This cross is to Pelayo what Excalibur is to King Arthur.
-[Robert] 187,000. -[Josh] Versus how many men that Pelayo has?
-[Robert] 300. -I've seen that movie. It's called 300.
Yeah, they're not great odds.
[Josh] Pelayo is kind of everywhere here, I'm learning.
[Olalla] Yes, he's a hugely important symbol.
Yeah!
-Skeletons? From the time of Pelayo? -Yeah, yeah.
Why don't you go there and meet them?
-[Josh] Are they easy to get to? -[Pablo] No.
[sighs wearily] Okay, this is a good start.
[groans]
[Josh] Oh, my word, look at this place.
This is an endless cave.
Oh. [bleep]
-We have a full skeleton here. -[Pablo] Mmm-hmm.
Where's the skull?
Nobody has even tread in some of these chambers in centuries.
-Do I hear water? -Yes, it's a river.
[Josh] This is exploration right here.
There's something going on here that feels superstitious.
We got an opening right there.
Oh, my word, it is full of bones.
[Josh] We've all heard of King Arthur,
the mythic warrior who vanquished an invading army
to become king of the Britons.
But there's another hero from Europe's Dark Ages you may never have heard of.
A man who not only shaped the history of a nation,
but the entire world as we know it.
His name is Pelayo,
a humble sword-bearer in Muslim-controlled eighth-century Spain
who rises up to unite his people
and repels an army of thousands...
...in a battle straight out of Game of Thrones.
His victory leads to the birth of the Christian-Spanish Empire,
which conquered much of the Americas
and altered the course of Western history.
That is, if the story of Pelayo is remotely true.
Like King Arthur,
it's hard to know where history ends and legend begins.
But now, archaeologists and historians are making discoveries
that could unlock the truth.
Beneath the crumbling ruins of an ancient castle,
newly found artifacts could reveal Pelayo's true identity.
And inside a perilous mountain cave,
explorers have made a grisly discovery in the darkness.
Human remains from the time of Pelayo with a shocking tale to tell.
So join me as I search for the real king behind the myth,
the true tale of the Christian hero
who set Spain on the path to become a global superpower and changed our world forever.
[Josh] My name is Josh Gates.
Hello!
[Josh] Explorer...
-Here goes nothing. -[Josh] ...adventurer...
[laughs excitedly]
Oh, that's a long way down.
[Josh] ...and a guy who ends up
-in some very strange situations. -[gasps]
I'm alive! For now.
[Josh] With a degree in archaeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
[Josh] This is Expedition Unknown.
[Josh] Spain, home to beautiful beaches, all-night raves,
and as much sangria and ham as you can eat.
At least, that's what I was expecting.
Plot twist. Spain is freezing right now.
I'm in the northern part of the country
in the Picos de Europa mountains,
and it's definitely more alpine than Ibiza.
Turns out I waxed my back for nothing. What a waste.
Since the story of Pelayo is so shrouded in myth,
we have to begin with the real locations
that are associated with his story.
And there's no better place to start
than a high mountain sanctuary known as Covadonga.
After all, Pelayo himself is supposedly buried there.
Near the summit of the mountain is a grand basilica
and statue dedicated to Pelayo.
But I'm not here for sightseeing.
Now that I've climbed all this way,
I'm actually going down into the mountain itself.
This is the holy cave of Covadonga,
and it's been considered a sacred site
for as long as anybody can remember.
But there's a reason that Catholics still make pilgrimages here today.
It's because this is where the legendary warrior Pelayo and his men
were victorious against an invading army.
Here inside the sanctuary, I meet Medieval historian Robert Portass.
-Hi, Josh. -Nice to meet you.
Likewise.
I have to say, this may be
the most dramatic location
for a chapel I've ever seen.
Like, literally perched on a cliff.
And, of course, here we are,
standing by the supposed resting place of Pelayo himself.
So, I have a lot of questions about Pelayo.
-Okay. -When does this story take place,
and what's going on here in Spain?
In the fifth century, the Roman Empire falls apart.
And by the time we get to the early sixth century,
a new political force has emerged in Spain,
and that is the Visigothic Kingdom.
[Josh] Meet the Visigoths,
the barbarian Germanic tribe
that becomes a Christian kingdom,
invades Italy, takes down Rome,
and ends up occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula AKA future Spain,
with their capital in the city of Toledo.
