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Historys Greatest Mysteries - Season 7 - Episode 12: The Hunt for Viking Treasure
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00:08Over a billion dollars worth of Viking treasure could still be found if you can decipher where
00:14they buried it. Their wealth comes from raiding and trading some of the greatest wealth of the
00:20world. Gold, silver, crowns, crosses, amulets. So if you find one of their burial mounds,
00:27you may find a treasure beyond belief. To this day, incredible discoveries keep turning up.
00:34This buried Viking ship is 78 feet long and inside is all kinds of treasure. Another person
00:42stumbles upon a completely forgotten Viking city filled with gold, silver and jewels. There are any
00:49number of places they could have hidden treasure. Many historians believe these riches are just
00:53the tip of the iceberg if you know where to search. They did not realize that it might be
00:59actually evidence of Viking presence in North America. Now we explore the top theory surrounding
01:06the Vikings lost treasure. A strange coin discovered on a beach in Maine could upend everything we know
01:14about the Vikings. If this map is to be believed, it's a gateway to a hidden world. Are there any
01:21rich
01:21Viking hordes still waiting to be found? And if so, where are they?
01:41June 8th, 793. A peaceful day on the island of Lindisfarne in northeast England, home to the region's
01:50most significant Christian monastery. But that peace will soon be broken by a band of Viking warriors.
02:00The monks of Lindisfarne are going about their daily business. They're farming for their own sustenance
02:05or they're doing their monastic duty. They're a peaceful people. But this peaceful culture of worship
02:13is no match for the Vikings. The Vikings are fearsome warriors and they are armed. The monks are not.
02:24They sweep in unopposed and it's a literal slaughter. The Vikings kill the monks, plunder the church's
02:33holy relics, and take everything of value away in their longboats.
02:41You might think that a monastery full of monks wouldn't be the best place to plunder. But monasteries
02:49back in the Middle Ages were full of precious objects made of gold and silver. The Vikings discover
02:56unimaginable wealth in this monastery. Gold-encrusted crosses or jewels or manuscripts that have gold
03:04covers on them. For them, nothing is sacred here. The Vikings take all the treasure that they can see
03:10and then they disappear across the sea. Terrifying.
03:16In 793, with the attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne, the Viking age had begun.
03:25Once they have a taste of attacking a monastery and seeing the incredible wealth inside,
03:31they begin systematically attacking monasteries, churches, and fortresses across the British
03:39Isles. The Vikings are predominantly coming from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, where it's very
03:46difficult to do farming in certain parts. This is harsh land. So what the Vikings really grow
03:54is resilience. These are hardened people. They are competing for resources and they're doing it
04:02violently. They develop this very fierce warrior culture where bravery, honor, glory are their moral
04:10compass. As we get into the 8th century, they become skilled seafarers. And that enables them to
04:17look to distant horizons. And what they do on those distant shores is plunder.
04:23So if you wanted to maintain your power as a Viking chieftain, you had to have wealth in order to
04:30buy
04:31the loyalty of other strong and impressive warriors. If they could do it through raiding, that was even
04:36better because now you get some free stuff in order to gain more power. This plundered Christian wealth
04:44is worth the equivalent of billions of dollars today. And it's for free, just taken with might.
04:51They're just looking for any way to enrich themselves. They are terrorizing Europe all over
04:58the Russian river system, through the Baltic coast, the North Atlantic, and across the North Sea.
05:02And the Vikings didn't fear death in battle. They sort of anticipated it and looked forward to it.
05:10They believed that if you die this glorious death in battle, virgin warriors called Valkyries
05:16will take you and lead you by the hand to Valhalla.
05:20In essence, a warrior paradise, a warrior holy land. There, they get to feast and drink and celebrate
05:28their battlefield exploits with their god, Odin.
05:32The Vikings who died on the battlefield were either cremated on funerary pyres or they're buried,
05:40often with their possessions. These are called grave goods. The Vikings thought that these treasures
05:46would follow them into Valhalla.
05:48They are usually their most prized possessions. So beautiful jewelry, ornate swords, gold coins,
05:55silver coins. Your grave goods are part of your identity and your personal belongings that you
06:00have the right to take with you to the afterlife.
06:03They would bury this wealth all across the world, but many times these hoards of treasure were forgotten
06:10and never discovered again.
06:11Some say the kind of treasure that could have been amassed by the Vikings over several centuries
06:17could number in the billions of dollars, but there is no surviving knowledge. There are no
06:23treasure maps to tell you where to find it.
