- 10 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:09Mysteries can be buried anywhere, under the earth, beneath the sea, or even right under
00:19our own feet.
00:21And when we stumble upon them, sometimes what we find can change history.
00:30Tonight, we're uncovering heavy metal discoveries from a schoolyard hiding an explosive secret.
00:38He thinks it's just an old pipe, but as he works to clear it away, he freezes.
00:45Panic sets in, and the school is immediately evacuated.
00:49To a legendary lost axe.
00:52It's got all these stuff marks on it, looks like there are even burn marks on it, but the
00:56guitar also looks pretty familiar.
01:00To a pair of steel giants buried beneath the waves.
01:04At first, he thinks it's just an old shipwreck.
01:08Then he calls in his friend, and what they discover just makes no sense at all.
01:15Join us now, because nothing stays hidden forever.
01:29Old storage units usually hide junk, but one lucky buyer opened the door to something straight
01:36from the silver screen.
01:40In 1989, a contractor from Long Island drops $100 on an abandoned storage unit, one of those
01:46forgotten spaces no one's paid rent on for years.
01:50He has no clue what's inside, of course, but figures it might be a fun gamble.
01:56He steps inside and sees a giant lump covered in blankets.
02:03And when he pulls off the blankets, underneath is a white sports car.
02:09But the roof is caved in, and it has no wheels.
02:13It looks like a Lotus sports car, but there are some strange modifications.
02:18There are fins jutting from the sides, and the whole design is angular and futuristic.
02:25It's beat up and can't be driven on the road in this condition, but he sees potential and decides
02:31to fix it up.
02:32He loads the odd-looking car onto a flatbed truck and hits the road.
02:37And as he's driving, the CB keeps crackling.
02:42And truck drivers keep asking him the same question.
02:46Hey, is that the James Bond car from The Spy Who Loved Me?
02:52It sounds crazy, but could this mystery car really be the one that made movie history?
02:59The contractor has never seen the movie.
03:02So when he gets home, he and his wife rent the VHS.
03:06As they watch the film, James Bond races away from the bad guys in a white Lotus.
03:13The car drives to the edge of the pier, and then it transforms.
03:21Fens pop out, the wheels are gone, and now it's going under the water like a submarine.
03:27This sub is the spitting image of the car that he recovered from the storage shed.
03:32If his car is the car, it's not just rare, it's priceless.
03:36So he contacts Bond author Ian Fleming's Foundation for confirmation.
03:42The Foundation's mission is to preserve the works and memorabilia of Fleming's career, including his most famous creation, James Bond.
03:52The president of the foundation, Doug Redenius, tells the contractor that eight white Lotus cars were made for The Spy
04:00Who Loved Me in 1977.
04:03Some were built for driving, others were just stunt cars, but only one was made to go underwater.
04:09Known as Wet Nelly on set, it was special built with no gears.
04:14It couldn't even drive in reverse.
04:16Its only purpose was to go underwater, film the shot, and resurface.
04:21After filming wrapped in the Bahamas, the Lotus was shipped to Long Island, placed in the storage shed, and prepaid
04:29for 10 years.
04:32There's no real record of who put the car in the storage unit, but the rent wasn't paid, and the
04:38producers, who probably rented the unit, forgot all about it.
04:42Once the car's identity is confirmed, the contractor restores Wet Nelly from the ground up, turning the dusty relic back
04:50into the legend it once was.
04:52Over the next several years, the contractor takes Wet Nelly around to car shows and exhibitions, but in 2013, he
05:00finally decides to put the car up for auction.
05:03Well, that $100 investment really paid off, because ultimately, that car sold at auction for a million dollars to an
05:13anonymous buyer.
05:14Later, it's revealed that that buyer was Elon Musk.
05:21Next up, another heavy metal mystery that makes some serious waves.
05:28It's the 1980s, and off the coast of New Jersey, a man by the name of Paul Hepler is mapping
05:34the seafloor using a device called a magnetometer.
05:37It essentially can create geographic maps based on the Earth's magnetic field.
05:42He's looking for rocks and reefs, things that could snag a fishing net, or potentially even sink a fishing trawler.
05:52He maps these dangerous places to help others avoid them, and the work is usually slow and repetitive.
05:59Until this day, his machine starts wailing.
06:05It's picked up on two huge objects on the seafloor below.
06:10He drops on his dive gear, jumps into the Atlantic just to see what's going on, but visibility's really low
06:16this day.
