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Expedition Files Season 4 Episode 9
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00:00treasure. Then, around 1153 B.C., Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III dies under mysterious
00:08circumstances. Ancient records hint at a deadly palace conspiracy led by his own queen. More
00:16than 3,000 years later, modern scientific technology could solve one of history's oldest
00:22cold cases. And since the 8th century B.C., mythological female warriors known as Amazons have inspired
00:32everything from South American rivers to the iconic superhero Wonder Woman. But did the Amazons
00:40really exist? New evidence suggests these legendary fighters were real.
00:51In the corridors of time are mysteries that defy explanation. Now, I'm traveling through
01:01history itself on a search for the truth. New evidence. Shocking answers. I'm Josh Gates.
01:17And these are my Expedition Files.
01:26Have you ever met someone who's larger than life? I'm talking about a person whose charisma
01:31could be measured in megawatts, lighting up every room they walk into. Well, tonight, you'll
01:36need your sunglasses as we investigate some of the most powerfully captivating characters
01:41in history, squinting to discover the real people and real mysteries behind their luminous lives.
01:47We begin in 1696 aboard a ship called the Fancy. But don't let the sweet-sounding name fool you. It's
01:56manned by a crew of killers. The captain here is Henry Avery, the so-called King of the Pirates. And
02:03right now, he's divvying up the score that earned him that name. A massive treasure snatched from the
02:08Mughal Empire of India. It will go down as the largest pirate heist in history, estimated to be worth a
02:15staggering $400 million today. But Captain Avery and all this loot will soon vanish, never to be seen again.
02:23So, what happens to these incredible spoils? The long-buried secrets of Henry Avery are about to be revealed.
02:42Henry Avery is born around 1659 near Plymouth, England, the same rugged port where the pilgrims had departed from
02:49just a few decades earlier. The ocean is in his blood from the start. As a young man, Avery goes
02:57to sea,
02:59earning his place as he learns the ropes of life aboard a ship. He begins his career the respectable way,
03:08serving in the Royal Navy. Then he moves on to privateering, that is, piracy with a government stamp of approval.
03:15As long as you fly the right flag, the Crown is happy to let you rob its enemies blind.
03:20For a while, Avery plays by those rules. But rules at sea have a way of slipping.
03:30By 1694, Avery is a hardened sailor and the chief mate aboard the Charles II,
03:35a sleek, heavily armed vessel tasked with hunting French ships across the Atlantic.
03:45But before long, the voyage stalls, due to bureaucracy. The ship sails into a Spanish port
03:50to receive important legal documents authorizing their mission. And there it sits.
03:56The documents fail to arrive, and the crew is all but trapped, unpaid, restless and forbidden from going ashore.
04:03The captain promises that money is coming, but tensions are on the rise.
04:08Avery has had enough.
04:11One night, he leads a mutiny, seizing the ship, renaming her the Fancy,
04:17and cutting all ties to the British Crown.
04:20From this moment on, Henry Avery is no longer a privateer. He's a pirate.
04:29The Fancy leaves port, setting course for the richest waters on Earth.
04:36Along the way, Avery and his crew raid and loot roughly a dozen ships
04:40as they sweep down the West African coast, round the Cape of Good Hope,
04:45and push into the Indian Ocean, the vital trading artery of the mighty Mughal Empire.
04:51The Mughals are a powerful Islamic dynasty that rules across much of what is now India.
04:57And their ruler at this time, Arangzeb, is quite possibly the richest man on Earth.
05:03Naturally, that makes his trade route irresistible for the eyepatch and cutlass crowd.
05:07But Mughal ships are famously well-armed and fiercely protected.
05:12And as a vital trading partner with Avery's former employers, the British Crown,
05:17an attack on a Mughal ship would make Avery the most wanted pirate on Earth.
05:24September of 1695, as the Fancy sails toward the Arabian Peninsula,
05:30Captain Avery launches a high seas heist so bold it would make the Ocean's Eleven crew seasick.
05:35He convinces other nearby pirate captains to join forces and attack not just one vessel, but a whole fleet.
05:4425 Mughal ships, but Avery and his crew set their sights on one particular target.
05:50A massive, heavily armed treasure ship called the Ganja Sawai.
05:55It's a floating fortress with 62 guns and 400 guards aboard.