06:26The knowledge of the Vikings' buried treasure is lost for nearly a thousand years,
06:31until a chance discovery in England reignites interest in their plunder.
06:38In 1840, workers repairing a riverbank in northwest England come upon something unusual,
06:44a rotting chest lined with lead.
06:48What they find within will reignite interest in Viking culture almost immediately. It is a
06:56treasure trove the likes of which had never been seen.
07:04It is an amazing find. It's full of silver coins and ingots and jewelry. Altogether,
07:11it's 8,500 pieces. And it all dates back to somewhere between 903 and 910 CE.
07:19This discovery fuels a craze for Viking treasure. Archaeologists and amateur treasure hunters begin
07:26digging holes all over England, literally anywhere that Vikings are believed to have once been.
07:32Two months after the Curedale horde is discovered, Queen Victoria declares this a treasure trove.
07:37It means that anything found is of historical value to the nation, and thus belongs to the crown.
07:44Queen Victoria hands it over to the British Museum. And even though people know that if they find any
07:53kind of horde like this, they have to turn it over. In 19th century England, aiding queen and country is
08:00one of the greatest acts of patriotism that somebody could perform.
08:05Everybody is looking for Viking coins. Everybody is looking for Viking burial sites.
08:09People start thinking, do I have a Viking site in my backyard? So it leads to a lot more discoveries.
08:15The raid at Lindisfarne Monastery in 793 is one major milestone in the Viking expansion into England.
08:24But towards the 9th century, the Vikings start settling a section of England that's called the Danelaw.
08:30By the late 9th century, the Vikings have settled in Mercia, North Umbria, East Anglia, and they create their capital
08:39in today's present-day York.
08:41Sites all over England have these deposits of coins. Sometimes they're huge deposits, sometimes they're small deposits.
08:48In the 1880s, as much as $200,000 worth of coins is found in northeast England. In 1912, a catch
08:55is found in Scotland, valuing as much as $800,000.
09:00And a silver hoard was found in Herefordshire, valued at $4 million. It's an astounding amount of Viking treasure.
09:08By the 2010s, every known Viking settlement has been poured over by countless individuals with everything from shovels to modern
09:19metal detectors.
09:20Many scholars are confident that the English countryside has been picked clean of all the Viking hoards. They've all been
09:27found.
09:28But then, a single treasure hunter makes an unexpected discovery.
09:32There's a woman by the name of Kath Giles who, in 2018, retires after 30 years as a police officer
09:40on the Isle of Man.
09:41And she's really interested in this idea of the Vikings having left some sort of presence behind on her little
09:49island.
09:49She begins scouring the seaside with her metal detector looking for Viking treasure.
09:56For many years, she doesn't find anything. But then, in 2021, she's out on the beach and her metal detector
10:03goes crazy.
10:06She finds 87 silver coins, 13 pieces of hack silver armbands, and she finds certain artifacts from as far afield
10:17as Turkey.
10:18Hack silver is when you would melt the coins down into these elaborate twisted silver necklaces and are the hallmarks
10:26of a perfect hoard.
10:28If you were a chieftain and one of your warriors does something pretty good, you might break off a little
10:33piece of your arm ring.
10:34If somebody does something spectacular, you'd give them the whole ring.
10:39The pieces are eventually dated to around 1,000 to 1035 CE. The total value of the find is yet
10:46to be determined.
10:47Similar items have been valued at $1,600, so if her collection is 100 pieces, she could be looking at
10:53$160,000 worth of treasure.
10:56Giles' find sets off another Viking horde-searching fever, but no one really has much success.
11:05One couple from England finds a hoard of coins, but they're so badly corroded, they're probably only worth like $1
11:11,000, and no one has found anything since.
11:14If treasure hunters really want to find Viking treasure, they might look not where the Vikings plundered, but where they
11:24died.
11:27Since the first recorded discovery of Viking treasure in 1840, people have searched for where else they may have buried
11:35their plunder.
11:36If you want to find Viking treasure, for a lot of treasure hunters, the best place to look is the
11:43place that brings them closest to Valhalla.
11:48Valhalla is deeply connected to Scandinavia, so the closer you are to Scandinavia, the closer you are to their heavens.
11:56The Vikings want to be buried there to shorten the length of that journey to the afterlife.
12:01If you could find one of these elaborate burial sites, you could probably also find treasure.
