WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:04.240 Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I. Today I will 2 00:00:04.280 --> 00:00:08.679 be reading National Geographic magazine dated August twenty twenty five, 3 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:12.679 which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI 4 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.599 is a reading service intended for people who are blind 5 00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:19.079 or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read 6 00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:23.280 printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of 7 00:00:23.359 --> 00:00:28.399 the article I began last time, entitled Extreme Birding at 8 00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:33.600 the End of the World by Tom Kleines. In between 9 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:36.679 the many hours of field work, the researchers enjoy moments 10 00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:41.679 of play, ultimate frisbee, beach, volleyball, guitars, and bonfires under 11 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:45.799 the never ending twilight of Alaska summer nights. After three 12 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.399 seasons on the island, I can confidently say that the 13 00:00:48.439 --> 00:00:53.960 place is sacred, says former crew leader Sierra Ni nisanie 14 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.479 E Pete. I think about it every day. The cool science, 15 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.840 the grueling physical days, and the lifeline friends I made. 16 00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:05.719 Middleton humbles people in the best ways. Next The Buried 17 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:11.519 Treasure That Might Have Changed History by Julian Sancton. Two 18 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:14.319 thousand years ago, the Roman Army embarked on a far 19 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:17.640 flung hunt for silver. Thanks to a persistent dark yell 20 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:20.560 the gi buff we're now learning how close they came 21 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:25.560 to finding an empire altering fortune. The passage is easy 22 00:01:25.599 --> 00:01:29.159 to miss. A paragraph long anecdote in the Annals by 23 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:33.079 the Roman historian Tacitus, It tells a story found nowhere 24 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:38.000 else about an unpopular legate forcing legionaries into a treacherous 25 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.640 mine at the frontier of the empire. It takes place 26 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:45.799 during the reign of Claudius eighty forty one through fifty four, 27 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:49.680 a time of furious expansion when Rome sought to swallow 28 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:54.040 up the border lands and their resources. The location mentioned 29 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:58.120 in the Tacitus pachsage is vague, described as in the 30 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:03.439 district of Mattium, just outside of Roman occupied Germania Superior, 31 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:06.120 but the goal is clear, to find more of a 32 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:11.879 metal that powered the realm. Silver trickled down from pratitious patricians, officers, 33 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:14.439 and soldiers to the rest of the economy in the 34 00:02:14.479 --> 00:02:17.759 form of coins and ingots and jewelry. Coins were not 35 00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:21.439 merely currency, stamped with the profile of the emperor, each 36 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:23.639 one served as a symbol of his power as it 37 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:28.080 circulated across the land. The bulk of Rome's mined silver 38 00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:33.080 had until then come from Hispania modern days Spain and Portugal, 39 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:37.199 but prospectors had long sought other deposits across the dominion. 40 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:42.199 In Tacitus's stelling, the legionaries were worn out by the arduous, 41 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:45.960 dirty and dangerous task of mining, of digging out water 42 00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:50.280 courses and constructing underground workings, which would have been difficult 43 00:02:50.360 --> 00:02:53.599 enough in the open, let alone in the stifling darkness, 44 00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:57.560 broken only feebly by the glow of oil lamps. To 45 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:01.120 voice their displeasure, the legionaries rode letter to the Emperor 46 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.400 asking him to recognize the efforts of their unpopular commander, 47 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.960 courteous Rufus, with triumphal honors. Such an acknowledgment, they hoped, 48 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:14.159 would permit Rufus to drop the largely fruitless effort. Eventually, 49 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:18.120 the search for silver was abandoned and the army's encampment destroyed. 