[doorbell chimes]
[Josh] But wait, who's that at the door?
It's probably just the pizza we ord--
Oh, no, it's the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate.
In the year 711, this army of Arab and North African fighters
destroy the Visigoth capital and conquer most of the country,
giving them a foothold to launch attacks on the rest of Western Europe.
And these guys are no joke, right?
I mean, they really do sweep the board here in Spain.
Yes, with really astonishing speed.
So within a handful of years, perhaps three years,
almost all of the peninsula is conquered.
And it's in this landscape that our guy emerges.
-This is where Pelayo comes on to the battlefield. -That's right.
So, Pelayo exists both in history and in legend.
[Josh] And what a legend it is.
Pelayo is a young Christian Visigoth noble, being groomed for power
under the mentorship of King Roderick in Toledo.
In the first wave of the Muslim invasion, though,
the Visigoth army is wiped out...
...and King Roderick is killed.
Pelayo flees to the untamed northern borderlands of Asturias.
Here, he rallies a ragged frontier population to his cause,
and prepares to face off against the Islamic forces
in a battle to decide the fate of the Western world.
Pelayo and his followers are pursued up to this vantage point here
where we are right now.
-Literally right here in this cave. -Right here. That's right.
And then, ultimately, there's this, supposedly, this big battle.
-This is Pelayo and his rallied forces... -Mmm-hmm.
...versus the Arab army.
And this is meant to be a fairly lopsided battle, right?
What are the numbers that we're talking about here?
We're told that the Arab-Berber force is 187,000 strong.
-Okay. -Yes.
-Huge, huge army. -Absolutely.
Versus how many men that Pelayo has?
-300. -I've seen that movie. It's called 300.
Yeah, they're not great odds.
[Josh] Facing a slaughter,
Pelayo prays to the Virgin Mary for help.
And his prayers are seemingly answered.
Charging onto the battlefield, wielding the cross of their faith,
Pelayo and his 300 men find themselves aided by a series of miracles.
Crushing boulders rain down from the heavens,
surging rivers swallow the Muslim army,
and volleys of arrows turn in mid-air
back at the terrified archers who fired them.
Admittedly, this blessing from above
reads like a Marvel-sized special effects extravaganza.
But, according to the legend, over 100,000 Muslims are killed,
and Pelayo is crowned the first king of Asturias.
His line would become a dynasty
that forms the beginnings of the Christian-Spanish Empire,
which expands beyond Europe to explore and then conquer the New World,
including land that would become the good old U.S. of A.
And all of it starts in this cave.
So this is a great story.
-It's an amazing story. -Right?
-It's an underdog story. It's heroic. -It is.
-Is any of it true? -[chuckles]
-Now, this is the difficult question to answer. -Right.
[Josh] The main sources for the heroic Pelayo legend
are all, unsurprisingly, Christian.
But Islamic writers mention him too,
painting Pelayo as a pathetic rebel
who they don't even bother to attack.
They do bother to mention him though,
which probably tells us something.
I think that Pelayo's too prominent a figure
-to have been totally invented. -[Josh] Right.
And what can we say historically?
-Let's take the tomb, for instance. -Sure.
Is there any historicity to him being buried right here?
We don't have a concrete indication that he's buried here.
[Josh] The tomb dates back to about the year 1200
and is mostly regarded as a symbolic burial.
Furthermore, the crypt here will never be opened,
lest it threaten the legend of Pelayo,
which looms large here in Spain.
So we have a lot of symbolism here,
but where do we look
to figure out if the story's true?
Well, some artifacts remain from the period in question.
One particular object survives.
An artifact that may be from Pelayo's life?
That's right. Perhaps even an artifact that he may have handled himself,
which can be found locally, in fact, in Oviedo.
-All right, a good place to start. -Absolutely.
I drive 50 miles from Covadonga
to the capital of Asturias, the city of Oviedo.
Over the centuries,
Oviedo and the surrounding area
has been occupied by Celts, Romans, and Visigoths.
And the influences of all of them are still felt here today.
I want to see the only known artifact
associated with the legendary King Pelayo.
So I duck out of the parade and head to the Cathedral of San Salvador
to meet journalist and historian Olalla Pena.
I have to say, I'm kind of overwhelmed. This is magnificent.
It was ordered to be built
by one of the descendent of Pelayo,
the King Alfonso II.
Pelayo is kind of everywhere here, I'm learning.
