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Explore the incredible findings of ships older than the Pyramids in the desert and uncover the secrets behind the first submarine journey under the North Pole. Unravel the mysteries of the ancient seafaring world in this intriguing video.
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00:00What is a boat doing in the middle of a desert?
00:02You would expect to find a seagoing vessel closer to shore.
00:05This is the question archaeologists had been asking for decades.
00:09In 1988, there was a storm near one of the most important archaeological sites in ancient Egypt.
00:15A wooden structure emerged from the sand.
00:18It was hollowed out by termites.
00:20Scientists were determined to solve its mystery.
00:24In 2000, they began excavating the site near Abydos, Ubydos.
00:28An American team of experts soon discovered a boat that was 70 feet long, and it wasn't alone.
00:34In total, there were 14 boats neatly resting next to each other.
00:38It was impossible to completely dig out the boats because of their poor condition.
00:42Luckily, the wood was preserved enough to get a sample.
00:45Analyses revealed that the boats were around 5,000 years old, the oldest fleet in human history to this date.
00:53The time of their construction predates the pyramids at Giza by half a millennium.
00:58Each ship of the fleet rested in a vault that matched its dimensions.
01:01The room was roughly a third of the size of a tennis court.
01:04It had mudbrick walls that featured more than 120 drawings of boats.
01:09Ancient Egyptians incised them on whitewashed walls that were excellently preserved.
01:14Scientists have known about these mysterious chambers for well over a century.
01:191901-1902.
01:20A British archaeologist, Arthur Weigel, stumbled upon a strange structure west of the River Nile.
01:26His team caught a glimpse of the interior walls.
01:29Sadly, a section of the roof collapsed, so they had to call off further exploration.
01:35Researchers abandoned the site, but its location remained on the maps.
01:39The boats' position first led scientists to think that they rested on a bank of the mighty Nile.
01:45But there was a problem with this theory.
01:48Today, the river flows almost seven miles west of Abydos.
01:53Further studies of the surrounding terrain showed the Nile didn't change its course throughout history.
01:58Also, if the boats floated near a dock, they would be in unstable positions.
02:02The 14 vessels at Abydos were perfectly parallel to each other.
02:06There was only one conclusion possible.
02:09Someone had deliberately placed them like that.
02:12They must have gone through a lot of effort.
02:14Each boat had enough room for up to 30 rowers.
02:17These vessels could really float.
02:19They weren't models.
02:21But scholars still don't know if they actually sailed any body of water in ancient Egypt.
02:26This doesn't diminish the importance of the find.
02:28Previously, archaeologists found only small-scale models.
02:32In King Tut's tomb alone, there were 35 boat models.
02:36For a long time, these figurines were the only clues as to how ancient Egyptian vessels looked like.
02:41The boat's design confirms that they were the real deal.
02:44They are the earliest surviving examples of something called built boats.
02:49Ancient people constructed primitive vessels by hollowing out large tree trunks.
02:53The alternative was reed that was tied together to form a raft.
02:56The boats at Abydos had planks tied together.
02:59This was a major breakthrough in shipbuilding.
03:02During their lifetime, the boats must have seemed impressive.
03:06Timber was a valuable commodity at the time.
03:08There was no wood in the desert.
03:10Cedar had to be imported from Lebanon.
03:12The only person who could afford such luxury was the pharaoh.
03:16Studying the area around the ancient fleet provided more answers.
03:20Scientists discovered a mud-brick structure where Egyptians worshipped the pharaoh.
03:24Its approximate date of construction matches that of the wooden boats.
03:28The same bricks out of which this building was made were used to encase the fleet.
03:33At the time of their construction, the rooms they were stored in had a ceiling.
03:37That's the section that archaeologists stumbled upon in the early 20th century.
03:41Just like mummies in coffins, these marvelous ships rested inside splendid vaults.
03:47The exterior of these rooms was also impressive.
03:50The outer walls originally had a plaster of white limestone.
03:53It reflected sunlight.
03:55In the desert sun, the structure housing the boats must have shone from miles away.
04:00Ancient Egyptian builders used the same technique to cover the pyramids 500 years later.
04:05Today, their surface looks jagged, but it wasn't always like this.
04:10When they were constructed, the pyramids had a top layer of fine white limestone.
04:15Their surface was smooth and it gleamed in the sunlight.
04:18Instead of stairs, the outer layer of the pyramids was more of a sleek ramp.
04:23Archaeologists were left with one final question.
04:26Which pharaoh owned the fleet?
04:28The answer lay just a mile from the site.
04:30This is where the tomb of a pharaoh from the 5th dynasty rested, King Senwasrit III.
04:36Its time and style of construction matched the ones of the chambers with boats.
04:39The very end of his rule might explain how the boats ended up in the middle of the desert.
04:44The pharaoh probably passed away in northern Egypt.
04:47Then his body was transported down the Nile to Abydos in a marvelous procession of decorated boats.
04:56The vessels were later lowered to chambers near the final resting place of their owner.
05:01This had a symbolic meaning.
05:03In the ancient Egyptians' belief system, ships played a key role.
