Can fresh insights into ancient boat-Building
Techniques shed new light
On the truth behind the great biblical flood?
For many of us, this does not make any sense.
You've gotta look at it through
The prism of the peoples of the past.
Is a mysterious underwater phenomenon being used
As a secret weapon of war?
The glow revealed this unearthly shape moving through
The water.
The sailors couldn't believe what they were seeing.
And does a spine-Chilling river discovery
Hold the key to a lost world?
These bones are broken and twisted and cracked.
There'd be thousands of bodies.
The underwater realm
Is another dimension.
It's a physically hostile place where dreams of promise
Can sink into darkness.
I'm jeremy wade.
I'm searching the world to bring you
The most iconic and baffling underwater mysteries
Known to science.
Shipwrecks can't just disappear... Or can they?
It's a dangerous, unexplored frontier that
Swallows evidence.
We know more about the face of mars than we do
Our deepest oceans.
Where unknown is normal and understanding is rare.
The story of how noah survived a great flood by building
An ark is one of the defining tales of the human race.
For some, it's a myth.
For others, it's a literal truth.
But could recent discoveries tell us once and for all
Whether this famous biblical story
Was based on real-Life events?
Noah's ark is one of the most iconic tales there is.
God comes to noah
And explains to him that he needs to go,
And he needs to build a gigantic ark.
In that ark,
He needs to put in the animals that are on the planet
To save them from a flood, which is going to follow.
The flood, as described in the bible, is a storm
That rages for 40 nights, and for 40 days.
It's alleged to have covered the entire globe.
And at the end, all life is destroyed
Except for those individuals and those animals
That are onboard the ark with noah.
It's a much-Loved story that most of us
Have grown up with,
But is it based on a real flood?
On the one hand, we don't expect it to necessarily be
The truth, but on the other hand,
Many of these things are anchored in
Some reality.
In fact, many cultures and beliefs
Have a version of the noah story.
The oldest come from ancient mesopotamia,
More than a millennium before
The old testament account was written.
Many cultures have a mythological story
About a deluge,
So it seems as though this was a very real event in some way,
Shape, or form.
When the ice age ends around 10,000 years ago,
It brings huge rises in sea level,
Which separates continents and changes the world map
To the one we recognize today.
But this is a gradual change
Over many years.
The biblical account describes noah's flood
As being much more sudden.
The bible tells us that noah's flood happened over a period
Of weeks, not hundreds of years.
There is one event that could be behind the noah story,
A flood of truly epic proportions.
It happens in the black sea
Over 7,000 years ago.
The black sea was originally a great lake,
And it was separated from the mediterranean.
But rising global sea levels from
The melting ice eventually reach a crucial point.
This got to the point when the plug,
Which separated the black sea from the mediterranean,
Was breached.
According to some estimates,
This global warming event pours water into the black sea
With a force around 200 times that of niagara falls.
Something with 200 times the power of
Niagara falls would be a monstrous event
That would be earthshaking, literally and figuratively.
But there's a problem...
Even the black sea deluge doesn't cover the entire earth.
There is no geological evidence to support
A worldwide flood
As described in the noah story.
But to people living thousands of years ago,
It could have felt like their entire world had disappeared.
We understand the world very differently
Than people would have at the time.
For people living in that part of the world,
It would have looked to them
That everything on the horizon would have
Been submerged.
With this in mind, it seems reasonable to hypothesize
That the great flood was
Based on real-Life events,
Like the black sea deluge.
And if that's the case,
We would expect to find other evidence that backs up
The biblical tale,
Such as clues to the existence of noah's
Fabled ark.
A chance discovery in a middle eastern
Marketplace in 1948 could be the missing link.
A royal air force pilot goes to a local market in iraq
And comes across a clay tablet with very strange writing
On it.
He buys the tablet and takes it home to england,
But then, it stays there, forgotten about for years.
Decades later, his son takes it to
The british museum to find out if it's of interest.
The museum curator immediately recognizes
The strange markings
As ancient cuneiform text,
The world's oldest form of writing.