06:16The water's completely murky.
06:18Paul tries to feel his way through the waters, but suddenly his hand hits something huge.
06:26There are two cylinders, side by side, about 90 feet down.
06:31At first, he thinks it's just an old shipwreck.
06:35Over the next few weeks, he explores the find several more times.
06:39Then he calls in his friend, Dan Lieb, who's also the president of the New Jersey Historical Divers Association.
06:49And what they discover just makes no sense at all.
06:53They're not ship parts.
06:57They're rusty old trains.
07:00Hepler and Lieb aren't train enthusiasts.
07:02These are water guys.
07:04These are divers.
07:05So they have no idea what they're looking at.
07:07So they sketch, they document everything they can.
07:10They take measurements, and they take their findings to true experts.
07:16Well, the response is absolutely astonishing.
07:18What they have discovered are some of the earliest trains ever built.
07:24Planet Class 222 trains, some of the rarest locomotives from the 1840s.
07:31They weigh 15 tons each.
07:33The production period for the Planet Class 222 was an extremely fleeting time.
07:39But these 15-ton lightning-fast behemoths were cutting edge for the period, and they were known as the Iron
07:48Horses.
07:48Their design is striking.
07:51Six-wheeled frames with a pair of massive drive wheels flanked by smaller wheels in front and behind.
07:57They were small by modern standards, used to pull passenger cars over short distances.
08:04But how did they wind up at the bottom of the ocean?
08:07The most widely accepted theory is that they were being transported by barge, and maybe a storm came and they
08:14fell overboard.
08:17Maybe the boat capsized, or perhaps they actually forcibly jettisoned these trains in an effort to keep the boat afloat
08:25and to lose additional ballast.
08:29Whatever happened is quite a mystery.
08:32No one ever reported the loss of these locomotives, which seems incredible.
08:36No salvage teams were sent out.
08:38There were no newspaper reports about this.
08:40They just vanished from the record until Paul Hippler made his dive.
08:46Today, they lie where they fell, side by side on the seafloor, preserved by the cold Atlantic currents like a
08:53snapshot of the beginnings of American rain.
09:04For years, it sat unnoticed on a shelf, just another hunk of metal, until someone took a closer look and
09:11uncovered so much more.
09:16It's 2014, in Cornwall, England, and an elderly woman by the name of Doreen Little has passed away.
09:22And her family calls in a local auctioneer by the name of David Lay to come and investigate her belongings.
09:30Initially, he sees much of the usual, old books, faded paintings, a few semi-valuable antiques, nothing remarkable.
09:37Then, he spots a small cat statue on top of the hearth by the fireplace.
09:45The family tells him, throw it away if it's not worth anything.
09:49But something about it catches David's eye, and he wants to investigate further.
09:54The golden earrings, its weight, and the patina make David hesitate.
10:00He decides to bring it back to his office, where he contacts the British Museum to have them examine it.
10:05Experts at the museum run tests, and the results are shocking.
10:11Scientific analysis determines that this statue is an authentic 2,500-year-old Egyptian bronze.
10:21It turns out she's not just any cat.
10:24The statue represents Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of protection and fertility.
10:30Bastet is one of the most beloved goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon.
10:36Statues of Bastet were cast in bronze, and often found in domestic settings, placed within temples,
10:42and also within graves, to accompany the deceased on the journey to the netherworld.
10:49So how did a sacred statue from ancient Egypt end up on top of a fireplace in Cornwall?
10:55David digs deeper, and finds out that Doreen's late husband worked for one of London's oldest auction houses.
11:03But it turns out their clients have included one of the world's most famous archaeologists, Howard Carter.
11:11During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Egyptian antiquities poured into Europe,
11:17and Carter and his team were responsible for unearthing over 5,000 artifacts in the Valley of the Kings alone.
11:23These include golden chariots, thrones, jewelry, and most famously, Carter is the man who opened the tomb of King Tut.
11:33Somewhere along the way, this Bastet had slipped through the cracks and ended up on the family hearth,
11:39mistaken for a worthless souvenir.
11:42After gathering dust for decades, the statue is now ready for a new home.
11:47When the statue goes to auction, they have only modest hopes for how much money it'll bring in, maybe $10
11:53,000, $15,000.
11:55But when the bidding starts, it just suddenly explodes.
12:01$20,000 bids, $25,000, goes up to $50,000.
