Josh Gates Found Something TERRIFYING At The Location Where Jesus Was Crucified

Start with that big coin. I’m not sure; it looks to me like it’s a cross. We have a cross, a cross with the four shields as well. Yes, this is English, yes. And this is… who? This is William the third. There’s a three right there. This puts us in the period. Yes, that puts us right bang smack in the period. Couldn’t be better. And look at this, look at the condition of it just sitting down there beneath a layer of fill.

They found a piece of marble stamped with a cross from the time of the Crusades. The church is, in a word, breathtaking. The very air that hangs inside seems infused with something holy. While on a trip to the ancient land of Jerusalem, Josh Gates found something at the location where Jesus was crucified, one that could alter our understanding of Jesus’s death and Resurrection forever.

What did the renowned Explorer discover in this highly revered site, and what other fascinating finds did Josh Gates stumble upon in his travels? Join us as we explore the Josh Gates Expedition, investigating the most incredible adventures and discoveries.

Exploration in the Church of the Holy Siler, in the heart of the old city in Jerusalem, lies a magnificent structure with a rich history linked to perhaps the most famous man to have ever existed: Jesus Christ. This is the Church of the Holy Siler, home to the two holiest sites mentioned in the Bible: Golgotha and the tomb where Jesus was supposedly buried.

Historians believe the church itself was built on the very Hill where Jesus was crucified, and within its depths, you will find the very place where the rabbi was laid to rest after his crucifixion. When Josh visited the holy site back in 2019 for an episode of Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown, nothing could have prepared him and his crew for the shocking discovery they were about to uncover.

Josh began the episode by delving into the very history of the Church of the Holy Siler, including a full breakdown of its spiritual significance and its place in the biblical narrative of the story of Jesus. The genesis of the Church of the Holy Siler is a story that takes us to around 330 AD, after Emperor Constantine finally embraced Christianity. He sent his mother Helena on a noble mission to travel to the Holy Land, the land of Jerusalem, and identify the holiest of all the sites associated with Jesus.

During this historic trip, Helena commissioned magnificent churches and breathtaking architecture, but the most intriguing of them all was the famed Church of the Holy Siler. It wasn’t the building that made this one special, nor was it the artifacts carefully tucked away in its aged rooms. What set this church apart was because it stood right over the very lands where Christ was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead, according to the biblical account.

But even before Helena ever found the spot to build the church, the land was already well known as a pilgrimage site for early Christians. Modern archaeologists have found Latin descriptions on some of the sites dating back to way before the church was constructed, so it’s safe to say it has always held religious significance for the early believers. However, it’s also worth noting that, prior to the building of the church in 330 AD, this whole space was actually occupied by a pagan temple.

As unbelievable as it sounds, the site on which the Church of the Holy Siler stands was once home to a Jupiter or Venus temple built by the Romans who persecuted the Christians in the church’s early days. Though the Church of the Holy Siler has also had its fair share of woes, like in 614 AD when Persian invaders torched the building, burning it to the very ground, years later, a renovated structure was standing on the same spot before being destroyed again in the year 9 by the pathological Caliph al-Hakim.

It was eventually restored by the 12th-century Crusaders and retains the same form till today. As Josh and his team stepped into the lavishly decorated church, he echoed the doubts of many historians and archaeologists: was this church built in the right spot? Did Helena really pick out the place where Jesus was killed and buried, or was there a miscalculation, and the holy revered land actually lies out there somewhere?

This mystery is what brings many archaeologists to this church, especially down into the hidden chambers where the Tomb of Jesus lies. For hundreds of years, the Church of the Holy Siler has entertained millions of visitors itching to see for themselves where the king of the Jews was buried. And just like every archaeological structure, it began to show signs of wear and tear. Time had also taken its toll on the structure, and so by 2016, expert scientists were called in to do an emergency restoration.

However, while working on the project under a strict deadline of just 60 hours, they made a shocking discovery that settled the authenticity debate forever. Beneath the layer of fill, the archaeologists found a piece of marble stamped with a cross from the time of the Crusades, and as they dug deeper, they found even older marble from the time of Constantine. At the very bottom, they also discovered the original limestone bed, which finally confirmed that there used to be a burial cave right there.

So it was basically a tomb built on a tomb that was also built on a tomb. With no iota of doubt, this was confirmed to be the exact spot where Jesus Christ was buried. However, this wasn’t the only fascinating discovery Josh has made recently. The next one takes us to another fascinating time in history: exploration at the ancient city of El Mirador.

