that there would be more.
13:45But they never quite found the El Dorado that they had been looking for.
13:53Although the Spanish failed in their quest to find El Dorado,
13:57for centuries, treasure hunters from around the world journeyed to South America in search of the lost city.
14:05And then, in 1912, an incredible discovery was made at the bottom of Lake Guatavita.
14:15Hartley Knowles, a British engineer, came to Lake Guatavita and, with a mining company,
14:22was able to completely drain the lake to the bottom.
14:28He found gold, rumored to be about $20,000 worth.
14:33But what happened was, as the lake went down, all the silt and mud at the bottom
14:39hardened in the sun until it was like concrete.
14:42And they couldn't get any more gold out of the bottom.
14:46They cut a notch out the side of the hill and drained the lake.
14:51But it only remained drained for about 24 hours before the lake refilled.
14:57But what they found was some objects that sort of showed that this idea of offerings being thrown into the
15:03lake was true.
15:05Even more incredible evidence of the Muisca rituals was found later in 1969 in a nearby cave.
15:12In 1969, some villagers stumbled upon an absolutely spectacular find in a ceramic jar.
15:22They found an exquisite raft.
15:26Rafted all out of gold.
15:29The workmanship was incredible.
15:32But even more exciting is that it corroborated everything that had been written down about the Muisca rituals in Lake
15:41Guatavita when they were initiating a new ruler.
15:46Since the story of the ritual performed by the Muisca chief was proven to be true, does that suggest that
15:52the tales of El Dorado, the lost city of gold, could also be true?
15:58And if so, where might it be hidden?
16:04Cities in the Amazonian region over time have a tendency to become absorbed and enveloped by the jungle.
16:13South America is an incredible place to keep secrets and for a lost city like El Dorado to dwell.
16:21Could El Dorado have really existed only to be swallowed up by the dense jungle, its vast riches buried and
16:29beyond reach?
16:31Perhaps one day other precious artifacts like the golden raft will be unearthed and provide yet another clue to solving
16:37the mystery of the lost city of gold.
16:42But there's another object of fascination, this one made of stone that inspired a search of an entirely different kind.
16:49A quest to find a mythical outpost of the infamous Nordic warriors known as the Vikings.
17:01According to a collection of medieval prose called the Icelandic sagas, a group of Vikings were said to have taken
17:09a daring voyage from Scandinavia across the Atlantic Ocean on a journey to reach a faraway realm known as Vinland.
17:18The sagas described Vinland as a bountiful paradise and for centuries, historians thought it was merely the stuff of myth
17:26and legend.
17:28But then in 1960, Norwegian husband and wife team Helge and Anna Ingsted set out to prove not only that
17:37Vinland was a real place, but also that it was located in North America.
17:45Helge and Anastina Ingsted combed the entire coast of Canada to try and find the site and they were very
17:53confident that the sagas had an element of fact about it and they were right, they did.
17:59The Norwegian couple uncovered the remains of a Viking settlement on the northern tip of Newfoundland that dated to the
18:0711th century AD.
18:10This profound discovery, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Lansom Meadows, is indisputable proof that the sagas
18:20may hold more truth about the Vikings than we ever thought possible.
18:27By using the sagas, they found these settlements on the lands or meadows.
18:31They are typical Nordic or Scandinavian houses made of stone and turf.
18:38And there are also a few Archelot group remains.
18:42There is no doubt that this settlement was from the Vikings.
18:47Lansom Meadows is actually the physical evidence of Scandinavian habitation on the North American continent.
18:57The Vikings did discover North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus.
19:03We know that there were Viking settlements in the New World.
19:07When I was a young boy, that was considered a legend.
19:10Now it is historical fact.
19:12And they may have actually been more extensive than we see in the sagas themselves.
19:17Lansom Meadows is in Newfoundland and we know that they were there.
19:22But then, of course, it begs the question, how far in did they get?
19:27Is it possible the Vikings traveled deep into North America?
19:32Well, there are those who believe the answer is yes.
19:35And they claim that the proof can be found more than 2,000 miles away from Newfoundland.
19:43In Alexandria, Minnesota.
19:46This small city about 130 miles northeast of Minneapolis is home to the Runestone Museum.
19:54Inside is an artifact that many point to as evidence that the Vikings traveled well beyond the northeastern tip of
20:02Canada and into the heartland of America.
20:06Because on display is the remarkable yet controversial Kensington Runestone.
20:14The Kensington Runestone is about the size of a gravestone.
20:19And it was discovered in 1898 in Kensington in Douglas County in Minnesota by a Swedish immigrant, Olaf Oman.
20:31And it is covered in runes.
20:35And what intrigues people is that it seems to be incontrovertible proof that the Vikings were there.
20:43Ruins are Viking works of art.
20:47And ruin zones are located pretty much throughout the Viking realm.