He's seen thousands of tablets,
But this one is special.
He started reading it,
Was totally blown away by what he was reading.
It reveals a secret about noah's ark that has
Been hidden from the world for nearly 4,000 years.
Inscribed on it is the familiar story
Of the great flood
With one intriguing new detail about the design of the ark.
Not only does it tell us the story of the deluge
From a time before noah,
But also, crucially, and here's the new thing...
It says the boat should be round.
This simple statement goes against
Thousands of years of anecdotal history.
Noah's ark, that iconic ancient wooden boat,
Is one of the most familiar and established images of
All time.
So how could it possibly be round?
The biblical tale of noah and the ark is
One of the best known stories of all time.
But could it have a basis in real events?
An ancient clay tablet predating
The bible contains a detailed description of a huge ark
Built to survive a catastrophic flood,
But there's one crucially important detail
That's different from the traditional story.
According to this tablet, noah's ark is round.
I think for many of us, this does not make any sense,
Because when we think of a seaworthy craft,
It is rectangular or cylindrical in shape...
It's not circular.
We associate boats with being what
We would call boat-Shaped, sort of long, not round.
So having a round shape looks to us to be odd,
But you've gotta look at it through the prism of
The peoples of the past.
Research suggests that amongst ancient cultures
In this part of the world,
Circular vessels were not unusual.
Circular boats were a common construction,
So it actually makes sense
Coming from that region to build a circular vessel,
Because that would be what they all knew how to build.
I think if we try to get our minds off of noah
And his companions having to travel from point a to point b,
If we think about them just having to survive,
They just needed to stay above water,
And if we think in that way,
A circular craft starts to really make sense.
In fact, today's nautical engineers are beginning
To utilize the unique properties of
Circular-Shaped vessels.
Modern lifeboats on ships are often a round shape,
Because the purpose of it is to protect
The people and to keep them floating on the surface,
Not necessarily to travel any distance.
Circular lifeboats are supposed to have a far
Higher survivability rate than traditional lifeboats.
These shapes are incredibly strong.
They're incredibly supportive.
It's one thing to have a circular boat,
Which offers shelter to a small group of people.
But it's quite another to build one
Big enough to house noah's family,
Plus a menagerie of animals.
The tablet account gives very precise measurements
For the ark.
At 222 feet across, it's about 2/3
The length of a football field.
A round vessel of these dimensions would have been
A huge undertaking thousands of years ago,
So could it actually be built?
One man is determined to find out.
When i first heard about it,
I was thought, oh yeah, that's an exaggeration.
But the more i actually started it,
I actually realized that
That tablet tells you exactly how to build a round vessel.
The technology and the construction method...
It's... It's real. It's good.
In fact, the tablet gives what is
Effectively a 4,000-Year-Old construction blueprint.
These tablet, for the first time, actually tells us quite
Vital information about the boat,
The size, and the materials.
You have, uh,
Specific figures about the shape,
Which is the most important and most interesting aspect,
And also,
Construction sequence and methods.
Dr. Alessandro ghidoni is a leading expert
On ancient boat-Building techniques.
Along with a team of other scientists,
He plans to follow the directions on
The tablet and create a replica of the ark.
The instructions are clear.
The vessel is to be built primarily from reeds.
So reeds are hollow, which makes them buoyant.
They're easy to manipulate, they're easy to handle.
You can make almost whatever you want.
The tablet mentions just two other materials...
Wood for the supporting framework and, most importantly,
Bitumen to waterproof the vessel.
Bitumen is a type of thick oil that seeps out
Of the ground, and it was widely used by ancient people.
Bitumen is a great material,
Because you can use it for multiple purpose,
And we know that they had bitumen for every purpose.
So they had bitumen for big boat building,
They had bitumen for plastering walls
Or bitumen just used as glue.
Harnessing all their knowledge
Of ancient boat-Building techniques,
Ghidoni and his team successfully build
A circular vessel 1/5 the diameter
Of the tablet specifications.