12:06When the hammer finally falls, what did this cat drag in?
12:10Almost $80,000.
12:14Some old treasures sit right under our noses.
12:17Others are buried deeper, waiting for the right moment to resurface, like this next steel giant.
12:26It's the fall of 1944, and Estonia is finally being freed from the crossfire of World War II.
12:33The Germans are now in retreats as the country goes back into Soviet hands.
12:39In a quiet lakeside village, a young boy walks along the shore.
12:43He's there to fish, something that he does all the time.
12:47This time, however, there's something different.
12:52He notices bubbles rising, slow and steady, just offshore.
12:58And then he notices something even stranger.
13:01Deep grooves cut into the tundra, leading into the lake.
13:06And as the days go by, the bubbles don't stop.
13:11Now, for some reason or another, the boy decides to never tell anybody about the bubbles or the tracks.
13:19But he never forgets about them.
13:21Then 50 years later, a casual conversation brings this mystery back to the surface.
13:27In the early 2000s, the boy, who by this time is an old man, is swapping stories with Igor Shedonov,
13:35a historian who heads a local war history club called Otsing.
13:40When the man recalls the tale of the lake, the strange bubbles, the mysterious tracks,
13:46Igor is 100% locked into this story.
13:50And then Igor decides to investigate.
13:55Igor gathers a team of divers.
13:58They head into the water with ropes and their own intuition.
14:02No sonar, no radar.
14:04They sweep the lake bed and initially find nothing in the silt.
14:08But then they detect the presence of something big and italic buried deep in the lake.
14:17They don't know what it is, but they're certain it shouldn't be there.
14:22The object is buried under about seven feet of water and nine more feet of peat and silt.
14:28But nonetheless, they recognize that this is no ordinary wreck.
14:31They begin a recovery effort.
14:33They bring in winches, cables, and bulldozers.
14:37And then, slowly, carefully, they start to raise it.
14:45Finally, when it breaks the surface, they're astonished with what they find.
14:52A full-size military tank caked in mud.
14:58They conclude that this tank is a Soviet T-34, a well-preserved T-34.
15:04The treads are still there.
15:06Ammo is still inside of the gun.
15:08It's a remarkable find, but also a mystery.
15:13Why was a perfectly preserved tank left here?
15:17It turns out, during World War II, Nazi Germany made extensive use of captured foreign equipment,
15:24like the Soviet T-34 tank.
15:26They were called Bauterpanzer, or a captured tank.
15:31Because the Soviet T-34 was such an excellent armored fighting vehicle,
15:36the Germans, by God, made use of them when they captured them.
15:39But, during the retreat in September of 1944, the Germans couldn't bring this tank with them.
15:45And so, rather than leaving it behind to allow the Soviets to recapture and return the vehicle to service,
15:52the decision was made to push it into the lake, where nobody can use it again.
15:56The Germans may have tried to bury it, but now Igor is determined to bring it back to life.
16:04A restoration crew cleans up the tank, and they also decide to put the key into the ignition
16:10and see if this machine will actually fire up.
16:13Despite decades of being underwater, when they turn the key,
16:22it roars back to life.
16:27Which shows that the legacy of World War II, even though it seems like a long time ago,
16:32is still with us today.
16:39We've seen metal made to conquer roads, rails, and battlefields.
16:43But this next find doesn't roll.
16:46It rocks.
16:51It's 2009, in Curaçao, off the coast of Venezuela.
16:55Donald Ballantina is this part-time guitar repairman who one day has someone come into his shop
17:01holding a pretty unique-looking axe.
17:04It's a beat-up guitar.
17:05It's been played for decades, and it's been played pretty hard.
17:09It's got all these scuff marks on it.
17:11Looks like there are even burn marks on it.
17:13But the guitar also looks pretty familiar.
17:18It's a 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom.
17:22Heavily modified, with three pickups and a unique wiring setup.
17:27Features that are rarely seen together.
17:30Despite the wear and tear, it looks like a high-end, maybe one-of-a-kind instrument.
17:36The more Donald examines the guitar, the scratches, the burn marks by the bridge, the pickups,
17:42he realizes he's seen this guitar before.
17:47It looks exactly like the one played by 70s rock icon, Peter Frampton.
17:55So what's it doing in Curaçao?
17:58Back in 1980, Frampton and his band had just played a show in Venezuela,
18:03and they board a plane to head to their next show, which is going to take place in Panama.