12:07There are burial mounds all along the coast of Norway and the rest of Scandinavia, full of, we presume, grave
12:15goods, deposited with the person at the time of death.
12:22In 1879, in a little town called Gokstad in Norway, two teenage boys are asking their father repeatedly if they
12:32could maybe dig on a large mound that existed on their property.
12:37And the father says, sure, go ahead, dig.
12:41So they begin to dig, and they strike wood.
12:45They break through, and what they find is a burial chamber.
12:49Inside appear to be human remains.
12:54So the boys go running back to their father, and he immediately contacts Oslo University
12:59and lets them know that perhaps they might want to send an expert out there.
13:04In 1880, archaeologist Nikolai Nikolaisen is dispatched to the site.
13:10And what he discovers is absolutely staggering.
13:13A 78-foot-long Viking ship.
13:18This is one of the best preserved Viking ships ever found.
13:23It is dated to around 900 CE, so it's close to 1,000 years old.
13:28But the ship itself is just the tip of the iceberg, because what it contained is even more exciting.
13:34It was the tomb of an important man.
13:37The ship turns out to be part of an incredibly elaborate grave.
13:43That's why this ship is discovered so far from water.
13:48Nikolaisen believes that whoever was buried here must have been an incredibly powerful and important person to have received a
13:56burial this grand.
13:57It appears, however, that the boys were not the first to find this tomb.
14:02There are very few artifacts within, so it probably been discovered by grave robbers once or multiple times before, perhaps
14:11as early as the Viking Age itself.
14:13The tomb raiders did miss a few things, though.
14:17They find golden fish hooks, ivory amulets.
14:20There are even some bronze bracelets tucked away in the corner of the boat.
14:25Furthermore, the archaeologists find the bones of twelve horses, eight dogs and two peacocks, most likely sacrificed to accompany the
14:34great man into the afterlife.
14:37As reports of the find circulate worldwide, a new generation of treasure hunters descends on the Norse homelands in search
14:46of other burial mounds.
14:49Countless Norwegians and Swedes and Danes take to their coastlines just like the English did.
14:55Unfortunately, all they find usually is just small, unmarked graves.
15:00Nothing of true scale like the Gaukland ship is ever found again.
15:05By the time we get to the last couple of decades, technology has really changed for these treasure hunters.
15:11So you now have ground penetrating radar, you have LIDAR, you have drones and satellite imaging.
15:18With the rise of new technologies comes the rise of illegal digging.
15:23Authorities speculate that Viking graves may have been found only for the treasure to be sold on the black market.
15:33So we may never know the scale of what's been discovered in recent decades.
15:37By 1999, illegal digging has become such an issue that a Swedish TV crew sets out to make a documentary
15:45about it.
15:46Their hope is to expose the culprits tearing up the countryside.
15:50But what they end up finding is far more newsworthy.
15:56They've come across a once illegal dig site that's been stopped by the authorities and an archaeologist is using a
16:04metal detector.
16:05And to his surprise, the metal detector goes berserk.
16:10It's off the charts.
16:11They found several thousand coins.
16:14They thought they had found an amazing discovery.
16:17But the archaeologists came and did a more expansive excavation.
16:21The resulting hoard is the largest hoard that's ever been found.
16:25And it's still coming out today.
16:27It's an amazing amount of wealth worth about 10 million in today's dollars.
16:33Interestingly, the excavations revealed that the hoard had been deposited under the floorboards of a warehouse, probably for safekeeping.
16:43Why the treasure was never recovered is, of course, a mystery.
16:47There's some evidence that the foundations of the warehouse may have been burnt.
16:51So maybe it fell to raiders and the treasure was lost under the debris.
16:58As you can imagine, treasure hunting skyrockets after this discovery.
17:03People come to these places hoping to see whether there are other possible treasures.
17:08Some Scandinavians use this opportunity to take advantage of the next wave of Viking treasure hunters.
17:16They start using it as a marketing tool to bring tourism around.
17:21And countless paying customers try to find the treasure.
17:25In Iceland, there is an ancient legend of a great treasure hidden beneath a waterfall.
17:31So now every campsite owner near a waterfall is advertising, visit, stay for a while and look for Viking treasure.
17:40People will say to tourists that they're allowed to do this. It's absolutely not true.
17:44It is illegal. You have to have a permit.
17:47And if you do it, you will get fined.