And it floats.
It's a huge step forward in finding
Solid evidence to underpin the noah's ark story,
But so far, ghidoni has struggled to build anything
Even close to the full size of the ark.
When you actually start increasing the size of boat,
Then it's where... When you start having problems.
Bitumen is a great material,
But it also has limits, and the main issue is that
Usually reeds are more flexible than the bitumen,
And that can cause the bitumen to crack.
Once the bitumen layer, this coating, cracks,
Then you sink.
So did ancient people have a special boat-Building
Technique that has been lost in the mists of time?
They have the knowledge... They have experience of hundreds,
If not thousands, of years of using this material,
Which we... We don't have.
So now the big question is like how,
You know, in the past would they make such a big ark
And actually avoiding all these issues that we encountered?
That's the main question... I don't know...
Not sure i have an answer for that.
I'm still working on prototypes just to see if
This time we will be able to make it work.
Ghidoni believes that if he can crack the secrets of
The ancient boat builders,
The circular ark might finally become accepted as reality
And change the way we think about
One of the most iconic marine mysteries of all time.
On my travels around the globe,
I spent many nights on boats out on the ocean.
Looking out across the water,
I've occasionally been lucky enough to witness
An incredible spectacle,
A spooky underwater firework display known
As bioluminescence.
I've never thought of this as
Anything more than a bizarre marine phenomenon,
But i've recently come across a mysterious incident,
Which suggests something a lot more sinister.
The story comes from the ukrainian city
Of sevastopol.
Ukraine's secret service raids
The office of these unsuspecting marine biologists.
They break into the institute of biology
Of the southern seas,
Interrogate four of its scientists,
And search their homes.
What have these men got that the government
Is so eager to get its hands on?
Perhaps the answer lies
In the one thing that all four of these men have in common.
It just so happens that they were studying bioluminescence.
Bioluminescence is the light that many
Marine creatures produce to help them find prey,
Avoid predators, or communicate in the darkness.
Why would the secret service be
Interested in the light of marine creatures?
Is there more to this bizarre ocean spectacle
Than meets the eye?
The answer could lie in a little known event
That allegedly took place during world war i.
November 9, 1918.
The story goes that british navy vessel, hms privet,
Is out at night in the strait of gibraltar.
Many vessels are stationed in the straight in
An effort to prevent german submarines leaving
The mediterranean.
All of a sudden, there's an eerie shape
Glowing in the depths beneath the ship.
The glow revealed this unearthly shape
Moving through the water.
The sailors couldn't believe what they were seeing.
They identify it as the silhouette of one of
The most dangerous submarines in the entire german fleet.
Sm u-34 was one of the most successful,
If not the most successful, submarines of all time.
For 117 missions, she sank 119 ships.
Sm u-34 has eluded detection for years,
But now, she's easy pickings.
The british naval records indicate
That the submarine was identified,
And that it was sunk by depth charge.
Now the story goes that the reason that they were able
To finally see this submarine was
Because it went through a patch of bioluminescing
Organisms, which lights up the path of the submarine.
More specifically, experts believe that
The organisms which betrayed sm u-34
Were bioluminescent plankton,
Vast swarms of them.
There's millions and millions of phytoplankton in the ocean,
And when they're disturbed, they light up.
Most plankton is invisible to the naked eye
Until something moves through the water and disturbs it.
If i was on a ship in the middle
Of the night, and all of a sudden i see
This... This light glowing, that's an indication to me
That there's something large in the ocean.
The navy happened to spot sm u-34
As it passed through a huge cloud of
Bioluminescent plankton.
But it was pure fluke...
A case of right place, right time.
The question is, has anybody found
A way to harness this unpredictable phenomenon
And turn it into a reliable weapon of war?
Scientists are investigating the dark side of the mysterious
Ocean phenomenon known as bioluminescence.
Has it secretly been turned into a weapon of war?
Bioluminescence gave away the location of the submarine,
So if you can imagine, if you could harness that technology,
It would be one way to expose the locations of your enemy.
