Indiana Jones is a cool guy. An archaeologist, an adventurer who tore shit up, stumbled his way through tunnels and over invisible bridges to uncover priceless ancient artefacts.
But that’s Hollywood. In real life, ancient discoveries happen in far less exciting ways…Or do they?
The typical archaeological toolbox includes dental picks, trowels, brushes and measuring tapes. No archaeologist would blow an ancient city to smithereens. Right?
And only in the movies would someone accidentally lean on a wall to unveil the world's oldest known library. Right?
Incorrect. Both those things happened. And a lot of other cool shit too.
Much like Indiana, Heinrich Schliemann had a passion for the ancient. Born in 1822, he grew up listening to his corrupt Lutheran pastor father telling the Homeric stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. As a young boy, he believed he would be the one to not only prove the city of Troy was real, but to actually find it.
Incredibly, he did find it, buried deep beneath the Turkish city of Hisarlik. Unfortunately, he had run out of patience after his lifelong search and decided to use dynamite, exploding and destroying the actual Troy of the actual story.
So now we know where Achilles and Hector fought. But we also know we will never see it because Schliemann blew it up. What a guy.
Another lost city founded by Alexander the Great was discovered by Charles Masson, an interesting character who was obsessed with finding ancient coins. But apparently, Alexander the Great doesn’t have much historical value because that site is now underneath Bagram Air Base. Yep, they covered it in concrete.
Where does modern science come into the picture? Uncovering history can’t all be disasters and accidents!
Well, let’s head to Greece to the ancient city of Helike where disaster struck (earthquake lights might have been involved. Yes earthquake lights are a thing). Due to soil liquefaction, this thriving city got swallowed, sinking deep beneath the ground.
Thanks to technology, in 1994, a magnetometer survey of an inland lagoon revealed the outlines of a buried building. Once the site was excavated (without dynamite), a large Roman building with standing walls was found. Cobblestones, clay roof tiles, pottery, legit old stuff.
So if you’re on the hunt for a lost city, when you find it, please, for the love of Pharaoh, don’t blow it up.
Maybe ask the locals. They might be able to lead you in the right direction - to Atlantis perhaps!
And what the hell do chickens have to do with discovering lost cities?
Tune in for all this and much much more.
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Will 00:00
The story is that his chickens had been going missing for quite a while. Could have been Fox could have been a hyena, a wild cat a gazelle, or something like that. Maybe they'd been sucked into the ground in some sort of underground vortex thing.
Rod 00:22
Gazelle, notorious chickens, like gazelle.
Will 00:27
Anyway, the owner of the chickens and sadly His name has been lost to history put it out of his mind and he went back to his regular life.
Rod 00:37
You know, my father in law told me he has chickens and whenever he gets a new dog, what you do is because he loves the property when you put the dog in a bag, then you take it to the chicken coop, and you rough it up a little bit. And then you open the bag and it looks around and goes Holy shit. Those chickens kick the crap out of me and it never goes and kills the chickens. He's never tested that.
Will 01:01
I don't endorse this. The Wholesome Show doesn't endorse any cruelty to animals. Nothing anything.
Rod 01:05
He claims he's never done it just he heard about it. Yeah, so the dog put his head on the bag. Oh my God, these things are brutal. I'm not gonna go near him ever again.
Will 01:14
Look, I get it. I get it. Okay, so our friend, our friend, the chicken loser. Yeah, goes back to his life. He's eaten food. He's gone to work. And he's renovating his house. But then one day in 1963 he apparently apparently supposedly sort of small chicken slipped through a crack in his basement wall that had emerged during his renovation.
Rod 01:37
The wall emerged or the chicken
Will 01:38
The crack and the chicken went through and didn't come back. And he's like, What in hell?
Rod 01:47
Anne Frank the chicken
Will 01:48
What in hell? Okay. So he did what anyone would normally do. He goes down into his basement with a sledge hammer and and takes to the wall to think Can I get the chicken out with my sledge hammer hits the wall with a sledgehammer Sledgehammer goes through like you wouldn't believe he thought it was hard rock, but it was not. It was through to the other side. And behind the wall was a tunnel. Could you resist? You walk down the tunnel tunnel leads to a second tunnel. Second tunnel leads to a third tunnel and then eventually to an intricate system of rooms, houses, wells, ventilation shafts, stores, schools, churches, stables and wineries. It goes 18 storeys deep beneath his tower beneath.
Rod 02:38
This is underground.
Will 02:39
All of this is underground. 18 storeys deep beneath the Turkish towel of Derinkuyu
Rod 02:44
This is a boyhood dream come true. Oh. An underground invisible city.