50 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.639 Tacitus's story long intrigued classical scholars, who could find no 51 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:27.560 evidence nor any other mention of such an undertaking. Some 52 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:34.439 scholars dismissed it as a colorful but unverifiable aside. Alfred 53 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:37.439 Heart of the University of Liverpool, a specialist on Rome's 54 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:41.000 economy and mining operations, called it an example of so 55 00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:45.639 called mirabelia, which are these kind of wondrous stories that 56 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:49.680 are being told just to regale readers. But a recent 57 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:54.159 discovery that as electrified the archaeological world suggests that Tacitus 58 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:57.680 was outlining a real episode. Rufus and his men indeed 59 00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:01.919 searched for silver, it seems, but decamped before hitting the motherload. 60 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:04.759 We now know there was enough silver in the region 61 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:07.639 to have altered the course of the empire, but the 62 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:12.680 enormity of their near miss would not become clear until 63 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:17.279 millennia later, after a persistently curious German hunter put all 64 00:04:17.319 --> 00:04:21.240 the pieces together. On a crisp evening in April twenty sixteen, 65 00:04:21.319 --> 00:04:26.240 a seventy two year old former paratrooper named Urgen Eigenbrut 66 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:29.680 was stalking bore in the hills around the historic spa 67 00:04:29.839 --> 00:04:35.240 town of bod Ems in Rhineland Palatinate. He noticed an 68 00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:39.439 unusual pattern in a grain field, two parallel yellowish strips 69 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:42.959 cutting across a blanket of green. Few other passers by 70 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:45.560 would have made anything of it. They were too wide 71 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:49.759 to have been trunk or tank tray tracks. Conspiracy theorists 72 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:55.120 might have suggested an extraterrestrial origin Eisenbrodt knew better. He 73 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:58.199 had served with the Blue Helmets in Somalia and as 74 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:02.120 a defense attache until eve, but since retiring from the 75 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:05.160 German military in two thousand three, he had turned his 76 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:08.600 attention to going zon closer to home. A far distant 77 00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:13.000 in time, Eigenbrout had become fascinated with the archaeology and 78 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:17.120 history of the bad Ms environs, and had even led 79 00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:20.639 a number of small scale excavations of the Lawn Valley 80 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:24.399 as a volunteer amateur. Though he was he recognized the 81 00:05:24.439 --> 00:05:27.600 crop marks as the sure sign of a human made structure, 82 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.399 keeping in mind a core tenet of archaeology there are 83 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:35.079 no straight lines in nature. Something beneath the ground had 84 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:38.920 changed the density of the soil, causing the visitation at 85 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:43.079 the service to mature at a different rate. But what 86 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:46.639 to get a clear view? He asked his old friend 87 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:51.360 Hans Joachim de Roy, a retired frigate captain and fellow 88 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:56.720 history buff, to photograph the field from above with his drone. 89 00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:59.600 The ariel shot revealed that the parallel lines made a 90 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:03.399 right angle turn. The corner was rounded like a playing card. 91 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:07.480 Eisenbrodt's pulse quickened when he viewed the image, he had 92 00:06:07.519 --> 00:06:11.480 seen depictions of such configuration before. There it was only 93 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:14.279 one thing it could be. The markings were the unmistakable 94 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:19.160 traces of the defensive double trenches Roman troops commonly dug 95 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:24.480 around military camps at the fringes of their empire. Eigenbrodt's 96 00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:28.040 work had only just begun. He had to convince the 97 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:32.879 archaeologists of Rhineland Palatinate in Koblenz to do some digging, 98 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:35.519 and fortunately he did it like a pain in the ass, 99 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:38.120 said de Roy. It was like the work of Sissyphus 100 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:43.199 worn down by Eigenbrot. The state's archaeology department eventually agreed 101 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:47.399 to conduct a