05:07Their supreme deity was Ra.
05:10He traveled through the sky during the day in the form of the sun.
05:13At nighttime, he sailed through the netherworld in a solar boat.
05:17The pharaoh identified himself with Ra.
05:19That's why he needed boats in the afterlife.
05:21That was the only way to regenerate himself.
05:24Just as the sun rises every day above the horizon.
05:28This belief existed for thousands of years.
05:30The more famous pharaoh Khufu also had a ship.
05:34Scientists found it 1954 next to his pyramid at Giza.
05:38It is some four centuries younger than the fleet at Abydos.
05:41But Khufu's ship was almost two times longer.
05:44The Great Pyramid of Giza and King Tut's tomb are some of the most famous archaeological finds in Egypt.
05:50But there are many more secrets hiding beneath the endless sands of the Sahara Desert.
05:55Recently, 2020, archaeologists found a lost city there.
05:58They have labeled it as the most important discovery since King Tut's tomb, 1922.
06:03The city of Aten is some 3,000 years old.
06:07Historians hope it will give them a unique insight into the everyday life of ancient Egyptians.
06:13The famous archaeologist and Egyptologist Zahi Hawass proclaimed the site a lost golden city.
06:19Aten sits some 300 miles south of Egypt's capital, Cairo.
06:23It is close to the famous Valley of the Kings.
06:27Archaeologists first found sections of mudbrick walls that spread out in all directions.
06:31They discovered complete rooms with tools of everyday life inside.
06:35The research team unearthed a bakery, a residential neighborhood, and an administrative district.
06:41They all date back to the time when the Egyptian civilization was the wealthiest in its long history.
06:47They were also the first to make objects from iron.
06:50In 1911, scientists found a set of iron beads near a village in Lower Egypt, El-Gerza.
06:56These are the earliest known iron artifacts.
06:58The discovery is literally out of this world.
07:01Ancient people made them by beading into shape a piece of a meteorite.
07:05The nine beads were once part of an ornate necklace.
07:07They are now blackened and corroded, which is perfectly normal for a piece of jewelry that is over 5,000
07:13years old.
07:13They consist of an iron-nickel alloy.
07:17Researchers were impressed by the skill of ancient jewelers who processed the beads.
07:21Their craftsmanship is more impressive when you think that they didn't know the stellar origins of the material.
07:27The Great Pyramid of Giza also has a remarkable feature.
07:31An international research group investigated the electromagnetic response of the structure to radio waves.
07:38They found that the pyramid has the ability to concentrate electromagnetic energy inside it.
07:44This occurred inside its chambers as well as under the pyramid's base.
07:48It contains an underground unfinished chamber.
07:51It seems that the electromagnetic response is connected with the properties of limestone, the Great Pyramid's main building material.
07:59The research results might have a practical application.
08:02The way solar cells and nanosensors function could be improved by this remarkable find.
08:10This place has no time zone, no land mass, and the sun rises and sets here just once a year.
08:16For over 400 years, since the era of King Henry VIII, thousands of explorers from all over the world were
08:24trying to reach this elusive spot, the North Pole.
08:27Some were hoping to find a northwest or northeast passage to China and the Indies, and others just wanted to
08:34see what it was like.
08:35In 1773, the British Royal Navy organized the first scientific expedition to the North Pole.
08:42Constantine Phipps volunteered to lead the mission.
08:45It was difficult for the two ships to move through thick ice, and they had to be towed using smaller
08:50boats.
08:51At some point, Phipps was ready to leave the ships as they saw a completely frozen sea.
08:56But in the end, they broke free from the ice and escaped into the open sea to return home without
09:02reaching the goal.
09:03In 1882, American explorer James Booth Lockwood managed to get closer to the goal than anyone else.
09:11By that time, at least 750 people in 42 expeditions had lost their lives trying to make it to the
09:18pole.
09:20On the 7th of September, 1909, the New York Times came out with a sensational front page.
09:27Perry discovers the North Pole after eight trials in 23 years.
09:32Robert E. Perry, an American explorer, claimed to have reached the North Pole in April of the same year.
09:38But communication back then was slower than now, so the message had only reached New York by September.
09:44A week before the famous headline, the New York Herald had published its own front page sensation.
09:50The North Pole is discovered by Dr. Frederick A. Cook.
09:54Cook, another American explorer, had vanished into the Arctic for over a year,
09:59and had everyone convinced he reached the pole in April 1908, a whole year before Perry.
10:05It was tricky to provide evidence any of them had actually reached the goal back then.
10:10Their goal was constantly moving on sea ice, unlike the South Pole on steady land,
10:15so they couldn't just leave a flag or some other proof there.
10:18A travel diary full of details of the journey, including daily distances,
10:23the position of the stars, and the like, would probably do as evidence.
10:27But neither Cook nor Perry were able to provide any of this backup information.
10:32So each of them started a campaign to prove they were honest and trustworthy.
10:36Perry was mentioned as the North Pole discoverer until 1988.
10:41That's when the National Geographic Society revisited the evidence
10:45and found that his records really didn't prove his claim.
10:49Cook's claim was neither proven nor disproven.
