- 17 hours ago
Hidden Beneath the Cities - Season 1 Episode 7
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01In 2010, construction on New York City's Freedom Tower comes to an abrupt halt after workers make a surprising discovery.
00:10Buried in the soil were what appeared to be curved planks of wood from a boat.
00:16When the original towers were built, it appears this wreck had gone entirely unnoticed.
00:20So the big question is, where did it come from?
00:24In Oxford, England, archaeologists uncover a disturbing sight.
00:28A careful excavation uncovered up to 38 skeletons piled on top of one another.
00:34This site had all the hallmarks of a mass grave.
00:38So who were these men, and why were they killed in such a brutal manner?
00:42In Warsaw, Poland, excavations reveal a series of hidden wartime spaces.
00:47In one of the basements, a burnt library of Hebrew texts alongside religious objects were found.
00:53But how exactly were these spaces used?
00:56And what can they tell us about the lives of those who once passed through them?
01:01Below the busy streets of the world's cities exists a hidden realm of wonder.
01:08Sprawling ancient complexes.
01:12Mysterious tombs.
01:15Top secret military bases.
01:18Strange structures.
01:20And lost artifacts.
01:23Buried beneath our feet.
01:25And long forgotten.
01:27Until now.
01:29Underground marbles are exposed to reveal what lies.
01:34Hidden beneath the cities.
01:46New York's bustling lower Manhattan area is home to the city's historic financial district.
01:52The financial district is one of the most iconic neighborhoods in New York City.
01:57It's the location of St. Paul's Chapel, where George Washington attended a service after he took the presidential oath of
02:04office for the first time on the balcony at Federal Hall right nearby, which was serving as the U.S.
02:09Capitol building.
02:11Just steps away, you'll find Wall Street, the economic center of the country, home to the New York Stock Exchange
02:17and some of the biggest banks in the world.
02:22This district is unfortunately burned into modern memory because of the infamous September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when two
02:29commercial airplanes were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers.
02:39Nearly 3,000 people died in the tragedy that day, making it one of the most consequential dates in U
02:47.S. history.
02:50The 9-11 attacks would forever change the country's political trajectory and lead to global conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
03:03A lot of America's political leaders were pretty determined to rebuild at ground zero where the towers had fallen.
03:11And in 2006, construction began on what was ultimately called the Freedom Tower.
03:16This thing was going to be the tallest building in New York City and the symbolism was super clear.
03:22This was a sign of defiance from the United States that it would rise from the ashes of 9-11
03:28even stronger than it had been before.
03:32But in July of 2010, construction of the Freedom Tower suddenly grinds to a halt when workers make an unexpected
03:40discovery.
03:42Buried in the soil 22 feet deep were what appeared to be curved planks of wood from a boat.
03:50Eventually, an archaeological survey uncovered 600 of these pieces and what emerged from the soil was the wooden frame of
03:59a remarkable sailing vessel.
04:01The ship was 50 feet long and 18 feet wide and had what's called a shallow draft design, which means
04:10it was intended to sail in bays, lakes and coastal waters.
04:16The boat was made from hickory, spruce, pine and oak.
04:20But the knotty wood that was selected for the hull suggests that finishing the boat quickly was prioritized over finding
04:27high quality construction materials.
04:30Iron fasteners were used to hold the planks together instead of durable wooden pegs.
04:35This is likely because the boat wasn't expected to have a long period of use.
04:40When the original towers were built, it appears this wreck had gone entirely unnoticed.
04:45In fact, the ship's hull had been bisected by one of the Twin Towers' massive subterranean walls.
04:50And because it had essentially been sealed up, the vessel and its artifacts were remarkably well preserved.
04:56The keel showed signs of wear and tear, probably from repeated landings in shallow rocky waters.
05:01But here's what's really neat.
05:03There were munitions found among the ship's remains, including 56 musket balls and 251 pieces of birdshot.
05:11If this vessel had ever had cannons or guns, they had been removed before it was buried.
05:17So the big question is, was this a military boat used in warfare?
05:21And if it was, where did it come from?
05:25Scientists look to answer those questions by analyzing the tree ring patterns on the boat's wooden planks.
05:31The results are then compared with a master list of old growth trees in the eastern US.
05:38Using this method, the point of origin for the wood was determined to be near Philadelphia during the 1770s.