geomagnetic survey of the surrounding area on 102 00:06:47.480 --> 00:06:53.040 what is known as the Erlich Plateau, measuring infinitesimal variations 103 00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:57.360 in the Earth's magnetic field. The survey revealed several other 104 00:06:57.480 --> 00:07:00.800 stretches of the double trench, confirming that had marked the 105 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:05.120 perimeter of a nineteen acre Roman encampment with fortifications of 106 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:09.600 soil and wood. Excavation of the Erlich Camp began in 107 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:15.000 twenty seventeen, led by the archaeologist Thomas Mauer and supervised 108 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:19.079 by Peter Heinrich of Rhineland State Museum in Trier and 109 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:24.319 Marcus Schultz of Gerta University in Frankfurt. They initially believed 110 00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:26.879 the site to be from the time of Augustus twenty 111 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:31.000 seven b BC through a d fourteen, perhaps one of 112 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:35.279 countless temporary marching camps Roman troops erected while on the move. 113 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:39.199 Such camps have been found across Europe, often thanks to 114 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:43.959 Krop marks, but Frederick Auth, a doctoral student supervised by Schultz, 115 00:07:44.199 --> 00:07:47.720 put it bluntly. As archaeological finds go, they were not 116 00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:53.800 so spectacular. However, Eigenbrot wondered whether Erlich might not instead 117 00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:57.399 have been a more noteworthy encampment. He was familiar with 118 00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:03.079 the enematic passage from Tacitus. The mention of the Matisichi 119 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:06.560 was an early clue, as they were a Germanic tribe 120 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:11.920 who had settled near bod Ems. Eigenbrodt, who knew that 121 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.279 the surrounding area had long been mined for silver, grew 122 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:17.879 ever more convinced that the camp he had discovered was 123 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:22.560 related to the mining operation. Tacitus noted perhaps it was 124 00:08:22.600 --> 00:08:26.120 where the disgruntled legionaries had been stationed. He thought to 125 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:31.560 the professional archaeologist, Eisenbrodt's hypothesis reflected the touching naivete of 126 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:35.519 a dambler. The archeologist told the enthusiast, this wasn't how 127 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:38.679 the discipline worked in real life. It's quite difficult to 128 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:42.840 connect archaeology and historical literature, ath said, and we tend 129 00:08:42.879 --> 00:08:46.919 to be very careful to not overinterpret that literature, because 130 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:52.320 Tacitus has never seen Roman Germany. The hunter's undiminished enthusiasm 131 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:55.919 nourished the excavation, literally, as he kept the workers fed 132 00:08:55.960 --> 00:08:59.360 with home made boar sausage. Those sausages are quite the 133 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.480 legend of the student's oath, recalled, I was giving a 134 00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:05.600 talk in bot Ems, and my monetary compensation was actually 135 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:11.440 more sausages from sad Bore. The dig unearthed, among other artifacts, 136 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:15.200 a brass ring from a horse's harness, iron nails, and slag, 137 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:18.320 but precious little that might have allowed a precise date 138 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:22.000 for the site. The archeologist's best clue was a heavily 139 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:27.879 corroded bronze coin depicting a barely decipherable profile of Emperor Caligula, 140 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:31.639 evidently minted in Rome in thirty seven or thirty eight. 141 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:36.159 Then a coin of copper alloy from the subsequent Claudian 142 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:39.159 period was discovered at the bottom of a former well. 143 00:09:39.759 --> 00:09:43.559 Coins could circulate for a long time, especially during Claudius's 144 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:47.240 reign when few were minted, making it difficult to narrow 145 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:51.240 down the time frame, But when combined with recovered shreds 146 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:55.000 of pottery, including plates and drugs characteristic of the mid 147 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.000 first century, the finds led the team to date the 148 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:01.879 early camp to the forties or Ela, in other words, 149 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.360 smack in the period Tacitus was writing about in the Annals. 