Okay.
I would love to see it.
Let's go. There's a crypt underneath the cathedral.
[Josh] Oh, I love a good crypt.
[Josh] Olalla escorts me underground,
having arranged for rare access to the Camara Santa,
the holy chamber where the church holds sacred treasures.
-[chuckles] -Wow, look at this.
Oh.
[Josh] What?
This is the cross that Pelayo carried at Covadonga?
-Yes. -In the defeat of the Muslim army?
Yeah. According to the legend, he defeats the enemy with the help of this cross.
[Josh] Spain's celebrated King Pelayo
was said to have been a Christian Visigoth noble
who allied himself with savage northern tribesmen
to evict the country's Muslim occupiers.
I'm in a church crypt searching for the truth behind the legend
and getting exclusive access to one of Spain's holiest relics.
-And it's the actual cross? -According to legend, it is.
So there's that word again, "legend,"
that always comes up with Pelayo, right?
I mean, this cross is to Pelayo
what Excalibur is to King Arthur, right?
This cross is so ornate.
It's not what I would imagine a warrior would be carrying into battle in the mountains.
-Right, a simple cross. -A simple cross.
[Josh] In the legend,
Pelayo's faith
and the wooden cross he carried into battle
lead to divine intervention to defeat the invading army.
Years later, one of Pelayo's descendants, King Alfonso III,
supposedly gilded the cross and decorated it with 152 jewels.
How do we know that his cross is in here?
And is that true?
Okay.
Okay, so, to the castle.
To see where Pelayo's cross came from,
and learn if this part of the legend holds up,
I drive 30 miles north of Oviedo to Gauzon Castle.
Working here to reconstruct the story of the castle
and its connection to King Pelayo
is archaeologist Alejandro Garcia.
-Alejandro, hey. -Ah. Hello, Josh.
-How are you? Nice to meet you. -I'm out of breath.
-[chuckles] -But I'm good, I'm good.
Okay, so, I've seen this cross at the cathedral,
this beautiful gold gilded cross.
And it says, literally stamped,
-that it was gilded here at Gauzon Castle. -Yeah, yeah.
-Is that true? -Yes, that's true.
-Oh, 100 percent? -Yeah.
Oh, I thought you were gonna hedge, and be an archaeologist,
and say, "We don't know. Maybe."
-You feel confident? -In this case, we are confident.
Okay, why are you so confident?
-Linked to the cross? -Yeah.
[Josh] To make the Pelayo connection,
Alejandro brings me over to the other side of Gauzon.
[Josh] So what did you find here?
The most important is that we found,
here we have in this little box,
we have these pieces.
-Are these gems? -Yeah. [chuckles]
[Josh] Wait, you found gems in the ground here?
Yes, in this side, yes.
-[Josh] May I? -Yeah, you can.
-[Josh] These jewels look exactly like the gems... -Yeah.
-...that we see on the cross. -Yeah.
[Josh] The jewels here are exactly the same type and shape
as those on the holy cross.
And archaeologists found remains of smelting fires
in what was likely a workshop.
Carbon dating of the charcoal puts it in the tenth century,
at the exact time the cross was supposed to have been gilded.
-So, we have a metal workshop... -Yeah.
-...where metalworking, gilding was happening? -Yeah.
-In the exact right time period? -Uh-huh, yeah.
In the place where the cross was supposed to be made?
Yes, you are right. The cross was made here in 908.
Unbelievable.
[Josh] Amazing.
This could be the very room
where Pelayo's victory cross was gilded.
And it helps establish a firm connection to the artifact.
But this isn't the only shocking discovery.
Alejandro's team is currently digging
just outside the remains of the castle walls,
and they've found items that shouldn't be there.
Look at this.
-Here is a piece of pottery. -What...
Oh, with a weird pattern.
It's a special pottery.
Okay, special how?
-Sixth or seventh century? -Yes.
But the castle was built by Alfonso III in the tenth century,
-so what is this doing here? -Yeah.
It's here, this pottery,
because we are discovering that there was a castle here before Alfonso III.
[Josh] The fact that there was a castle here
centuries earlier than previously thought
may fundamentally alter key elements of the Pelayo legend.
[Josh] What the team is discovering here reveals that,
far from being savage frontiersmen,
the Asturians that Pelayo lead into battle
appear to have been a sophisticated and organized society.