05:46This was the time of the American Revolutionary War.
05:50Philadelphia was the political center and de facto capital of the forces that were looking to free themselves from British
05:57rule.
05:58It was in Philadelphia on July 4th, 1776, that the Continental Congress in Independence Hall formally adopted the Declaration of
06:07Independence of the United States.
06:09Incredibly, the wood from the Ground Zero vessel matches samples of timber taken from Independence Hall.
06:15Now, the boat may have been deployed from Philadelphia, but there's evidence that it sailed a lot farther than that.
06:21The hull has holes in it, and those holes come from these mollusks called shipworms.
06:26People call them the termites of the sea.
06:29But here's the thing.
06:30The species of shipworm found on this vessel normally thrives in the warm salt waters of the southern seas,
06:37not the fresh waters of the Delaware and Hudson Rivers.
06:42The story of this boat's journey and service may be a complicated one, but there's a possibility it was never
06:49intended to be a military vessel.
06:52With its single mast and head sail, this boat is what's known as a sloop, and it may have initially
06:59been a privately owned merchant ship.
07:01As the war escalated, so-called privateers were commandeered by the Americans to help fight the Royal Navy.
07:10With the U.S. Navy still in its infancy, these refitted vessels became an essential part of the American maritime
07:18war effort.
07:20In 1775, General George Washington commissioned a small fleet of schooners to attack British supply ships.
07:28Eventually, 1,800 privateers were authorized for combat by the Continental Congress.
07:33This boat may have been one of them.
07:36But how do you explain the damage from the shipworms?
07:39There's certainly historical precedent for privateers operating along the American coast and even throughout the Caribbean.
07:45In 1776, the Philadelphia privateer Hancock sailed to the West Indies and managed to overtake a large British vessel that
07:53was bound for London.
07:54Perhaps the Ground Zero ship had been deployed to a similar locale.
07:59It may have been built to terrorize the Royal Navy, but there's evidence that the Ground Zero ship may have
08:05later fallen into British hands.
08:08There were hundreds of artifacts excavated with the ship's remains, including shoe buckles and drinking canisters.
08:15But the most interesting artifact was a button, just this one flat pewter button, but it was stamped with the
08:22number 52 on it.
08:24That's a big deal because it suggests that this was part of the British Army's 52nd Regiment.
08:29That's a company that was active in the Revolutionary War between 1775 and 1778.
08:36Notably, the 52nd Regiment had taken part in the occupation of Philadelphia.
08:41So maybe this stray button fell off a British soldier's jacket while he and his battalion were seizing this ship
08:48from American sailors.
08:50The British would have seen this boat as particularly useful.
08:55A sloop could have more easily navigated the shallow waters within the West Indies, where the British were warring with
09:03the Spanish and the French over island resources.
09:06It could have provided this vessel with a dramatic second act.
09:12Island goods such as sugar were arguably more important economically to the British than the 13 American colonies were.
09:19The 1782 Battle of the Saints is an example of a massive naval battle with the French, where the British
09:26would have likely redirected many of their ships to the Caribbean.
09:30Service in these warmer waters would explain the presence of shipworms on this mysterious boat.
09:36The history of British naval warfare in the Caribbean islands is well documented.
09:41But there are no historical records that link this ship to a southern voyage.
09:45A passage in a log book or from colonial reports out of this area may one day prove this theory.
09:49But for now, it's based on purely circumstantial evidence.
09:55Ultimately, the tree rings that mark the timbers of the ship are the clearest signifiers of the ship's origin and
10:02its mission.
10:03We know that our mystery ship was likely built in a Philadelphia shipyard in the 1770s.
10:09And in the summer of 1775, the Continental Congress reportedly approved the construction of 13 warships, one for each colony.
10:19Each of those was outfitted with between 24 and 32 guns.
10:23And included as part of that hastily assembled fleet were four merchant vessels that were converted into gunships.
10:32So, it's entirely possible that the ground zero gunboat sailed alongside these first ships of the Continental Navy.
10:41The flat pewter button is the best evidence that the boat later encountered British aggressors.
10:48In 1777, American boats failed to stop the Royal Navy's approach along the Delaware River.
10:55And interestingly, historical records indicate that at least one American warship was captured by the British during the battle.