Will 02:49
I heard this story and heart palpitations. The idea that in your basement is a door to a hidden city. That's awesome. Yeah, 18 storeys deep. It's got wineries, it's got schools, it's got churches, it's got everything a community of 20,000 people would need to live for up to 3000 years, well they still gotta get food and stuff like that. But people had been living in the course, people had been living in this town, this ancient city of Elengubu people have been living there for 3000 years. That's crazy from as far back as maybe 1200 BCE. So 3000 years ago, all the way up until the 1920s. As you guessed, like that story, that story makes me joyfully happy. Like the idea, as you said before, of discovering a hidden city underneath your house is just like, never see me again. So today listener, I wanted to explore for you a variety of the tips and tricks for if you want to rediscover an ancient city
Will 04:05
Welcome to The Wholesome Show,
Rod 04:07
the podcast that explores the secret passageways and tunnels of the whole of science.
Will 04:14
Thank you. I'm Will Grant
Rod 04:16
on Roderick the tunnel bora Lambert's
Will 04:20
So how we find our cities of gold? Aside from chickens. There's a lucky dip. You draw a method out of the hat. And I'll tell you about some some clown who used that method
Will 04:41
dynamite.
Will 04:44
This is a this is a sad story of discovery.
Rod 04:48
I discovered. Look at the bits of what I discovered.
Will 04:51
Heinrich Schliemann grew up with a passion for the ancient
Rod 04:54
Jewish guy by any chance?
Will 04:55
No, German. Well, he grew up in Germany. Yep. I was born in 1822. And he grew up listening to his corrupt Lutheran pastor telling stories of like the ancient Greeks like the the the Odyssey, and the Iliad, by the age of seven or eight he'd so fallen in love with all of these stories is like, that's it. I'm going to be the one that finds Troy.
Rod 05:18
Because Troy has been missing since lunchtime, and we want to find him
Will 05:22
no one knew where Troy was. In fact, at the time, there was a huge debate whether Troy was sort of a mythical thing, like it's, it's just a story, or if all of these events really happened.
Rod 05:30
That's weird, where else would Helen come from?
Will 05:33
So So people said no, some people said, yeah, it's mythical other people said, look, it's real, but we have no idea where it is.
Rod 05:39
I thought Troy was always considered actual.
Will 05:44
No, no, no, it did fall into the mists of time.
Rod 05:48
Am I now the ignorant guy who doesn't realise it's been faked the whole time, I've been fake newsed?
Will 05:54
But the path to discovery for Schliemann wasn't very easy. See, while his dad had paid for three years of good schooling, I said, I said before he was corrupt, and he was found embezzling church funds. And so
Rod 06:08
was his Dad the minister?
Will 06:09
his dad was the minister. And so everything fell apart at that point. So undefined himself got kicked out of expensive school and had to go to trade school called in Germany, the real school. At 14 He left that to become an apprentice in a grocery store for the next 30 years
Rod 06:26
What do you need to be an apprentice for to use a cash register? Or what they mean is low paid intern, okay. And in 20 years, you too can actually half manage the place. Okay.
Will 06:40
For the next 30 years. He just worked in a variety of good and bad sorts of schemes. He worked as a grossers boy for a while until he was lifting a heavy, heavy barrel and hurt himself so much that he coughed up blood.
Rod 06:55
Oh, damn.
Will 06:58
It must have been a heavy barrel.
Rod 07:00
Have you ever lifted anything that afterwards you coughed up blood? No, I have not. No, I have strained a thing or two. But the idea that you go Oh,
Will 07:08
wow. Yeah. He worked as a cabin boy on the ship Dorothea until that was shipwrecked, and I think that was his first voyage. So he didn't want to do cabin boarding anymore.
Rod 07:17
He's he's done. That's two boy jobs and neither of those sound like they don't have some problems associated with them.
Will 07:22
Grocers boy and cabin boy. Yeah, I think by that point, he's no longer boy.
Rod 07:25
The rules are, don't ever be anyone's boy.
Will 07:28
Probably not. All right. He became a messenger and an office attendant, messenger boy, and then a bookkeeper boy, in Amsterdam, so he's working his way up.
Rod 07:36
The bookkeepers are the most notorious of a lot.
Will 07:38
So then he starts to get better ideas for business and he becomes an import export sort of person. In he goes to Russia, Russia, boy, yeah, he sets up, exporting, importing things in and out of Russia. He goes to America for a while he he sets up a bank in America shuffling gold around till the Rothschilds say, Hey, you're cooking the books out. He goes back to Russia, and he's shuffling in all sorts of goods for the Crimean War, such as the things you need for ammunition. Well, this is all to say, by 44 he'd finally worked his way up through the the corporate world, such as it was to become rich guy
Rod 08:16
rich guy. Teenager now rather than rich guy, boy
Will 08:23
So in 1866, at 44, he retires. He's made his money.