10:54Australian-born British explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins went on his first expedition to the North Pole in 1913.
11:01That's when he got the idea to reach the goal by submarine.
11:04In 1931, he borrowed a special submarine named O-12 from the U.S. Navy.
11:11The future mission had two goals – to do scientific experiments while floating on ice and moving underwater,
11:17and to reach the North Pole by traveling beneath the ice.
11:21They planned to study the weather, take temperature measurements,
11:24and collect water samples from both the surface and the seafloor.
11:28The submarine Sir Hubert used was brought to a shipyard in New Jersey to be modified.
11:32They added the latest scientific equipment and changed the outside so the submarine could travel under the ice.
11:39On March 16th, the submarine left the shipyard to start its journey to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York.
11:46But even before leaving the Delaware River, they faced delays.
11:50A snowstorm forced them to stop at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and they had to stop again to get more
11:56fuel.
11:56When the submarine was entering New York Harbor, a crew member, who was just 27 years old, fell overboard and
12:03drowned.
12:04The submarine was officially renamed Nautilus, and the grandson of Jules Verne, the author of 20,000 Leagues Under the
12:11Sea,
12:11which inspired the new name, was there to see it.
12:16Before starting their journey, the crew tested the Nautilus in different spots off the New England coast.
12:21They faced criticism and were already two months behind schedule, so they decided to head straight to England.
12:28During their trip across the Atlantic, they sailed into severe storms.
12:32On the 13th of June, the starboard engine broke down.
12:36Then, the port engine failed because it was overused.
12:38While crossing the Atlantic, Sir Hubert Wilkins kept radioing the submarine's position back to the United States.
12:45After both engines failed, they sent out an SOS.
12:49On June 15th, the USS Wyoming, a huge ship on a training cruise with naval students, reached the Nautilus.
12:56The Wyoming towed the broken submarine to Queenstown, Ireland, and then it was taken to Davenport, England, for repairs.
13:03They had to wait for spare parts from the United States, which caused more delays.
13:08Once the Nautilus was fixed, they headed to Bergen, Norway, to meet the submarine's science officers and get more equipment.
13:15One of the most important additions in Bergen was a diving chamber,
13:19which allowed them to lower scientific tools into the water through a special hatch.
13:25On August 5th, the Nautilus finally left Bergen and headed north to find ice flows.
13:31They had lots of delays because of mechanical problems and storms.
13:34One storm even made the submarine tilt at crazy angles.
13:39Finally, on August 19th, they saw the first ice flow.
13:43For a few days, they followed the ice's edge, looking for a good spot to dive.
13:48Three days later, they tried to dive under the ice, but discovered that the submarine's diving rudders were missing.
13:54One diver went overboard to check and saw that someone must have broken off the rudders on purpose.
14:00This made Wilkins think that someone on the crew had sabotaged the submarine because they didn't trust the mission.
14:07Even without the rudders, Wilkins still wanted to do some of his scientific experiments.
14:12On the last day of August, they found a way to force the Nautilus under a three-foot-thick ice
14:18flow.
14:18They had to fill the ballast tanks and adjust the trim.
14:22They managed to make more dives under this ice this way before the journey ended.
14:26After a few more days of trying to do research, Wilkins decided it was too dangerous to stay at sea.
14:33The Nautilus arrived at Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole,
14:39on September 8th after going through the worst storm of the trip.
14:43They planned to go to a port in England, but another storm caused a lot of damage and made the
14:48engines fail,
14:49so they had to stop in Bergen again.
14:51After getting permission from the United States shipping board,
14:55the Nautilus was towed out of Bergen and sunk in a Norwegian fjord on November 13th, 1931.
15:03In 1958, a U.S. submarine with the same name, Nautilus,
15:08became the first vessel that reached the North Pole by traveling under the ice.
15:12This Nautilus was much bigger than the submarines that came before it.
15:16It was 319 feet long and weighed 3,590 tons.
15:21For comparison, the other Nautilus was 175 feet long.
15:26Unlike other submarines, the new Nautilus could stay underwater for a longer time
15:30because of its special atomic engine didn't need air and only used a tiny amount of nuclear fuel.
15:36On July 23rd, 1958, it left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Operation Sunshine.
15:43There were 116 people on board,
15:45Commander Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and 4 civilian scientists.
15:51The Nautilus traveled north through the Bering Strait
15:53and only surfaced once at Point Barrow, Alaska.
15:56On August 1st, the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap.
16:03The submarine traveled at a depth of 500 feet, with the ice above it between 10 to 50 feet thick.
16:09At 11.15 p.m. on August 3rd, Commander Anderson told his crew,
16:14For the world, our country, and the Navy, the North Pole.
16:19And the Nautilus went right under the North Pole without stopping.
16:23On August 5th, the submarine came up in the Greenland Sea.
16:27And then, two days later, it finished its historic trip in Iceland.
16:31My name is Kate fibers Coates, Magazine, and Axelcia.
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16:32su- VIP είναι Pean Basel alum, United
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16:33I know it's been a rare time for Ashley mittlerweile from the shade to the discussion.
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