11:05You can imagine the newly commandeered gunship serving in the southern waters for a period of time before returning to
11:12British-occupied New York to be decommissioned and stripped for parts.
11:17By 1790, seven years after the Treaty of Paris had formally recognized the Americans' victory over the British, New York
11:25was working to expand its Manhattan shoreline.
11:28This mysterious gunboat from the Revolutionary War likely became part of the landfill.
11:37In the end, after being hidden from view for two centuries, the story behind the ground zero gunship's life during
11:44wartime remains a confounding secret.
11:50After the ship was pulled piece by piece out of the rubble from ground zero, it underwent a 14 year
11:56process of analysis and documentation.
11:58In the spring of 2025, the ship was brought to the New York State Museum in Albany, where it remains
12:05on exhibit today as part of the institution's permanent collection.
12:10From the Revolutionary War to the ruins of the World Trade Center, this vessel's greatest journey may be the unexpected
12:18link created between these two monumental moments in American history.
12:34In South Central England, just 50 miles from London, lies the historic Oxford University.
12:42Teaching at Oxford University is believed to have begun as early as 1096, which would make it the oldest university
12:50in the English-speaking world.
12:52Its alumni includes 31 British Prime Ministers, and its relationship to the monarchy goes back for centuries.
12:59The Oxford area began as a 9th century settlement under King Alfred the Great, who established it as a fortified
13:06town called a Burr.
13:09Its defensive ditches and walls were intended to provide defense against Viking raids.
13:14In the 17th century, King Charles I set up his headquarters at the university during the English Civil War.
13:22The university remains one of the most prestigious in the world.
13:25Much of the research at Oxford has helped shape our modern world from political philosophy to quantum computing.
13:31It's an institution that remains at the forefront of social and scientific studies.
13:36In January of 2008, a new student housing complex is set to be built behind the university's St. John's College.
13:45The city had requested that an archaeological survey be conducted at the site before construction began.
13:51And just hours into the excavation, something strange was found buried beneath the soil.
13:57It appeared to be an enclosure approximately 400 feet in diameter.
14:03But two months later, there was another find, and it was a shocker.
14:08Buried haphazardly just below the enclosure were human remains.
14:14A careful excavation uncovered up to 38 skeletons piled on top of one another.
14:20There were no coffins and no gravestones found inside the trench.
14:24So these people were apparently buried without any tradition or ceremony.
14:29Sometimes face down, sometimes on their side.
14:32This site had all the hallmarks of a mass grave.
14:37An analysis of the remains determined that they were all male.
14:40But aside from the jumble of human bones, there were very few other clues to their identities buried inside the
14:47pit.
14:47No grave goods, weapons, or remnants of clothing like buckles or pins,
14:52which suggested these men were stripped before burial.
14:56And further to that, all of the skeletons showed horrific evidence of traumatic injuries.
15:03Some of the victims suffered cracked and broken skulls.
15:06Many of them had puncture wounds to the spine and to the pelvis.
15:09Some of them had marks that showed they were attacked on all sides.
15:13And at least a dozen of them looked like they had been stabbed in the back.
15:17Shockingly, one individual had been fully decapitated.
15:20And at least five other skeletons showed evidence of multiple failed decapitation attempts.
15:26What's more, several individuals appeared to have suffered severe burns on their heads, backs, and pelvic regions.
15:33All of this painted a disturbing picture of a scene that must have been unspeakably violent.
15:37So who were these men? And why were they killed in such a brutal manner?
15:43The enclosure is called a henge, likely a site for religious ceremonies.
15:48And its craftsmanship dates it to the late Neolithic period, around 4,000 years ago.
15:54But the human remains appeared to be from a different era entirely.
15:59An examination of the remains placed the burial sometime in the early 11th century.
16:05During that time in England, the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was ruled by a king named Ethelred the Unready.
16:11And his nickname is a translation of an Anglo-Saxon word that means poorly advised.
16:16He got the name because his reign was marked by ill-advised domestic and foreign policy decisions.
16:23He probably wasn't the king you would have wanted in charge of the country during a particularly tumultuous time.
16:31Before Ethelred's reign, a significant part of England had been occupied by Danish settlers
16:36after being conquered by one of the country's arch enemies, the Vikings from Northern Europe.
16:42After decades of relative peace, the kingdom was suddenly suffering from a fresh wave of attacks from marauding Viking armies.