150 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:10.480 Eigenbrodt's theory wasn't yet vindicated. The time frame of Erlich 151 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.279 may have aligned with Tacitus, but without evidence of a 152 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:18.360 contemporaneous Roman silver mine, it could have merely been an 153 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:23.120 intriguing coincidence. Finding such evidence would not be simple. The 154 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.720 area around bod Ems had been mined for various metals 155 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:30.039 from biblical times up until the Second World War, and 156 00:10:30.279 --> 00:10:34.320 is consequently riddled with pits, shafts, and tunnels, several of 157 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:37.440 which are still accessible. Some of these pits may be 158 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:41.679 of Roman origins, says Schultz, but they were reshaped in 159 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:45.879 medieval times or during the last few centuries. In addition, 160 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.759 the region had been heavily bombed in the war, making 161 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:52.720 it difficult to distinguish craters from ancient minds. We're quite 162 00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:57.240 glad that Eigenbrot was ex military, so he can tell 163 00:10:57.240 --> 00:11:00.840 them apart set oth. Rather than ampt to find an 164 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:04.919 undiscovered mine in a landscape full of holes, Eigenbrought insisted 165 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:09.240 that the archaeologists shift their efforts to a nearby Roman 166 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:11.960 site that had been known about for a long time, 167 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:16.200 the remains of a small fortification on a barren hilltop 168 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.919 less than a mile and a half away called Bluskof 169 00:11:20.279 --> 00:11:23.799 literally bear Head. The site had been the subject of 170 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:29.000 an eighteen ninety seven study by retired lieutenant Colonel Otto Dam, who, 171 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:33.200 like Eigenbrot, had thought he'd found the elusive silver mine 172 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:38.440 mentioned by Tacitus. Dom concluded that Bluskov had indeed been 173 00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:41.480 a smelting facility if he dated back to the end 174 00:11:41.559 --> 00:11:46.440 of the second century, far too late for Tacitus. At 175 00:11:46.440 --> 00:11:51.159 Eigenbrodt's urging, auth took another look at Bluskof. He found 176 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:55.159 that Dom's nineteenth century publication was pretty much full of errors, 177 00:11:55.200 --> 00:12:01.360 showing feufines and methodologically sloppy, with far more archaeological rigor 178 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:05.720 and technology unknown in Dom's day, including lidar to map 179 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:09.759 the underground. Outh led a new excavation that unearthed a 180 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:13.440 pair of coins from the time of Claudius or earlier, 181 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:17.320 and none from the following reign of his adopted son Nero. 182 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:21.960 The coins confirmed it the large Erlich Camp and the 183 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:27.279 smaller Bluskoff outpost were in fact contemporaneous and most likely related. 184 00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:31.679 What's more, the Bluskoff structure lay in an area now 185 00:12:31.720 --> 00:12:35.240 known to be a rich source of silver. Roman prospectors 186 00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:38.039 probably would have used several ques in the landscape to 187 00:12:38.120 --> 00:12:42.159 determine that Bluskov could be a fruitful place to mine. 188 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:45.360 The larger Erlich Camp most likely served as the main 189 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:49.600 Roman base in the area, which supplied the legionaries who 190 00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:53.840 worked to the Blushkoff mine and manned the outpost. Based 191 00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:57.600 on this suspicion, Outh brought Eisenbrot to the tunnel that 192 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:03.320 pierced through Bluskof Hill along with Roman mining specialist Marcus Helfert, 193 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.679 who confirmed it was almost certainly of Roman origin. This 194 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:11.279 was enough for the archeologists to admit that Eigenbrot had 195 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:15.120 been right all along. These were likely the places Tacitus 196 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:19.720 was writing. About Several weeks into the Blushkov excavation, auth 197 00:13:19.799 --> 00:13:23.600 and his team made a discovery that corroborated yet another 198 00:13:23.679 --> 00:13:28.000 passage from Roman history. In one pit, nearly six feet down, 199 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:32.799 athen As team found what looked like the spiky backbone 200 00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:36.519 of a prehistoric monster. They cleared the reddish earth around it, 201 00:13:36.879 --> 00:13:40.799 revealing a series of sharpened wooden stakes jutting out at 202 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:44.240 staggered angles and embedded in the bottom of a trench 203 00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:48.840 that once surrounded the outpost, designed to thwart any would 204 00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:54.720 be attackers. The obstacle appeared analogous to a defense Julius 205 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:57.200 Caesar had described in his writings on the War and 206 00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:01.799 Gaul a century before the Bluskov fort built. Whoever entered 207 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.440 within them were likely to impale themselves on very sharp steaks. 