1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,080 Speaker 1: I want you to start with a compelling image. Imagine 2 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,960 the pure thrill of discovery, that moment you find something 3 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,960 truly ancient, meeting the soul crushing frustration of secrecy. Think 4 00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:15,199 about a biblical treasure hunt, but it's not Indiana Jones's 5 00:00:15,199 --> 00:00:18,399 commissioned by the CIA, a program that's been millions of 6 00:00:18,440 --> 00:00:21,039 dollars hunting for the Ark of the Covenant using nothing 7 00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:25,440 but psychic spies. Or what about a two thousand year 8 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:28,239 old script, a key to our history, locked away in 9 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:31,239 a safe by just eight people who refuse to share it? 10 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:32,079 Speaker 2: Sounds like fishion? 11 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:35,840 Speaker 1: It does what makes an ancient relic so important, so 12 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,520 powerful that entire institutions fight over who gets to see it, 13 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:42,240 or the people will literally risk their lives to hide it. 14 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,119 Welcome to thrilling Threads. We really appreciate you trusting us 15 00:00:46,119 --> 00:00:48,600 with your sources for this. Today, we are diving into 16 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:51,640 this world of artifacts that well, they just refuse to 17 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,079 be fully understood. Sometimes they're guarded by physical vaults, sometimes 18 00:00:55,079 --> 00:00:59,280 by institutional control, and sometimes just by sheer linguistic obscurity. 19 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:02,520 A listener wants to know the real stories behind these 20 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:05,439 highly classified, these really enigmatic relics. 21 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:07,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're going to try to cut through some 22 00:01:07,799 --> 00:01:11,400 of that classifications from the mystery. We want to uncover 23 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:14,640 not just what these objects are, but why why were 24 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,319 they so desperately concealed, and why in many cases do 25 00:01:18,359 --> 00:01:20,359 they remain concealed even now. 26 00:01:20,439 --> 00:01:23,239 Speaker 1: It's really an investigation into control itself, isn't it? 27 00:01:23,239 --> 00:01:26,239 Speaker 2: It is because the real story here isn't just about 28 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,400 you know, how old the gold is or how fragile 29 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:31,560 the scrolls are. It's about the very human decisions that 30 00:01:31,599 --> 00:01:35,599 were made to hoard knowledge, to restrict it, sometimes even 31 00:01:35,599 --> 00:01:36,280 to destroy it. 32 00:01:36,439 --> 00:01:38,680 Speaker 1: And those decisions, whether they were made by a pharaoh 33 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:41,599 forty five hundred years ago or handful of scholars in 34 00:01:41,599 --> 00:01:44,560 the nineteen fifties, they have dictated what parts of history 35 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:45,760 we are allowed to read today. 36 00:01:45,879 --> 00:01:48,680 Speaker 2: Absolutely, So we've structured this to follow the journey of 37 00:01:48,719 --> 00:01:51,719 these secrets. We're going to explore four main categories of 38 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,120 these mysterious artifacts and the different ways that access to 39 00:01:55,159 --> 00:01:55,920 them is blocked. 40 00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:57,400 Speaker 1: Okay, laid out for us. 41 00:01:57,439 --> 00:01:59,480 Speaker 2: So first we'll look at restricted texts. This is where 42 00:01:59,519 --> 00:02:02,159 we get into the stunning academic scandal of the Dead 43 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:07,000 Sea Scrolls and the truly bizarre governmental classification around the 44 00:02:07,079 --> 00:02:10,400 CIA's paranormal pursuit of the arc of the Covenant. 45 00:02:10,199 --> 00:02:13,000 Speaker 1: Right institutional and political gatekeeping exactly. 46 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,520 Speaker 2: Then we transition into the high stakes world of hitting gold. 47 00:02:17,199 --> 00:02:21,199 Here the classification is purely for preservation. We'll look at 48 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,719 national treasures that were physically saved from brutal conflicts in 49 00:02:24,719 --> 00:02:27,960 Afghanistan and I rock by I mean sheer courage and 50 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:32,520 operational secrecy. After that, third we examine what we're calling 51 00:02:32,599 --> 00:02:36,719 secret voids. This is the incredibly modern discovery of a 52 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:40,439 massive hidden structure inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. It's 53 00:02:40,479 --> 00:02:43,000 a secret that was hiding in plain sight for millennia, 54 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:45,039 only revealed by cosmic rays. 55 00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:49,240 Speaker 1: A secret inside the most studied monument on Earth. That's incredible. 56 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:52,719 Speaker 2: And finally, and finally, we confront lost languages. This is 57 00:02:52,759 --> 00:02:56,520 where we'll examine the profound silence that's imposed by linguistic obscurity. 58 00:02:56,719 --> 00:02:58,680 We'll look at the face dose disc and then the 59 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,719 just ear of Ciple tragedy of the Wrongo script from 60 00:03:02,719 --> 00:03:03,439 Easter Island. 61 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:06,360 Speaker 1: It sounds like a journey that reveals just how fragile 62 00:03:06,439 --> 00:03:09,680 human knowledge really is. Okay, let's unpack this, starting with 63 00:03:09,719 --> 00:03:12,680 what has to be the ultimate academic scandal, the restriction 64 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:15,039 of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is a story of 65 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:19,639 a truly revolutionary find that, instead of immediately benefiting the 66 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:25,319 world of scholarship, was immediately strangled, just completely strangled by 67 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:30,159 a handful of intellectual gatekeepers. It created decades of needless secrecy. 68 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:32,759 Speaker 2: And the discovery itself, I mean, it has the perfect 69 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:36,280 cinematic start. It's nineteen forty seven. We're near the cliffs 70 00:03:36,319 --> 00:03:38,800 above the Dead Sea, close to a place called Kumran. 71 00:03:39,639 --> 00:03:42,840 A young Bedouin shepherd, probably looking for a stray goat. 72 00:03:42,879 --> 00:03:46,759 He's just tossing rocks into cave openings to pass the time. Yeah, exactly, 73 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,520 And instead of silence from one cave, he hears the 74 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,400 distinct sound of pottery breaking. So he climbs in and 75 00:03:53,439 --> 00:03:56,240 he finds these tall jars, some of them are holding 76 00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:58,439 scrolls that have been carefully wrapped in linen. It was 77 00:03:58,479 --> 00:04:02,159 a complete total accident, a stumble upon what became arguably 78 00:04:02,199 --> 00:04:05,080 the most significant archaeological find of the twentieth century. 79 00:04:05,159 --> 00:04:07,439 Speaker 1: And the moment those scrolls were pulled out of that cave, 80 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:12,280 I mean, history changed. Their significance was immediate. It was profound. 81 00:04:12,520 --> 00:04:15,280 We are talking about biblical manuscripts that were verified to 82 00:04:15,319 --> 00:04:17,319 be over two thousand years old. 83 00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:19,439 Speaker 2: Yeah, from the Second Temple period, which. 84 00:04:19,399 --> 00:04:22,519 Speaker 1: Before this our oldest reliable texts were much much younger. 85 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:27,480 Suddenly scholars had access to documents that shone a completely 86 00:04:27,519 --> 00:04:31,319 new light on early Judaism, on the very foundations of Christianity. 87 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:35,560 They found variant readings, They revealed the existence of Jewish 88 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:39,199 sects like the Esscenes in spectacular detail. It was a 89 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:41,000 massive historical inflection point. 90 00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:44,360 Speaker 2: Absolutely. The documents included the oldest known copies of nearly 91 00:04:44,439 --> 00:04:46,920 every single book of the Hebrew Bible, and along with 92 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,879 those there were apocryphal and sectarian texts that no one 93 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:53,120 had ever seen before. The implications were just staggering. It 94 00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:56,160 was an almost perfectly preserved time capsule of religious thought 95 00:04:56,199 --> 00:04:57,439 from two millenniago. 96 00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:03,399 Speaker 1: But then then came to locke out, the profound, frustrating lockout. 