16:50King Ethelred made a highly questionable decision to pay off the Vikings with thousands of pounds of silver in exchange
16:57for peace.
16:59At the same time Ethelred had been paying off Viking armies,
17:03he'd also been hiring Danish mercenaries to defend the country's coastal borders from other Viking raiders.
17:09But in 997 CE, some of those mercenaries flipped on the king and began raiding England's southern counties.
17:19Searching for answers, researchers analyzed the remains at a subatomic level to determine their origin.
17:26Laboratory analysis of 13 victims revealed a diet high in fish, which would have been more common for a seafaring
17:33community.
17:34Further to this, tooth enamel from the skulls was examined to help trace the geology and climate these individuals might
17:40have been raised in.
17:41The results indicated the people in the pit were not Anglo-Saxon.
17:45These men had come from a colder climate consistent with Northern Europe.
17:49So, was this mass grave the final resting place for a group of Vikings?
17:55All of the men were determined to have been between 16 and 35 years old.
18:00The areas where the bones would have attached to the victim's musculature revealed that they were not only in great
18:06physical condition, but many were unusually tall.
18:10In addition, some skeletons exhibited battle scars.
18:14All of this strongly suggested that this was a group of military men from Northern Europe.
18:19One could imagine a Viking raiding party making an incursion into this area of Oxford only to be defeated by
18:26Anglo-Saxon armies.
18:28In this scenario, about 38 Viking raiders could have been captured and executed before being buried in the pit at
18:34Oxford.
18:35These men would have met a grisly fate.
18:39One year after the remains were discovered on Oxford's campus, just over 80 miles away in the town of Dorset,
18:46archaeologists dug up another mass grave.
18:49And the similarities to the Oxford site were striking.
18:53The grave in Dorset contained the remains of 54 military-aged men from the late 10th or early 11th century.
19:01And once again, the men were determined to have originated from Northern Europe.
19:06But unlike the Oxford grave, every single one of these males at Dorset was decapitated.
19:13When we consider that both Oxford and Dorset were under the control of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom,
19:19maybe the men found in both of these grave sites were considered a threat and summarily executed by the state.
19:25So it is possible that these are the bones of a Viking raiding party,
19:31but there's no historical account of any massacre that fits the bill.
19:35So we do have to be open to other possibilities.
19:40Historical records suggest the Viking mercenaries who had betrayed King Æthelred
19:45had themselves become marked men.
19:49After the king's use of the mercenaries backfired, Æthelred issued a royal decree that would have far-reaching and bloody
19:56consequences.
19:57The king claimed that he had uncovered a Danish plot to overthrow his kingdom
20:01and called for what he referred to as a just extermination of all Danes in England.
20:08His decree led to the infamous St. Bryce's Day massacre,
20:12which saw countless Danes slaughtered across the country.
20:16This was an incredibly dark day in the history of England.
20:20And the age of the bones in the Oxford grave certainly lines up with the date of the king's proclamation.
20:26It suggests these men were likely executed as part of a countrywide sweep of Danish enemy combatants.
20:33Perhaps they were from a garrison of mercenaries stationed outside of Oxford that had once been in the king's employ.
20:39Arguably, the St. Bryce's Day massacre was retribution for their treachery.
20:46There's documentation of a high-ranking earl named Pallig Tokasen,
20:51who served as one of the king's mercenaries before joining up with a Viking garrison.
20:56After Æthelred's decree, Pallig's wife was reportedly murdered during the St. Bryce's Day massacre.
21:02So, turncoat mercenaries and their associates were clearly on the king's hit list.
21:08So, are these skeletons Danish settlers that were rounded up and massacred?
21:13Are they Viking raiders that were defeated and then executed?
21:18Or are they mercenaries who double-crossed the king and got dispatched by a mob?
21:23We don't know.
21:26Documented evidence from the king himself could point to a horrifying story behind the mass grave.
21:33After the St. Bryce's Day massacre, a letter from Æthelred reported that a number of dames in Oxford
21:38had escaped a violent mob by taking refuge in a local church.
21:43The mob responded by setting the church on fire.
21:46Those dames who weren't killed in the fire were hunted down and slaughtered.
21:52After that, we can assume that the bodies were stripped of their clothing
21:56before being unceremoniously buried within the remnants of the ancient enclosure.