06:00It's armed to the teeth for good reason.
06:02The ship is owned by the Mughal emperor himself, filled with his vast personal riches.
06:22After a volley of Avery's cannonballs takes out the Indian ship's mast, the pirates storm the decks.
06:34When the battle comes to an end, Avery's men claim a treasure estimated to nearly half a billion dollars today.
06:42As captain, Avery gets the lion's share, receiving not just hundreds of thousands of gold and silver pieces, but priceless
06:49artifacts too.
06:50Suffice to say, Avery is now a very, very rich man.
06:55With this victory, his reputation grows rapidly, earning him the nicknames the Arch Pirate and the King of the Pirates.
07:06But before we break out the celebratory rum, it should be mentioned that no treasure is valuable enough to merit
07:12what Avery and his men do to claim it.
07:14The pirates torture and butcher everyone aboard the ship, allegedly including women and relatives of the royal family.
07:21The Ganja Sawai becomes a bloodbath.
07:28The fallout is swift and worldwide.
07:31Mughal emperor Aring Zeb is outraged and mistakenly blames his trading partners in Great Britain for the attack.
07:38He threatens to shut down all trade with the British East India Company, a move that would spell economic disaster
07:45for England.
07:46The Brits promise to pay Aring Zeb what he's owed and to bring the pirates to justice.
07:52The search for Henry Avery is the first global manhunt in history.
07:57The navies of the British and Mughal empires independently scour the seas for any sign of Avery's ship, the fancy.
08:04But the King of the Pirates somehow escapes them.
08:09Avery sets the fancy on a course for the Bahamas, at that time a sparsely populated, loosely governed British colony.
08:17It's believed that Avery and about a hundred crewmen arrive in New Providence in April of 1696.
08:31There, Avery allegedly split shares of the treasure between his men.
08:38As for the fancy, her fate is also unknown.
08:42Some say Avery handed her over to the authorities in New Providence.
08:46Others believe he may have scuttled her.
08:48But either way, Avery and his crew scatter to the winds.
08:55Some stay in the Caribbean.
08:57Some head for the American colonies.
09:00Others head for home in hostile British waters.
09:03Where Avery went, well, that's the mystery.
09:08As many as 24 of the fancy's crew are arrested within the year.
09:12Five are hanged at London's infamous execution dock.
09:16Avery isn't one of them.
09:18After 1696, the so-called Pirate King appears to simply vanish, along with any trace of his stolen fortune.
09:27So what became of history's most successful pirate?
09:30Over the last 300 years, there have been numerous theories.
09:33One of the oldest dates to 1709, when a printed pamphlet circulates a rumor that Henry Avery took his riches
09:40to Madagascar, married the daughter of a local ruler, and established a pirate kingdom.
09:47Another enduring theory, drawn from the 1724 book, A General History of the Pirates, says Avery returned to England, only
09:55to be cheated by merchants who refused to pay fair value for his treasure.
10:00Stripped of his riches, he allegedly dies a beggar.
10:04But there's zero evidence to back up either of these bold theories.
10:09In the centuries since, the legend of Henry Avery and his massive undiscovered treasure has only continued to grow.
10:16He's been the subject of books, stage plays, even video games like Uncharted.
10:21And while his myth has heated up, his trail has remained ice cold.
10:25But now, an incredible string of discoveries is quickly changing that.
10:35In 1695, Henry Avery pulls off the greatest heist in pirate history, when he steals $400 million worth of treasure.
10:45For the next 300 years, the fate of the stolen riches remains a mystery.
10:50But then, comes a remarkable find.
10:53In 2014, a metal detectorist scanning an orchard in Middletown, Rhode Island, discovers something extraordinary.
11:01A silver coin, engraved with Arabic script, and minted in Yemen in 1693.
11:08Over the next few years, similar coins turn up across New England, and as far south as North Carolina.
11:14All of them are dated before 1695, which means they could have been on the Ganja Sawai when Avery raided
11:21it.
11:22In other words, this could be part of the lost loot.
11:26The find was compelling, but it was far from definitive proof that Avery and his treasure made it to America.
11:33And meanwhile, other leads elsewhere in the world emerged as to where the pirate king may have ended up.
11:39In 2023, I joined an expedition to find the treasure, not in the new world, but in the old one.