97 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:05,800 The scrolls ended up largely under the control of the 98 00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:09,680 Israeli Antiquities Authority, which makes sense, But the actual research, 99 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:13,000 the publication that was managed by a tiny self appointed 100 00:05:13,079 --> 00:05:14,680 international editorial committee. 101 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 2: And when you say tiny, you mean I. 102 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:18,519 Speaker 1: Mean we were talking about a microscopic council of maybe 103 00:05:18,560 --> 00:05:21,959 eight scholars in total. For all of these hundreds of tech, 104 00:05:22,079 --> 00:05:27,759 eight people. They were primarily Western, often Catholic scholars, and 105 00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:30,199 they were the only ones who had the authority to 106 00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:33,959 determine what was worthy of study, what could be published, 107 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:37,360 and crucially, what would remain sealed away from everyone else. 108 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:40,279 Speaker 2: And this is where the motivations get really complex. It 109 00:05:40,319 --> 00:05:43,959 goes beyond just simple academic ego, though that was certainly 110 00:05:43,959 --> 00:05:44,399 a part of it. 111 00:05:44,519 --> 00:05:47,199 Speaker 1: Oh, for sure, they held this exclusive intellectual property. 112 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:50,079 Speaker 2: They did, But there was also a kind of institutional fear. 113 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:53,720 These eight scholars were acutely aware that some of these 114 00:05:53,759 --> 00:05:58,839 newly discovered texts contains significant variance from the established authoritative 115 00:05:58,839 --> 00:06:01,920 biblical canons, you know, the versions that people had been 116 00:06:01,959 --> 00:06:02,839 reading for centuries. 117 00:06:02,920 --> 00:06:06,199 Speaker 1: Right. Releasing that too quickly could be destabilizing, it. 118 00:06:06,199 --> 00:06:10,160 Speaker 2: Could be so releasing this material without very careful interpretation 119 00:06:10,639 --> 00:06:14,560 it risked, in their minds, upsetting traditional religious narratives held 120 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:17,920 by billions of people. So they moved incredibly slowly. Maybe 121 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:19,680 it was out of caution, but it was certainly out 122 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:22,439 of a desire for complete control over the narrative that 123 00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:23,319 came out. 124 00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:25,920 Speaker 1: And That is the core conflict, isn't it. This fear 125 00:06:25,959 --> 00:06:31,120 of textual corruption or revealing politically uncomfortable truths meant that 126 00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:33,199 the rest of the academic world, I mean, the vast 127 00:06:33,199 --> 00:06:37,279 community of historians, theologians, linguists, they were all completely locked 128 00:06:37,319 --> 00:06:38,839 out for decades. 129 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,360 Speaker 2: For decades, I mean to put this into perspective for you, 130 00:06:41,439 --> 00:06:43,040 This wasn't a matter of a few months or a 131 00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:47,319 few years. For nearly fifty years, this small select group 132 00:06:47,879 --> 00:06:52,120 maintained a complete monopoly over this monumental material. 133 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:53,120 Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. 134 00:06:53,319 --> 00:06:56,360 Speaker 2: By the late nineteen eighties, that's four decades after the find, 135 00:06:56,519 --> 00:06:59,120 less than half of the estimated nine hundred manuscripts had 136 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:01,759 even been fully publish. Think about that, Think of the 137 00:07:01,759 --> 00:07:06,040 collective intellectual opportunity that was just lost. Historians who requested 138 00:07:06,079 --> 00:07:09,920 access were just denied, often with some vague excuse or 139 00:07:09,959 --> 00:07:12,720 no explanation at all. It's just a breath taking betrayal 140 00:07:12,759 --> 00:07:17,480 of scholarly responsibility. The frustration within the wider academic community, 141 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,720 it just became volcanic, I mean, you can imagine, and 142 00:07:20,759 --> 00:07:23,560 it reached a boiling point. In the early nineteen nineties, 143 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:26,920 the Biblical Archaeology Review which was led by a man 144 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:30,959 named Herschel Shanks became the most vocal critic. They rightfully 145 00:07:30,959 --> 00:07:33,800 started labeling the whole situation a scandal because it was. 146 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,800 It was. They argued that a handful of people were 147 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:39,879 holding the keys to global religious history hostage. And they 148 00:07:39,879 --> 00:07:40,319 were right. 149 00:07:40,759 --> 00:07:43,879 Speaker 1: And so the turning point it finally arrived in nineteen 150 00:07:43,959 --> 00:07:47,759 ninety one, and it was driven by technology and really 151 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,800 institutional defiance. It wasn't driven by the grace of the 152 00:07:50,839 --> 00:07:53,199 original gatekeepers. They didn't just decide to open up. 153 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:54,560 Speaker 2: No, their hand was forced. 154 00:07:54,639 --> 00:07:57,759 Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it. The technological and ethical pressure 155 00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:00,959 just became irresistible. So what happened first? 156 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,920 Speaker 2: Okay, so first a massive ethical statement was made by 157 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:07,920 the Huntington Library in California. They had received for their 158 00:08:07,959 --> 00:08:11,040 own archive a full set of photographs of the scrolls. 159 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:14,240 They were intended for one of the original committee members. 160 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:17,480 They reviewed their mission and they decided that, you know what, 161 00:08:17,600 --> 00:08:21,560 knowledge should be public, and so they opened full, unrestricted 162 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:25,800 public access to their entire photo archive of the scrolls. 163 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:26,480 Speaker 1: Wow. 164 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:31,120 Speaker 2: This completely shattered the control mechanism of the original committee. 165 00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:33,879 Speaker 1: They essentially just said, we have the photocopies and we're 166 00:08:33,879 --> 00:08:36,080 sharing them with the world. Yeah, that had to be 167 00:08:36,159 --> 00:08:39,759 a massive blow to the control exerted by the Israeli 168 00:08:39,799 --> 00:08:41,840 Antiquities Authority and that committee. 169 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:45,519 Speaker 2: It was huge. And at the same time, concurrent with that, 170 00:08:45,559 --> 00:08:48,639 the scientific community, who were just tired of waiting for permission, 171 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:53,840 started leveraging new computer analysis techniques. They used software to 172 00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:57,240 analyze the published fragments and the letter styles, which allowed 173 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:00,960 them to use frequency analysis and complex pattern recognition to 174 00:09:01,039 --> 00:09:05,360 reconstruct the previously unpublished texts. They were essentially bypassing the 175 00:09:05,399 --> 00:09:06,840 old guard entirely, so they. 176 00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:09,679 Speaker 1: Were rebuilding the puzzle from the pieces that had been leaked. 177 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:13,759 Speaker 2: Exactly, and it proved that the texts were readable, even 178 00:09:13,799 --> 00:09:15,519 if the photographs were poor quality. 179 00:09:15,799 --> 00:09:20,080 Speaker 1: So the combination of a photographic leak and digital reconstruction 180 00:09:21,159 --> 00:09:24,720 it just forced their hand. Once the material was out 181 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:28,000 there and independent researchers were proving they could reconstruct it anyway, 182 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:32,519 the Israeli Antiquity Authority had no moral or logistical basis 183 00:09:32,639 --> 00:09:33,840 to keep up the restrictions. 184 00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:36,360 Speaker 2: They had no choice. They were forced to lift the 185 00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:38,120 restrictions and open the doors fully. 186 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:41,120 Speaker 1: It was a triumphant moment for open scholarship. But we 187 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:42,840 have to acknowledge the cost we do. 188 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:46,440 Speaker 2: When the scrolls were finally opened, an entire generation of 189 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:48,679 scholars I'm talking about those who had trained in the 190 00:09:48,759 --> 00:09:53,240 nineteen sixties and seventies had effectively been sidelined. Their whole 191 00:09:53,279 --> 00:09:55,679 careers could have been built on these central texts, but 192 00:09:55,759 --> 00:09:59,639 the axis was classified for five decades. They aged out, 193 00:10:00,039 --> 00:10:02,759 aged out, they moved to less restricted fields, or they 194 00:10:02,759 --> 00:10:05,960 simply passed away. It's a tragic example of how knowledge 195 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:09,320 can be restricted, not by military or political classification, but 196 00:10:09,639 --> 00:10:13,159 just by academic inertia and the desire for intellectual property control. 