Rod 08:27
Oh shut up. That's his pawn.
Will 08:29
He's made his money. There you go. You should have made your money on saltpetre and sulphur and led and fake gold.
Rod 08:35
I tried man, no one would buy it.
Will 08:38
And he says, Alright, that's it. I'm going back to finding Troy. He enroles as a mature age student first university in Paris, and then another university in Germany.
Rod 08:48
So to the Sorbonne, or the Max Planck Institute for fucking anything I know didn't exist them. And that's not the point. The Sorbonne,
Will 08:54
yes, he goes to the Sorbonne and then the University of Rostock, but then that gives him enough credit. He's like, Okay, let's go hunt for Troy. Basically, at the time. There were three theories of where Troy could be all of them in Turkey somewhere. It's in a town called Pinarbasi, Hisarlik or another one called Troas.
Rod 09:14
Pinarbasi, Hisarlik, Troas.
Will 09:20
Yeah, something like that. Now look, the thing is, I don't know why he chose the one that he did, but he just seems to have gone alright, this is the one. A guy named Frank Calvert met him and said, look, it's Hisarlik. this is the thing, I think they might have found a few coins that looked Troyish. they've got a Hector or, or, or a horse. It's got a horse on it or something like that. So they found that they had found a few coins and so Schliemann decided right let's let's go dig up this mountain thing at Hisarlik
Rod 09:50
got to be there.
Will 09:51
And they started digging. But here's the problem, because Schliemann, he had worked in ammunitions before, and he didn't want to go slowly. With its brushes, and blowing, or even perhaps shovels, and trowel, how to trail him, he might have done these things as well. But the problem is he went, he went straight to dynamite.
Rod 10:15
Cool and cool, cool, cool.
Will 10:17
He blew his way through nine layers of city.
Rod 10:22
In one hit? like he went, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, there's something here
Will 10:27
between 1870 and 1873. He just blew his way down with dynamite all the way down. Now his theory was that ancient Troy of of the Iliad of Hector and prime and Helen and Paris, that was the bottom layer. So here's like, blow off all of
Rod 10:42
That's what matters. Everything else is dross
Will 10:49
So on the day before there there are about to abandon the dig or stop the stop the exploding dig.
Rod 10:55
I've been calling it a dig is the calling the boom
Will 10:57
he did find a whole load of gold. He called it Priam's treasure. And there's there's there's photos of his wife at the time wearing wearing all of these necklaces, decked in 3000 year old necklaces. The problem was of course that when all of this was worked out, and they worked out the layers and and the age of the jewellery and what it looks like. It was at least 1000 years earlier than the Troy of the book. So So they'd gone into like a Bronze Age settlement. They'd found some cool stuff, but they had exploded and destroyed actual Troy of the actual story. So he found it. He definitely found it. But he destroyed it.
Rod 11:37
Here's a piece. Here's another piece. You fuckwit
Will 11:40
so here's the thing, here's the lesson. We now know exactly where ancient Troy was, where where Achilles and Hector fought. But we also know that we will never see it because Schliemann blew it up.
Will 11:45
So I mentioned you fuckwit
Will 12:05
just a tiny little aside. I was thinking about this. Yeah. Trojan horse. Was it called the Trojan horse? Who invented it?
Rod 12:15
Troje
Will 12:15
No. The Trojans were the victims here. Yeah, the Trojan horses are respecting them. It's like calling the atom bomb the Japanese bomb. It would be a little unfair.
Rod 12:33
You don't call it that?
Will 12:35
I don't and I don't think we should. Anyway. No Troy for you. All right, give me a new one
Rod 12:40
fucking wanker. I mean, fucking wanker. Old things tend to be brittle. Delicate. I'm in a bad mood now. Follow the coins.
Will 12:53
Alright, this is actually a this is actually a pretty decent method for finding finding an ancient city
Rod 12:59
metal detector on the beach.
Will 13:00
You could start there. You could start there.
Rod 13:04
As a kid, do you ever watch people with a metal detector and think Oh my God. The shit they must find
Will 13:09
only 1,000,000% me as a kid I imagining literally under every beat is 15% chance of pirate treasure
Rod 13:17
Fucking goldmine.
Will 13:19
And with that one as well. There's there's the treasure that's out there. I've got I've got a little list of the treasure that is still out there. That is just worth a lot
Rod 13:28
Is that what keeps me going and right like I'm having a bad day at work. I'm gonna look at the list.
Will 13:31
It's not I would never be the weird person that becomes a treasure hunter. But it sounds so cool
Rod 13:35
Maybe between us we can work out a way to step over.