11:46I traveled to Cornwall, England to meet a team of treasure hunters following cryptic clues from an old letter that
11:52may reveal some of Avery's long lost fortune.
11:56On his return from India, either landed or was shipwrecked near the lizard, where he buried three chests or boxes
12:03full of treasure in the sands of the seashore.
12:06We're off to a good start. We're literally talking about buried treasure here.
12:10I also explored a sea cave straight out of the Goonies.
12:13This is crazy.
12:14And narrowly avoided a one-way trip to Davy Jones' locker.
12:20And I dived a shipwreck site, rumored to have ties to the pirate king's lost fortune.
12:25The results?
12:27We got some in here?
12:28Yeah.
12:30Looks like Arabic!
12:32This is just amazing.
12:34This is Arabic script here, yes?
12:36It is, isn't it? Yeah.
12:37This is definitely Moogle. There's no two ways about it.
12:39This is a Moogle coin?
12:40That is a Moogle coin.
12:41This is as close to a smoking gun...
12:43That is.
12:43...as we've seen.
12:45We may have found some of Avery's treasure, but if so, it raises a question.
12:51Could Henry really have returned to the country that he'd made his enemy and be allowed to live there happily
12:56ever after?
12:57Well, a remarkable new theory developed by Dr. Sean Kingsley may be able to explain how the pirate king managed
13:04to make peace.
13:05In December 2020, I was doing some writing about pirates.
13:10I hook up with an old friend, Rex Cowan.
13:13He's a wreck hunter, an encyclopedia.
13:15So he gets super excited and gives me this letter that says, Avery the Pirate, December 1700.
13:22And I go, hello. You know, this is very clearly four years since he was last seen in November 1696.
13:29And it's shocking. You know, if this letter is real, the pirate king is back from the dead.
13:36The letter is a copy of an older document and therefore hard to authenticate.
13:41But Kingsley suspected it might be the real deal, calling it a once-in-a-lifetime historical treasure.
13:48And one that may totally rewrite the final chapter of Henry Avery.
13:54Henry Avery says he's just come back from a journey.
13:57He's incredibly wary.
13:58He's about to go off on another mission.
14:00He's waiting to receive his instructions.
14:02And he'll report back imminently.
14:04But all these lines are kind of intercut with this sort of code in numbers and letters.
14:10So it makes it impossible to actually realize what the content is about.
14:14In the late 17th century, codes like this were only used by ambassadors, diplomats and spies.
14:19I think we can cut out the possibility they became an ambassador or a diplomat,
14:25which really only points in one specific direction.
14:28Henry Avery, on His Majesty's Secret Service, a spy.
14:34Kingsley is arguing something remarkable.
14:36He's saying that Henry Avery, the pirate who was England's enemy number one, had an about-face and was now
14:42part of a British spy ring that included, of all people, the guy who wrote Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, and
14:49the Archbishop of Canterbury.
14:50All to protect the country from a French Catholic invasion.
14:54But if so, how had Avery managed to get back on good terms with England?
14:58Well, it turns out, everybody's got a price.
15:02I think that Henry Avery gave a large chunk of his Mughal treasure to pay for his freedom.
15:09Avery's got all this cash, but there's no way of spending it.
15:12The authorities are going to find him and eventually hang him by his neck.
15:16He's in his thirties.
15:17He's a young man.
15:18And he's got this incredible resume of skills which are transferable.
15:23What's he going to do?
15:24I imagine that he fixed it with the King of England, that he could come on His Majesty's Secret Service
15:29as a spy in return for these incredible life skills which he developed and for a king's ransom pile of
15:36cash.
15:38There was a big problem, though.
15:40He couldn't make heads or tails of the code.
15:42Could it be the location of Avery's lost treasure?
15:45The only way to find out would be to crack it.
15:48Easier said than done.
15:49I contacted academics, mathematician, even an advisor to the FBI.
15:54And they all told me one thing, that there are ciphers and there are codes.
15:59Ciphers, you can actually hope to read them because there's an internal logic within the rhythm of a letter.
16:06And if there is enough repetition of words and letters and sequences, you can crack the cipher.
16:11But this was not a cipher.
16:13It was a code.
16:14And to be able to crack that, you had to have a code book.
16:17And you'd have your book and you'd go down it and you'd look at a number and it would revert
16:22to a word.