20:51Ruins were kind of cumbersome to write with, and so things tended to be short.
20:56So what you end up with is very often cryptic poetry with a tremendous amount of meaning packed into very
21:03obscure passages.
21:05So even to be able to understand these ruins was sort of a master craft.
21:11For over a century, people have speculated about the meaning of the cryptic markings on the Kensington Runestone.
21:19By comparing it with other known runestones, historians have theorized that the stone tells the tale of a Viking expedition.
21:28Allegedly, the Kensington Runestone has an intriguing story written in runic script about a group of about 30 Vikings who
21:41journey from Vinland all the way down into what is now Minnesota.
21:47Now 10 of them are massacred on route by the local people.
21:54But the suggestion is that these Vikings made it to the interior of North America.
22:03Based on this translation, many believe that the Kensington Runestone is a memorial to Vikings who died on their quest
22:11to explore North America.
22:12But skeptics have questioned the stone's authenticity.
22:18This could either be a genuine account of an incredible journey by intrepid warriors deep into America.
22:28Or the other theory is that this was Swedish immigrants trying to prove to their neighbors that they had a
22:36much longer presence and an entitlement to be there
22:40because their ancestors had been there.
22:44But the idea that these warriors ventured deep into North America, into places that we know well today, Minnesota, that
22:55really captures the imagination.
22:59Did a group of Viking explorers, adorned with axes and shields, venture deeper into the forests of North America than
23:08we've been led to believe?
23:09Whatever the truth may be, discoveries that rewrite the timeline of human history have far reaching implications.
23:17Such is the case with an ancient kingdom in Southeast Asia that constructed what may be the oldest pyramid on
23:29Earth.
23:34Java, Indonesia.
23:36In the countryside of this lush tropical island, located in the Indian Ocean, lies a mountain that from a distance
23:44looks no different from any other peak in the region.
23:48But close examination of the mountaintop reveals a series of ancient stone terraces that are littered with thousands of megalithic
23:59blocks.
24:00This intriguing site is known as Gunan Padang.
24:08Gunan Padang has all these remarkable kind of hexagonal basalt columns as part of the entire construction, hundreds of thousands
24:17of them in fact.
24:18Each of the stones, they weigh up to about a third of a ton each.
24:23They make up the foundation and they're also placed in certain configurations at the top.
24:29There's something very powerful about this place.
24:33It was only really rediscovered by farmers over the last few decades.
24:38It's almost untouched.
24:41It's like it hasn't been known about for thousands of years.
24:44It makes you wonder who could have done this and when.
24:47The thousands of stone blocks strewn atop Gunan Padang are a perplexing sight.
24:53It's hard to imagine what structure they could have been part of or what purpose they serve.
25:00And the origin of these curious ruins has long been shrouded in mystery.
25:06But in 2013, archaeologists excavating the mountain discovered that the truth about this mysterious site is hidden beneath layers of
25:17dirt and rubble.
25:20A team of experts did drilling, they did radar surveys and they did radio carbon testing.
25:28And what this revealed is that beneath the site that is visible today, which includes a number of incredible stone
25:37settings and rock mounds, is something even more incredible.
25:41We now know that this site does actually conceal beneath it a massive pyramid complex.
25:51Gunan Padang is really like a step pyramid, buried under stone and earth.
25:57And the evidence suggests this is extremely ancient and it's a very, very important place.
26:05The revelation that Gunan Padang is actually the ruins of a massive pyramid made headlines around the world.
26:12And in recent years, further investigation of the site has been led by geologist Danny Hillman.
26:20Danny and his team believe they have uncovered evidence of a hidden chamber.
26:26We conduct multi-integrated method in geology and geophysics that include the ground penetrating radar, the electric tomography.
26:37So we have a good knowledge of the underground structures of Gunan Padang down to like 30 meters deep.
26:45And we discover that beneath this pyramid, there's a chamber.
26:51This spot is very important, it's called the crown of the world.
26:56Beneath it is the large chamber.
26:59We don't know what's this chamber for and what's inside it.
27:04We hope we could find an answer about the builder.
27:08Our ancestors who built this place and what is the purpose of building these structures.
27:15The discovery of a chamber buried underground has added to the mystery of Gunan Padang.
27:21But the most significant revelation so far is that this structure might be the oldest pyramid ever built.
27:31According to our carbon dating, the pyramid is built in the prehistoric time.
27:37The first construction, it could be 20,000, 25,000 BCA.
27:43Older than the oldest pyramid known to us.
27:46So this is the oldest pyramid in the world.
27:49Ancient Egypt's pyramid of Djoser has long been considered the world's oldest pyramid.
27:55But based on Danny Hellman's research, Gunan Padang's buried pyramid could be 10 or even 20,000 years older.
28:07If Gunan Padang is a 20,000 year old pyramid, it would place an hitherto undiscovered culture at the heart
28:18of Indonesia.