197 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:16,360 Speaker 1: And what I find so striking is that even today 198 00:10:16,799 --> 00:10:20,200 the restriction isn't entirely gone. You mentioned that a few 199 00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:24,279 specific scrolls from the famous Cave eleven, and this includes 200 00:10:24,279 --> 00:10:27,200 perhaps the most significant texts, the Temple scroll. They're being 201 00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:32,200 privately owned still still and are completely unavailable to researchers. 202 00:10:32,440 --> 00:10:35,000 The knowledge is literally still locked away, but now it's 203 00:10:35,039 --> 00:10:38,320 in a private collection vault. It's perpetuating the original sin 204 00:10:38,399 --> 00:10:38,879 of restriction. 205 00:10:39,159 --> 00:10:42,000 Speaker 2: It really underscores a critical point for this whole discussion. 206 00:10:42,399 --> 00:10:47,039 The classification of ancient artifacts often outlasts the original geopolitical 207 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:49,600 or academic reasons for that classification. 208 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,200 Speaker 1: That sets a pretty sobering tone for how easily knowledge 209 00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:57,120 can be bottlenecked. Okay, so let's pivot from academic restrictions 210 00:10:57,159 --> 00:11:01,399 to something well far stranger, barmore governmental. Okay, the idea 211 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,240 of the US intelligence community trying to classify and locate 212 00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:07,600 a biblical relic. Here's where it gets truly wild. We're 213 00:11:07,639 --> 00:11:11,120 talking about the US intelligence community hiring psychics to hunt 214 00:11:11,159 --> 00:11:12,159 for the Ark of the Covenant. 215 00:11:12,279 --> 00:11:14,799 Speaker 2: This is a perfect bridge because it moves us from 216 00:11:14,799 --> 00:11:18,200 institutional control to governmental control, and it's all driven by 217 00:11:18,279 --> 00:11:22,000 Cold War paranoia. Many people have seen the movie Raiders 218 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,759 of the Lost Arc and they just dismissed the idea 219 00:11:24,759 --> 00:11:28,360 of a government treasure hunt as pure Hollywood fiction, of course. 220 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:32,559 But the reality is the CIA and its predecessor agencies 221 00:11:32,759 --> 00:11:35,519 absolutely tried to find the Arc of the Covenant, the 222 00:11:35,679 --> 00:11:38,559 chest said to hold the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, 223 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:39,919 using psychic spying. 224 00:11:40,039 --> 00:11:43,320 Speaker 1: And this wasn't some one off, weird project. This was 225 00:11:43,399 --> 00:11:47,960 part of a broader, sustained, and incredibly expensive program. In 226 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:51,320 December nineteen eighty eight, the CIA was running something called 227 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:52,240 Project sun. 228 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:54,919 Speaker 2: Streak, which later morphed into stargate. 229 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:57,879 Speaker 1: Right, and this involved remote viewing, which was defined by 230 00:11:57,879 --> 00:12:00,919 its proponents as the ability to psychically pursued eve distant 231 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,600 or hidden targets. And the official reason for all this 232 00:12:04,039 --> 00:12:08,159 the Soviet Union was supposedly investing heavily in psychic warfare. 233 00:12:07,759 --> 00:12:09,720 Speaker 2: The psychic arms race exactly. 234 00:12:10,159 --> 00:12:12,039 Speaker 1: The US felt it couldn't afford to fall behind. 235 00:12:12,399 --> 00:12:15,759 Speaker 2: And that's the key. The millions spent on this type 236 00:12:15,759 --> 00:12:20,000 of paranormal research, and it was millions sustained over decades. 237 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:23,919 It wasn't driven by some widespread belief in the supernatural, 238 00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:28,039 not necessarily, it was driven by sheer Cold war desperation. 239 00:12:28,759 --> 00:12:32,240 They were looking for any edge, any intelligence advantage over 240 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:35,799 the Soviets, no matter how outlandish the method seemed, even 241 00:12:35,799 --> 00:12:36,120 if it. 242 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,759 Speaker 1: Meant consulting psychics about ancient biblical artifacts, whatever it took. 243 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,799 The specifics of the ARC mission are just fascinating, and 244 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:45,679 we know this from documents that were declassified years later. 245 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:49,559 A person designated Remote Viewer thirty two, who has since 246 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:53,320 been identified in some reports as Joe mcmull was activated 247 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:54,360 for an unknown target. 248 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:56,399 Speaker 2: He didn't know what he was looking for, no idea. 249 00:12:56,720 --> 00:12:59,200 Speaker 1: It was later revealed to be the Arc and the 250 00:12:59,279 --> 00:13:02,080 resulting I mean, it was surprisingly detailed. 251 00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:02,879 Speaker 2: What did you see? 252 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:06,559 Speaker 1: Mcmull described finding a damp, underground chamber somewhere in the 253 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:11,039 Middle East. He specifically sends people nearby speaking Arabic and 254 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:14,480 noted domed buildings in the vicinity. The container itself was 255 00:13:14,519 --> 00:13:18,399 described as wooden, covered in gold and silver, and decorated 256 00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:21,559 with winged figures that were either men or angels. The 257 00:13:21,639 --> 00:13:25,679 report even noted this this emotional intensity coming from the object. 258 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:27,720 Speaker 2: Which, if you compare that to the Book of Exodus, 259 00:13:27,919 --> 00:13:31,320 is an almost perfect match to the traditional Biblical descriptions 260 00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:34,600 of the ARC a gold covered, acacial wood chest topped 261 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:36,200 by two winged chairubim. 262 00:13:36,279 --> 00:13:37,440 Speaker 1: It's an exact match. 263 00:13:37,759 --> 00:13:41,759 Speaker 2: The level of details suggests either an incredibly accurate psychic 264 00:13:41,799 --> 00:13:45,519 reading or a remote viewer who was very well versed 265 00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,320 in Biblical history, whether consciously or unconsciously. 266 00:13:48,639 --> 00:13:52,559 Speaker 1: The irony here is just so rich. This documentation detailing 267 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:55,480 a psychic search for one of the most famous Biblical artifacts, 268 00:13:55,960 --> 00:13:59,240 was officially declassified back in two thousand, but as you 269 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:02,320 mentioned earlier, didn't really gain major public attention until much 270 00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:05,480 more recently, around twenty twenty five, and that long delay 271 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:11,200 highlights something crucial about governmental classification. Often, the US government 272 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:15,679 classifies the method, in this case, remote viewing, not necessarily 273 00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:18,480 the target itself. The fact that the US government was 274 00:14:18,519 --> 00:14:21,679 funding psychic research was the real secret, not that they 275 00:14:21,679 --> 00:14:23,519 were curious about a historical object. 276 00:14:23,799 --> 00:14:26,039 Speaker 2: And that's the reality check we have to bring to 277 00:14:26,039 --> 00:14:30,480 the forefront here. Despite this incredibly detailed description, the CIA 278 00:14:30,559 --> 00:14:34,759 never actually moved forward. They never funded an archaeological expedition 279 00:14:34,879 --> 00:14:37,600 or a military operation to go dig anything up based 280 00:14:37,639 --> 00:14:40,559 on these readings. It just remained an intriguing piece of 281 00:14:40,639 --> 00:14:43,200 data within a highly controversial program. 282 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:46,200 Speaker 1: It's the perfect logical loop, isn't it. As one of 283 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,240 the program's participants, Joe mcmull himself later said, claiming remote 284 00:14:50,279 --> 00:14:53,639 viewing proves the arc exists, is well, it's meaningless without 285 00:14:53,679 --> 00:14:56,039 the actual physical arc is proof, of course. It just 286 00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:59,279 illustrates the limits of even a highest levels of government involvement. 287 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,000 They classify the methods, they spent millions on the hope 288 00:15:02,039 --> 00:15:05,759 of a breakthrough, but ultimately the artifact remains classified not 289 00:15:05,799 --> 00:15:07,840 by them, but by history and obscurity. 290 00:15:08,159 --> 00:15:10,960 Speaker 2: So if the Dead Sea Scrolls show us that academic 291 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:14,039 control can be a powerful bottleneck. 