208 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:10.279 Caesar's troops called the spikes chipi Oth and his colleagues 209 00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:14.639 would call the version they found pila posata, or trench steaks. 210 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:19.320 Such dangerous devices are believed to have surrounded camps around 211 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:22.240 the Roman world, but they have never been found in 212 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:26.399 situ before or since. Just as thrilling as the discovery 213 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:29.399 of the steaks was the miracle of their preservation for 214 00:14:29.480 --> 00:14:33.279 too millennia. The dense, oxygen poor soil had remained just 215 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:37.279 moist enough to keep the stakes water logged and structurally stable. 216 00:14:37.919 --> 00:14:41.720 The Pila fosata were extracted in twenty nineteen and may 217 00:14:41.799 --> 00:14:46.080 have been conserved, according to auth just in time. Increasingly 218 00:14:46.159 --> 00:14:49.080 dry soil, he said, would have caused the wood to 219 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:53.919 finally begin decaying, eventually destroying this precious testament to Roman 220 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:58.559 ingenuity and ruthlessness. One can imagine the murderous spikes protecting 221 00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:02.519 the camp indefinitely. The empire not abandoned its mining effort. 222 00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:07.440 The likely confirmation of Tacitus account raised the question how 223 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:11.799 much silver had rufous Men missed. Oth's study of Blushkov 224 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:15.879 revealed that the Romans got tantalizingly close to a source 225 00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:19.080 of silver bearing ore that may have rivaled the richest 226 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:24.879 minds of Hispania, the so called emser gangzug or ems Vane, 227 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.879 which spans ten miles from the north of bod Ems 228 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:30.879 to the Rhine River. It is estimated that more than 229 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:34.639 two hundred metric tons of silver were extracted in the 230 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:39.159 modern era before mining operations in bod EM's were finally shuddered. 231 00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:43.240 In the last weeks of World War II. If they 232 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:45.159 had known about the silver, and if they had found 233 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.039 the right spot, Auth noted, the Romans would have had 234 00:15:48.039 --> 00:15:51.840 the opportunity to exploit the bod Ms silver for around 235 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:55.320 two hundred years until they abandoned their possessions on this 236 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:59.279 side of the Rhine. Altogether, Roman forces had a secure 237 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:04.039 hold on jru Germania Superior, but not on Blushkov itself. 238 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:08.240 They retreated west over the Rhine around two sixty two, 239 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:11.200 centuries before the fall of the Western Empire. It is 240 00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:14.639 tempting to imagine how such a silver bonanza could have 241 00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:18.799 extended the reach or duration, or even hastened the decadence 242 00:16:18.840 --> 00:16:24.039 of Rome. Such counterfectuals are a perennial parlor game for historians, 243 00:16:24.519 --> 00:16:28.720 speculative as they may be. Had the legionaries succeeded in 244 00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:32.519 extracting all the silver that lay beneath their sandals, it 245 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:35.399 would not have sufficed to fund the whole Roman Empire 246 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:38.679 for centuries, but it certainly would have made a difference, 247 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:42.399 said Auth. He cautioned that the silver bearing ore was 248 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:45.600 likely too deep for Roman technology of the time. The 249 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.720 Roman authorities would have had no reason to linger in 250 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:50.960 an area, if they didn't find a resource they could 251 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:56.399 easily exploit. If we don't succeed effectively, Schultz summarized Roman thinking, 252 00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:00.039 then we drop it and go elsewhere. Yorgen Eigen and 253 00:17:00.039 --> 00:17:02.519 Wrought died of a heart attack in twenty twenty three, 254 00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:05.599 less than a week after a flurry of breathless press 255 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.960 reports focused on the irony of the overlooked silver and 256 00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:11.759 mother load. He lived to bask for a few short 257 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:15.680 days in the glory of his contributions to archaeology and history. 