16:23For instance, 131 might mean the French King.
16:27249 might mean Secret Service.
16:29Those are real examples.
16:31So you've got to be really lucky to actually find one of the original keys to the code.
16:36The way these codes work is that the author would reference a standalone code book to disguise sensitive messages in
16:43the correspondence.
16:44The recipient would have been issued an identical code book, so the secret message could be deciphered.
16:50That way, if the document fell into the wrong hands, it would be impossible to understand.
16:55The largest collections of these code books exist in the British Library in London.
17:00And I spent many days and weeks stuck in the archives, going through these volumes, hoping to discover the Holy
17:08Grail, but without luck.
17:09The hunt for the elusive code book continues.
17:13Unless it turns up, the letter's strangest passages will remain secret.
17:17My personal favorite?
17:19Quote, I'm not the least concerned for Tank 2-9 of B-2-6 being out of the T-9211597.
17:27Whatever the hell that means.
17:28One thing we do know is that if the letter is authentic, it rewrites Avery as less Jack Sparrow and
17:35more James Bond.
17:36Kingsley believes more clues could be buried in archives across Europe, and he's still on the trail of the world's
17:42most wanted pirate.
17:43So watch this space, because who knows, maybe the next treasure isn't sunk beneath the waves, but locked away in
17:49a forgotten filing cabinet, just waiting to be plundered.
17:57It's around 1153 BC.
18:00The place? Ancient Egypt.
18:02And the pharaoh, Ramses III, has held his empire together for three decades with an iron fist.
18:09But tonight, this warrior king's grip is slipping.
18:12Before the sun rises, Ramses will be dead.
18:15How does he die?
18:17And was it, as many will argue, murder?
18:19Well, that will become the foundation of history's oldest cold case.
18:23But 3,000 years on, modern science will help explain the death of the last great pharaoh.
18:39Ramses III grows up during one of the most dangerous moments in Egypt's history.
18:44His father, Setnacht, seizes the throne around 1186 BC, at a moment when Egypt is coming apart.
18:52Foreign rulers are chipping away at its borders.
18:55Vital trade routes are under attack.
18:58The kingdom is in chaos.
19:01While his father struggles to restore order, the young prince Ramses is sent to govern the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt's volatile
19:09frontier.
19:10There, he learns how to command troops, protect trade routes, and defend the fragile empire he may one day inherit.
19:17It's a harsh training ground, but Ramses proves himself a strong leader and fierce warrior.
19:29His father saves the kingdom, but his reign is brief, just three years.
19:34And when he dies around 1184 BC, Ramses III, as he'll come to be known, assumes the throne.
19:41He inherits a kingdom restored by force, but surrounded by enemies on every side.
19:48The young pharaoh now carries the responsibility of holding Egypt together.
19:52And almost immediately, he is tested.
19:55Libyan tribes invade from the west.
19:58Then an even greater threat arrives from the sea.
20:01Mysterious maritime raiders known as the Sea Peoples, whose attacks are helping to topple civilizations across the ancient world.
20:10Ramses fights back.
20:12Against overwhelming odds, his armies defeat the invaders in one of the most decisive battles of the age.
20:20The victory is immortalized on temple walls, showing the pharaoh as Egypt's defender, standing between his civilization and destruction.
20:28But decades of war takes its toll.
20:32The treasury is drained.
20:33Workers go unpaid.
20:36Nearly 30 years into his reign, laborers building the royal tombs lay down their tools in protest.
20:43It is the first recorded labor strike in history.
20:46The empire Ramses fought so hard to defend is beginning to weaken.
20:51And inside the royal palace, an even more dangerous threat begins to emerge.
20:58The pharaoh has designated his eldest son, Ramses IV, as his successor.
21:03But that plan doesn't sit well with some of the royal family, particularly with one of Ramses' three wives.
21:09A betrayal is brewing.
21:14Queen Tia believes her own son, Prince Pentower, should take the throne instead.
21:20But Tia is only a secondary wife with far less power at court.
21:24She does not hold the prestigious title of Great Royal Wife, the rank reserved for a pharaoh's principal queens, whose
21:32sons typically had the strongest claim to rule.
21:35Born a commoner, Queen Tia lacks royal blood, and her lower status leaves her son far down the line of
21:42succession.