292 00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:16,320 Speaker 1: And the CIA ARC hunt shows us the extremes of 293 00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:19,120 governmental classification driven by paranoia. 294 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:22,480 Speaker 2: Then our next section reveals how knowledge and artifacts are 295 00:15:22,519 --> 00:15:26,480 controlled by a far more primal force, the simple necessity 296 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:27,639 of surviving a war. 297 00:15:27,919 --> 00:15:28,120 Speaker 1: Right. 298 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:32,200 Speaker 2: Moving from relics classified by scholarly or governmental restriction, we 299 00:15:32,279 --> 00:15:36,399 now turn to objects classified by physical necessity. These are 300 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:40,320 hidden treasures, literally saved from the immediate ravages of war 301 00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:41,600 and civil strife. 302 00:15:41,799 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 1: And this speaks to the remarkable foresight, the planning, and 303 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:48,240 just the raw courage of museum staff and government officials 304 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:51,320 around the world who chose to risk everything to protect 305 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:52,720 their national heritage. 306 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,200 Speaker 2: These aren't just objects, they are entire national narratives, packed 307 00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:58,960 into creates and moved under the cover of darkness. And 308 00:15:59,039 --> 00:16:00,960 we have to begin with the till a Teepee treasure 309 00:16:01,159 --> 00:16:03,759 or what translates to the Hill of Gold, a truly 310 00:16:03,879 --> 00:16:06,000 massive discovery made in northern Afghanistan. 311 00:16:06,039 --> 00:16:06,960 Speaker 1: Okay tell us about it. 312 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:09,840 Speaker 2: The discovery happened in nineteen seventy eight near a place 313 00:16:09,879 --> 00:16:14,559 called Schebrigen by the Soviet archaeologist Victor Serenidi. He uncovered 314 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:18,279 six burial mounds. These were mounds of an ancient nomadic 315 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:21,919 people known as the Uezi or Kushan, and what he 316 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:26,399 found was absolutely staggering. Over twenty thousand golden objects. 317 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:29,639 Speaker 1: Twenty thousand. That's not just a collection, that's an entire treasury. 318 00:16:29,799 --> 00:16:33,559 We're talking about elaborate crowns that can fold up, necklaces, belts, 319 00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,759 tiny gold ornaments shaped like mythological figures, daggers, even golden slippers, 320 00:16:37,799 --> 00:16:41,039 golden slippers. The cultural significance must be immense. 321 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:43,799 Speaker 2: It is. That's what elevates us from just being wealth 322 00:16:43,879 --> 00:16:47,840 to being priceless heritage. The objects themselves were this breathtaking 323 00:16:47,919 --> 00:16:51,600 fusion of designs. You see Hellenistic influence with coins that 324 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:56,000 bear Greek inscriptions. You see Roman elements, Persian metalworking, Chinese 325 00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:58,559 silk remnants, and very strong Indian influences. 326 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,120 Speaker 1: So it's a crossroads. 327 00:17:00,039 --> 00:17:03,679 Speaker 2: Crossroads of the world. For example, some pieces show the 328 00:17:03,679 --> 00:17:07,279 Greek goddess Aphrodite standing on a gold medallion, but she's 329 00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:12,720 wearing Central Asian robes. This treasure is tangible, brilliant evidence 330 00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:16,920 that Afghanistan wasn't some cultural backwater, it was the absolute 331 00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:21,160 geographic and cultural hub of ancient civilization. It proves the 332 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:24,880 vitality of the Silk Road, thousands of years before its 333 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:25,799 most famous era. 334 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:28,640 Speaker 1: But just like with the Dead Sea scrolls, the timing 335 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:29,880 was terrible, horrible. 336 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:33,519 Speaker 2: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan occurred just one year later 337 00:17:33,599 --> 00:17:36,680 in nineteen seventy nine. The initial reaction was to move 338 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,200 the artifacts to the relative safety of Kabul's National Museum, 339 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,519 but as the civil war intensified throughout the nineteen eighties, 340 00:17:43,559 --> 00:17:47,519 the museum itself became an active battleground and was looted repeatedly. 341 00:17:47,839 --> 00:17:50,440 Speaker 1: I read that the reports in that time were just horrific. 342 00:17:50,799 --> 00:17:53,039 It's estimated that during the civil war and the chaos 343 00:17:53,039 --> 00:17:55,759 that followed, something like seventy percent of the museum's entire 344 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:58,519 general collection was lost. That's right, lost a thieves to 345 00:17:58,559 --> 00:18:00,799 destruction or it was simply blome own up in the fighting. 346 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:04,799 That is an unimaginable cultural loss, a systematic erasure of history. 347 00:18:05,039 --> 00:18:08,759 Speaker 2: It was an impending catastrophe for the Tilia Tepe Treasure specifically. 348 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:11,559 But this is where the quiet heroes of the story 349 00:18:11,599 --> 00:18:16,039 step in recognizing this inevitable slide toward chaos. The president 350 00:18:16,079 --> 00:18:19,480 at the time, Muhammed Najibula, in nineteen eighty nine, he 351 00:18:19,599 --> 00:18:24,440 initiated a covert operation. Okay, he secretly moved the entirety 352 00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:27,440 of the twenty two thousand tilia Teepe gold objects into 353 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,720 an underground, highly reinforced vault located beneath the Central Bank and. 354 00:18:31,759 --> 00:18:35,240 Speaker 1: Kubool and the brilliance of the security system he implemented. Yeah, 355 00:18:35,279 --> 00:18:38,279 it relies entirely on human trust, which you know is 356 00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:40,720 often the most security measure of all. 357 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:44,960 Speaker 2: Absolutely, to open this vault, five separate keys were required. 358 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,440 Each key was entrusted to a different highly trusted individual, 359 00:18:48,839 --> 00:18:51,400 often a director of the bank or a museum curator, 360 00:18:51,759 --> 00:18:54,680 and their identity was kept completely secret, even from the 361 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:55,720 other keyholders, So. 362 00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:57,200 Speaker 1: You couldn't just coerce one person. 363 00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:00,920 Speaker 2: No, This operational security was designed to prevent that a 364 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,799 thief or a rival faction could kidnap one person and 365 00:19:03,799 --> 00:19:05,920 get one key, but they would have no idea who 366 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,960 held the remaining four. It made the theft practically impossible, and. 367 00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:13,720 Speaker 1: The extreme nature of this secrecy meant that for over 368 00:19:13,759 --> 00:19:16,799 a decade, as the government fell and the war raged 369 00:19:16,839 --> 00:19:20,160 and the Taliban took control, the treasure was widely thought 370 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:20,799 to be lost. 371 00:19:21,039 --> 00:19:24,119 Speaker 2: Everyone assumed it was gone rumored to have been sold 372 00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:27,079 off on the black market or melted down by various factions. 373 00:19:27,519 --> 00:19:30,319 The secrecy was so profound that only a literal handful 374 00:19:30,319 --> 00:19:33,279 of people alive knew the artifacts were safe and knew 375 00:19:33,279 --> 00:19:36,599 exactly where they were. It's a stunning example of long 376 00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:39,240 term planning and loyalty trumping greed. 377 00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,519 Speaker 1: Can you imagine the enormous weight of responsibility on those 378 00:19:42,559 --> 00:19:46,440 five people. They had to carry this potentially life ending secret, 379 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:50,079 knowing they possessed the key to their nation's greatest heritage, 380 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:52,319 all while pretending the treasure was gone. 381 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:54,000 Speaker 2: It's incredible bravery. 382 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:56,519 Speaker 1: So the moment of rediscovery after two thousand and three, 383 00:19:56,519 --> 00:19:58,039 in the fall of the Taliban, it must have been 384 00:19:58,079 --> 00:20:02,240 truly cinematic. The new government faced this monumental challenge. How 385 00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:05,000 do you find five anonymous heroes scattered across a war 386 00:20:05,039 --> 00:20:05,759 torn country. 