Workers Find A Hidden Staircase That May Change The History Books

[Music] [Applause] just because something is considered history doesn't mean it isn't subject to change despite the finality of the word history is always being shaped by new discoveries about the way people used to live deep beneath the surface could be an artifact that changes everything we think we know about a culture and this is especially possible in ancient cities like jerusalem jerusalem deemed a holy city by many faiths is one of the most historically significant places in the world and it's surrounded by buried cities that hold their own historical legacies there are biblical artifacts buried all around the area but one team of workers struck the mother lode and all because of a burst pipe when the sewage workers arrived at the scene in 2004 they accidentally unearthed a piece of ancient history it was lying in weight under a humble potato field in silwan a neighborhood of jerusalem's old city silwan is after all a historical treasure trove back in the day more accurately in 516 bc silwan wasn't just an unassuming suburb outside of jerusalem the community was a hub of religious activity all because of where it sat on a map if you were a jew in the midst of your religious awakening you went to silwan it had the pool of salome where you'd stop for a ritual cleansing before journeying to the temple mount in jerusalem still silwan was important for one other reason the city of david was once located right in silwan and it had a fascinating history originally called jebus it was naturally home to the jebezites a canaanite tribe who lived there until david king of the israelites seized the city there's little evidence that king david existed though the few sources that corroborate him are hard to ignore he's in the bible obviously and he features on one or two ancient stone tablets together they form a controversial history for the king david wasn't always in a possession of power he only became leader of the military after he defeated the giant goliath with a single slingshot he later became king david and when he seized jerusalem the city became the israelites capital and of course it later became the city of david known as the king of the israelites david himself ruled for 40 years making jerusalem and the city of david locations of huge historical significance which obviously means one thing silwan and jerusalem are now crawling with archaeologists all hoping they uncover something groundbreaking from thousands of years ago there's just one problem the cities have been built up and torn down and built up again countless times in fact when the romans took over jerusalem in 64 bc they built a new city that buried all of the sacred sites once erected by the israelites those monumental places were considered long gone until 2004 that is that's when those workers were sent to repair a burst pipe but what they found wasn't at all what they expected when they saw what was at the site all they could do was drop their equipment and send for the experts what these workers found in silwan goes all the way back to the roman occupation of jerusalem along with the pipe they found odd carvings in the surrounding stone carvings that weren't at all formed by nature closer analysis revealed that they weren't even carvings at all but steps the workers were shocked when archaeologists told them that they had discovered an ancient staircase of course the number one question on their minds was where does this staircase lead but those workers and archaeologists in silwan didn't just discover a staircase as they soon realized the steps led to one of silwan's most religiously significant locations a place the city had assumed was buried far beneath the rock and dirt see there was once two temples on the site the first of which was erected by king david's son the first temple was destroyed in 586 bc but the second temple stood until ad70 when jerusalem and sylwan was taken over by a familiar foe the romans it's this second temple that was near the mysterious staircase uncovered by the unassuming workers in 2004 and the staircase wasn't the only relic waiting to be found in the same site as the ancient temple the staircase led to the sacred pool of siloam the same pool where jews once washed before heading onto the temple mount it had laid in weight for approximately two thousand years and it led experts to even bigger finds since that 2004 discovery archaeologists have uncovered much more than the staircase and pool near the hidden second temple they eventually unearthed an ancient roadway that led from the pool up to the second temple itself the excavation of this roadway led to an unexpected discovery the builder's identity someone had to have built the roadway after all but the identity of the man who did took the archaeologists and historians by complete surprise they discovered his identity in conjunction with another archaeological find about 100 ancient coins were found embedded in the roadway and the dates inscribed on these coins offered up the surprising builder of the road the dates indicated that the ruler at the time of the road's construction was pontius pilate the man who according to the new testament sent jesus to his death how can they be sure donald ariel of the israel antiquities authority explained their reasoning the coins are from ad31 though most excavated coins are from after ad40 this means that the road was built before the ad40 coins in other words only in the time of polite ariel explained it was a remarkable discovery only matched of course by the discovery of that fateful staircase the ancient roads route is now known as pilgrimage road and the excavated road leads right up to another staircase the staircase that leads to the second temple archaeologists know that other artifacts are lying in weight in the underground city of david and that innumerable priceless artifacts are buried all over especially in one other ancient part of the world it began on a cool march day in the mountains northeast of zeon of shanxi province seeking to tap into the area's plentiful water reserves a group of farmers had begun digging a small well about a mile east of the imposing mount lee as they got deeper the farmers couldn't help but cast a hopeful eye at the dirt as they pulled each shovelful from the earth for centuries these mountains had revealed countless bits of promise for hopeful treasure hunters fragments of terracotta as well as roofing tiles and chunks