28:18And it would completely disrupt our understanding of the evolution of human technology around the world.
28:25We know that we have discovered a very amazing story about this site.
28:35It is very important for advancing our knowledge about human history, not just in this spot, not just in Indonesia.
28:46This is for the world.
28:50Do the technological achievements of a lost civilization lie hidden within the stone chambers of this ancient pyramid?
28:59It's no surprise that the empires of the past would go to great lengths to conceal their most precious secrets.
29:06Such is the case surrounding the actual resting place of one of the most feared rulers in history.
29:13It is the mystery of the lost tomb of Genghis Khan.
29:24Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
29:28Towering above the sparse landscape is a massive, 130 foot tall statue made of stainless steel.
29:35This magnificent monument is a depiction of Mongolia's most famous ruler, Genghis Khan.
29:44Genghis Khan is one of the most prominent figures in all of history and he came up as a very
29:51small, minor player in what was a small, minor country that most of the world hadn't heard of.
29:56But by the time he died, he had conquered most of the known world.
30:01Genghis Khan is unquestionably Mongolia's greatest cultural and historical and national hero.
30:07He was at the head of one of the largest empires in the world, second only to the British Empire.
30:16And many people maybe outside of Mongolia might remember Genghis Khan for the bloodshed and conquests.
30:24But he was also at the origins of many technological, scientific, astronomical developments and advancements.
30:36After 20 years of empire building, Genghis Khan died in the year 1227 AD while battling the Western Shia dynasty.
30:47Khan's exact cause of death is a mystery.
30:51But before he passed, he commanded that his final resting place should be unmarked so that his tomb would be
30:58undisturbed forever.
31:01The circumstances of his burial are quite mysterious.
31:06According to legend, Genghis Khan's body was brought back to Mongolia by a group of 2,000 servants who were
31:14guarded by a group of soldiers.
31:18The servants were all killed by the soldiers.
31:22Now the soldiers themselves were then killed by a second group of soldiers who then themselves committed suicide.
31:32So that the burial site would remain forever undisturbed and unknown.
31:38Many great rulers in many parts of the world have wanted not to display one's body but rather to hide
31:44it.
31:44And that would have been practiced by Genghis Khan because he knew that his tomb, if it was ever uncovered,
31:50would be an enormously political tool for whoever uncovered it.
31:55And he wanted to control that legacy.
31:58In the eight centuries since Genghis Khan's death, many have tried to find his tomb.
32:04But thus far, no one has been able to defeat Khan's drastic measures to keep its location a secret.
32:11Which naturally begs the question, where could it be?
32:18The Kenti Mountain Range, 2016.
32:22A French archaeological expedition ventures deep into this rugged region of northern Mongolia to find Genghis Khan's lost tomb.
32:33The team believes that the tomb may be hidden near a particular mountain peak that is known as Rakan Khaldun.
32:42In Mongol folklore, there is a notion that you should be buried somewhere near where you were born.
32:50Genghis Khan was born in the mountains in the Burkan Khaldun area.
32:54So that is the highest probability where they buried him.
32:59Burkan Khaldun is almost 8,000 feet high and covers more than 93 square miles.
33:06Exploring this vast, rugged terrain is made even more difficult because in 2015, the mountain was designated a UNESCO World
33:14Heritage Site, rendering it off limits to any excavations in search of Genghis Khan's tomb.
33:22Mongolians in general still desire to honor Genghis Khan's wishes.
33:27They discourage archaeological digs to try to find the tomb.
33:32He is still very, very much a hero in Mongolia and his wishes are still respected.
33:39Because of the restrictions against searching Burkan Khaldun, members of the French expedition decided that the key to finding Genghis
33:48Khan's tomb was to explore the mountain from the sky.
33:52And in 2016, they used drones, equipped with both photographic and infrared cameras, to do an unprecedented survey of the
34:02area.
34:03This new way to practice archaeology was incredible.
34:07Because with the drones, we get a digital elevation model of the top of Burkan Khaldun to detect any forms
34:16that was not natural, but artificial, made by man.
34:22After surveying the mountain from above, the French team made an extraordinary discovery.
34:28They identified a mound that was 130 feet high and 820 feet wide that they believe might be man-made.
34:39With the digital elevation model, we find an anomaly on the soil corresponding to the excavation of all the material
34:48they need to build a tomb.
34:51The French team that accessed the mountain identified that the pyramid-shaped elevation also had a little shrine and it
35:01sits atop of this sacred mountain.
35:03So, they speculate that this would probably be where Genghis Khan is buried.
35:11Is it possible that the structure discovered by the French expedition on Burkan Khaldun is the tomb of Genghis Khan?
35:22For now, that question is unanswered because the Mongolian people remain committed to honoring the revered emperor's dying wish that
35:30his tomb should never be found.