387 00:20:06,039 --> 00:20:09,119 Speaker 2: They struggled. They struggled initially because the identities of those 388 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:13,160 five keyholders had been so successfully protected and dispersed. They 389 00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:16,839 have to rely on institutional memory and some incredible detective work. 390 00:20:17,319 --> 00:20:20,519 But eventually, one by one they were located, and then 391 00:20:20,559 --> 00:20:24,079 on the officials brought them all together. The five keys 392 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,559 returned simultaneously, in the Central Bank vault, the heavy door 393 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:31,400 was opened and they found all twenty two thousand objects 394 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:33,599 completely intact and safe. 395 00:20:33,839 --> 00:20:37,839 Speaker 1: That moment must have been just breathtaking, the realization that 396 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:41,400 an entire chunk of history had been successfully classified and 397 00:20:41,519 --> 00:20:43,599 hidden by human will alone. 398 00:20:43,799 --> 00:20:47,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, and following that recovery, National Geographic stepped in. They 399 00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:49,680 helped to catalog the collection and launched it on these 400 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,640 international tours, which cemented its safety and global recognition after 401 00:20:53,759 --> 00:20:56,920 decades of obscurity and danger. It's a testament to the 402 00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:58,599 power of human commitment. 403 00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,920 Speaker 1: To culture, and that commitment to preservation is mirrored in 404 00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:03,640 the story of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, although the 405 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,359 early reports from there were far more attracted. When US 406 00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:09,480 forces entered Baghdad in two thousand and three, the initial 407 00:21:09,519 --> 00:21:12,880 media reports were terrifying. Claims at the museum had been 408 00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,720 completely looted, with one hundred and seventy thousand artifacts gone. 409 00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:19,200 It was initially reported as one of the single greatest 410 00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,119 catastrophes for world heritage in modern times, and. 411 00:21:22,079 --> 00:21:25,000 Speaker 2: That initial panic highlights a key theme of this deep dive. 412 00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:29,319 The initial classification, or the initial rumor, often sets the 413 00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,920 historical record, even if it's completely wrong. In reality, the 414 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,200 museum staff, who knew the risk of conflict better than anyone, 415 00:21:36,319 --> 00:21:37,559 had taken preemptive action. 416 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:39,000 Speaker 1: These weren't people who were new to this. 417 00:21:39,319 --> 00:21:41,880 Speaker 2: No, many of the staff were highly experienced. They had 418 00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:44,559 been through the chaos of the nineteen ninety one Gulf War. 419 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,960 They knew better than to leave their most valuable assets exposed. 420 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,720 So while the public gallery did suffer looting and damage, 421 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:53,359 which was horrific in its own right, the staff had 422 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,319 secretly moved their most priceless pieces o many. They packed 423 00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:00,279 up about eight thousand key artifacts, some of which were 424 00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:02,680 hidden as far back as nineteen ninety one, and stored 425 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:06,039 them in heavy duty boxes and various secret vaults. Many 426 00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,039 were beneath the museum itself, and others were beneath key 427 00:22:09,079 --> 00:22:11,240 government buildings like the Central Bank, so. 428 00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,079 Speaker 1: They weren't waiting for external help. They took their fate 429 00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:18,039 into their own hands years in advance, and this leads 430 00:22:18,079 --> 00:22:21,079 us to the dramatic discovery of the Nimrod Treasures. In 431 00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,759 June two thousand and three, US officials acting on intelligence 432 00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:27,000 located one of these massive caches. 433 00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:29,599 Speaker 2: But there was a problem. It was in a highly 434 00:22:29,599 --> 00:22:32,640 secured vault under the Iraqi Central Bank. But the vault 435 00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:36,240 was completely flooded. Oh no, the stress of that recovery 436 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:40,079 effort must have been immense. Water damage is catastrophic for 437 00:22:40,079 --> 00:22:44,400 almost any ancient material. National geographic again played a crucial 438 00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,359 logistical role, providing equipment and expertise to pump out the water, 439 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:51,680 just racing against the clock to save this fragile ancient 440 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,160 gold from permanent corrosion. What was inside the contents were 441 00:22:55,279 --> 00:22:59,519 pure staggering history. The vault held the gold treasures of Nimrod, 442 00:23:00,039 --> 00:23:02,920 six hundred and thirteen pieces of gold jewelry and ornaments 443 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,400 taken from Assyrian royal tombs that date back to the 444 00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:09,200 eighth and ninth centuries BCE. This included massive amounts of 445 00:23:09,279 --> 00:23:11,720 intricately worked gold Lapis, Lazuli. 446 00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:13,400 Speaker 1: And Carnelian, and was it okay after the flood. 447 00:23:13,599 --> 00:23:16,519 Speaker 2: Despite the flooding, which could have been fatal, the gold 448 00:23:16,559 --> 00:23:20,440 objects were reportedly and surprisingly good condition thanks to the 449 00:23:20,519 --> 00:23:22,759 quality of the ancient alloys and the fact that the 450 00:23:22,799 --> 00:23:26,240 vault was well sealed. This recovery was a monumental wind 451 00:23:26,279 --> 00:23:30,039 for a seriology and for Iraqi heritage. It proved that 452 00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:33,119 foresight had preserved this priceless historical record. 453 00:23:33,279 --> 00:23:37,279 Speaker 1: But the recovery also came with a tragic and frankly 454 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,440 violent PostScript that really brings the brutal reality of the 455 00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:43,039 conflict into sharp focus. 456 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:46,519 Speaker 2: Yeah, when the vault was finally secured and explored, the 457 00:23:46,559 --> 00:23:50,200 bodies of looters were discovered inside. What it suggests that 458 00:23:50,279 --> 00:23:52,640 during the chaos of the two thousand and three invasion, 459 00:23:53,079 --> 00:23:56,279 rival criminal gangs had fought to the death, literally trying 460 00:23:56,279 --> 00:23:58,640 to blast or steal their way into the Central Bank 461 00:23:58,680 --> 00:23:59,839 to get to the national treasure. 462 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,519 Speaker 1: Shows the immense deadly value people plays on these relics, 463 00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:05,480 whether for cultural reasons or criminal ones. 464 00:24:05,599 --> 00:24:08,000 Speaker 2: Thankfully, due to the foresight of the museum staff and 465 00:24:08,039 --> 00:24:11,000 the Central Bank employees, the final corrected lost count for 466 00:24:11,039 --> 00:24:15,119 the entire museum was reduced from that catastrophic one hundred 467 00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,640 and seventy thousand number that was initially reported down to 468 00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:18,960 about fifteen thousand. 469 00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:20,279 Speaker 1: Items, which is still a tragedy. 470 00:24:20,519 --> 00:24:23,759 Speaker 2: It's still a huge tragedy, but it reveals the success 471 00:24:23,839 --> 00:24:26,880 of the human effort to classify and protect these objects 472 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:27,279 from harm. 473 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:32,359 Speaker 1: Okay, so we've discussed restriction by scholarship, classification by government 474 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,000 and protection by necessity in wartime. Now we move into 475 00:24:36,039 --> 00:24:38,599 the realm of things that are hidden in plain sight, 476 00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:43,160 structures that have literally defied thousands of years of human 477 00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,359 study and only surrendered their secrets to physics. 478 00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,400 Speaker 2: This is a remarkable intersection of the ancient and the 479 00:24:50,519 --> 00:24:54,960 utterly modern. For millennia, the general consensus among Egyptologists was 480 00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,279 that the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built for 481 00:24:57,319 --> 00:25:01,880 the pharaoh Cufu, had no significant secrets. It's left to reveal, right, It's. 482 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,839 Speaker 1: Been mapped, studied, measured, penetrated countless times since the Romans. 