18:07Now, the gear is following the band on a separate cargo plane.
18:11The band make it to Panama.
18:14The cargo plane, unfortunately, doesn't.
18:21The aircraft crashed upon takeoff, and tragically, the four crew members never made it,
18:27and neither did Frampton's guitar.
18:30This wasn't just any guitar.
18:32This was iconic.
18:33It defined the sound on one of the greatest live albums of all time.
18:39Frampton comes alive.
18:40The album and the guitar that he played turn him into a superstar seemingly overnight.
18:48The album goes to number one on the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks, and it even hits platinum eight times.
18:55The cover of Frampton Comes Alive has the musician holding this Les Paul guitar.
19:01So when the plane goes down, people believe that a small piece of rock and roll history has been lost
19:07forever.
19:09Convinced this is the legendary axe, Donald reaches out to the only people who would know for certain.
19:16Donald takes photos of the guitar and sends them to Frampton's team.
19:20The response is almost immediate.
19:22The wiring, the custom features, the burn marks, even the serial number confirms this is definitely the real thing.
19:30It's an amazing discovery, but the guitar's journey is just as extraordinary.
19:36It turns out that after the crash, pieces of the wreckage were salvaged by locals.
19:42That included the Les Paul guitar, which finds its way into the hands of a musician,
19:46who eventually passes the guitar down to his son, who brings it into Donald's shop.
19:53Now, at first, the man vanishes, but then a few months later, he resurfaces, and he's asking $5,000 for
20:01the guitar.
20:02And after months of negotiation between Donald and the man, Donald purchases the guitar.
20:10It now belongs to him.
20:12But Donald doesn't keep it.
20:13Instead, he flies to Nashville and personally returns it to Peter Frampton without asking for a dime.
20:24Frampton is stunned.
20:27The guitar that shaped his sound, that transformed his life, lost for decades, is back in his hands.
20:35And soon, it's back on stage with him.
20:40Frampton christens the guitar with a new name, Phoenix.
20:44A reference to the mythical bird that rises from the ashes, just as this guitar has come alive yet again.
20:53Far from the stage, another instrument lies buried in Denmark, waiting centuries to be heard again.
21:01In 1797, a farmer, Ola Pedersen, is digging up peat in Bruce Veltamosa.
21:09It's a peat bog, and it's hard, dirty work, but they save the peat to store and burn all winter
21:15long.
21:16They've been doing it for generations, but today, as Ola drives his spade into the earth, something rings hollow.
21:27He digs out a long, twisted bronze tube, completely unlike anything he's ever seen.
21:34And over the next few days, he finds five similar ones just like it, along with what might be mouthpieces.
21:41He's no expert on instruments, but he presumes what he's found are some kind of an ancient horn.
21:46These six strange instruments are sent to Copenhagen, where they attract a lot of attention, but remain a mystery.
21:56It takes another 40 years before anyone can figure out what they are.
22:01In 1836, the Danish historian Christian J. Thompson examines these objects with fresh eyes.
22:08He draws on ancient Norse sagas and local folklore, and he pulls a name from the past to describe what
22:16these things are.
22:17Lures.
22:21Lures are Bronze Age brass instruments with no valves or finger holes, just a mouthpiece at one end and a
22:30flared bell at the other.
22:31The sound they make is deep and resonant and can carry for miles.
22:36It's something ancient and otherworldly.
22:41Until Ola made his discovery, no one in the modern age had seen anything like it.
22:46Even more incredible than what they are is how they were made.
22:51Over 200 years later, in 1990, scientists finally X-rayed these instruments.
22:57They find no signs of any hammering, just thin seams cast together.
23:05It tells them that the horn was built painstakingly.
23:09A slow process using wax molds to go section by section.
23:14And they can date this technique around 750 B.C.
23:20This places the lures among some of the oldest bronze wind instruments ever discovered.
23:26Since then, over 60 have been discovered across Northern Europe, always in bogs and often in pears.
23:33But the Bruisevelte remains the most extraordinary.
23:36Six complete horns still intact.
23:40Remarkably, these ancient instruments also still work.
23:44Modern musicians have performed on these, and it brings to mind what the ancient world might have sounded like
23:50by resurrecting the voices of ancient Scandinavia.
24:01Most people visit museums to learn about history.
24:05For one curious student, her trip made history.