258 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:19.480 Just as the Romans had two thousand years before. He 259 00:17:19.559 --> 00:17:21.759 had gazed upon the land with an eye for the 260 00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:25.079 wealth that lay beneath. But unlike them, he had found 261 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:30.079 what he'd been looking for. A difficult, dangerous job, mining 262 00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:33.359 at Blushkov was carried out by Roman soldiers who were 263 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:36.599 accustomed to foraging materials and building forts, but not the 264 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:40.839 backbreaking work of digging underground, filled with threats from floods, 265 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:44.480 noxious fumes, lack of air, and cavens. Mining was typically 266 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:49.960 the work of civilian laborers silver processing in the Roman era, 267 00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:53.839 mining workers used iron tools to chip away pieces of rock, 268 00:17:54.119 --> 00:17:58.160 which were taken out, crushed, washed, sordid and roasted before smelting. 269 00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:02.480 If gallery walls were especially hard, laborers could build fires 270 00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:07.880 to weaken their surface smelting. Next, the metal ore and 271 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:11.240 charcoal were placed in a furnace bellows pumped in air, 272 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:14.279 causing the temperature to rise and melt the lead, which 273 00:18:14.319 --> 00:18:19.519 flowed out into a mold coupilation. The lead was placed 274 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:22.400 in a couple and heated to more than eighteen hundred 275 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:27.119 degrees fahrenheit one thousand degrees celsius. The metals separated as 276 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.599 lead was oxidized, impurities were absorbed, and silver was collected. 277 00:18:33.599 --> 00:18:37.400 Next television. When Jaws hit theaters fifty years ago this summer, 278 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:42.240 filmmaker Laurent Bossureau was a thirteen year old budding cinophile 279 00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:46.759 in suburban Paris whose obsession with Laden de la Maire 280 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:50.240 The Teeth of the Sea set him on his career path. 281 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:55.400 My bedroom was basically wadewall Jaws, says Bossureau, whose new 282 00:18:55.519 --> 00:19:00.000 national geographic documentary Jaws at fifty The Definitive Inside Store 283 00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:03.079 features a wide range of voices weighing in on the 284 00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:08.279 film's impact. We hear from Stephen Spielberg, of course, also 285 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:12.640 Hollywood types from director Guillermo del Toro, to actress Emily 286 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.680 Blunt and locals on Martha's vineyard, where the movie was shot. 287 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.960 Most surprising are the scientists who say they see Jaws 288 00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:24.200 driving interest in sharks and marine habitats today, years after 289 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.359 provoking trophy hunts, that this movie can still be celebrated 290 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:31.480 in inspire careers, not only in film, but in ocean 291 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:35.480 and shark conservation. Bozerro says, I can't think of any 292 00:19:35.519 --> 00:19:41.400 other film that has that kind of power. Next article 293 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:47.039 is from National Geographic History magazine Epidemics. A constant plague 294 00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:51.920 to Rome from its founding to its imperial heyday, Rome's politics, religion, 295 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:55.720 and eventual decline were shaped by the ravages of disease. 