483 00:25:05,599 --> 00:25:09,279 Speaker 2: And yet in twenty seventeen, that foundational assumption was completely overturned. 484 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:11,759 Speaker 1: The idea that we could find a new structure inside 485 00:25:11,759 --> 00:25:14,599 the most famous building on Earth is just it's astonishing, 486 00:25:14,599 --> 00:25:16,920 and it wasn't found by digging. Its found by using 487 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:17,839 cosmic rays. 488 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,279 Speaker 2: The discovery was the result of the Scan Pyramids project, 489 00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,839 a massive international collaboration employing a technology that really does 490 00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,799 sound like science fiction, cosmic ray detection, specifically using something 491 00:25:30,839 --> 00:25:32,480 called muon tomography. 492 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,799 Speaker 1: Okay, let's dedicate some time here because our listener appreciates 493 00:25:35,839 --> 00:25:38,720 the technical details. How does this even work? It's not 494 00:25:38,759 --> 00:25:41,799 an X ray. It's not radar, you're saying, it's using 495 00:25:41,839 --> 00:25:43,160 particles from outer space. 496 00:25:43,519 --> 00:25:47,799 Speaker 2: That's right. Muons are sub atomic particles. They're essentially heavy, 497 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,359 unstable electrons, and they are generated when high energy cosmic 498 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,599 rays which originate far outside our solar systems, strike the 499 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:57,480 Earth's atmosphere. 500 00:25:56,839 --> 00:25:58,480 Speaker 1: And they just rain down on us all. 501 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,759 Speaker 2: The time, constantly. They're passing through us right now. They 502 00:26:00,759 --> 00:26:04,279 passed through almost everything. Now here is the critical distinction 503 00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,799 for archaeology. Muons passed through empty spaces like air or 504 00:26:08,799 --> 00:26:11,839 a chamber much more easily and quickly than they passed 505 00:26:11,839 --> 00:26:15,799 through dense solid materials like thousands of tons of heavy 506 00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:17,680 limestone and granite blocks. 507 00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,319 Speaker 1: So by placing these sophisticated detectors, which are basically large 508 00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,680 complex plates that track the paths of the muons inside 509 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,680 and around the pyramid, they could measure the flow exactly. 510 00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:34,000 Speaker 2: Areas where fewer muons were detected meant solid rock. Areas 511 00:26:34,039 --> 00:26:37,480 where a statistically significant number of more muons passed through 512 00:26:37,759 --> 00:26:41,279 indicated a void or an air pocket. It's essentially a 513 00:26:41,319 --> 00:26:44,880 density map. It's like a cosmic MRI scan of an 514 00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:46,000 ancient structure. 515 00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,000 Speaker 1: And what gives us finding immense credibility is the level 516 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,880 of rigor they used. The researchers didn't rely on just 517 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:53,680 one machine or one method, No. 518 00:26:53,759 --> 00:26:57,039 Speaker 2: That's key. They use three separate teams deploying three different 519 00:26:57,039 --> 00:27:01,599 types of detectors, nuclear moulsion films, scintillator telescopes, and gas detectors, 520 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,240 and they all picked up the identical signal. They confirmed 521 00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,720 the existence of the void from three different vantage points 522 00:27:06,799 --> 00:27:10,240 using three different techniques. That basically eliminates the possibility of 523 00:27:10,279 --> 00:27:11,279 instrumental error. 524 00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:12,240 Speaker 1: So what do they find? 525 00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,160 Speaker 2: The finding, which they published in the journal Nature in 526 00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,519 twenty seventeen, was enormous. The signal pointed to a massive, 527 00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,960 previously unknown space located directly above the Grand Gallery, which 528 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,519 is a known sloping corridor that leads to the King's Chamber. 529 00:27:27,799 --> 00:27:31,079 Speaker 1: And this new void, which they tentatively named the scan 530 00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,720 pyramids Big Void. It's estimated to be at least thirty 531 00:27:34,759 --> 00:27:37,640 meters long, so about one hundred feet, and its cross 532 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,000 section is remarkably similar to the Grand Gallery itself. 533 00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,559 Speaker 2: We are not talking about a small fissure or some 534 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,400 minor irregularity. This is the first discovery of a major 535 00:27:47,559 --> 00:27:50,680 planned internal structure in the Pyramid. Since the nineteenth century. 536 00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,519 It fundamentally redefines the geometry of Cufu's construction. 537 00:27:54,279 --> 00:27:56,759 Speaker 1: And the magnitude of the finding was immediately matched by 538 00:27:56,799 --> 00:28:00,640 the fury of the official gatekeepers in Egypt. Just like 539 00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,839 with the Dead Sea scrolls, access to information and interpretation 540 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,359 became this fierce political battleground. 541 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,640 Speaker 2: You're talking about the immediate and very strong reaction from 542 00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:13,200 the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, specifically the former minister, the 543 00:28:13,279 --> 00:28:16,759 highly influential Zahi Hawas, who had established a near monopoly 544 00:28:16,839 --> 00:28:21,839 on high profile Egyptian archaeology for decades exactly. Haas immediately 545 00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,799 went on the offensive. He publicly denied the significance of 546 00:28:24,799 --> 00:28:28,839 the finding, claiming the published paper offered zero to Egyptology. 547 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,680 His counter argument was structural and well traditional. 548 00:28:32,799 --> 00:28:33,640 Speaker 1: What was his argument. 549 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,119 Speaker 2: He argued that the scan Pyramids team, being physicists and 550 00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:43,079 engineers rather than Egyptologists, simply misunderstood standard pyramid construction. The 551 00:28:43,119 --> 00:28:45,400 core of his argument was that these voids are just 552 00:28:45,519 --> 00:28:50,160 stress relief chambers. Pharaoh's built massive relieving chambers filled with 553 00:28:50,359 --> 00:28:53,640 huge granite beams above the king's chamber to distribute the 554 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,279 immense weight of the overlying stone Hawas argued the Big 555 00:28:57,359 --> 00:29:01,279 Void was simply a less defined, more extensive version of 556 00:29:01,319 --> 00:29:04,680 these known architectural features, built to prevent the Grand Gallery 557 00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:06,440 from collapsing under stress. 558 00:29:06,119 --> 00:29:08,400 Speaker 1: Which is I mean, that's a reasonable construction argument, but 559 00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,920 I find it hard to believe it entirely explains a 560 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:15,119 perfectly defined, thirty meter long, continuous void that mirrors the 561 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,759 angle and the size of the structure directly beneath it. 562 00:29:18,519 --> 00:29:21,640 If it's just a gap left by sloppy construction, why 563 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,359 is it so geometrically coherent? 564 00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,319 Speaker 2: And the researchers themselves are navigating this political tightrope with 565 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,160 extreme care. They are confident in their muon data. I mean, 566 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,599 physics is physics, but they are highly cautious about interpretation. 567 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,400 They acknowledge the uncertainty about the exact purpose of the void. 568 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:40,039 Speaker 1: They don't want to speculate about treasure. 569 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:44,039 Speaker 2: No, they refuse to speculate about potential contents, avoiding any 570 00:29:44,039 --> 00:29:48,119 irresponsible pronouncements that would just feed a media frenzy, which 571 00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:50,359 ironically often frustrates the public even more. 572 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,799 Speaker 1: And this brings us back to the theme of restriction, 573 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,200 but in a completely modern way. We know the void exists, 574 00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,720 but access to the data is now restricted. The raw 575 00:30:00,799 --> 00:30:03,839 scan data and the exact technical specifications used in the 576 00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,200 three different Nuon experiments have not been fully released to 577 00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,519 the public or to rival. 