of masonry were common discoveries yet these small fines had never given way to anything larger was there more to be found or was this just some thousand-year-old garbage dump the answer seemed to indicate the former as just a few hours into digging one farmer unearthed something remarkable a man yet this wasn't one made out of flesh and bone he was entirely cotta no sooner did the farmer make his discovery that archaeologists were on the scene clearing the surrounding earth to free the terracotta figure from the dirt but there was something else beneath the next shovelful yet another terracotta soldier sensing this deposit of stone men was more than just a few misplaced garden statues the archaeologists used ground penetrating radar to see what else was lying below the surface and what they found was nothing short of historic more than 8 000 figures appeared on the scans all placed in tight formations around what appeared to be an underground tomb but there was no sense in guessing what else was down there it was time for the archaeologists to see for themselves a massive excavation began with hundreds of workers brought in to help unearth this army of stone soldiers one by one terracotta men poked their heads from the earth and breathed fresh air for the first time in centuries along with the soldiers hundreds of animal statues were also recovered including those of birds and military horses there were also more than 500 working horses pulling close to 150 full-sized chariots lay people were also well represented as statues of entertainers like acrobats strongmen and musicians were unearthed as well this discovery was unlike anything the archaeologists had seen before yet one question remained what was this terracotta army doing here scholars looked to historian sima kian's shiji also known as the records of the grand historian for the answer written in 94 bce the ancient historical text included tales of the ambitious kin xi huang the first emperor of china shortly after ascending the throne at age 13 kim shihuang began working on an enormous mausoleum to serve as both his final resting place as well as a testament to his greatness however not everyone was a fan of the new ruler while kim shi huang is credited for uniting the warring states of china he did so through conquest and plenty of bloodshed yet even after his enemies were no more the emperor feared they'd return to seek revenge in the next life and so as his grand mausoleum began to take shape he commissioned local craftsmen to build terracotta soldiers to protect his tomb kim shi huang was laid to rest in 210 bce and his army of over 8 000 has stood guard ever since yet it appeared that these soldiers weren't much for fighting as archaeologists were now snaking their way through the ranks in search of kim shi huang's treasures that is until they hit a snag as the archaeologists approached kim shi huang's tomb they began picking up high levels of radiation had the emperor's builders left behind more than just soldiers to protect his final resting place the answer it seemed was far more unbelievable during his lifetime kim chihuang was obsessed with discovering the key to eternal life and went to incredible lengths to find it in addition to dispatching armies in search of some kind of everlasting elixir the emperor also became fond of one unusual liquid and that liquid was mercury believing the radioactive element would preserve his youth kinshi huang surrounded himself with mercury and actually ingested it regularly when his great mausoleum was complete he even had rivers of the metal flowing through it while this prevalence of mercury definitely contributed to the emperor's early demise at 49 it had also made kinshi huang's resting place highly radioactive to this day the tomb remained sealed from even the most experienced archaeologists nearly 50 years later kim shi huang's mausoleum is now open to the public and attracts thousands of tourists every year but while the legend of the terracotta army is one known far and wide there's another ancient artifact whose origin has been highly disputed until now the ancient jewish manuscripts known as the dead sea scrolls have fascinated scholars for decades while no one's exactly sure of the details surrounding them their true origins for instance experts agree on a few facts the scrolls were first found inside an alcove in the qumran caves in the judean desert in the 1940s after a chemical analysis scientists dated the pieces of parchment and papyrus back to 150 bc and 70 a.d once they'd uncovered the scrolls the experts were stunned they contained some of the oldest known biblical documents ever found and for their age they were in amazing condition to this day the discovery brings people from all over the world to visit the qumran caves specifically people flock to the caves to see firsthand where some of the most historically astounding texts were found this gives them a glance at one of the world's oldest mysteries who wrote the darn things first scholars generally believed the essenines a small sect of jews who occupied the region near the qumran caves penned these early documents however one man isn't buying this commonly held belief and his theory could have a major impact during a national geographic program called riding the dead sea scrolls an archaeologist named robert cargill said jews wrote the scrolls but it may not have been just one specific group it could have been groups of different jews cargill's new research suggests that after the roman siege of the temple of jerusalem around 70 a.d a separate group of authors fled from the burning temple and wrote their own contributions to the scrolls however not everyone buys into this theory many scholars think cargill has his facts wrong including a new york university professor named lawrence schiffman who felt cargill's claims are going to be very disputed he's not alone either another archaeologist and catholic priest who supported the belief of the scrolls were written solely by the essenines was roland davao in 1954 he led a team that studied the scrolls concluding all the writers lived solely in qumran one of the reasons for devoe's belief was the discovery of several pools the team believed to be jewish ritual baths the scrolls mentioned these local inventions indicating a regional author in fact some of the scrolls contained other detailed guidelines for communal living such as bathing and dining that lined up with the ancient traditions and customs