Will 13:38
We could do that. bumbling treasure hunters
Rod 13:41
Yeah fucking idiots hope relying on the most some people who stumbled on it by accident.
Will 13:48
Alexander the Great, invaded a lot. wasn't the biggest empire but it's up there.
Rod 13:55
bigger than mine.
Will 13:55
It stretch all the way from Greece and Macedonia, Egypt, all the way to beyond Himalayas. Throughout his whole empire. He set up a whole bunch of cities and towns and a whole bunch of them he called Alexandria.
Rod 14:18
Why wouldn't you? That's why everywhere in America because of your exports. It's called Williamsburg.
Will 14:23
Or I just liked the idea that you conquered everywhere. I call them all Rod.
Rod 14:28
I do every time I get into a town, this is Rod now. Welcome to the Rod.
Will 14:31
Actually, I think he did name at least one after his horse, which is nice. One city in particular. Was Alexandria beneath the mountains. It actually had two names. It's like Alexandra beneath the mat. It's not it's not an underground city. It's just up next to the mountains in the Hindu Kush. Yeah, the foothills of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush, Hindu Kush, Kush. Anyway, he set the stuff in 329 BC, he left behind 3000 of his men that sort of wanting to retire and tap out of the war game, and just go from there.
Rod 15:07
3000 All right, off you go.
Will 15:09
Yeah, I think there was a bunch of locals as well. And they, yeah, cities thrived for centuries. Like it was a trading post between India and heading to the west, you know, through Iran and over to Europe. I was gonna say you had a thriving Buddhist Greek community,
Rod 15:25
the obvious combination
Will 15:27
Yeah, well, because there was the Greeks that stayed there. And so they stayed there. And, and, and many of them became Buddhist.
Rod 15:32
Greek Buddhism is one of the lesser known offshoots
Will 15:37
Definitely haven't, you know, 1000 years after Alexander, there's a Chinese traveller who wrote a bit saying that I had an awesome fruit trees. I was hoping he said, My God, there were so many gems and things here that he said there was awesome fruit trees,
Rod 15:49
and these bugs are so Buddhist plus figs. Okay,
Will 15:53
but then it was lost. I don't know what happens. I don't know. You know, climate change the Sands of Time or something like that. But the city faded from faded from knowledge and faded a little bit from memory, until the 18th or 19th century, when the British start going, alright, Alexander came here. This is cool. Let's let's look for this stuff.
Rod 16:13
I just realised as an Englishman, that everything in the world is mine. They did. They did, all I have to do is look at it. And it's mine.
Will 16:19
Actually, actually the guy who who discovered it. It was He was English, but he was also on the run from the English. He was a deserter from the East India Company, faked his own death. Then he travelled around Northern India, and up into Afghanistan for years and years as as a weird fraud spy, fake doctor, potential King? there's a story about maybe him being offered a kingdom at some time, he wrote famous graffiti in really weird spots. His name is Charles Mason.
Rod 16:51
I like that you can be a deserter from a company. I find that fascinating not I resigned.
Will 16:59
That was an odd company.
Rod 17:00
It was I think the world's first country company.
Will 17:06
So while he was on the run up in this area of Afghanistan, he was still fascinated by the idea. He they heard he heard the rumours that Alexander came through here, you know, where could it have been that his town was? And so he would always ask people, are there any old tombs around here or any any old coins, and for a long time, he didn't get any. But on the outskirts of Bagram, which is about 60 Ks, north of Kabul, he recovered a single Ancient Coin, and it was brought out by a villager after threats and glares from him his Afghan escort so he he'd go around and ask villagers anyone got any old coins? Got any old coins?
Rod 17:45
Have a look at this guy.
Will 17:48
I think there was some other times where there was a whole bunch of threats for the old coins. I'm not really sure. Yeah, I'm
Rod 17:53
feeling like threats and glares might be downplaying what really happened.
Will 17:55
It was it was common threats and glares were very common.
Rod 17:58
maybe a clattering of swords
Will 18:01
There's a good story, this guy Charles Mason, he's, he's he's a weird character. He escaped from some brigands. they caught him in the night. But he had a whole bunch of opium on him. And so he stuffed their pipes so full of opium they couldn't even handle and they got so stoned. And then they disappeared in the night and I just put on you, man, that is cool.
Rod 18:26
That's very clever.
Will 18:27
Anyway, once he found that old coin at Bagram, and it had indications of it had like a picture of Alexander on it, and they're like, Okay, and some Greek writing, they're like, Okay, this is cool. And then he started asking for more. And villages dozens more coins popped out procured with difficulty as their owners were suspicious of my motives and collecting them. Then as word spread them out amongst the villages that the foreigners would actually pay for these battered pieces
Rod 18:53
That's where Star Trek got it from
Will 18:54
would actually pay for these battered pieces. First dozens, then hundreds, then 1000s. Until over the years that he stayed in Kabul. He amassed 68,000 ancient coins.