578 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,680 Speaker 2: Egyptologists, and this non disclosure is part of their operational strategy. 579 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,359 They are prioritizing non invasive investigation over immediate satisfaction. They 580 00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:21,000 want to continue scanning from different angles and perhaps use 581 00:30:21,079 --> 00:30:24,720 different non invasive technologies to triangulate the void's exact shape 582 00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,000 of potential connectivity before they even start to discuss the 583 00:30:28,039 --> 00:30:31,559 possibility of physical access like drilling or setting in a camera. 584 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,079 Speaker 1: It's a completely modern dilemma. We have the technology to 585 00:30:35,119 --> 00:30:38,559 confirm the existence of a massive ancient secret, but the 586 00:30:38,599 --> 00:30:42,319 researchers and the Egyptian government are jointly classifying the complete 587 00:30:42,319 --> 00:30:46,000 evidence and physical access, essentially sealing the secret for its 588 00:30:46,039 --> 00:30:50,359 own protection. We know the secret is there, but the gatekeepers, 589 00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,319 both scientific and governmental, are compelling us to wait for 590 00:30:53,359 --> 00:30:54,720 permission to look more closely. 591 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,960 Speaker 2: A perfect example of the conflict between scientific transparency and 592 00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,960 preservation ethics exactly. Final section deals with the ultimate form 593 00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,559 of classification, the profound, often irreversible silence imposed by a 594 00:31:06,599 --> 00:31:11,079 lost language. This is a barrier created by a linguistic obscurity, or, 595 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,240 in the case of Rongo Wrongo, the tragic eradication of 596 00:31:14,279 --> 00:31:15,640 the knowledge holders themselves. 597 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,960 Speaker 1: Let's start with the epitome of the unreadable enigma, the 598 00:31:19,039 --> 00:31:23,039 Feasto's disc. This is an object that should, by all rights, 599 00:31:23,359 --> 00:31:27,519 be a window into an ancient civilization, but instead it's 600 00:31:27,559 --> 00:31:29,359 just a mirror reflecting our own ignorance. 601 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:30,680 Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. 602 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,480 Speaker 1: It was discovered on July third, nineteen oh eight, by 603 00:31:33,519 --> 00:31:37,400 an Italian archaeologist Luigi Prenier while he was excavating the 604 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,119 ancient palace of Festos on the island of Crete. 605 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,880 Speaker 2: Physically it is deceptively simple. It's a baked clay disc 606 00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:46,920 about six inches in diameter and an inch thick. Experts 607 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,359 date it to the Minoan period, possibly around seventeen hundred BCE, 608 00:31:51,119 --> 00:31:53,440 and it's covered on both sides with symbols arranged in 609 00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,720 this neat continuous spiral pattern, winding from the rim towards 610 00:31:56,759 --> 00:31:57,200 the center. 611 00:31:57,359 --> 00:32:00,519 Speaker 1: But the technological marvel here is genuinely stackeduring for the 612 00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:03,279 Bronze Age. The disc contains two hundred and forty two symbols, 613 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,720 which are composed of forty five distinct signs, and critically, 614 00:32:06,759 --> 00:32:09,079 these symbols weren't carved or scratched into the clay with 615 00:32:09,119 --> 00:32:12,000 the stylus like every other document found from that period. 616 00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,200 Speaker 2: They were stamped, and that's the crucial detail we have 617 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:21,039 to emphasize. Someone meticulously created forty five individual stamps, think 618 00:32:21,039 --> 00:32:24,880 of them as tiny, detailed ceramic or wooden seals, and 619 00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,240 use them to press the symbols into the soft clay 620 00:32:27,319 --> 00:32:30,160 before the disc was fired. This makes the face Dos 621 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:34,000 disk potentially the earliest known example of a principle related 622 00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:36,200 to movable type printing in human. 623 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:41,440 Speaker 1: History, predating Gutenberg by thousands of years thousands. That is extraordinary. 624 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:45,000 Imagine the conceptual leap required to create a library of 625 00:32:45,039 --> 00:32:48,720 stamps rather than just writing directly. The symbols themselves are intricate. 626 00:32:49,039 --> 00:32:55,160 They depict recognizable objects, human figures, animals like birds and fish, plants, tools, 627 00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,799 geometric shapes. It's almost pictographic. Yet it's clearly formalized as 628 00:32:58,799 --> 00:32:59,279 a script. 629 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,759 Speaker 2: But the sheer frustration comes back to the linguistic barrier, 630 00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:05,880 and this is the definition of classified by obscurity. The 631 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,480 fundamental problem for cracking any unknown script is you need 632 00:33:08,519 --> 00:33:11,440 a large corpus of text. You need repetition, you need context, 633 00:33:11,519 --> 00:33:14,200 you need no names, or ideally you need a bilingual 634 00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:16,640 example like the Rosetta stone, which had the same text 635 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:17,599 and three languages. 636 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,400 Speaker 1: And this is the crux of the problem with the disk, 637 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:19,759 isn't it? 638 00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:23,519 Speaker 2: Precisely this is the only object ever found bearing these 639 00:33:23,559 --> 00:33:27,559 specific forty five symbols. They share some vague similarities with 640 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,319 other Minoan scripts, like linear A, but the differences are vast, 641 00:33:31,519 --> 00:33:34,920 and this absolute isolation has led to a wild proliferation 642 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,640 of competing, often irreconcilable theories. 643 00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,440 Speaker 1: The attempts to decode it are like watching intellectual desperation 644 00:33:42,559 --> 00:33:46,680 play out. The interpretations reigns wildly. Some scholars claim it's 645 00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,720 a simple hymn, maybe to the Minoan Earth goddess, based 646 00:33:49,759 --> 00:33:53,000 on the repetitive placement of certain symbols. Others argue it's 647 00:33:53,039 --> 00:33:56,759 a complex calendar for agricultural cycles or even a specialized 648 00:33:56,799 --> 00:33:57,279 game board. 649 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,200 Speaker 2: And then you have the completely radical theories thatch leung 650 00:34:00,279 --> 00:34:03,519 the artifact's very existence. There was a highly controversial claim 651 00:34:03,519 --> 00:34:06,160 made by one archaeologist in two thousand and eight that Pernier, 652 00:34:06,279 --> 00:34:10,480 the discoverer, actually faked the disc entirely why the motivation 653 00:34:10,599 --> 00:34:13,440 was supposedly to compete with famous discoveries being made by 654 00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:15,960 his rivals at the time, a bit of academic jealousy. 655 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,039 Speaker 1: I personally find that theory difficult to swallow, simply because 656 00:34:20,079 --> 00:34:24,280 creating a fake with that level of technological sophistication, prefiguring 657 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,679 movable type just to win an academic rivalry seems almost 658 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,280 as difficult as deciphering it. It requires too much foresight 659 00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:33,679 on the part of the supposed. 660 00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:36,079 Speaker 2: Forture, I agree, But whether it's fake or genuine, the 661 00:34:36,119 --> 00:34:41,199 current reality is the same profound silence. The immense frustration 662 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,639 for historians and linguists is the inability to unlock what 663 00:34:44,679 --> 00:34:47,800 the text says until this script is read, a critical 664 00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,719 piece of the puzzle regarding Minno and civilization. One of 665 00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,239 the great early Mediterranean cultures that slourish before classical Greece, 666 00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:58,320 remains perpetually classified by its own singularity. It is a 667 00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:02,039 locked box of information with no known combination, and every 668 00:35:02,079 --> 00:35:03,920 attempt to guess is just speculation. 