21:42But that doesn't stop her from trying to seize power.
21:46According to surviving papyrus records, Tia begins secretly organizing a plot to assassinate Ramses III.
21:54Kill the pharaoh.
21:56And place Prince Pentower on the throne.
21:59If she can gather enough support, she could overturn the royal line of succession.
22:08Tia and Pentower recruit several of Ramses' inner circle to aid their plot, including a chef, a butler, and an
22:16overseer of his harem, exploiting growing dissatisfaction with the pharaoh from within his own household.
22:23History will remember this as the harem conspiracy.
22:27Some loyal officials may have tried to warn the king.
22:33But if they did, the warning came too late.
22:38Not long after, Ramses III, the warrior pharaoh who spent his life defending Egypt, is found dead.
22:51Whispers of betrayal spread through the palace.
22:54Had the king been murdered by his own family?
23:02His body is embalmed and wrapped in layers of linen, then buried in a tomb in the Valley of the
23:08Kings.
23:09For more than 3,000 years, the truth about what happened to Ramses III remains buried with him.
23:15Thanks to modern science, we now have the answers.
23:19All will be revealed.
23:27Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III is dead, but was it murder?
23:32And if so, was his plotting wife, Queen Tia, responsible?
23:35Well, there is a fascinating document that's key to understanding the truth.
23:40Writings known as the Judicial Papyrus of Turin, which describe the trial of assassins of Ramses in the so-called
23:47harem conspiracy.
23:48But it is frustratingly vague on the details.
23:51Here's what we do know.
23:53The trial consists of 12 judges and is overseen by 21-year-old Ramses IV, the late pharaoh's designated heir.
24:02The fact that he presides, and not Pentower, tells us that although Queen Tia may have succeeded in arranging Ramses'
24:09death, her plot to install Pentower as ruler failed.
24:14The new pharaoh, Ramses IV, shows little mercy, in exacting revenge on those who are seemingly implicated in his father's
24:23death.
24:23The papyrus lists an astounding 28 people who were executed for their roles in the conspiracy.
24:35As for Tia and Pentower themselves, the papyrus states Pentower is allowed to take his own life.
24:42Though the method of execution isn't mentioned, scholars believe he most likely hanged himself.
24:49But the papyrus tells us nothing about what happened to Queen Tia, the apparent instigator of the harem conspiracy.
24:57Many believe she was executed, perhaps by burning, erased from royal memory.
25:04The papyrus was discovered in the 1820s by Italian diplomat and antiquities collector Bernardino Dreveti, who shipped the documents and
25:14crates of Egyptian treasures to the Turin Museum.
25:16The papyrus sat there for decades until Egyptologist Adolf Erman finally translated it around the turn of the century.
25:23And while the details it revealed gave us a revolutionary look into the harem conspiracy, some key questions remain a
25:32mystery.
25:33Namely, how Ramses III died and who killed him.
25:36But then in 2012, a team of researchers led by Dr. Zahi Hawass decides to take another look at the
25:43pharaoh's remains using modern forensic techniques.
25:46When archaeologist Nicholas Brown saw the results, he was stunned.
25:52The findings that Dr. Zahi Hawass and his team made broke open this whole mystery.
25:58They actually used modern technologies like CT scanning to virtually unwrap the mummy of Ramses III.
26:04Underneath the bandages, the king's throat had actually been slit with a knife.
26:08This wasn't just a surface wound that the king had experienced.
26:11This cut had run deep and actually severed his windpipe and several arteries.
26:16Nearly 3,200 years after the brutal deed, we finally know how the pharaoh died.
26:25This new forensic evidence now proves the pharaoh was assassinated, just as Queen Tia had planned.
26:32But one question remains.
26:34Who could have gotten close enough to Egypt's most protected man to slit his throat?
26:39The ancient Egyptians' access to the king would have been really limited and restricted, which means it must have been
26:45somebody close to the king, either in his court or even his harem, who was able to accomplish something like
26:51an assassination plot.
26:52Dr. Hawass' team believed they may have found the murderer by examining another mummy discovered near Ramses in the pharaoh's
27:00tomb.
27:00At first, this mummy appeared to be an anonymous young man who had been mummified without the usual care and
27:07respect afforded to royalty.
27:09But then DNA analysis showed he was far from unknown.