Rod 19:04
Oh my god,
Will 19:05
he sent them all back, as you can guess, to London. But the key thing is that they pointed directly to this area like it's centred somewhere the ancient city was he went and found some some ruins in this spot that is really quite clearly Alexandria in the Caucasus. You know what's cool about it, or not cool. Alexander probably built it in a strategically important location. And strategically important locations don't change.
Rod 19:31
Don't they?
Will 19:31
No, because much, much, much, much, much later, the Soviets also thought, you know, is good place for air base. And the Americans also thought, you know, it's a great place for an airbase. And so sitting underneath Bagram Air Base is Alexandria in the Caucasus, hidden underneath the runway is this ancient city. I was just like, Come on, man.
Rod 19:52
I'm sick of men wanting to have little boy Slappy fights
Will 19:55
and literally covering over ancient history. Come on, man. Come on.
Rod 19:59
You fuckhead on national security. All right, give me another one. rummage rummage rummage. leaning against a wall, I could do this.
Will 20:09
It's gonna be the right wall, it's gonna be the right wall. It could be the wall that your ticket has escaped into. Or it could be a wall in Tel Mardikh in Syria,
Rod 20:19
who hasn't lent on a wall Tel Mardikh Syria though?
Will 20:23
in the 1960s, archaeologists thought the ancient world was still sort of, you know, separated into levels like Mesopotamia, you know, like, like Iraq area, and Egypt, and Anatolia, and not much else was going on. They thought that that was that was the big spots of action. Not much else. And probably okay, further afield there was China and things like that, but they didn't think they didn't think very much was going on in between them. Okay.
Rod 20:49
It's fair to say, I've only been to one of those the Anatolia bit, and there is shit everywhere. Like you walk down the street of any town in Turkey, and there's an ancient awesome thing,
Will 20:58
I think, I think that's the thing. That's the thing you can see. And this is one of the things I've been thinking about in this podcast. Just because you can see a lot of monuments doesn't mean or you can't see a lot of monuments doesn't mean people weren't there. And in fact, people could have been having vibrant societies, and maybe didn't want to build giant monuments, maybe giant monuments were for assholes. Anyway, so an Italian archaeologists Paolo Matthiae decided that some mounds in Tel Mardikh in Syria might be worth investigating
Will 21:30
He started digging in 1964. And by 1974, they had found a few things, a bunch of cuneiform tablets, laying in the ground, he's like, Okay, so what's going on here, and there is there is clearly a mount, there's some sort of settlement going on. But the story goes that Matthiae's wife, was visiting her husband at the site, and she apparently literally leaned against a wall that, that no one had thought to look at or deal with or dig in before and the wall collapses. And it turns out, it was just the the edge of the wall, the door, something covered up of what turned out to be the world's oldest known library. So inside what up inside, they found chock a block of cuneiform tablets, also arranged in specific spots in the shelves with some sort of ordering system
Rod 21:30
He's that kind of guy.
Rod 22:21
No way. that sort of just is mind blowing.
Will 22:28
They could even find out from this, this is the thing that this is the thing that blows my mind. The tablets in there, there are enough in it, they could translate could tell them the name of the city. Not an Alexandria this much before. But they could they could translate the name of the city and then they could work out it was an empire. The city itself was founded sort of, in 5500 years ago, developed into a trading Empire later into an expansionist power that covered a lot of northern Syria. It was built and destroyed, like three times, and all of these records were kept in this library that was discovered.
Rod 23:03
Oh, that's great. So good.
Will 23:05
Ah, ah,
Rod 23:06
what the hell? Why did we do the things we did when we could have just done like Indiana Jones shit,
Will 23:10
I like the accidental Indiana Jones like that of falling through a wall or your chicken escapes into a crack
Will 23:17
and as a scholar, I think finding cool gold shit is awesome. Like Charles Mason, the guy that Alexandria in the Caucasus, he found at another city he discovered he found like, like amazing gold he found lots like some of these people find but but finding a library that tells you stuff that is that is so cool.
Rod 23:17
so good. I can't even imagine
Rod 23:37
I'm gonna hate myself for saying this right now. I'd rather find the library
Will 23:40
I too. I think it's so awesome.
Rod 23:42
teenage me is horrified, but actually teenage me is going, yeah me too. fuck it. It's true.
Will 23:48
Give me another one.