Driven by curiosity, adventurer Josh Gates embarked on a trip deep into the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador, on the quest to locate the lost tombs of a mysterious ruling dynasty known as the Snake Kings. Resting deep in the northern part of the modern department of El Petén in Guatemala is this large pre-Columbian settlement known as El Mirador, which translates to “the viewpoint” or the “bader,” known as the site of one of the world’s largest pyramids. El Mirador captures what remains of a lost advanced civilization.

Historians believe this ancient community flourished from around the 6th century BC to the 1st century, at the peak of its civilization around the 3rd or 4th century BC. It was during this period that many of the structures were built, and as a testament to the engineers’ ingenuity, they’re still standing today. The site sits around 35 fascinating triadic structures, including the magnificent El Tigre, estimated to be around 180 ft, and the incredible La Danta at 236 ft tall.

Here you will find structures that were originally faced with cut stone decorated with large stucco masks depicting the deities of Maya technology. The earliest time of discovery and recorded history was in 1885 when CLA Urúa surveyed the entire Mirador Basin. However, very little attention was paid to the site at the time until a man named Ian Graham began mapping the area in 1962.

As for the Snake King Josh was trying to locate in the area, we see this snake symbol. A thousand years later, back to the Snake Kingdom around the 6th and 7th centuries, a group of warriors suddenly appeared from nowhere and launched massive attacks on some of the most powerful Mayan cities of the time. The war was heavy, the bloodshed was great, and the entire region never remained the same. This warrior clan then created what could be known as the only official empire from the era, known as the Snakehead Dynasty.

Taking inspiration from the emblem glyph featuring the depiction of a grinning snake, the story of the Snake Kingdom came alive again in the 1960s when archaeologists started finding some etchings of these smiling serpents carved into the temples and tombs located throughout the jungles of the Petén region of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. Many years down the line, Josh and his partner Richard stood on this same site hoping to locate skeletal remains belonging to a member of this ancient tribe.

They headed out to a particular tomb and began their excavation, but after digging for a while, they suddenly stumbled upon what appeared to be the bones of a snake king. However, their excitement evaporated after they discovered the bones actually belonged to an elite person in the Mayan society. So even though they found something, it wasn’t exactly what they were looking for.

So they headed out to the enormous La Danta pyramid, where Richard educated Josh about how the pyramid was built by the ancient Mayans. The duo then headed to the top of the pyramid to meet with Daniel Fagerman and Jared Boy, two lidar specialists who offered to help map El Mirador using advanced laser technology. While they got delayed by thunderstorms on the first day, Mother Nature smiled upon them the following day.

The very next morning, the team boarded their helicopter to redo the lidar scan as well as find a particular temple complex and another lost city they believe might be hidden around there somewhere. Unfortunately, though, our explorer and his team were soon chased away from the land by a massive storm, which meant that the exploration had to be suspended.

However, three months later, Josh travels back to El Mirador to check in with the team and their progress over the past weeks. Coincidentally, it was around the same time that the team discovered a Mayan glyph on a stone depicting a king, one of the most remarkable remnants of the civilization that used to inhabit this remote region.

They also found new ancient burial sites, palaces with pyramids, remains of plazas, and finally, a rare cryptic monument with the paintings of 19 Snake Kings immortalized on the dynastic vase.

Lost Spanish treasure found: Back in 2017, Josh traveled to the coast of Florida in search of a sunken treasure that had been lost since 1715. This historical trip took him deep into the heart of the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of what could be one of the most remarkable finds in recent memory.

To understand why this finding was so incredible, we travel back to the year 1715 when King Philip of Spain ran into financial trouble, so he ordered a fleet of ships to gather treasure from every corner of the New World. Sailing from Portobelo in present-day Panama to Cartagena in Colombia, the troops went from region to region gathering treasures for the King. By the time the mission was done, the 12 ships were filled with gold, gold and silver coins, precious stones, and artifacts from the Incas, totaling over a billion dollars.

But as the ship headed back, the story of what happened next differs depending on who’s telling it. Some say the ships encountered a mighty storm that wiped them out, sending the treasures to the bottom of the ocean. However, according to another popular narrative, it appears the ship may have been sunk during a fierce attack known as the Battle of Baru, a part of the War of Spanish Succession.

To begin this exploration, Josh travels to Sebastian, Florida, where he meets up with a man named Eric Schmidt, a treasure hunter who had single-handedly found 2 million in Spanish coins. Together, they searched through a beach using a metal detector, but their search turned out to be