22:01The king's story could be interpreted to mean that the men in this mass grave were not enemy combatants,
22:08but rather members of the local Danish population living in or around Oxford.
22:13Following the king's decree, maybe these individuals were rounded up and butchered
22:18by members of Oxford's Anglo-Saxon community.
22:21The king's story of the burning church correlated directly with the charred remains found at the Oxford site.
22:28And the haphazard wounds found on many of these individuals, including the blows to the back of the head,
22:34are all indicative of a frenzied mob.
22:37It's a stunning example of ferocious anti-Danish sentiment that had escalated into state-sanctioned murder after Ethelred's decree.
22:47The mass grave is one of the most significant finds in Oxford's recent history.
22:52But the full details of what happened here may never fully be known or understood.
22:58Though many questions remain unanswered, the discovery could provide a chilling example
23:04of what happens when a country's leaders give its people a license to kill.
23:20On the banks of the Vistula River, in east-central Poland, lies Warsaw,
23:25a city shaped by centuries of expansion, invasion, destruction and rebirth.
23:33Warsaw's roots trace back to the 10th century.
23:36But by the late 1200s, the community shifted north to a village called Warshova,
23:41which was protected by a castle.
23:43By the 14th century, Warsaw had walls, a council, and the stature of a growing town.
23:50In the 15th century, it was crowned the capital of Mazovia, and soon after, the capital of Poland itself.
23:57I think what a lot of people don't realize is that Warsaw was one of the world's biggest hubs for
24:02the Jewish people.
24:03By the early 20th century, Warsaw had grown to a city of 1.3 million people, and that included 400
24:09,000 Jewish people.
24:10That made it the largest Jewish community in Europe, and if you look worldwide, it was number two only to
24:15New York City.
24:17But after the German invasion of 1939, Jews in occupied Poland were systematically targeted.
24:23They were stripped of their property, they were fired from their jobs, they were forced to wear armbands,
24:28they were barred from going to school, going to synagogue, they were forced into labor,
24:32and they were even forbidden to walk on certain streets.
24:36In October 1940, 375,000 Jews were forced into the Warsaw ghetto, a district of just 1.3 square miles,
24:48surrounded by a 10-foot wall topped with barbed wire.
24:52At its height, more than 450,000 people were crammed inside.
24:58And by mid-1942, more than 80,000 people had died in the ghetto.
25:05In 2022, archaeologists working within the former Warsaw ghetto unearthed the first clue to a far more complex story waiting
25:15underground.
25:15The first thing they found was a small glass that had been buried for 80 years.
25:21Further excavations uncovered the cellars of pre-war tenement houses that once stood between Mila and Murunovska streets.
25:29From these basements came at least 3,000 objects.
25:33Cups, bottles, pans, an iron, candlesticks, even a handbag, everyday possessions of middle-class residents.
25:41One of the houses had a reconstructed cellar, a concrete room with electrical and water fittings,
25:48and corridors branching out beneath the rubble.
25:51In another location, they found religious objects and everyday items dating back to the 19th century.
25:58The site was first identified in 2019 through geophysical surveys,
26:03but later work in 2021, including a bunch of techniques, electrical resistivity tomography, ground-penetrating radar,
26:10handheld LIDAR, all of that confirmed that much of the underground infrastructure had survived.
26:17These excavated cellars are the physical remnants of how people reshaped their world under impossible conditions.
26:25But how exactly were these spaces used, and what can they ultimately tell us about the lives of those who
26:33once passed through them?
26:35In the Warsaw ghetto, resistance took on many forms, and some evidence suggests these spaces served a deeper purpose in
26:43the struggle to endure.
26:45In one of the basements, a burnt library of Hebrew texts alongside religious objects were found.
26:51Hand-washing cups, a Torah pointer, and fragments of the Talmud.
26:57Finds like these reflect a wider pattern of spiritual resistance in the ghetto,
27:01where people fought to preserve belief and dignity amid starvation and terror.
27:06So, is it possible this cellar functioned as a hidden space for prayer, study, or cultural activities?
27:15Even under the most brutal conditions, Jewish life in the ghetto persisted.
27:19Children studied in hidden classrooms, adults gathered for secret lectures,
27:24and confiscated books were quietly recirculated.