27:14The DNA analysis that Zahi performed on this unknown mummy and the mummy of Ramses III found that the two
27:22were very closely related.
27:24It's possible that this mummy could, in fact, be Pentaware, the son of Ramses III and Queen Tia.
27:31Some Egyptologists have suggested that the way this mummy looks, right, with its mouth wide open and it looks like
27:38he's screaming in pain, that perhaps this indicates that he was killed by hanging.
27:4438 people are accused as being involved with the assassination attempt against Ramses III.
27:50It's really unlikely that all 38 of those individuals actually had direct access to Ramses and therefore would have been
27:58the one to kill him.
28:03total 50 tickets
28:11frol gysta
28:12Access to the king would've been really limited and restricted.
28:16It's more likely that, as the son of Ramses III, Pentaware would've had closer access to the king than most
28:23other people in the court and could've been the one who actually assassinated him.
28:31Modern forensics has unwrapped the millennia-old mystery of the death of Ramses III.
28:37We now know that his throat was slit.
28:39There's even circumstantial evidence suggesting Ramses' own son carried out the deed.
28:44Not bad analysis for a 3,000-plus-year-old crime scene.
28:49Today, visitors to Ramses' temple can still see the magnificent reliefs showing him as a triumphant warrior king.
28:55But it now seems this famed pharaoh's greatest battle wasn't against foreign armies, but with his very own family, who
29:03thirsted for the throne.
29:13Welcome to the ancient world, and a place made famous by the Greeks.
29:17We're not in Greece, though. We're in a place beyond its borders, a place where women rule.
29:22This young fighter is training to join an all-female army in a society said to be so powerful, its
29:29name will echo through time.
29:31Inspiring everything from the name of a mighty river to our most iconic superheroine, Wonder Woman.
29:37Because this warrior is an Amazon.
29:40Now, in time, scholars will say these fearsome females are simply the stuff of myth.
29:46That is, until new evidence suggests something incredible.
29:50That the Amazons might just be real.
30:08The Amazons are first mentioned by name in the Iliad, written in the 8th century BC.
30:15In Homer's famous epic, King Priam of Troy mentions that he, quote,
30:19Once fought alongside the Amazons, women the equal of men.
30:24It's barely more than a name drop, but their mystique is firmly established.
30:31Over the next few centuries, Greek storytellers return to the stories of the Amazons.
30:38They write about a tribe of fierce warriors existing in a female-only society beyond the borders of Greece, in
30:45the area of the Black Sea.
30:48They procreate with men from neighboring communities, then raise only the daughters, sending male children back to their fathers.
30:56According to legend, Amazon women are, almost from birth, trained in hand-to-hand combat, as well as horseback riding
31:03and archery.
31:05They also expertly wield battle axes and spears.
31:09Their strength is beyond compare.
31:12Warriors so fierce, they blur the line between mortal and mythic.
31:18Ultimately, the Amazons are said to go head-to-head with the greatest heroes of Greek mythology.
31:24And, I promise you, this is a fight you don't want to miss.
31:33Legends of female fighters known as Amazon warriors have endured for thousands of years, stemming from stories left by the
31:40ancient Greeks.
31:42Known for their lethal skills as archers, some stories even describe them cutting off one of their breasts to better
31:48steady their bows or hurl deadly javelins.
31:58In tales recorded in the 8th century BC, Queen Penticilia of the Amazons faces off alone against the Greeks and
32:07the greatest warrior in Greek mythology, Achilles.
32:13They engage in a savage battle.
32:17And while she's a nearly even match for Achilles, he ultimately slays her.
32:24Afterward, he's struck by Penticilia's valor and beauty, ironically falling in love with the very foe he kills.
32:32In another famous story, the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, sister of the slain queen Penticilia,
32:38is about to come face-to-face with the one man in Greek mythology you don't want to pick a
32:43fight with,
32:44because sailing into the harbor is Hercules.
32:55As the half-mortal, half-divine son of Zeus, Herc is on a roll, tackling 12 lethal labors,
33:03including the slaying of a giant lion, a pesky hydra, and the infamous minotaur.
33:09It's the 9th of these deadly missions which pits him toe-to-toe, or sandal-to-sandal, against the Amazons.
33:17Hercules is tasked with claiming the queen's golden war belt, the symbol of her power.