Arrowheads and blades found at the site
confirm that they knew how to fight before Pelayo arrived here.
In fact, there's even a version of Pelayo's story from the ninth century
that suggests he might not have come here
as an outsider from the big city of Toledo.
Instead, he might have actually been from
this northern area to begin with.
So maybe Pelayo is less King Arthur and more William Wallace.
He's less of this nobleman who rises up,
-and he's more of a local warrior. -Yeah.
[Josh] But the artifacts here don't just challenge Pelayo's origin story.
They're telling us more about the bedrock of the Pelayo legend.
His Christian faith.
[Josh] This, too, defies our image of Pelayo
as the Christian noble assisted in battle by the Virgin Mary.
Christianity was still in a time of great transition in this part of the world.
Right.
Uh-huh.
[Josh] This is very significant.
Incredibly rare evidence of burials
has been found in a nearby cave system
close to the site of the battle of Covadonga.
These remains could rewrite the true story of Pelayo and his warriors.
[Josh] Our next stop is about 50 miles from here
where, at this very moment,
archaeologists are making discoveries
in a remote cave known as La Garma.
And there, deep underground, they're finding that the truth about the world of Pelayo
is much darker than the gilded legend,
and much more dangerous.
At the entrance to the La Garma cave complex,
I meet a pair of explorers
who have been crawling inside of these mountains for decades,
Pablo Arias and Jose Angel.
Okay, so, you guys look ready for adventure.
-Ready. -Yes.
Yes, okay.
So, tell me about this cave that you're exploring.
-What makes this place so special? -Well,
Well, everything makes La Garma special.
It's a unique place.
It's called La Garma, and, why, why is it unique?
Because people have been living here
for half a million years.
Boy, it sounded like you said a half a million years.
Yeah, exactly. [chuckles]
[Josh] There's human habitation in this cave
-that goes back that far? -Yeah, yeah.
Wow, okay. And has this cave
-been fully mapped? -Not yet.
There are many galleries unknown.
And you think there's more to find?
-[Jose] Yes. -Okay. And so, what...
what sorts of things are you discovering?
Right now, we are finding human skeletons.
-From when? -From the time of Pelayo.
This is extraordinary,
'cause there's so little archaeological evidence
from this time period.
Meet skeletons from the time of Pelayo?
Yeah, yeah.
[Josh] Deep inside the mountains
of northern Spain,
archaeologists have made a discovery
that could help tell the real story
of the legendary warrior king Pelayo.
So, tell me about these skeletons.
Well, eh, you can see them yourself.
-In the cave? -Yeah, yeah. They're inside the cave.
Are they easy to get to?
-No. [laughs] -No, of course not.
It's quite a difficult trip.
It's three hours underground.
Three hours in darkness?
-Yeah. [chuckles] -Okay, well,
I would like to meet them.
-Okay, let's go. Let's go. -Shall we do it?
-Come on, let's do it. -[Pablo chuckles]
[Josh] La Garma is firmly closed to the public,
so this access is very, very special.
As we approach the cave entrance,
we're joined by Pablo and Jose's team,
who'll be going into La Garma with us.
Into the darkness. Here we go.
I've been told this is a massive cave.
Right now, though, it doesn't feel like it.
That's the entrance?
-Yes. -Oh.
I should have skipped breakfast. Okay.
-[chuckles] Let's go. -Go ahead.
[softly] No way.
I mean...
Might have to do this headfirst.
Okay,
it's not gonna be graceful,
-but here I come. -[Pablo laughs]
[sighing]
[grunts]
[grunts loudly]
This is... This is a good start.
[grunts]
[Pablo speaking]
Okay. Nobody wants to hear that.
Are you kidding me with this?
This cave has been preserved from outsiders for centuries,
and microbes from the surface
could potentially change the ecology inside La Garma.
To prevent that, we change into footwear that's been sterilized.
Properly shod, we are ready to descend the vertical shaft
which has been outfitted with a ladder.
Oh, boy. Big drop-off.
All right, on belay, coming down.
Everything in this cave is damp and slick,
so we make sure to use harnesses and clip in.
One misstep and the drops are lethal.
Oh, boy.
That's a long way down.
[breathing deeply]
-Okay, I'm down. -[Pablo] Okay.
[Josh] Now that I'm safely down,
Pablo and Jose join me.
Okay, we made it down the ladder.
The first ladder.
-The first ladder? -Yeah.