27:27In some ghettos, leaders organized trade schools,
27:30hoping that practical skill in carpentry, tailoring, and metal work might offer a chance at survival.
27:37By 1940, as many as 600 underground prayer groups existed in Warsaw.
27:43They gathered in cellars or in attics with lookouts posted at the door.
27:47In these hidden spaces, prayer served two roles.
27:51It was a way to connect with God and practice the religion, but it was also an act of defiance.
27:55It was a refusal to let the Nazi regime break their spirit.
28:02Less than half a mile away, the post-war discoveries of a hidden cache shows how underground spaces were vital
28:09for preserving Jewish life, culture, and resistance.
28:13In 1939, historian and activist Immanuel Ringelblum began collecting Jewish testimonies through his work with self-aid organizations.
28:23But after the Warsaw ghetto was sealed in November 1940, his efforts expanded into a wide-reaching, organized network.
28:34The archivists gathered things like diaries, testimonies, underground newspapers, ration cards, tram tickets, and even menus from ghetto cabarets.
28:44Together, these fragments created a vivid portrait of daily life under Nazi rule.
28:50Refugees arriving in Warsaw added reports from across occupied Poland, making the collection one of the most detailed records of
28:57Jewish life during the Holocaust.
29:00Determined to preserve the truth for future generations, the group took great risk to bury the archive.
29:06And when it was recovered after the war, they had preserved some 35,000 documents.
29:12It remains one of the most important testimonies of the Holocaust.
29:17The Ringelblum archive shows how underground spaces could preserve culture and belief.
29:23But in the cellars uncovered in 2022, the evidence is less clear.
29:27The artifacts hint at prayer or study, but as conditions in the ghetto deteriorated, they probably served a more basic
29:36function.
29:39In the Warsaw ghetto, hidden passageways and spaces kept goods, information, and people moving, leading some to suspect that these
29:48cellars played a more material role in the struggle to survive.
29:53Excavations at the site revealed a cellar altered from its original design with concrete block walls and a reinforced ceiling,
30:02along with traces of pipes and an electric cable.
30:06Given the extent of these modifications, could this space have been part of the smuggling and communication networks that sustained
30:15daily life inside the ghetto?
30:18From that room, a corridor extended west and then south, linking multiple cellars.
30:24These connections formed a concealed route that would have allowed multiple people, and perhaps goods, to move discreetly within the
30:31ghetto.
30:33Couriers were a lifeline between Jewish communities.
30:37Many were young women from youth movements who maintained underground networks across occupied Poland.
30:42They traveled under false names with forged papers, carrying mail, newspapers, money, and information into the ghettos.
30:50They also smuggled in weapons, guns, grenades, and ammunition hidden in food parcels or on their bodies.
30:59Roughly 170 miles southwest at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a similar kind of network became the foundation for one of the Holocaust's
31:09most daring revolts.
31:12Rosa Robota was a member of the Jewish underground assigned to a clothing detail where the belongings of murdered Jews
31:19were sorted.
31:20Her unit operated beside Crematorium 4.
31:23That's the area where the Sonderkommando Jews worked.
31:27That's the name given by the Nazis to a group of Jewish prisoners who were forced to participate in the
31:33extermination process, removing bodies, cutting hair, searching for hidden values, and running the crematoria, all while knowing that they, too,
31:45were soon going to be lying among those bodies.
31:48In the spring of 1944, the underground turned to Rosa Robota for help smuggling explosives from a munitions factory.
31:57She enlisted three young Jewish women who worked in the gunpowder section.
32:03They hid small amounts in matchboxes, scraps of cloth or paper, and on their bodies.
32:10Over time, nearly 20 others joined the effort.
32:16Robota passed the powder to the Sonderkommando, and they secretly stockpiled enough of it to build crude grenades from food
32:23tins packed with nails, stones, and glass, sealed with plaster and makeshift fuses.
32:29On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando launched a revolt.
32:35Their explosives killed several guards and destroyed parts of the crematorium and the adjacent gas chambers.
32:41In the reprisals that followed, around 450 prisoners were executed.
32:46Smuggling networks that supplied groups like the Sonderkommando showed us how crucial secret supply lines were to Jewish resistance, both
32:55in the ghettos and in the camps.
32:57We know that one of the excavated cellars was first used by smugglers to store goods.