of the essenines however an archaeologist named yuval pelag who spent 16 years studying artifacts around qumran challenged long-held beliefs about who wrote the scrolls as well this was all thanks to one specific item found in mount zeon it was a 2 000 year old cup with the inscription that read lord i have returned on its side in a code similar to the dead sea scrolls peleg believed this could mean religious leaders from jerusalem played a role in the scroll's writing to make things even more interesting there's another emerging theory that states the essenines community was comprised of jerusalem temple priests who exiled themselves because of unlawful kings once in exile they wrote the scrolls although robert cargill's opinion might be unpopular there are clearly those who agree with him the discovery of ancient sewers beneath jerusalem by archaeologist ronnie reich could indicate that during the roman siege groups of jews smuggled religious texts to various areas even further evidence of the scrolls were written by various groups came from studying the jars the scrolls were found in scientists eventually concluded only half the vessels were local to qumran even with this however not everyone's convinced especially lawrence shiffman saying i don't buy it the notion that someone brought a bunch of scrolls together from some other location and deposited them in a cave is very very unlikely still robert cargill stands his ground he agrees with shiffman that the scrolls show a tremendous amount of congruence of ideology however it's difficult to explain some of the ideological diversity present within some of the scrolls if in fact robert cargill's research is accurate it would change everything scholars believed about the scrolls being the work of just the essenines they could very well be the unrecovered treasures of the jews who escaped the roman siege regardless of whether or not the dead sea scrolls were the work of the essenines or not every archaeologist agrees that they provide a rare glimpse into first century judaism meanwhile a few thousand miles away researchers are still exploring caves for more treasures subterranea britannica is a society of like-minded people with a few common interests abandoned mines out-of-commissioned tube stations and man-made caves on one particular group outing the uk-based group included two below-ground buffs who'd done their homework hayley clark and ed waters brought their expertise of ancient history along with remarkable attention to detail on an important excursion together the sub-brits as they are known made their way to the british midlands where they headed towards cresswell crags a limestone gorge with a series of archaic caves last inhabited over ten thousand years ago just a few steps into the entrance of what is known as the robin hood cave haley and ed stopped abruptly then the pair dashed straight into the rocky walls and ran their hands over the cool surface they'd made a gripping discovery covering vast stretches of the limestone interior walls were countless scratches and carvings undoubtedly thousands of years old the markings were obvious the first thing you'd notice when entering the cave to the untrained eye they were also totally insignificant for years locals and facility workers believed that the carvings on the walls were meaningless scrawlings graffiti dating back to the victorian period every passerby through the cave noticed them but no one had ever recognized them for what they truly were until haley and ed noticed the markings their hidden meaning was overlooked for centuries hundreds of individual characters were etched into the surface but what pulled them away from the wonder of the tour were two letters v v immediately haley and ed knew the letters represented a phrase that carried a curious weight vv stood for virgin of virgins a prayer beseeching mary of nazareth for protection against dark forces the vv annotations were repeated dozens of times on any surface the carvers could reach haley and ed shared their findings with the rest of the tour group their guide heritage facilitator john charlesworth was gobsmacked he notified the cresswell heritage trust at once and experts were called in to examine the symbols they scoured every inch of the caves even in the hard-to-reach nooks and crannies they found hastily made inscriptions crosses maze patterns and boxes were repeated ceremoniously just like the religious vv pleading apparently these kinds of messages were used to trick and subsequently trap evil spirits with the serious and dramatic meanings of the markings finally understood there was a giant red flag what were all these people afraid of clearly a dark force had driven them to a desperate state to carve symbols on the walls of a cave for help answering that question started by identifying the persons responsible for the carvings alison fearon a phd of archaeology at the university of leicester claimed these apotropaic markings were usually associated with places of worship or the door frames of a home spending hours a day chiseling into stone back when it would be slow painstaking work is the act of someone in fear the root cause of such panic has something to do with the other common name for apotropaic markings witch marks historians from cresswell heritage teamed up with historic england and determined the markings date back between the 14th and 18th centuries and attributed their carvings to residents of nearby cresswell there's no way to prove indefinitely that the citizens of cresswell were suffering from a real-life version of the witch but the sheer quantity of the markings means something spooky was going down connections between nature and the supernatural go back centuries and in a setting plucked out of the pages of a fantasy novel with cliffs and a picturesque lake anyone could see how the caves could exude power it's also possible the villagers were facing merciless diseases or debilitating poverty and blamed a witch taking to the caves to perform a ritual saving themselves from unknown despair could have been their last straw no matter what the cause the caves at creswell crag represented an overwhelming visual depiction of something sinister one understanding of the marking swept the tour group everybody felt a prickle of fear it was like something from the shining said the director of cresswell crag's museum and heritage center paul baker after entering the cave armed with his new knowledge about the innumerable symbols