-Oh. Okay, great. -Let's go.
[Josh softly] The first ladder.
How deep is this cave?
The answer? Very deep.
There's almost a mile of known passages in La Garma.
Pablo's team has mapped three distinct levels,
each with a sheer drop,
with some chambers that are
more than 400 feet underground.
To keep all of us from getting hopelessly lost,
they've marked the floor with reflectors
to create a narrow path
through the dark and winding forest of stone.
I mean, look at this place.
Hoo!
[Josh] We hike on into the darkness
through one immense cavern after another.
Eventually we find ourselves at the top of another drop
where the archaeologists have rigged another ladder.
Ladder number two.
Oh, my word.
Oh, boy. This is an endless cave.
[exhales sharply]
Pablo graciously agrees to go first,
then it's my turn to descend.
Okay. Down we go.
[breathing deeply]
How is it so far down?
It's like a black hole. [exhales]
Oh! [exhales sharply]
-[bleep] -[Pablo] You all right?
I'm all right!
This is the third level of La Garma.
Pablo and Jose lead us further
until we enter a chamber dripping with stalactites.
Well, Josh, this is the room I wanted you to see.
[Josh] Oh, my word. Look at this place!
Unbelievable.
As we enter, the chamber is eerily quiet,
like a sanctuary.
And then I learn that we're not alone.
[Josh] Oh, my God.
This is a full skeleton.
Oh, my God.
This is a full skeleton. Look at this.
I'm deep inside the La Garma cave,
an undisturbed time capsule
from the era of Spain's heroic king Pelayo.
We're searching for evidence
of the truth behind his legend.
This might qualify.
-We have a full skeleton here. -[Pablo] Mmm-hmm.
Oh, there's another skeleton right there!
-Yes. -How many of these skeletons are here?
[Pablo] There are five in this gallery.
Five. And these are from the time of Pelayo?
Yeah, yes, they are.
[Josh] The archaeologists have discovered
that this chamber is, in fact, an eerie necropolis.
The skeletons have been carefully laid out on the floor,
surrounded by broken pieces of stalactites
in some sort of burial ritual.
Wow. Unbelievable.
I'm trying to understand this.
People brought these five bodies
all the way down here?
This whole trip that we've made,
they came the same way?
[Josh] Ropes and torches.
Think about that. With torches, how scary
-this environment would be. -Yeah, yeah.
They must have felt like they were venturing into the underworld.
Yeah, yeah. No doubt.
Why? This must have been a kind of...
ceremonial burial, in a way.
Was any clothing found? Was any textiles found?
[Pablo speaking]
A metal belt buckle. And what does it look like?
[Jose speaking]
-[Josh] It has a cross? -[Jose] Yes.
So these... these are Christians.
Eh, we think so.
I mean, there's something very heathen or pagan about this.
There are so few burials from the time of Pelayo
that what we are seeing here is revelatory.
It's clear that, at this time,
Christianity existed alongside lingering pagan traditions,
including some very dark rituals.
For being here over a thousand years,
it's incredibly well-preserved.
-Mmm-hmm. -Except for one thing.
-The skull. -[Pablo] Mmm-hmm.
[Josh] Where's the skull?
[Pablo speaking]
[Josh] Literally smashed down to a powder almost.
Yeah, yeah. All of them have the skulls crushed.
Why? Why crush the skull?
To return?
-[Jose speaking] -[Josh] Revenants?
You're talking about vampires?
In the Middle Ages,
the belief that people could return from the dead
as evil spirits was not only common,
urgent measures were taken to prevent it.
So-called revenant burials
have been found all over the world,
with the dead buried upside-down,
with stones in their mouths,
and even with the occasional stake through the heart.
-But they're from the time of Pelayo. -Yeah, yeah.
But who these five people are, we don't know.
No, we don't know.
[Josh] These bodies are an incredible discovery.
We don't know who they were
or why they were given such a strange burial,
but the fact that things like this were happening
shows us that all of the romantic imagery
of Pelayo and his men
as squeaky-clean Christian heroes
isn't painting a full-enough picture of the time.
We're pressing onward,
further and deeper into the bowels of the Earth,
toward a section of La Garma that has never been explored.
-Okay, that's impressive. -[Pablo] Yes.
This is the largest room that we have in the cave.
-[Josh] This is crazy. -[Pablo] Yeah.