17:49And I think in some countries there's even jail time. So don't do it.
17:55For centuries, treasure hunters in search of Viking loot focused on Britain and Scandinavia.
18:00But some believe the greatest untapped fortunes were further east in Russia.
18:08We tend to think that England was the beginning of the Viking period.
18:13But actually, they were using the river systems in Russia in order to get to the east earlier than they
18:21had been going west.
18:22The raiding techniques that the Vikings were using in the Russian river system is definitely different than what they were
18:28doing in England and in France.
18:29They were targeting trade towns rather than monasteries.
18:33And they did eventually establish a stronghold at what we consider the city of Kiev, where the rivers converge in
18:41modern day Ukraine.
18:43But far to the northeast, along the Volkov River, an extraordinary discovery suggests that the Vikings had great stores of
18:52wealth in the Russian heartland as well.
18:54In 1911, archaeologists discover an ancient Viking city that may date to as far back as 750 CE.
19:05The discovery of the site that's known today as Starilatica cemented the understanding that the Vikings were very active in
19:14Eastern Europe.
19:15A lot of what we know about the Vikings in the east was sort of shrouded in mystery and there
19:21wasn't a lot of archaeological evidence prior to only a few years ago.
19:31So what's really interesting about this is that the Vikings are not just doing raids and getting the hell out
19:36of there, they kind of settle and spend a little bit of time.
19:39This shows that there's so much that we still don't know about the Vikings, that they are more than just
19:45a raiding party searching to die in Valhalla.
19:49They are people looking to establish communities in places that they've never been before.
19:54This was a thriving Viking community. Archaeologists find the remnants of metal shops for making armor. They find jewelry shops
20:02for making beaded necklaces.
20:05They widen their search from the site of the fortified town and they find up to 30 Viking burial mounds.
20:12Viking burial mounds is where you'd expect to find treasure and undoubtedly there's going to be a lot of treasure
20:18that will be found in Sarialatica because of all the goods that pass through there.
20:22Any of these could theoretically hold a Viking king and all of the treasures and grave goods that went with
20:29him.
20:29But when Russian archaeologists open up 30 tombs, not a lot is found. They find a few rune stones, they
20:36find a few metal amulets.
20:38It seems like these Vikings had settled and were more engaged in commerce in this life rather than amassing treasure
20:49for the next.
20:50After the initial discoveries, the political unrest and conflict that define Russian history in the 20th century make digs very
20:59difficult.
21:00But then, in the late 1990s, a Russian archaeologist named Sergei Kainov picks up the trail once again.
21:06Kainov follows the trail of the Vikings 100 miles down the Volkov River.
21:12In 2014, his years of searching finally pay off.
21:17After 20 years of looking, he finally discovers evidence of accumulated wealth in Novgorod, which is a major city in
21:26northern Russia.
21:27He's digging and he finds a pit that has been intentionally dug.
21:32And in this deposit, Kainov finds tons of Viking swords, weaponry, axes, things like that, all of them very badly
21:43damaged.
21:44That leaves kind of to believe that this might be the site of a massive battle and that this particular
21:51pit is a mass grave.
21:54The problem with this is that there aren't the bodies excavated anywhere to kind of support this.
22:00So instead, what it looks like is some sort of votive horde, an offering to the gods.
22:08To the Vikings who disposed of these weapons, they were only valuable symbolically as an offering to the gods.
22:16But even in their battered state, they're today worth as much as $10,000 each.
22:20Since 2014, Kainov actually has found burial mounds that had the bodies of Viking warriors still wearing their armor, but
22:30he hasn't found any great treasure hoard.
22:33Finding a Viking chieftain in his armor with his weaponry helps to paint the picture of Viking activity that corresponds
22:42to what we know from the historical documents.
22:44That these were warriors claiming territory, establishing their own strongholds along the Russian river system.
22:50And many more caches of coins could come to light in the future.
22:55Vikings did make it far into the heart of Russia.
22:58And they weren't simply passing through, they were claiming it as their own.
23:03But if there is treasure out there, it remains hidden.
23:09After decades of searching Europe and Russia for hidden Viking treasure,
23:13some wonder if the greatest discoveries have already been made.
23:17Many treasure hunters are now looking thousands of miles beyond the known homelands of the Vikings.
23:23Among these places, the shores of North America.
23:28It's natural to expect to find Viking treasure in the British Isles or in Scandinavia.