Military powers are interested in any
Technological advancement or military application
That will give them an edge against their enemy.
There's evidence to suggest that after the sinking
Of sm u-34,
Bioluminescent plankton becomes a focus
Of naval engineers around the globe.
And during the cold war, the stakes are higher
Than ever before.
The cold war was mostly fought under the water
With nuclear submarines,
And these nuclear submarines were getting more and more
Sophisticated and harder to track.
So there was this idea of using bioluminescence
To detect submarines that were undetectable any other way.
Rapid developments in satellite technology could
Make bioluminescence an extremely powerful tool.
I suspect, and again, this is only speculation on
My part, that you could use satellites to
Detect bioluminescence.
Say you're looking down at the ocean,
And there's a massive bloom being disturbed,
You could potentially see the bioluminescence from space.
There's little doubt that military powers
On both sides of the iron curtain attempted to
Weaponize bioluminescence.
But with what success?
That's where the trail goes cold.
We do know that both sides have
Have experimented with bioluminescence
And have studied it,
And we don't know how successful it's been.
So in some ways, that's still a mystery.
If the military did figure out how to use
Bioluminescent plankton as means for detecting vessels,
Would we even know?
Military research is highly secretive,
But new information from the u.S. Ministry
Of defense reveals that marine creatures
Are still very much on the radar.
Darpa are the american defense research agency.
They are the ones charged with inventing the future.
Darpa has recently launched an ambitious project.
As well as using the light
Of marine animals to track submersibles,
They're investigating the possibility of using sound.
One of the speculations is as objects like a submarine
Move past,
Animals will make different sounds,
So they may be talking to one another, saying, "hey,
There's something big that's just moved by."
Any significant changes in the sounds made by
The animals can be picked up by high-Tech hydrophones.
According to darpa, this is a real program
That they're working on right now.
Perhaps marine animals will soon
Be operating as underwater spies...
If they're not already.
Just like a lot of closely-Guarded naval secrets,
If it is being used as a surveillance technology,
It will remain a secret.
Almost a century ago, a team of archaeologists made
An extraordinary discovery... The remains of two large,
Luxurious roman superyachts unlike anything ever
Seen before.
But rumor has it that the mothership,
A vast vessel even bigger and more extravagant,
Is still to be found.
Now, a new lead promises to reveal the long-Hidden truth.
Lake nemi, central italy.
A man is fishing at the western end of the lake
When his net catches on something solid
Under the water.
Local people believe that it could be
The remains of a huge roman ship,
And for good reason.
In 1927, fascist italian dictator, benito mussolini,
Orders his men to drain the lake.
Mussolini, who was fascinated with rome,
Came up with this grand scheme to drain the lake.
It's the kind of ambitious project that
Probably only a dictator could get away with.
Mussolini has heard the rumors of magnificent
Roman vessels lying on the lake bed.
If he can find them, they could
Be used for his own political gain.
It was trying to show the glory of the italian state
Based on the roman past.
And he isn't disappointed.
As they drain these lakes,
What was exposed was these two massive,
Beautifully built ships being raised up out of the bottom
Of the lake.
Examining the remains more closely,
Archaeologists discover that these are no ordinary ships.
In their day, they would have
Looked more like floating roman palaces.
These are massive, massive ships,
And not only that, but they were found
With these beautiful decoration.
They were really kind of decked out
With the most luxurious goods of the time.
It was really impressive... Not only did they have water
Systems on the ship,
It appeared that they had hot water and cold water,
Also platforms that could rotate
And... And all sorts of conveniences
That was very advanced.
But the question is, what are these vast ships
Doing in such a tiny, landlocked lake?
What use would they serve?
And what's their purpose?
It's a mystery... Until archaeologists discover
That behind these superyachts
Is one of history's most unhinged and infamous men.
In 1929, two luxurious roman superyachts
Were discovered in italy's lake nemi.
But there are rumors that a third, even
More extravagant, ship remains hidden beneath the surface.