Rod 23:49
rummage rummage rummage. Magneto metre,
Will 23:55
magnetometer. Alright, we're getting into some more modern methods now. So no longer just following through the crack following the coins, or, or dynamiting
Rod 24:05
following a chicken never goes out of style that's not modern or ancient. That's just that just is.
Will 24:09
So I do like to imagine it was a Benny Hill skit. Helike was a Greek city on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. So that's the, the lumpy Peninsula bit of Greece.
Rod 24:24
Peloponnesus means lumpy Peninsula. Yes. Okay, good.
Will 24:28
Yes. Flawless Greek. Founded in the Bronze Age, it rose to become the principal city of Achaea, which are the good guys in the Trojan War. One night, and this is this is just wild one night in the winter of 373 BCE cruisin through that's when Aristotle was 11 years old. Plato was 51.
Rod 24:46
I was just gonna say both of those things.
Will 24:48
So they're around, they're around. Yeah, something bad happened. There's a couple of theories. The ancient account is that a few days before the disaster, imminent columns of flame appeared, maybe earthquake lights Pause for a second. Have you ever heard of earthquake lights?
Rod 25:01
Pause for a second? Yes. Because I was gonna say what the fuck earthquake lights?
Will 25:05
Like aurora borealis that happened in the sky a little bit before an earthquake is about to happen, don't always happen. But they do.
Rod 25:13
What? Serious?
Will 25:14
No, they have been documented for 1000s of years and there is video and photographic evidence of like an aurora borealis sort of phenomena
Rod 25:23
swiftly before it would like months days.
Will 25:27
I think it's in the days, but it could be right before it could be happening.
Rod 25:31
How the fuck have I not heard of that? Also, why isn't that the only thing they look at to predict earthquakes? If it's days, it's pretty cool. Because minutes it's like you know what, what time is living 11:51. 11:53 It's gonna be an earthquake.
Will 25:43
Here's the other thing that is a nice earthquake predictor. So, this is the ancient account in the days before we got the earthquake lights, and all the animals and vermin buggered off.
Rod 25:54
Why don't you know that one day we'll get twitchy
Will 25:57
But I'd be spooked. I'm super spooked. If if all of the vermin flee
Rod 26:02
you just don't like moving vermin that you don't get when they're fleeing or coming towards you. It's all bad.
Will 26:06
I don't like moving vermin at all. Yes, but I just the idea. All the animals are clearing out
Rod 26:11
like sitting on your desk, you're having a beer it affects a guy as normal. And you see all these rats running away and you think I'm spooked?
Will 26:18
I will I'm staying here town is clean. Now. Obviously, that's
Rod 26:22
rats shouldn't run like that.
Will 26:25
And then the city and a space of 12 stadia.
Rod 26:30
An area of distance converted to kilometres,
Will 26:34
sank into a poros and was covered over by the sea. All inhabitants perish without a trace.
Rod 26:40
So that's Atlantis. Okay, cool.
Will 26:43
They said that this was probably because Poseidon was cranky. Or something. There was some story about some colonists of the city had gone somewhere else and said hey, can we borrow your statue of Poseidon to make a replica? And the original said no, we don't want to lend it and then besides like man do lend the frickin statue. Anyway, town got destroyed
Rod 27:02
what a funny thing to do. Can we borrow your statue Poseidon. No. It's not a statue. fuck you.
Will 27:08
I don't get a Why you borrow the b why you don't lend. It's like, you know,
Rod 27:13
surely there was a time when people knew how to draw.
Will 27:17
three dimensional and statues three dimensional? Also why don't why don't you bring a block of marble sit through this statue and copy it there. Then you ship it out?
Rod 27:25
I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I know this because I've been a sculptor in my past. Shipping a block of marble and fucking it up. No big deal. Get another block of marble, sculpting it making a beautiful moving it back. Boom.
Will 27:37
That's why the original guys should have moved I don't want to move out beside you. Right? You've talked me out Poseidon is happy where he is here? No, he wasn't decided was like no, I want to focus and have a new city over here. Modern accounts building on this and building on some of the archaeological evidence now reckon it was probably earthquake and tsunami or freaky earthquake and liquefaction You know that thing where the earth shakes so much and the soil turns to liquid? And the town literally got sucked under?
Rod 28:07
Of course. Of course I know that thing. I mean,
Will 28:10
there was there was video video footage in Christchurch of it. And it just freaks me the fuck out like the ground not only shakes but literally turns to liquid.
