Josh Gates’ Extraordinary Archaeological Finds | Expedition Unknown | Discovery

Oh my God. This is a full skeleton.
Look at this. I’m deep inside the llama cave, an undisturbed time capsule from the era of Spain’s heroic king Pelayo.
We’re searching for evidence of the truth behind his legend.
This might qualify.
We have a full skeleton here.
But there are skeletons.
There’s another one up there.
Oh, there’s another skeleton right there.
Yeah. How many of these skeletons are here?
There are five in this gallery.
Five.
And these are from the time of Pelayo?
Yes. Yes they are.
The archaeologists have discovered that this chamber is in fact, an eerie necropolis.
The skeletons have been carefully laid out on the floor, surrounded by broken pieces of stalactites in some sort of burial ritual.
Wow. Unbelievable.
I’m trying to understand this.
People brought these five bodies all the way down here.
This whole trip that we’ve made, they came the same way.
All the ropes and torches.
Ropes and torches. Think about that with torches.
How scary this environment would be.
They must have felt like they were venturing into the underworld.
Yeah, yeah. No doubt.
Why?
This must have been a kind of ceremonial burial in a way.
Right?
It’s a funerary treatment.
Yeah.
Was any clothing found?
Was any textiles found?
No, it has not been preserved.
We did find one thing in the other room.
Just a metal belt buckle.
A metal belt buckle.
And what does it look like?
He is made of iron with silver and brass inlays.
And it has a cross.
It has a cross? Yes.
So these.
These are Christians?
We think so.
I mean, there’s something very heathen or pagan about this.
There are so few burials from the time of Pelayo that what we are seeing here is revelatory.
It’s clear that at this time Christianity existed alongside lingering pagan traditions, including some very dark rituals.
For being here over a thousand years, it’s incredibly well preserved.
Except for one thing, the skull.
Where’s the skull?
The skull is here, but it has been crushed.
Literally smashed down to a powder.
Almost.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of them have their skulls crushed.
There’s something going on here that feels superstitious.
Yes. Why?
Why crush the skull?
Well, probably because they had a fear of these people.
Because they wanted them to not to return.
To return.
Revenants.
Revenants? You’re talking about vampires in the Middle Ages, the belief that people could return from the dead as evil spirits was not only common, urgent measures were taken to prevent it.
So-called revenant burials have been found all over the world, with the dead buried upside down with stones in their mouths and even with the occasional stake through the heart.
But there from the time of Pelayo.
Yeah, yeah. But who these five people are, we don’t know.
No, we don’t know.
These bodies are an incredible discovery.
We don’t know who they were or why they were given such a strange burial, but the fact that things like this were happening shows us that all of the romantic imagery of Pelayo and his men as squeaky clean Christian heroes isn’t painting a full enough picture of the time.
You can see the notch in the back of it there, and it’s clearly an arrowhead.
Another head made of quartz, a quartz arrowhead at the Kingdom of Kush’s holiest mountain.
I’ve learned how this place was written into ancient Egypt’s creation story.
The Kushites used this religious connection to get a foothold within Egypt.
And now this arrowhead offers a clue on how they may have conquered them.
This would not be for hunting, right?
No no no, no.
This is ceremonial.
It’s ceremonial. Yeah.
This is a classic symbol of Kushite kingship.
Of kingship? Yeah.
In the very earliest tombs, just as the Kushite dynasty was coming to power, the burials all had these arrowheads in them.
And that’s in the royal burials, in the royal burials and all made of this same colored stone, sort of reddish orange.
So the earliest Egyptian term for this region was ta-seti, land of the bow.
They had a reputation for archery.
They did so. This is part of the secret of Kushite success in warfare.
Kushite mercenaries are being hired in Egypt.
And they’re all they’re all archers.
All of them. Wait a minute. The Egyptians are hiring Kushites.
Yes. They were such excellent archers.
That’s why the Egyptians used them in the army.
Incredible. And there are depictions of this or writings of this?
Both. So we have the the name of Kush being Ta-seti.
We have Kushite kings are sometimes represented with, with thumb rings that they use to pull back very powerful bows.
The Kush were so proficient with a bow and arrow.
Arabians of the time called them I smiters, meaning they could unfailingly hit the eyes of their targets.
In some ways, this one object feels like it kind of unlocks the secrets of the success of this civilization.
They can be dangerous, but this is also filled with beauty, sophistication, craftsmanship.
Yeah, that’s.
Kush, it’s got everything.
Don’t mess with the kushites.
Don’t mess with the kushites ever.
So here at Jebel Barkal, I’ve seen two of the keys to the Kushites power: their spiritual authority and military might.
The result of this mastery was a century of Kushites ruling as the pharaohs of Egypt’s 25th dynasty, and after that, centuries more of Kush kings dominating this region.
As we know, a Kush king has never before been found in his own tomb.
But that may be about to change.
Oh my God, we got something here.
More gold leaf. Oh, what is that?
Wait, what is this?
That is not gold leaf.
It’s like thimble shaped.
Yeah. What is this?
I think I know exactly what this is.
This would have been one of the finger or toe caps of the king that they put on him when they buried him.
Wait. This is a finger or toe cap that was on the king.
Yeah, it’s pretty great.
This is insane.
This item may look small, but make no mistake, this appears to be a monumental find.
We may have our first confirmation that the King has not left the building.
This has to have been on him.
Right.
There’s no question. There’s no other way this gets in there.
It’s a major clue.
These gold caps, also called stalls, were used only in royal burials to protect the king’s extremities in death.
The feet of King Tut had them when his sarcophagus was opened, and apparently King Nastasen was sporting a set as well.
That is a true smoking gun.
Well, it is a true smoking gun.
And even better, look at it.
Is there something in it?
There’s something in it.
Could there be bone in there?
There. There should be bone in there.
So we need to get this up.
We need to clean it up. And then we need to see if we can’t just pry this open a little bit and see if there’s not some bone in there.
So the king is here.
The king is in the tomb.
Dude, this is incredible.
That’s pretty great. Should we get out of the tent?
Let’s go. Okay.
In moments, I’m laying inside the doorway to the tomb of King Nastasen.
I think I can see the slab, but this view of it will be our last.
That still just kicks off as soon as we come in.
God, I can’t see anything now.
Can’t see my hand in front of my face.
What I want you to do is I want you.
To come around this corner where I am.
Over to the clockwise around it.
Yeah.
Clockwise around it.
Okay. Let me get your left hand and put it down here on the bottom left corner of this slab. Oh my gosh.
It just feels smooth as can be.
But as we run our hands over the slab, Pierce Paul notices something has changed since his last visit to the tomb.
Hold on a second. Give me your hand and feel this.
Is this a crack?
I just don’t understand.
It’s not just a crack.
It feels like the corner itself isn’t here.
So did a part of this cave in and crack the top of this slab?
That’s really what it feels like.
This is disconcerting.
Sometime recently, a piece of the ceiling likely collapsed onto the slab with enough force to crack a large section of it off.
On the other hand, we now have an unforeseen opportunity.
Is it possible for you to get your hand under that slab in that cracked area?
Let me check. Just give me your hand.
Put your hand under here and feel this.
Hold on. Okay. I’m at the corner of the crack.
Yep.
Oh, my. This goes down.
You can go