23:34And yet one of the most interesting finds occurs in a very unlikely place.
23:40In 1957 off the coastline of Maine.
23:44Amateur archaeologist Guy Melgren comes across a curious find.
23:49It's a silver coin.
23:51It's badly eroded.
23:52But it has what looks to be a cross on one side and a long necked animal with a mane
24:00on the other.
24:01So they took the coin and they gave it to a numismatist and they discovered that it was conclusively a
24:07Scandinavian minted coin from the end of the 11th century.
24:11What they didn't realize was that it may have implications in terms of Vikings in North America.
24:17It becomes a hotly debated topic.
24:20Like at what point did the Vikings actually land on American shores and where did they go and how long
24:28did they stay?
24:34A lot of people say that if the Vikings did come they were landing farther up and certainly not as
24:40far down south as Maine.
24:41But only a few years later, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his archaeologist wife Anne decide to find proof of
24:50the ancient Viking tales of voyages across the Atlantic.
24:55Helge Ingstad is dead set on trying to find evidence of the Viking settlements in North America.
25:01He thought it was most likely that the Vikings landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland Island.
25:06And in 1960, he and his wife make a major discovery.
25:11They find a Viking settlement they call Lonce au Meadow from somewhere in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.
25:21What they don't find is anything like the buried treasure of Britain and Scandinavia, but they've made a monumental discovery.
25:28Our understanding of Viking Age activities in North America was very mysterious and not well understood.
25:37Lonce au Meadow looks to be a base camp for operations all around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and perhaps
25:42further south.
25:43There's no evidence that it was a year-round settlement.
25:47Instead, it was utilized seasonally by Viking explorers.
25:52If it was a base camp, a launching point for explorations, those explorations could have taken the Vikings further south
26:00into North America.
26:02We have very conclusive evidence that the Vikings came to North America, even if they didn't stay very long.
26:09But this coin is another piece of possible proof that they were even further in North America at this time.
26:17Later, in the 1960s, more purported evidence comes up that the Vikings might not only have settled in North America,
26:25but might also have mapped it.
26:28After the discovery of Lonceau Meadows, Yale University purchases a Viking Age map showing North America that's called the Vinland
26:37map, and it is valued at millions of dollars if it is authentic.
26:43The map is published with great fanfare in 1965.
26:46There's tremendous interest all around the world that this map could lead to the discovery of new Viking settlements and
26:54new Viking treasures.
26:55But somewhat suspect about the Vinland map is how accurate the coastline of Greenland is.
27:01We today know Greenland is actually an island, but navigators in the Viking Age would not have been able to
27:07circumnavigate Greenland.
27:08It would have been ice bound, but Yale University maintains its accuracy.
27:12And so, once again, people think, well, if the Vikings were here, could they have left any treasure behind?
27:18Much of the speculation is that the Vikings made it a lot further south than Newfoundland.
27:24And the name Vinland means land of grapes.
27:28So, logically speaking, people have thought, for instance, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.
27:34Over the following decades, several alleged relics turn up in the U.S., suggesting that the Vikings did explore this
27:42far south.
27:44In 1984, on the coast of Rhode Island, a man digging for clams discovers a large sandstone boulder.
27:52And what's interesting is it appears to be inscribed with what looks like Viking symbols.
27:58Some believe that the carvings might be the last remains of a lost Icelandic settlement.
28:05And that this boulder could have been a boundary marker to claim territory.
28:12Even more contested and fantastical is the Kensington runestone, supposedly discovered by a farmer tilling his field in western Minnesota.
28:23This runestone is covered by what some claim to be Viking letters from 1362.
28:31The Kensington runestone is considered a forgery by most historians.
28:36But, of course, it does have some defenders.
28:39If the Kensington runestone is an authentic artifact, it would be revolutionary to our understanding of Viking activity in North
28:45America.
28:46There's really no precedent for that, except for the Vinland map, that would even hint towards that level of sustained
28:53activity.
28:54With the crucial exception of L'Also Medo, most so-called Viking discoveries in North America have been revealed to
29:01be hoaxes.
29:02This leads most historians to conclude that the Viking presence in North America has been vastly overstated.
29:10But these aren't the only indications of Viking plunder buried in North America.
29:16The team exploring Oak Island in Nova Scotia believes they've found evidence that Vikings reached the island and may have
29:24helped bury treasure there.
29:27Rick and Marty Lagina, along with their team, have explored Oak Island for 18 years and counting.