296 00:19:56.359 --> 00:19:59.440 The plague that spread across the Eastern Mediterranean in AD 297 00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:04.200 four five forty two was unlike any scene before. It 298 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:07.400 was a pestilence by which the whole human race came 299 00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:12.920 near to being annihilated, wrote the Byzantine historian Procopius, a 300 00:20:12.920 --> 00:20:17.599 calamity impossible to express in words. A human race. Procopius meant, 301 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:21.079 of course, the world he knew, the Eastern Roman empires 302 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:26.079 centered around Constantinople today's Istanbul. But the horror that abused 303 00:20:26.079 --> 00:20:30.920 Procopius's account was no exaggeration. The plague of Justinian, as 304 00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:35.480 it became known, was likely bubonic plague, whose sufferers developed 305 00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:39.279 swollen lymph nodes and vomited blood. It killed more than 306 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:42.319 twenty five million people in the region. Since the rise 307 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:45.359 of Rome as a republic over a millennium before and 308 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:48.920 its rapid growth as an intercontinental empire after the first 309 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:53.240 century A, d Romans had always lived closely with deadly epidemics. 310 00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:56.759 For Roman leaders, plague was as feared as civil war 311 00:20:56.920 --> 00:21:01.519 or a natural disaster. Outbreaks of pestilence devastated the economy 312 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:06.640 and triggered widespread famines, civil unrest, and political turmoil. Plague 313 00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:11.519 would later be a key contributory factor to the Western 314 00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:14.880 Roman Empire's collapse in the mid fifth century and just 315 00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:19.079 after Dustinian, the waning of power in the East punishment 316 00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:22.279 from the gods founded after the expulsion of the last 317 00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:25.839 Roman kings in five O nine BC, the Roman republic 318 00:21:25.960 --> 00:21:30.519 was repeatedly battered by epidemics. Historians rely on two principal 319 00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:35.480 sources for early Roman history, written by Livy and Dionysius 320 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:39.400 of Halicarnassus. Both were writing in the early Empire under 321 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:43.759 Emperor Augustus, who supported efforts to chronicle the history of 322 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:48.200 the Long Roman Republic. In Book ten of Roman Antiquities, 323 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:53.400 Dionysus of Halicarnassus described the terrible consequences of an outbreak 324 00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:58.599 during the eighty second Olympiad calculated to be four fifty 325 00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:02.400 one BC. All the enslaved people in half the citizens 326 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:05.759 of Rome died. The plague raged for a year, wiping 327 00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:09.279 out whole families, either from illness or the secondary effects 328 00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:13.759 of famine. When it abated the following year, official acts 329 00:22:13.759 --> 00:22:16.759 of thanksgiving were made by the Roman authorities in the 330 00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:20.279 hope that pestilence would not return. A few years later, 331 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:23.799 it did. The grim Psycho was repeated, and the authorities 332 00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:27.519 came under pressure to act. Lacking a modern understanding of 333 00:22:27.559 --> 00:22:31.799 the role of microorganisms in the origin and spread of plagues, 334 00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:37.160 their causes were attributed to moral and supernatural forces. A plague, 335 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:40.480 it was decided, was the punishment that the gods inflicted 336 00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.279 on the city because it had failed to maintain the 337 00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:48.319 paxt deorum, the peace between gods and humans dependent on 338 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:52.119 following religious rituals with the utmost rigor. The city of 339 00:22:52.200 --> 00:22:55.880 Rome in a sudden visitation of divine displeasure was ravaged 340 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:58.920 by disease. Livy wrote in his account of one of 341 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:03.839 the fifth century Bass pestilences, this belief in causation could 342 00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:07.640 have cruel consequences. In four seventy two BC, for instance, 343 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:12.160 a wave of infectious illness proved especially deadly for pregnant women. 344 00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:16.599 Dionysius described how the root cause of the disaster was 345 00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:20.240 deemed to be the loss of the virginity of Urbinia, 346 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:25.039 was a vessel virgin sworn to chastity and service to 347 00:23:25.119 --> 00:23:30.200 vesta goddess of the hearth. As punishment, Urbinia was buried alive. 