33:22To his surprise, Hippolyta doesn't resist.
33:25She meets him peacefully, and even offers the belt as a gift and a show of mutual respect between warrior
33:32equals.
33:35Believing it too good to be true, Hercules turns on the queen and strikes her down, dead.
33:44He escapes with the belt and his life.
33:47Notice a pattern?
33:49In myth after myth, an Amazon queen dies by the hand of a Greek male hero.
33:58It is no coincidence that the stories of Amazon warriors being defeated by Greek heroes were written by Greek men.
34:06Men with a patriarchal worldview to defend.
34:09So, were the Amazons just a myth, shaped by male imagination?
34:14Or is there any truth to the stories of these proud warrior women?
34:18Well, there's at least one historical source which suggests they may have actually existed.
34:24In the 5th century, the historian Herodotus documented an account of Amazon warriors captured by the Greeks,
34:31who later escaped by seizing their captors' ships and settling among the Scythians, in what is now Ukraine and Russia.
34:39For millennia, Herodotus' account is written off by scholars as imaginative storytelling, not credible history.
34:47But now, there's extraordinary new evidence that the Amazons may have been so much more than myth.
34:58For centuries, historians have debated, were the Amazon warriors of Greek legend real or fantasy?
35:05In the 5th century, Herodotus claimed they hailed from the ancient region of Scythia,
35:10a vast swath of territory stretching from Ukraine to Turkey around the edge of the Black Sea.
35:16Professor of Anthropology, Marin Palloud, reveals that recent discoveries about the Scythians may help solve the mystery of the Amazons.
35:27So, some 30 years ago, some interesting discoveries were found in the Caspian-Pontic steppe region.
35:32They found that around 19 mounds that were large burial tombs.
35:36And in 2019, in one mound, they found the remains of four female skeletons.
35:43And it's dated to around 2,500 years ago.
35:47This date of about 2,500 years is important because it places the culture in the area.
35:54So, we know that around that time, the Scythians were in this region.
35:57And we know the Scythians to be a group that had women warriors that predominantly traveled around via horseback.
36:07Within this mound, with the skeletons of these four women, were multiple iron arrowheads, spears, artifacts associated with horse riding
36:18and knives.
36:21The oldest woman also had a golden headdress around her head.
36:25It was intricate and could have also suggested something about her position in society.
36:31Not only was she the oldest individual, but also had the most elaborate grave goods with her, with the golden
36:38headdress.
36:38These were things that were placed there to honor the dead amongst the living.
36:43The women who were buried in these mounds would have held an elevated place in society.
36:49Just like the Amazons of legend, these women from the late 4th century BC were apparently part of a family
36:56dynasty, buried with the honor one would expect for revered warriors.
37:02In fact, there is some skeletal analysis of other Scythian remains that suggests that there could be battle wounds on
37:09women that's very similar to men.
37:12Based on some of these recent archaeological findings, we can see that it was quite normal for women to engage
37:18in warfare activities amongst the Scythians.
37:21As a nomadic tribe, they would need to, at times, defend their areas.
37:28Trained from youth in horseback riding and mounted combat, much like the Amazons of legend, Scythian women were adorned with
37:35animal tattoos, meant to imbue them with magical protection and strength in battle.
37:41These tattoos mimicked the striking gold and bronze animal art also found in their graves.
37:49This find adds to growing evidence that women had strong roles in the past.
37:56This is a notion that we have been, at times, reluctant to embrace based on our own sort of conceptions
38:02of gendered roles in the present.
38:04And so we infer those on to the past.
38:06But there is such a growing body of evidence to suggest that women were, in fact, engaged in all levels
38:13of society, including warfare.
38:16And with discoveries like this one in 2019 of women buried with grave goods indicative of being a warrior,
38:24it seems highly probable that the Scythian warrior women were the inspiration for the Amazon women that the Greeks wrote
38:31about.
38:36The archaeological findings are revealing that the Amazons may be a legendary echo of historic female fighters.
38:44The very name, Amazon, is now attributed to the old Persian word, Hamazan, meaning equal warrior.
38:51After all, who needs Wonder Woman when you've got the real-life action heroines of the Scythians?
38:57I'm Josh Gates, and I'll see you on the next expedition.
39:01I'll see you on the next expedition.
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