Rod 28:21
I just realised you have made me realise how little I know about earthquakes or rather the things around them. I know earthquakes go boom, and it's bad. A lot. Boom. But yes, there's boom noises. I've been in one. But I didn't realise it was
Will 28:34
lights and liquid either. Yeah. So it does happen and to have your whole town sucked down by that. Anyway, for centuries, people debated about its location like like there's records in ancient Greek writing saying it existed and it's gone. Yeah. So where could it be? And you get people up in the 19th century in the 20th century, looking for it Jacques Cousteau look for it in the in the 20th century
Rod 28:58
who sent his brother in this his brother Philip, I'm sitting this is a very dangerous situation. Yeah, I'm sending my brother Philip. The it was it was a known thing. He did it all the time. It was hilarious is always like this is a very dangerous situation full of mini hermitage sharks. So I'm sending my brother Philip. In say so. But it was deeply deeply implied. Anyway, well, what if I'm going down I am Jack Jack's is the boss Exactly. All the time, all the time.
Will 29:28
So most people accepted the tsunami idea. And what they assumed is tsunami comes through town gets washed out to sea. And they took the translation of porous meaning that it went off the coaster into into into the ocean into the water or something like that.
Rod 29:43
So that's fine.
Will 29:45
But the archaeologists Dora Katsonopoulou and Stephen Soter, they reread and they reckon okay, there's another translation of porous and it's like inland lagoon, so could have been sucked into an inland lagoon. If the soil had liquefied like that, then maybe Maybe that's what happened. So in 1994, they carried out a magnetometer survey and started to find buried buildings, they found a Roman building and delta. And then finally in 2001, they found the city of helico. Using magnetometers to find cobblestones, clay tiles, pottery, all sorts of stuff in an ancient lagoon, near the village of reservoirs.
Rod 30:20
Awesome. Oh, yeah. This shit is awesome. Let's do this episode for two hours, four hours,
Will 30:26
you know, you know, I looked at the list of rediscovered cities, and there's a lot. I'm doing seven for you. There are about 80 pot. Well, actually, actually, actually, there's a tiny bit I'll do at the end. And this is the bit that Jazz's me. Sorry, give me the next one.
Rod 30:42
So that's the boot. Can we just go straight to that? I'm already just this shit is crack. Listen to the locals. All right,
Will 30:50
I had to chuck this one in because this is this is one of the most famous stories of rediscover cars, because it is one of the best looking, rediscovered cities in the world.
Rod 31:00
Are we going with attractiveness? Now I like that. Oh, this is attractive,
Will 31:03
because this is the city that you put up on top of a mountain. Right? Machu Picchu. Does that get lost? Does that get lost? Yeah, well, kinda kinda
Rod 31:12
because people stopped climbing.
Will 31:13
No, but but in Peru, the Inca civilization that had founded it. Set it up. seems to have been possibly like the Kings, like a pleasure resort sort of thing. Like he got on top and you're hanging out there like I
Rod 31:26
think it was a little rummage in the undies and ate something delicious. Yeah,
Will 31:30
I think it may have been one of the last places where Incas lived but originally set up as a sort of, that's where it's my my cool retreat, which it looks awesome. It's on top of the mountain
Rod 31:39
Star Trek language. Reisa the Pleasure Planet. The two of you listening know who I'm not talking about. They know they know old Star Trek.
Will 31:48
In 1911, American historian, historian and explorer, Hiram Bingham, he travelled to the Costco reason looking for an old Inca capital. There was the idea that there was something around and he asked local villagers and they're like, Alright, cool. So the local villager Melaka Arteaga said I'll take you up to the top is Machu Picchu. So
Rod 32:08
you got to move as quickly as I did. Good luck with that champ.
Will 32:10
Yeah, probably never really claimed to be the discoverer of Machu Picchu. He was he was the archaeologist who showed it to the rest of the world, where he from hiking for hours, suddenly, we found ourselves in the midst of a jungle covered maze of small and large walls. Surprise followed surprise until eventually they came to realisation. They're in the midst of the most wonderful ruins as ever found in Peru. He took the first photos that I made, this is 1911. So this is not Yeah, not heaps. It took the first photos, wrote wrote it up in Harper's, Harper's Bazaar. And people back in America like whoa, this is this is some cool stuff. He did a bunch more trips, clearing it out and showing what's there. Next. He he definitely claimed to show it to the rest of the world. But the locals knew who discovered it for what he just said, Well, he didn't discover it for white people, because when he got there, he found he found graffiti from a guy named Agustin Lizarraga. who'd written in charcoal. Basically, I was here 1902. So, so 10 years before other people had been there. And there's there's stories of other non locals so Germans going into the 19th century people had been there a bunch of times. Alright, Bingham was the first to take a camera but here's the thing, asking the locals maybe they already know it's there.