33:03But as German control intensified and anger swelled in the ghetto, these same underground spaces took on new and shifting
33:11roles.
33:12On April 19, 1943, around 750 members of two Jewish resistance groups fought German forces with smuggled guns, grenades, and
33:24homemade petrol bombs in what became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
33:30The corridors found in the cellars lead toward what is now Anolevich Mound.
33:35That's a place named for Mordecai Anolevich, who was the commander of the Jewish combat organization who led the Warsaw
33:42Ghetto Uprising.
33:44People's testimonies state that up to 300 people sheltered in a bunker on Mila Street spread across several properties between
33:52Mila and the now vanished Murinovska Street.
33:55That's a street that the Germans destroyed during the 1943 uprising.
34:00So is it possible that these basements are surviving traces of that stronghold?
34:07Months before the uprising, when German troops entered the ghetto in January 1943 to round up deportees,
34:13members of the Jewish combat organization under Anolevich launched a sudden attack.
34:20Most were killed, but their resistance disrupted deportation orders, which were essentially death sentences and gave thousands a chance to
34:30scatter.
34:31In the wake of the incident, survivors dug new bunkers determined to be ready for the next time.
34:39That's when the Jewish combat organization moved its headquarters to 18 Mila Street, a smuggler owned bunker with six rooms,
34:47six exits, hatches and a ventilation system.
34:50This bunker became key to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising beginning in April.
34:56But on the 8th of May, Nazis discovered the bunker.
34:59They spread gas inside and circled the exits, prompting many to take their own lives instead of surrendering.
35:07In the end, families suffocated or burned in the very bunkers built to protect them.
35:14Thousands were killed in the ghetto.
35:16And thousands more were deported to Treblinka.
35:19Yet the uprising's legacy reached far beyond its immediate defeat.
35:24It showed that even with almost no hope of survival, resistance could still be an act of dignity.
35:30A refusal to let the oppressor decide the terms of life and death.
35:37The full extent of Onalevich's bunker has yet to be uncovered.
35:42But the cellars on Mila Street reveal how ordinary basements were reshaped in crisis to become spaces of resistance, refuge
35:51and survival.
36:03Southeast of mainland France, Corsica rises as the Mediterranean's fourth largest island, a rugged crossroads between France, Italy and Sardinia.
36:16Corsica's recorded history begins around 560 BCE when Greeks founded Alalia on the East Coast.
36:23Carthaginian rule followed in the early 3rd century BCE until Rome conquered the island in a series of campaigns between
36:29259 and 163 BCE.
36:32From the mid-6th century CE, the island fell under Byzantine influence and then papal rule in the 8th century.
36:41In 1077, the papacy granted the Bishop of Pisa authority over Corsica and as a result, more than 300 churches
36:49were constructed on the island in the following two centuries.
36:53In the Middle Ages, Corsica and Sardinia lay between rival powers.
36:57A papal bid to unite them under Aragon failed and by the 16th century, Genoa controlled Corsica.
37:04In 1768, Genoa surrendered the island to France and within a year, French forces secured it.
37:10That same year, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica's capital, Ejaccio, a moment that tied Corsica's turbulent story to
37:19the fate of Europe itself.
37:23In 2021, archaeologists working in the center of Il Rus' uncover something extraordinary beneath the modern streets.
37:32They found a necropolis of more than 40 graves spanning between the 3rd and 6th century CE.
37:39That basically spans the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire.
37:45We've identified three main types of graves.
37:48Some are simple, rectangular cut pits where the dead are laid to rest and covered with earth.
37:53Others reuse fragments of roof tiles arranged to form sort of a rough enclosure.
37:59But the third type is the most distinctive of all, burials inside amphorae.
38:05Now, amphorae are jars that are used to transport wine and olive oil and brine and stuff like that.
38:11But here they're used for burials.
38:13In one case, two vessels were even fitted together to hold a single individual.
38:18Jar burials appear across the Mediterranean, but the Il Rus' necropolis breaks the mold.
38:23Unlike the more common child amphorae burials, adults were interred in these jars.
38:29Corsica in late antiquity was shaped by shifting empires and powerful trade routes.
38:36At Il Rus', the origins of imported amphorae raised questions about who these people were and where they may have
38:43came from.
38:44From the fourth to seventh centuries, Corsica imported wine, oil, and brine in amphorae, shipped from Carthage or present-day
38:53Tunisia.