24:11In November 2017, an Italian doctoral student by the name of Vittoria Dall'Amerina takes a day trip
24:19to a little island around Venice called San Lazzaro degli Armen.
24:25She wants to visit the museum there, which is attached to the monastery.
24:29And as she travels through the museum, in one of the cases, she discovers an old sword.
24:38The label dates it to the Middle Ages, but to Vittoria, who studies archaeology, this doesn't add up.
24:45The size and shape look nothing like any medieval sword she's ever studied.
24:49The sword itself is simple.
24:51There's no engravings, there's no inscriptions, and unfortunately, there's also no signs of wear.
24:58Any signs of how this sword would have been used are long gone.
25:02This sword reminds her of another sword found in one of the world's oldest known cities, Arslan Tepe, in Turkey.
25:12Swords found there are the oldest metal weapons ever discovered, with some dating back to 3,000 B.C.
25:24Intrigued, Vittoria and a team of researchers dig into the sword's history.
25:30Vittoria goes through museum records and shipping logs, and she learns that this sword was actually excavated nearly 150 years
25:38ago from the site of Kavak in eastern Turkey.
25:42From there, the sword passes through several hands, including an Armenian civil engineer who passes it to a monk from
25:51San Lazzaro.
25:52When that monk dies, the monastery inherits all of his property, including the mysterious sword.
25:58When the team does a chemical analysis of the weapon, it reveals something shocking.
26:04Testing shows that this blade was made out of a combination of copper and arsenic, which was used long before
26:13tin came to be used in bronze making.
26:15In other words, this sword itself is from earlier than the Bronze Age.
26:23Believed to be one of the oldest swords ever discovered, it now resides in the San Lazzaro Monastery, preserved and
26:32studied as a priceless link to the world's earliest warriors.
26:37This sword, once a forgotten artifact, mislabeled in a Venetian museum, shows that sometimes all it takes is a keen
26:46eye, like Vittoria's, to discover something truly special.
26:53It took a sharp eye to spot that sword, but our next discovery clearly has trouble written all over it.
27:03August 2023.
27:05The ground crew at Queen Kosa Mak High School in Cambodia is sweating under the hot sun.
27:11They're clearing some land to expand the school's garden.
27:15As the workers dig, one of the shovels hits something hard and metallic.
27:23Initially, he doesn't think much of it.
27:26He assumes it's just an old pipe.
27:28But as he works to clear it away, he freezes, the chill running down his spine.
27:36Because it's not a pipe.
27:38It looks more like a grenade.
27:42Panic sets in, and the school is immediately evacuated.
27:45The authorities show up, examine it, and confirm the worst.
27:49It is a grenade.
27:51As they continue to excavate the site, they find that it's not just a few hand grenades.
27:57They have uncovered thousands of explosives.
28:04They're rusty, but they're still alive.
28:07And they're still dangerous.
28:10How did this quiet schoolyard become a minefield?
28:14The answer lies in a turbulent chapter of Cambodia's past.
28:20From 1967 to 1975, the country was torn apart by a violent civil war.
28:29But at the same time, the war in Vietnam reached a critical pitch.
28:35Cambodia's eventually dragged into the conflict with infiltration routes for bringing weapons of war from North Vietnam through Cambodia into
28:44South Vietnam on what was eventually called the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
28:50Controversially, the U.S. began bombing campaigns and ground incursions, targeting suspected supply routes.
29:04Since the war ended, unexploded ordnance has claimed 20,000 lives and maimed 45,000 more.
29:14The fighting may have ended, but clearly, the danger didn't.
29:18But over the next few decades, the violence of the recent past became a distant memory.
29:24By the late 1980s, the site had become a school, and it was believed that the grounds were cleared of
29:30explosives.
29:31But that turned out not to be the case.
29:37After the incident, government officials deployed the remnants of war teeth to scour the 10 acres of the school ground.
29:47After a week of thorough digging, they remove over 2,000 pieces of live ordnance and then declare the ground
29:54safe.
29:55For this school, the danger's gone.
29:58But across Cambodia, thousands more people are still at risk.
30:04After the grounds have been cleared of explosives, the Cambodian government makes a bold pledge to clear every existing landmine
30:13and piece of unexploded ordnance, a task they hope to accomplish by 2030.
30:18It's a massive effort that will be helped by international partners like Japan and the United States.
30:25And if it succeeds, Cambodia will be the first country in Southeast Asia to wipe the slate clean.