It is a tantalizing mystery as to
What is at the bottom of the lake.
Locals believe that like the two found
In the 1920s,
The missing ship once belonged to notorious roman
Emperor caligula,
Also known as the mad emperor.
Caligula is the mad emperor... We have references to orgies.
We have killing of family members.
We have the killing of senators,
He was a playboy without the limitations
Of a credit card.
He wanted the finest palaces.
He wanted the finest of everything,
And he made sure he got it.
The lake nemi ships were built
To suit caligula's flamboyant taste.
These ships were the equivalent of a billionaire's
Megayacht today.
Experts believe that caligula hosted
His infamous parties and orgies on board.
He had his ship basically built for his wants,
Desires, needs,
And they were built in the most advanced fashion
Of the day.
But just a year later, caligula was murdered,
And his state-Of-The-Art pleasure palaces
Ended up on the bottom of the lake.
By the time mussolini's team finds
The first two, they've been underwater for centuries.
Even though these ships were 2,000 years old,
They were in a pretty good state of preservation.
Both ships and their contents are removed from
The lake and displayed in a purpose-Built museum.
But then...
Disaster strikes.
The tragedy is that, at the end of the second world war,
The museum was destroyed.
It was either hit by allied artillery,
Or it may have been german arson... We don't know,
But the museum was destroyed, and within it, the ships.
They lasted over 1,900 years underwater.
They were there.
They were safe, they were preserved.
And then they were only open to human eyes
For another 20 years before they were destroyed.
It was a huge loss.
But what if there's a third even larger vessel
Still hidden safely away beneath the surface?
There have been stories about a ship in
The western end of the lake for years.
Could this be what snagged the fisherman's net?
It would be great if mussolini missed one
So we could find it today.
To investigate, the italian authorities
Commission a thorough scientific search of the lake bed.
The team is using side-Scan sonar.
So you're getting a sideways view of the floor,
And this can give you a lot of heights and a lot of textures.
The scans locate one intriguing point of interest
Around 60 feet down.
They find something, but they can't make out what it is.
So they send scuba divers out to find out.
Scrabbling around in the murk,
One of the divers comes across something solid,
Buried deep in the silt.
Could this be the lost
Pleasure palace of mad emperor caligula?
The wrecks of two priceless roman superyachts belonging to
Crazed emperor caligula were tragically destroyed
In world war ii.
But could there be another one hidden
Safely away in the depths of lake nemi?
Is there a third or even a fourth roman ship
Hiding in the depths of lake nemi?
Scientists have discovered an unidentified
Object on the lake bed,
But divers soon confirm that it's not
Caligula's missing pleasure palace.
It turns out to be a small boat dating back
To the 1920s,
Possibly one of the boats which mussolini's men would
Have used to find the first two ships.
The investigation is frustratingly inconclusive,
But in 2018, a revolutionary new technology
Brings fresh hope.
A company has used new data analysis technology to take
Commercial satellite footage to examine the part of the lake
Which wasn't drained by mussolini.
By reinterpreting satellite image data,
They claim to be able to
Reveal objects that weren't visible before.
And as they scan lake nemi from space,
Something incredible emerges...
Not just one, but at least three large ship-Like objects.
It's a tantalizing possibility that there could be
More shipwrecks at the bottom of the lake.
If we do find another nemi ship,
It would be a literal gold mine
For anyone who studied the roman empire.
Until divers explore further, the case of caligula's lost
Superyacht remains unsolved, but it seems that even after
2,000 years,
Lake nemi has not yet given up all of her secrets.
Exploring the depths of a murky german river,
Divers make an extraordinary find...
The long-Forgotten remnants of a bronze age bridge,
And the discovery of human remains nearby
Raises a colossal question...
Could this be the site of europe's first major war?
The tollense river, northern germany.
This story begins with an amateur archaeologist
Finding a human bone
With a flint arrowhead, with a flint projectile point
Embedded in it,
And this immediately raised questions.