38:55Finding those same containers reused for burials suggests a direct link to North Africa and the powers that ruled there.
39:03It's possible there's a connection to the Vandals, a Germanic people who captured Carthage in 439 CE, the richest city
39:10of Rome in North Africa.
39:12From that new capital, they built a maritime empire spanning the western Mediterranean and secured the island of Corsica as
39:18part of their conquest of Roman-ruled islands.
39:21Given this, maybe the dead at Il Rus' were settlers or officials tied the Vandal rule.
39:25It's possible, but archaeological evidence for Vandal burials is limited, and it's regionally inconsistent.
39:33So, it's difficult to draw any firm connection to the amphora burials on Corsica.
39:40The austerity of these burials may point to a community under pressure, where necessity shaped how the dead were laid
39:48to rest.
39:49In times of epidemic or sudden mass mortality, communities came under immense pressure, often forcing changes to established burial customs.
40:00Amphorae may have offered a quick solution if deaths came too fast for formal rights.
40:06Could some of the unusual internments on Corsica reflect emergency burials improvised in the face of a catastrophe?
40:15In the mid-6th century, plague swept across the Mediterranean and Europe.
40:20Beginning in Egypt and reaching Constantinople in 542 CE, it returned in waves for more than two centuries, killing millions.
40:30In the imperial capital, cemeteries overflowed.
40:34So, mass pits and trenches were dug.
40:37And when even those filled, bodies were stacked in towers or cast into the sea.
40:41But what we see at Il Rus' is nothing like the chaos of a plague pit.
40:46The graves are generally laid out in an orderly east-west orientation.
40:50And while certain plague cemeteries display careful alignment and adherence to Christian norms, burial responses to mass death vary.
40:58Meaning the use of amphorae in Corsica may point to a very different logic altogether.
41:03Beyond the amphorae, the use of salvaged materials in some burials may offer the clearest clues to the cemetery's character.
41:12At Il Rus', some graves were framed with broken roof tiles, sometimes mixed with amphora sherds.
41:19A layout reminiscent of building tombs, where reused tiles formed a simple casing around the body.
41:26But here, the construction is far more rudimentary, using low-quality terracotta kind of salvaged from ruined buildings nearby.
41:34So, you kind of get the impression that this was an imperfect solution, kind of making do with what was
41:40available.
41:41In Corsica, the North African amphorae found at the site were among the island's most common imports.
41:47But once they served their original purpose, they were simply reused.
41:51Vessels were broken apart, sections cut and refitted into a type of coffin.
41:56Rather than discard what trade had made plentiful, the community seemingly turned everyday containers into material for burial.
42:06Nearly 400 miles east, on the Croatian island of Var, excavations in a town of the same name uncovered a
42:13late antique necropolis from the late 4th to early 5th century CE.
42:18In an area covering just 700 square feet, archaeologists documented 20 graves, holding the skeletal remains of 32 people.
42:28Burials at the site range from simple earthenware and amphora graves to tile-lined tombs, along with a single masonry
42:36tomb holding 12 skeletons.
42:38A striking parallel to the mixed forms seen at Il Rus'.
42:42The finds at Far show how 4th and 5th century communities used amphora and roof tiles and burials, combining everyday
42:49materials in ways that reflect local adaptation in funerary practice.
42:53They also reveal new insights into ceramic production and trade networks through imported wares, some of which are the first
43:00documented in the Adriatic.
43:01This reflects a broader Mediterranean practice known as encitrismos, burying people inside terracotta containers.
43:10That was common from the 3rd century onward, particularly in coastal towns where there were a lot of terracotta jars.
43:16But by the 5th century, it was very common for child burials to be done this way in early Christian
43:22cemeteries.
43:25That's what makes Il Rus' so interesting.
43:28You have adults and infants buried together, and so far, not a single grave good.
43:33It's a departure from the familiar pattern that could reflect nothing more than pragmatic reuse of abundant containers.
43:41Or it may signal beliefs about life and death that remain beyond our reach.
43:46The necropolis at Il Rus' is one of the few anchors of this region's ancient past.
43:53It preserves a vital record and, just as clearly, shows how partial the story here remains.
44:003
44:005
44:005
44:002
44:014
44:016
44:017
44:018
44:028
44:029
Comments