[Josh] And it goes up even higher.
Must be 150 feet up.
-[Jose] Exactly. -[Josh] In a single room.
How far underground are we here?
Around 400 feet.
-Four hundred feet underground. -Yeah.
[Josh exhales]
But to get to the unseen sections of La Garma,
we're going even deeper,
thanks to one last ladder placed by Pablo's team.
Okay.
Unlike the ladders above,
it feels hastily rigged.
To get to the bottom safely,
we may need to resort to Pelayo's technique,
prayer.
-Jose? -Yes?
-You like this ladder? -No, I hate this ladder.
But it's the only ladder we have.
You ever think about starting a greeting card company, Jose?
Eh... I don't know. [chuckling]
-What? -Nothing.
It's very inspirational. Here we go.
We clip in for one final descent,
and then down we go.
Is that a rung my foot's on?
Okay.
Boy, it's just blind. You can't see anything.
[softly] Oh, this sucks. Okay.
Okay, coming down.
Hoo! Okay, I'm down.
Shaking like a leaf.
[chuckling]
[Josh] This is it.
Literal rock bottom.
We're heading into unknown territory,
a new, unmapped level of tunnels
here at La Garma that may contain more burials
and perhaps even a tangible connection to Pelayo.
Down, down, down.
Do I hear water?
Yes, it's a river.
-[Josh] The river runs through this level? -Yeah.
-And I don't see any of your excavation markers here. -Nothing.
-[Josh] This is new territory. -New territory.
All right. Let's see what we find.
We're really going in the river.
[Pablo laughing] Yeah. Really.
[Josh] We follow the river deeper into the mountain
until there's nothing but a trickle left.
At the end, we meet up with the rest of the team
that's been working just ahead of us.
Hola, hola, hola.
All right, so here we are at the bottom of the world.
-Okay, so, careful where you step... -[Pablo] Yeah.
-...and see what you can find, yeah? -Okay.
All right, here we go. Keep your eyes open.
Nobody has even tread in some of these galleries
and these chambers in centuries.
This is exploration, right here.
[speaking Spanish]
-This is the end. -[Josh] Oh, look at that.
We got an opening right there.
That does look like a chamber.
You climbing up?
[Pablo] We are. Be careful.
[Josh] Careful.
Careful, Luis.
[Pablo] Can you see anything there?
[exclaims in Spanish]
Que pasa?
[Josh] You see something?
[speaking Spanish]
[Pablo] He says it's full of bones.
[Josh] It's what? It's full of bones?
-[Pablo] Yeah. -[Luis speaking Spanish]
-[Josh] Human bones? -[Pablo] Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
-Can I see? -Yeah.
[exhales] I mean, they could not be in a worse place.
[chuckles nervously]
Ha! Oh, my word!
It is! It's full of bones!
[Josh] Here in Asturias, they don't dance the flamenco
or run with the bulls. Instead, they drink.
Specifically, hard cider poured with a lot of flair.
The waiters pour the cider like this to aerate it.
And, let's face it, because it's very cool.
The best of them can even do it
without looking at the glass.
The whole thing?
The whole thing. Okay, sure.
That's smooth!
Can I pour it? Yes!
You're going up? Okay.
Here we go. I got this, I got this.
Going up here. Okay, ready?
Oh, boy. That's all right.
I'm getting some of it in there.
[cheering and clapping]
[Josh] I did all right.
This tradition dates back to ancient times.
Who knows? Pelayo and his men
may have celebrated their victory
with a cider pour just like this.
Keep it coming. Keep it coming.
Ha! Oh, my word!
It is! It's full of bones!
It is full of bones.
Deep in a cave,
we're discovering the real history
behind the legendary character of King Pelayo.
And we've just discovered a new burial site.
I can see part of a mandible. I can see teeth.
Long bones.
It's different from the one we saw
on the level above.
The skulls here aren't smashed at all.
-[Pablo] Can you see anything else? -[Josh] No.
It's just bones as far as you can see.
Given the extreme effort surely required
to bring the bodies down to this level of the cave,
it's likely this was a hallowed place.
Only artifacts will tell us for sure.
Fortunately...
There's... Oh, there's something metal here.
There's something metal in here, for sure.
-Pablo? -[Pablo] Mmm-hmm?
Now what?
Well, eh, let's see.
We'll have to take some photographs.
-Photogrammetry, yes? -Yeah.