29:33They have a very interesting theory that the Vikings were associated with the Knights Templar, a military order of knights
29:44that emerged during the Crusades and became immensely wealthy.
29:49The brothers believe that there are clues to their presence in modern-day North America, and there are traces in
29:57Oak Island.
29:57The team found physical evidence, like an iron arrowhead that's a thousand years old, just like the ones from Scandinavia.
30:06They've also found what they think is a Viking ship beneath a deep bog on Oak Island.
30:13But so far, no Viking or Templar hordes have been found, although the brothers think it's only a matter of
30:19time.
30:22In the late 20th century, there's a new chapter in the worldwide search for Viking treasure.
30:283,000 miles away from Scandinavia lies the greatest city in medieval Europe, Constantinople.
30:38Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Empire, the jewel in the entire Mediterranean at this period of time.
30:45It was a beautiful, very wealthy, grand city, and the Vikings made their way to the city as well.
30:54In 1964, archaeologists discovered a strange inscription etched into the white marble of the Hagia Sophia.
31:02This was originally an Orthodox church in Constantinople, which today is a mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.
31:10The inscription is recognized as Viking runes, and it reads, Half Dan carved these runes, or Half Dan was here.
31:20Historians had long suspected Viking activity in the area.
31:23Now we have the Viking equivalent of carving your name in a tree trunk.
31:27There's always been evidence written on rune stones in Scandinavia, but this is one of the very conclusive pieces of
31:35evidence in Turkey itself.
31:38So that lends credence to the idea that there's probably more to be found there.
31:44Constantinople isn't just the capital of the powerful Byzantine Empire.
31:47It gives the Vikings access to a 4,000-mile trade route known as the Silk Road.
31:55If they're in Constantinople, then they would have been along the Silk Road, the most lucrative trade route of all
32:02time.
32:08The surest way to riches in the Middle Ages is along the ancient Silk Road.
32:12It was a network of trade routes spanning 4,000 miles stretching from China all the way to Constantinople.
32:20It is immensely traveled, it is very wealthy, it is for 400 years the wealthiest tract of land in the
32:32world.
32:32It would have been desirable for the Vikings to have contact with the Silk Road, but they probably traded rather
32:39than raided.
32:40The Vikings got all the way down to Baghdad and they would have traded their seal skins and seal fat
32:47and walrus tusks for gold coins.
32:52From the 9th to the 11th centuries, Baghdad is one of the great trading centers of the world.
32:58If the Vikings are conducting trade in Baghdad, you could easily imagine them stashing some of their loot along the
33:05Silk Road.
33:07Now, for a long time, people doubted this, because why would you bury treasure in a place where you're actually
33:13just passing through?
33:14That was the longstanding belief, until a discovery changed everything.
33:22In 2013, an archaeologist, excavating along the Sea of Marmara, discovers a very small hoard.
33:30There is an amber cross, there is a couple of other pieces of European jewelry and coins.
33:36This looks like the Vikings took this from some European church and deposited it here.
33:44If this is indeed Viking treasure, more could be waiting to be found somewhere along the ancient Silk Road.
33:52Then, in 2014, a remarkable discovery provides evidence that the Vikings, along the Silk Road, were doing much more than
34:00just trading.
34:03In September of 2014, an amateur treasure hunter is searching church-owned land in southwest Scotland when their device goes
34:12off, signaling something big.
34:15A county archaeologist is called in, and they manage to dig up a huge collection of artifacts from the Viking
34:23Age.
34:24It's called the Galloway Horde.
34:26It's staggering. There are hundred silver armbands, there are brooches, there are ingots, there are jewel-encrusted crosses.
34:34Ultimately, the Galloway Horde is valued, by some accounts, at $10 million.
34:38But a single item among all this wealth is unlike any other treasure previously found in a Viking Horde.
34:47They find a lidded vessel that is clearly of Eastern origin.
34:52It's found to be ornately decorated with tigers and leopards and fire imagery.
35:01These are all images of Zoroastrian religious artifacts.
35:07It's a holy Zoroastrian object not to be used by outsiders.
35:14The Zoroastrian religion once thrived in the heart of the ancient Persian Empire, much farther down the Silk Road.
35:22One has to ask how the Vikings got Zoroastrian artifacts.
35:27They wouldn't have just given that up to the Vikings.
35:30The Vikings must have raided it on the Silk Road.