Rod 33:29
That doesn't make sense. Give me the last one last rummage satella ties, satellites, satellites they use one of the omega one of the look this
Will 33:38
is I just had to put this in because rediscovery of cities has been mostly physical but more and more and more we're getting we're getting more settlements and cities and archaeological things discovered by satellite. One of the first ones to do this so we shoot might have been a team that included rental phones Explorer, and a bunch of other people row finds father, yes. Usually much of NASA remote sensing satellites, ground penetrating radar Landsat photos from the space shuttle Challenger. They were looking for the last city of Iran of the pillars somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. I don't know much about it. It was an old trading post and they found it using camel routes so they could see underneath the underneath the desert using the ground penetrating radar and the Landsat programme and stuff you can see where these camel routes and they converge. So all of these
Rod 34:32
How could you see them there was trails or there's like dead camels strewn along the way I think trails
Will 34:36
like its trails of compaction, so you can see a difference see a difference in the blown sand compared to Okay, there was so damn many for so for 1000s of years, camels and that alone walking alone. I love this idea that hidden under there are sort of paths that are no longer visible to the eye, but they could see from space, these camel trails all converging on a point And School's out. For me as well, it's like that one of the other big ones. So there's there's a bunch more that are using all sorts of satellite images, or LIDAR flying over the top of the jungle with a lidar plane. There's a city in well, I want to say mezzo America, I should say, America can't remember I can't remember if this one's in actually in Mexico or wherever. But anyway, it's a Mayan city that would have had they reckon up to a million people living it all been covered over by jungle and a lot has has, you know, decayed and come into ruins. Yeah. And there were, you know, there was some temples and things that still stood so there was an idea, okay, there's something there. But they do these LIDAR images and they're like, Oh, we can see houses, palaces, elevated highways, all sorts of different things mapping these cause ways and it's just it's just mind blowing. What we can say,
Rod 35:55
Kerrigan we are about the past like just It breaks my brain that might have been one of if not the actual place where they started saying, you know, we were the first people to grand scale agriculture things
Will 36:06
massively. If we change our perspective, we can see a lot so so I just want to give you you know, if you're want to discover hidden city I do. There's a few out there that haven't been found. So there's this is just a shortlist. There's many more cities that have been talked about in in writing,
Rod 36:24
so obviously, yeah, well, somebody found it.
Will 36:29
Well, some people reckon healthcare is the is the model for Atlanta not bought
Rod 36:32
I need to be better. Was there fancy technology like was the Velcro there? If there wasn't Velcro, then it's not good enough.
Will 36:40
I like that. You just want it well, I velcro but be fancy technology. They if Atlantis existed, they weren't more advanced.
Rod 36:48
Don't let down what is it that we found Atlantis? It's some rock buildings in a puddle. And you're like, you're fucking kidding.
Will 36:54
It's roughly the same as all of the other Greek cities. No,
Rod 36:57
no, Atlantis, we know it was like what conda on the real
Will 37:02
okay, there's there's it's a tower. Which is it? Well, this would have been one of the capitals of the pharaoh, Madam hat. In Egypt. It was 3000 4000 years ago. That hasn't been found. There's probably some magical stuff there. So
Rod 37:19
Egypt has not been properly laid out yet.
Will 37:21
Not properly. You could do that. Turquoise Mountain and Afghan city described as the wonder of the world but destroyed by Genghis Khan's son that hasn't been found yet. Well, he had a lot to live up to and it didn't quite work so
Rod 37:33
just broke shit.
Will 37:33
I had the war capital of the Akkadian Empire which ruled Mesopotamia over 4000 years ago there are many cities still out there. There is much that beyond this like this is just the ones that are talked about plenty of other places that are still out there. So So here's the tips if you want to find a city I go gentle Don't Don't blow it up don't blow it up. No Don't Don't destroy the city in your quest to get to the bottom there. Maybe work with the people who live there you know, they might have some ideas already you know, they might have some coins or they might actually know the city is there and just work with them and say
Rod 38:08
that that's revelatory is like what if you ask the locals you know I never thought of talking to someone but you know you know the prom with that is almost all the explorers are men and we never asked directions No Why would you ask the direction know when you can just drive around in circles going they find something and if you don't there's nothing to be fucking found
Will 38:26
every trip that I take I use that how to get out of a maze strategy always take left hand turns and eventually you will get to your destination
Rod 38:32
strategy I use what someone tells me where to go no ridiculous. No, I know. I know I have weaknesses. Well, one only one. No sense of direction kind of do maps and maps.
Will 38:43
All right. But the last one Yeah. And I think this is this is a this is one of the key points of as we shift in our thinking of archaeology and and of ancient societies. They might look different. They might be very different from how we might have imagined and there might be a hole that we might not spot them from untrained eyes. And maybe people lived in very different ways and what might be you know a super mega capital of awesome yeah, may look a little bit different
Rod 39:10
tents or Atlanta's high tech open. You might think