[Josh] Okay. Let's get them in here.
This is a groundbreaking discovery.
But we can't risk touching any of the bones
before preserving the scene with a photographic 3D scan.
To create a work space on a sheer ledge,
the team sets climbing pins into the rock.
Then, team member Carlos climbs up
and positions the camera, while his partner Luis
controls the shutter remotely.
[Josh] They quickly take hundreds of photographs
that are instantly beamed to a computer,
where they'll be stitched together
to create a final image.
And it all takes place in the blink of an eye.
-We have data, yes? -Yes, we have.
Okay, let's see. What did we get?
-Ha-ha! -Oh!
This is incredible.
[Pablo] So many bones.
[Josh] There are bones everywhere.
-And in the back? -[Pablo] Look there.
[Josh] Wow, more in the back!
[Pablo] A concentration there of bones.
[Josh] So many more than you can see from the entrance.
It goes all the way back.
How many people do we think this is?
[Josh] Incredible.
And the metal piece that's near the front is where?
[softly] Where is that?
Here. So here.
This large piece of metal here.
Some big chunk of iron, yeah?
[Pablo] Yeah, it is.
Okay, so...
-There's a lot in here. -Yeah, yeah.
[Josh] It's incredible. It's just incredible.
The preservation is so good.
Yeah. Okay, we have incredible imagery.
-Now what? -Now it's time to dig.
Time to dig.
-Yes. -Let's dig.
[Josh] The scientists have tentatively dated this new burial
to around the time of Pelayo.
More importantly, there appear to be metal artifacts here
with the bodies.
Now that we've documented the find,
we get to excavate and see exactly what they are.
Okay. Coming to you.
This is going to be a type of archaeology
I've never practiced before.
Delicately moving human remains
while dangling off the ledge of a cave.
But we manage to gently clear the bones
away from the mysterious metal object.
[Josh] Got it.
Once the bones are removed,
Pablo can access the metal,
which, over the last thousand years,
appears to have been concreted to the cave.
He gently chisels at the calcium buildup
on the wall to work it free.
Until...
-[Pablo] We got it. -You got it?
-Yeah. -It's free?
-It's free. -Okay, hold on. Here, I'll take it.
Behind you, behind you.
-Okay, I have it. I have it. -Yeah.
Oh, my word.
It's an axe, yeah?
You can see the hole for the handle.
Unbelievable.
Now holding an axe head,
we rush back down to rejoin the rest of the team,
so we can examine it.
I mean, look... look at this.
-It's stunning. -[Pablo] Wonderful.
-[Josh] It's wonderful. -[Pablo] Yeah, yeah.
So, this is, like, not a household chopping item.
-This is a weapon? -Yes.
[Josh] When is this from?
[Pablo] Around Pelayo's time.
So, who do you think this is, the person who owned this?
-Was probably a warrior. -A warrior.
In this period in Spain, do we find
-many burials with weapons? -[Jose] No.
-Rare. -[Josh] Rare.
Have you found anything like this before?
[Josh] Wow. Incredible.
An Asturian warrior from the eighth century
buried near the Battle of Covadonga
is beyond rare.
And the implications are humbling.
This could be a warrior of Pelayo right here.
Incredible. And now what will happen here?
Much more work to be done?
[Josh] Good.
And you'll send me lots of photos?
Yeah, many, many.
Hey, thank you so much.
Gracias.
[Josh] Thank you so much.
Okay. The long journey back up to the surface.
-[Pablo] Okay. -Let's go.
[Josh] In terms of the legend of King Pelayo,
there's little doubt that he was
an actual historical figure,
but his story didn't unfold
the way the Christian chronicles would have us believe.
Evidence hidden in the foundations of Gauzon Castle
suggests that, rather than being
a shining Christian knight from the big city,
Pelayo might well have been a home-grown Asturian leader,
a king of the north, a Braveheart,
who rallied local warriors to win an improbable victory.
The vampiric skeletons we found
in the depths of La Garma
show us that this was a time
where Christianity was still deeply infused
with pagan beliefs.
And as for the seemingly venerated warriors
buried deep in the cave,
they could well be among those
who fought victoriously at the Battle of Covadonga.
What we do know
is that, much like the Cross of Victory,
Pelayo's story has been gilded, embellished,
to animate a young country forging a new identity.
And now, 1,300 years after Pelayo united his people,
his story continues to inspire them.