35:34Looking for the Genghis Khan tomb in Mongolia, it's taboo.
35:39Still now, it's a mix between George Washington and Jesus Christ.
35:46It's possible that the tomb of Genghis Khan will remain lost forever because the decision is now on the end
35:54of Mongolian authorities.
35:55And we will have to respect that.
35:58And maybe it's not bad.
36:01Sometimes some secrets must be kept.
36:10Tuva, Siberia.
36:12Located near the border of Russia and Mongolia, this region is known for its vast grasslands.
36:18But in 2021, archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences made a remarkable discovery.
36:25While conducting an aerial survey, they spotted an enormous symbol known as a geoglyph that was formed using carefully arranged
36:35pebbles and sandstones.
36:39In Central Asia, we have something called the Siberian bull.
36:42It's a very simple drawing just done with dark stones making the outline of a tail and the back legs
36:47of an animal.
36:49And fortunately, it's linked quite closely to an early Bronze Age burial.
36:55So we reckon it must date back to 2000 BCE.
36:59It is some 4,000 years old and still there.
37:04Research on this is still ongoing, but it shows that there's still so much about these geoglyphs and the beliefs
37:11and the values that were held by the ancient people who made them that we do not know.
37:18The Siberian bull is 10 feet tall and 13 feet long and is the first geoglyph of an animal discovered
37:25in Central Asia.
37:27But what's more remarkable is that even larger ancient geoglyphs have been found all over the world.
37:34Many of them are so vast that they can only be identified from the sky.
37:40Geoglyphs are an astonishing phenomenon. They're found in many, many parts of the world, primarily in deserts.
37:46And they are often of huge size involving an enormous amount of work.
37:51Geoglyphs can be divided up really into the ones that just look like geometric shapes to us and there are
37:57many, many of those.
37:58You have lines which just look like roads or paths going on for miles.
38:02And then, of course, you have what seem to us to be depictions of birds, animals, humans.
38:09And they must all have very different meanings to the cultures that produce them.
38:15In March 2022, archeological researchers found what could be the largest geoglyphs on the planet in the Thar Desert of
38:23ancient India.
38:24They stretch over a huge distance, and one of them kind of forms into what appears to be a kind
38:31of strange spiral.
38:32And there's other ones which are like sinuous serpents.
38:37One of the more fascinating geoglyphs is the Uffington white horse that was found in Oxfordshire, England.
38:43They dug trenches and they filled them with chalk to create this beautiful horse, which itself is 3,000 years
38:51old.
38:51And we expect to find more as time goes on.
38:55Why did so many ancient cultures across the world labor to carve these enormous figures and symbols that could only
39:03be fully seen from the sky?
39:07Well, according to some researchers, it could be because the people who created the geoglyphs intended them to be viewed
39:15not by man, but by gods.
39:19It seems a reasonable supposition that a lot of these images, which only make sense from the air, were very
39:24much tied to things in the heavens.
39:26There are astronomical orientations of some of the lines, and some figures may represent constellations.
39:33But there are so many possibilities, because there are so many hundreds of different geoglyph types, that you can't simply
39:40put one explanation on all of them.
39:42Recently, a new theory has been proposed to explain the famous Nazca Lines in Peru, which date back more than
39:502,000 years.
39:52The great Nazca Lines are done in one continuous line, the monkey or the spider.
39:58We've always assumed that the people who made the Nazca Lines were trying to communicate with God's ancestors' spirits or
40:04whatever.
40:05But there was an idea put forward quite recently by an American scholar who thought that some of the geoglyphs
40:12might be linked to runoff from hills and channeling the water and helping the crops to grow.
40:16There's a trend in backyard gardening called permaculture, where the gardener digs trenches and creates swells or hills to sequester
40:26the water or capture the rainfall.
40:28So that way the ecosystem supports their own garden and they don't have to bring in extra irrigation.
40:35In places like where the Nazca Lines are, we see a very barren, arid, dry place currently.
40:44But if you went back thousands of years, you'd find alternating periods of extreme rainfall events.
40:54We don't have written records of what they were thinking and what they were doing and why they were building
40:59these sites.
41:00The fact is, there are different theories in different parts of the world as to what they could have been
41:05created for.
41:07But whether it's in a desert or whether it's like chalk hill figures in ancient Britain, at least they still
41:13exist and we can appreciate and study them today.
41:17From high in the Andes mountains to the steppes of Mongolia, the evidence of powerful bygone civilizations is all around
41:25us.
41:26What can we learn from the ruins of these once great cultures?
41:32Perhaps they show us a cautionary tale of how empires rise and fall, as well as reshape our understanding of
41:42human history as we know it.
41:44It's clear that our innate need to explore the mysteries of our ancient past will keep the search going because
41:52the most closely guarded secrets of these mighty kingdoms remain unexplained.
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