669 00:35:04,199 --> 00:35:06,559 Speaker 1: So if the face does disc is a silence enforced 670 00:35:06,559 --> 00:35:09,760 by uniqueness. The Wrongo Rado script of Rapanui or Easter 671 00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,800 Island is a tragedy enforced by the deliberate destruction of 672 00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,679 the human element. Yes, we know Easter Island primarily for 673 00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,360 its incredible, iconic Mawaii statues, but the Rapanui people also 674 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,159 developed a sophisticated, unique writing system, and. 675 00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:25,599 Speaker 2: The core issue of scarcity reappears here, but for heartbreaking 676 00:35:25,639 --> 00:35:30,599 reasons related to colonization and disease. Today, fewer than thirty 677 00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,599 fragile wooden tablets containing the Wrongo Rango script survive. They 678 00:35:34,639 --> 00:35:38,320 are scattered across major museums globally, from Santiago to Berlin. 679 00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,880 But crucially, not a single authentic original tablet remains on 680 00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:44,199 the island itself, and. 681 00:35:44,119 --> 00:35:47,800 Speaker 1: The mechanism of loss here is just agonizingly specific. It 682 00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:51,400 wasn't just gradual decay. In the eighteen sixties, Peruvian slave 683 00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:55,639 raids descended upon the island. They systematically targeted and kidnapped 684 00:35:55,639 --> 00:35:59,239 most of the island's priests, leaders in chiefs, the precise 685 00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:04,199 Maori class, who held the specialized generational knowledge required to read, memorize, 686 00:36:04,199 --> 00:36:05,880 and interpret the wrong Go Rongo script. 687 00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,760 Speaker 2: It was a systematic, deliberate intellectual purge. By removing the 688 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,880 learned class, they destroyed the living key to the language. 689 00:36:12,519 --> 00:36:14,360 Speaker 1: The people who could read it were gone. 690 00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:18,679 Speaker 2: Gone, and this loss was immediately compounded by smallpox, which 691 00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,599 decimated the few remaining islanders and shattered the traditional culture 692 00:36:22,599 --> 00:36:25,239 that might have preserved the memory of the script. By 693 00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,920 the eighteen seventies, the specialized knowledge of how to read 694 00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,199 Rongo Rongo was completely extinct. The script exists, but its 695 00:36:32,199 --> 00:36:35,440 readers were wiped out by human cruelty and subsequent disease. 696 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,960 Speaker 1: That is an irretrievable loss, and it raises these profound 697 00:36:40,039 --> 00:36:44,960 ethical questions about the classification of knowledge. The tablets themselves 698 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,920 weren't entirely destroyed, but the entire interpretative framework the human 699 00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,159 software needed run the program was systematically removed from. 700 00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,960 Speaker 2: The earth, and the surviving artifacts are barely holding on. 701 00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,320 Take the example of the Berlin tablet, one of the 702 00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,719 longest ones. It's over three feet long, but the wood 703 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:01,920 is so so deeply eroded that more than half of 704 00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,119 the text is now completely unreadable. 705 00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:04,880 Speaker 1: Wow. 706 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,519 Speaker 2: The script is also highly complex. It reads in a 707 00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:11,159 system called reverse bustrophiton, where you read one line from 708 00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,320 left to right and you have to flip the tablet 709 00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:15,239 one hundred and eighty degrees to read the next line, 710 00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:16,440 which is written upside down. 711 00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:21,079 Speaker 1: That level of complexity requires intimate, specialized knowledge, and the 712 00:37:21,119 --> 00:37:24,320 knowledge holders are gone. So researchers today are relying on 713 00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,480 highly advanced tools like three D scans, spectral imaging, and 714 00:37:28,559 --> 00:37:31,719 high resolution photographs just to study the eroded remains of 715 00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,360 a language whose last fluent speakers died more than one 716 00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:38,119 hundred and fifty years ago, purely because of colonization and disease. 717 00:37:38,639 --> 00:37:41,400 Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, wrong Goorongo 718 00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:44,920 is a perfect tragic example of knowledge lost due to 719 00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,199 the destruction of the knowledge holders themselves, not just the artifacts. 720 00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,800 With the face does disc the knowledge is hidden by singularity, 721 00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,119 we just don't have enough material. With Wrongorongo, the knowledge 722 00:37:55,199 --> 00:37:58,920 is permanently silent because the human connection was irrevocably severed. 723 00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,000 Speaker 1: In both cases, the ancient artifact is classified by an 724 00:38:02,039 --> 00:38:03,559 impenetrable barrier, and. 725 00:38:03,559 --> 00:38:06,239 Speaker 2: It reminds us that knowledge is a conversation between the 726 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,679 present and the past, and that conversation can be violently interrupted. 727 00:38:10,559 --> 00:38:14,159 So today we've traveled across millennia in continence from secretive 728 00:38:14,159 --> 00:38:17,840 scholars denying access to the Dead Sea scrolls to physicists 729 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,840 detecting hidden chambers in the Great Pyramid, and from gold 730 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,199 saved by anonymous heroes in Afghanistan to languages silenced by 731 00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,280 slave raiders in the Pacific. The central tension of this 732 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,320 deep dive it just remains constant. It's the battle between 733 00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,199 discovering and accessing ancient knowledge and the very human impulses, 734 00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,159 whether they are political, institutional, destructive, or even well meaning, 735 00:38:38,199 --> 00:38:40,880 that seek to classify, hide, or race it. 736 00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:43,559 Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us? I think 737 00:38:43,559 --> 00:38:46,559 it fundamentally changes the way we should view historical artifacts. 738 00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,320 They're not passive objects resting in the dust of history. 739 00:38:49,639 --> 00:38:53,760 They're key players in ongoing historical dramas. The meticulous, risky 740 00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,960 act of concealing the Tilia tipa treasure with five secret keys, 741 00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,159 was as crucial to Afghan history as the eventual trif 742 00:39:00,159 --> 00:39:01,280 an act of finding it was. 743 00:39:01,599 --> 00:39:04,480 Speaker 2: And the knowledge is always waiting, whether it's in the 744 00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:07,880 mesavoid or the dead Sea caves. But the deepest, most 745 00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,800 difficult barriers we face to reach it are almost always 746 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,159 human made. They're driven by fear, by greed, or by 747 00:39:14,199 --> 00:39:17,639 the desire for control over truth and legacy. We've seen 748 00:39:17,679 --> 00:39:22,000 treasures saved by anonymous keyholders and We've seen scripts lost 749 00:39:22,039 --> 00:39:24,760 forever because their readers were enslaved, and. 750 00:39:24,639 --> 00:39:27,559 Speaker 1: This raises an important question for you, our listener, to consider. 751 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,440 When an ancient relic of global importance is discovered, who 752 00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,320 should ultimately be the gatekeeper. Should it be the country 753 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,800 of origin which has the territorial claim, the scholarly community 754 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:41,519 who possessed the expertise, or the global public whose collective 755 00:39:41,559 --> 00:39:44,320 history is contained within that object and who often funds 756 00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,719 its discovery. What is the ethical responsibility of those who 757 00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:51,159 possess the only key, whether it's physical or intellectual, to 758 00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:53,360 a lost piece of human history. Let us know what 759 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:53,760 you think.