30:38It looks like just another day in the field until a flash of metal reveals a surprising chapter in Chinese
30:46history.
30:48In spring of 1929, a farmer by the name of Yen Daosheng is digging an irrigation ditch near his field.
30:59And all of a sudden, he strikes something hard.
31:03The soil soon gives way to something unexpected.
31:10It's old, it's odd looking, it's green and fairly intricate.
31:14It's also clearly handmade.
31:17But he has no idea what this is.
31:19He keeps digging and unearthing more amazing items.
31:26Bronze implements, strange precision tools, each one more wondrous than the next.
31:34It's a treasure trove of relics, but experts have no idea which dynasty they come from.
31:42Then, in 1934, archaeologist David Crockett Graham starts a formal dig in the area.
31:50They uncovered temples, bronze workshops, the remains of sacrificial pits.
31:55It seems that this site extended over several square miles.
31:59These aren't just artifacts.
32:00This is an entire civilization.
32:05The most striking finds are the bronze masks.
32:09They are giant with large, bulging eyes and these massive ears that look like wings.
32:16To Graham and his team, the masks suggest something bigger.
32:22The masks' strange, otherworldly features seem to elicit ancient texts talking of a long-lost kingdom called Shu.
32:35From the 10th until around the 4th century B.C., this kingdom absolutely flourished.
32:41It was a pinnacle of civilization.
32:44They were masters of bronze, ritual and symbolism, and they were also warrior priests.
32:50But then it ended very suddenly.
32:53Historical records are scarce, and there's really not a clear idea of what exactly happened.
32:59As the excavation goes on, the evidence continues to mount.
33:04They keep finding more and more artifacts.
33:08Bronze trees, golden scepters, ornate jade stones.
33:12And all these artifacts are covered in patterns and motifs not found anywhere else in Chinese art.
33:18Altogether, they unearth 13,000 artifacts.
33:21But the discoveries don't stop there.
33:25Years later, the sight reveals even more.
33:28In 2021, to everyone's surprise, an archaeologist named Teng Fei uncovers six more pits at Sangxuan Dui.
33:39Soon, they're unearthing gold masks and towering bronze statues alongside other relics,
33:47which suggest that the Shu civilization was far greater and richer than previously thought.
33:53The significance and scale of the finds also challenges historians to rethink long-held ideas
34:01about how Chinese civilization began.
34:04For decades, scholars believed that Chinese civilization began in a single cradle
34:10along the Yellow River Basin in the north.
34:13But Fei's discovery challenges that idea,
34:16pointing to multiple independent cultures rising at the same time throughout China.
34:21In the end, Sangxuan Dui turns out to be a window into a lost civilization
34:27far more complex than we might have imagined before.
34:31And it's all because a farmer one day made an accidental swing of his shovel.
34:39Some treasures are buried in the soil.
34:42Others mysteriously sink into the sea, like this next story.
34:48In 2015, Savika Fuhr joins a group of amateur scuba divers,
34:54celebrating a friend's birthday with an adventurous dive off the coast of Caesarea, Israel.
35:00As they explore the Mediterranean seabed, something catches his eye.
35:05He sees a glint on the ocean floor.
35:08At first, he thinks maybe it's trash.
35:12But when he looks closer,
35:15suddenly,
35:17he sees a ton of gold coins just sitting in the sand.
35:24Savika is unsure what to do.
35:25So he tells the diving club director,
35:29and he reports it to the Israel Antiquities Authority, or the IAA.
35:33The IAA dispatches a professional dive team to examine the site,
35:39and what they find shocks everyone.
35:43Over the course of a few days,
35:45these divers managed to find a collection of about 2,000 gold coins.
35:52It is the largest cache of gold coins ever found in Israel.
35:58The coins also offer up more clues about where they might be from.
36:04Some of the coins are stamped with names.
36:07Caliphs al-Hakim and al-Zahir,
36:10who were rulers in the Middle East in the early 11th century.
36:12In other words,
36:14the names that are stamped into these coins
36:17show that the coins are over 1,000 years old.
36:21These Arabic inscriptions also include dates and mint marks
36:27from the Fatimid Caliphate,
36:29the dominant power in North Africa
36:32and the Mediterranean in the 11th century.
36:34Several were minted near Caesarea,
36:37a key Fatimid port.
36:38The connection of these coins to Caesarea
36:42suggests maybe a couple of different things.