35:34The discovery of the Galloway Horde is one more example of the ongoing piecing together of the Viking past.
35:42There are discoveries on a regular basis, and there's definitely hope for more to be discovered.
35:48The Galloway Horde really underscores that the Vikings were an active presence throughout the Silk Road.
35:55Unfortunately, with global situation being what it is, it's not really possible to go and excavate in Iraq or Iran.
36:04And until the political situation changes, we won't know what's there.
36:11It's a centuries-old mystery, what happened to the Vikings of Greenland.
36:16Some believe that solving this puzzle could lead to the biggest treasure hoard of all.
36:22For a long time in Viking history, the island of Greenland is ignored.
36:28It's almost entirely covered in ice most of the year and seems impossible to settle.
36:32The Viking activity in Greenland begins with the story of Erik the Red.
36:37He's this pure-blooded Viking around the year 980, and he is sent away from Iceland for committing too many
36:44crimes.
36:45He goes to Greenland and discovers it's not that bad a place to live.
36:50He finds that it has rich soil and a livable climate.
36:54He believes that he can settle, even thrive there.
36:58And so for several centuries, until the 1400s, more Vikings came to Greenland and also settled there.
37:08What happened to the Greenland colonies is kind of a bit of an open question.
37:12Their wealth comes from the hunting of walruses and walrus ivory.
37:17It was a very popular thing to trade, and it was very lucrative.
37:21They tend to pasture land.
37:23They build stone buildings that you can still see in Greenland today.
37:26But sometime in the 15th century, their civilization collapses.
37:31Something of upward of 5,000 people disappear.
37:36No one knows what happened to them.
37:38No one knows where they went.
37:40This is a mystery.
37:42So there are various theories.
37:44There might have been starvation.
37:46There might have been disease.
37:47There could have been conflict with indigenous groups on the island.
37:51Then in 2023, a team of scientists from Penn State discovered something really interesting.
37:57They say that there's a catastrophic climate change in the 15th century.
38:01There was an unexpected rise in sea level.
38:04This could be the reason why there were no bodies found at the dig sites.
38:09They didn't disappear.
38:11They didn't die off.
38:12They fled due to a change in climate.
38:15It was an organized retreat.
38:17Something else that's never been found there is buried treasure,
38:20which is kind of surprising given that this was a center that prospered for centuries and traded with Europe.
38:26There's a theory that they didn't go to the east or the west,
38:29but they went into Greenland itself and took all of their treasures with them.
38:39Some people have started to entertain a more eccentric idea.
38:44It's a wild one, but if it's true, it would suggest that there would be a mountain of Viking treasure
38:50to find.
38:51In past antiquarian circles, they asked themselves what happened to the people of Greenland,
38:56and this theory develops that they went into the hollow earth.
39:02The concept of a hollow earth dates back centuries and is first proposed by the esteemed scientist Edmund Haley.
39:10In 1692, Haley, who we know from the famous comet, proposes a interesting theory that the earth is made up
39:21of concentric circles with hollow spaces between each one.
39:25This is called the hollow earth theory.
39:28In the 19th century, a man by the name of John Cleve Sims really takes this theory and runs with
39:35it.
39:35He imagines that this hollow earth is this kind of paradise.
39:40There are plants and trees and animals that live there among this kind of Garden of Eden-like setting.
39:47He claims that the earth's outer shell is about 800 miles thick, and the entrances to hollow earth are to
39:54be found at the earth's poles.
39:55This is a fantastic idea, but it becomes so popular that it influences none other than Jules Verne,
40:01who uses it as the basis for his novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth.
40:06Lending credence to it is a 16th century map that later followers of the theory say that it shows the
40:16entrance to the hollow earth in the north of Greenland.
40:20It's a gateway to a world no one has ever seen, and some believe it is the ultimate Viking hiding
40:26place.
40:27Facing rising sea levels, they didn't go back across the sea, they went down into the earth, taking their treasure
40:34with them.
40:36With all that is left unknown and all the treasure that is left undiscovered,
40:42all of these ideas are worth reevaluating because we never know where any of them are going to lead.
40:50Every year, professionals and amateurs continue to search for hordes of Viking treasure that may be just below their feet.
40:58And as archaeologists turn up new finds, like a stash of Viking jewelry discovered in Norway in late 2024,
41:06treasure seekers are more sure than ever that there are millions of dollars in loot waiting to be found.
41:12I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for watching History's Greatest Mysteries.
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