Radio carbon dating analysis reveals that the bone
Is a rare relic from the bronze age
More than 3,000 years old,
But who did it belong to?
The arrowhead is hard proof that this is no
Accidental death.
This is deliberate.
This is not an accident.
This is not somebody being hurt.
This is somebody engaged in some kind of conflict.
As underwater archaeologists
Start to explore the river and its extensive floodplain,
A much more chilling picture begins to emerge
From the gloom.
They kept expanding the dig, finding more and more bones.
They were scattered everywhere.
They slowly piece together the remains of body after body
Until they have an unexpected assembly of over 130 skeletons.
They've only dug 10 percent of the site,
And they already have hundreds of bodies,
So the potential is there could be
Thousands of bodies still to be found.
It's clear that something much bigger
Than a fatal duel took place here.
We start telling a much darker story.
Closer examination of the bones reveals some
Vital clues about how these people died.
These bones are broken, twisted, cracked, smacked.
They found numerous skulls,
And some of these skulls have wounds in them
That are phenomenal,
Basically like taking a baseball bat
And cracking somebody's head.
But the biggest mystery of all remains.
In germany's tollense river, divers discover
Remains of hundreds of bronze age warriors
Killed in battle more than 3,000 years ago.
What started with one find, with one
Human bone with a stone projectile point in it,
Snowballed and escalated into this mass burial site.
The immense scale of
The battle shocks scientists and historians.
It becomes clear that this was
The site of a huge bronze age battle.
In some ways, it was really the world war
Of the bronze age.
Before this find, there had been no known
Conflict of this size north of the alps.
Compared with more sophisticated civilizations
In the near east and greece,
Bronze age europe was long believed to be a cultural
Backwater where violence was restricted
To small groups of men.
But the tollense river site suggests
A battle involving as many as 4,000 warriors.
These are major undertakings.
This is not a rudimentary society
That can put this together.
It kind of forced researchers to rewrite
Their understanding of
What was happening in this region in the bronze age.
But the biggest mystery of all remains.
Who were these men, and what were they fighting over?
There obviously was a battle at tollense.
The question is, why there?
Why did all these warriors come from
All around europe to fight in this river?
Could a new discovery in the murky waters of
The tollense river provide the answer?
They found, right below where the bodies were,
Layer of bodies, layer of bodies, bridge.
A series of oak piles and posts preserved within
The tollense river sediments
Are identified as the remnants of a bronze age bridge.
Further excavation reveals that the bridge seems
To have been connected to a vast causeway
That once spanned the entire marshy valley,
Allowing people to cross even during times of flood.
This was a very surprising find,
Because the traditional perspective of the bronze age
Is small farming clans, very small groups.
If there was a long causeway across river,
That would suggest that there was a major
Infrastructure going on.
This bridge was probably the only crossing place over
The tollense river for many miles around,
Which would have made it a key point on an important
Trading route.
This was clearly a major thoroughfare,
A major travel route for people within that part
Of europe.
Bridge crossings are vitally,
Vitally important to transporting goods,
Let alone accessing raw materials.
Historically, many battles have been fought around bridges,
From the romans
Through to world war ii, vietnam, and iraq.
River crossings are always these
Kind of high-Priority targets, because they provide
A way of moving either people or goods.
Experts agree that the bridge must have played
A vital role in the battle of tollense,
But exactly what that role was,
We can only speculate.
Maybe one side
Was fighting with the other over control of this bridge.
Another theory is that there could have been an ambush.
Given the fact that there were so many combatants and they had
Come from so far afield,
In my opinion, it suggests what we have
Really here is evidence of one of the first
Examples in the early bronze age
Of a large-Scale war.
Nobody knows for sure why thousands of warriors
Fought to the death beside the tollense river
All those years ago,
But the incredible finds make one thing very clear...
The solutions to some of humanity's most ancient
And enduring mysteries still lie hidden
In the murky underwater realm, waiting to be discovered.
Subtitles diego moraes(oakislandtk) www.Opensubtitles.Org