36:44Maybe it was a vessel
36:47that was carrying taxes back to Egypt
36:50and it sunk.
36:52Another possibility was that
36:54these coins were meant to pay wages
36:58at the military garrison
36:59and for whatever reason,
37:02never made it.
37:05While we may never know
37:07what the hoard was for,
37:09unfortunately for Zavika,
37:11it's not finders keepers.
37:13Under Israeli law,
37:15all antiquities that are discovered
37:17belong to the state.
37:19And just in case the Navy divers
37:21didn't find every last loose coin,
37:24they tightened marine patrols
37:27to make sure no looters
37:29were able to go down
37:30and find anything else.
37:32More coins may yet be found,
37:35but in the meantime,
37:36the ones that we have
37:38bear witness to the lost centuries
37:40of Caesarea.
37:48When a married couple in Texas
37:50goes for a walk,
37:52they're expecting a nice stroll
37:54in the fresh air.
37:55What they find instead
37:56sparks a heated debate.
38:00In 1936,
38:01just outside of London, Texas,
38:04Max Hahn and his wife Emma
38:05are going for a hike along Red Creek.
38:08And as they hike along,
38:10they notice something strange.
38:14A wooden shaft protruded
38:16out of a hunk of stone.
38:20Curious, they lug the odd rock
38:22back home and set it aside.
38:24It sits for years,
38:25gathering dust as a conversation piece
38:28and a backyard mystery.
38:30Again, it's a wooden stick
38:32sticking out of a rock.
38:34And everybody's curious
38:35what's inside.
38:36So finally,
38:38one day a family member
38:39convinces Max and Emma
38:40to crack this stone open.
38:42And what they find
38:45shocks them.
38:49It's a forged iron hammer,
38:52perfectly encased
38:54within solid stone.
38:56Now the Hans must have lived
38:58a pretty extraordinary life
38:59because they don't think
39:00that's very interesting.
39:02And they just kind of
39:03leave it on their mantelpiece,
39:04collecting dust for years.
39:07Then, in the early 1980s,
39:10a minister buys the hammer
39:12and decides to have it tested.
39:16He commissions elemental analysis.
39:18And the results are,
39:20the hammer is made
39:20from 96.6% iron,
39:232.6% chlorine,
39:25and 0.74% sulfur.
39:28This is a strange alloy
39:29that resists rust
39:31better than most 19th century iron.
39:33If the alloy is strange,
39:36the results for the composition
39:38of the stone
39:40are unbelievable.
39:43Scientists suggest
39:44that this is Ordovician rock,
39:47which would make this stone
39:48ancient.
39:52Hundreds of millions of years old.
39:55So how does a modern-looking tool
39:57end up inside a prehistoric rock?
40:01Naturally, a lot of ideas
40:03start bubbling up.
40:04Some people think this is
40:05groundbreaking, monumental.
40:08Perhaps it's evidence
40:09of an ancient civilization
40:14that was working with these tools
40:16that was somehow lost to time.
40:20Others argue that the hammer's design
40:22is nearly identical
40:24to other 19th century mining tools.
40:26So this has to be something
40:28much more modern.
40:29They believe that the minerals
40:31hardened around it
40:32much more recently
40:33during a rare natural process,
40:35which could explain
40:36why the seemingly ancient rock
40:38is actually more modern.
40:39However, the hammers
40:41wouldn't handle,
40:41well, that's a little bit
40:42harder to explain.
40:44I mean, it's petrified.
40:45And while wood petrification
40:48doesn't take place
40:50over millions of years,
40:53it sure does take longer
40:54than a few decades.
40:56Because the artifact
40:58has not been subjected
41:00to any peer-reviewed
41:01scientific analysis,
41:03the controversy persists.
41:05To believers,
41:07the hammer is a relic
41:08that rewrites history.
41:09To skeptics,
41:11it's a rare but natural
41:13geological illusion.
41:14Whatever the truth may be,
41:17the line between myth
41:18and history
41:20isn't always very easy to draw.
41:26Whether it's a pair
41:28of iron horses
41:29on the ocean floor,
41:31one of the oldest swords
41:32ever found,
41:33or a bronze cap
41:35hiding centuries of secrets,
41:37when it comes to heavy metal,
41:39music's got nothing
41:41on these amazing discoveries.
41:43I'm Danny Trejo.
41:44Thanks for watching
41:45Mysteries on Earth.
Comments