348 00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:34.680 The plague abated. When a new epidemic swept through Roman 349 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:38.279 three ninety nine BC, the senators devised a ritual of 350 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:43.599 religious atonement to be performed in the capitolium. According to Livy, 351 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:49.839 this rite, known as the Lecternium, was a banquet offered 352 00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:54.559 to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. In three sixty five BC, 353 00:23:54.680 --> 00:23:59.559 as plague raged again, the Lysisternium failed to appease the gods. 354 00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:03.640 According to Livy, Roman statesmen recalled a ceremony in which 355 00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:06.920 a pestilence had once been allayed by the driving of 356 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:12.559 a nail by a dictator. Lucius Manlius Imperiosus, was consequently 357 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:16.400 appointed as a temporary dictator to re establish the peace 358 00:24:16.440 --> 00:24:19.200 with the gods. He drove the ritual nail into the 359 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:23.200 wall at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The pestilence 360 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:27.640 apparently ceased. Despite the widespread belief in the divine causes 361 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:31.519 of epidemics, some Roman writers reflected on the practical first 362 00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:36.640 century b C. Philosopher Lucretius believed as seas was spread 363 00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:40.039 through seeds in the air. The Augustine writers were aware 364 00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:44.119 of the role of poor hygiene in prolonging an epidemic. 365 00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:47.000 In his account of a fifth century b C. Plague, 366 00:24:47.400 --> 00:24:51.839 Dionysius asserted that the pestilence did not quickly abate because 367 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:54.119 of the way in which they cast out the bodies 368 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:59.160 into the river. Livy also linked on sanitary conditions to transmission. 369 00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:02.559 During an election, he wrote, the city filled with people 370 00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:06.519 from the countryside, increasing the virulence of the disease. This 371 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:10.599 conflux of all kinds of living things distressed the citizens 372 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:14.640 with its strange smells and mere contact. Spread the infection 373 00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:19.279 plague on the empire. Although accounts of plagues were to 374 00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:24.480 Libyan Dionysius, part of the fabric of Rome's republican history. 375 00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:29.480 Epidemics also deeply marked the imperial period. The idea of 376 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:34.880 Rome's imperial greatness played major emphasis on the civilizing influence, 377 00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:38.759 in part by spreading the building of washing facilities fed 378 00:25:38.799 --> 00:25:43.079 by aqueducts. Imperial Rome boasted hundreds of public baths and 379 00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:48.240 two hundred public toilets. Rome officials understood the link between 380 00:25:48.319 --> 00:25:52.160 hygiene and health, while also acknowledging that the gods played 381 00:25:52.160 --> 00:25:56.359 a role. Statues were placed near public conveniences to ward 382 00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.319 off pestilence. Neither gods nor baths, however, could have the 383 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:05.119 epidemics that scourged the later Empire. Although aqueducts brought clean water, 384 00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:10.079 another key piece of imperial infrastructure, the road system, facilitated 385 00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:13.559 the rapid spread of disease with the movement of goods, troops, 386 00:26:13.599 --> 00:26:16.559 and merchants. At the end of the second century AD, 387 00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:20.559 the Antennine plague killed up to five million people. It 388 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:23.519 hampered operation of the Roman army, who had brought the 389 00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:27.640 disease into the Empire. Roman troops returning from battles in 390 00:26:27.799 --> 00:26:31.559 Asia picked up the infection likely carried from China by 391 00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:36.000 merchants along the trading routes of the Silk Road. Described 392 00:26:36.039 --> 00:26:40.119 by the Roman Greek physician Galen, who witnessed its ravages, 393 00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:44.279 The Antennine plague struck its victims with coughing, internal bleeding, 394 00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:50.000 and ulceration. Epidemiologists think it and Cyprian plague of the 395 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:53.559 next century were caused by smallpox or measles, but the 396 00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:57.880 exact ailment has not yet been identified. The effect of 397 00:26:57.960 --> 00:27:01.720 recurrent epidemics led to a lower population, contributing to a 398 00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:06.240 series of cycles that reduced the empire's tax base, agricultural output, 399 00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:11.000 and military force, among other factors. Epidemics played an important 400 00:27:11.079 --> 00:27:15.039 role in the eventual collapse of the Western Roman Empire. 401 00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:18.440