[Josh] This brings us to the mystery of Alexander the Great.
His body and his tomb are missing.
Crazy though it seems, we don't know where it is.
Look at this place.
What have you found here?
-This was the foundation of a building. -Yeah.
This part is the south end of the building.
[Josh] Whatever this building was, it must have been important.
This base was made for a building very tall
and very big.
[Josh] But is it big enough to be the tomb of Alexander?
We can't tell the dimensions because the north wall
is hidden somewhere under that apartment complex.
We are very close to the modern street
and this huge building.
But recently, we found a tunnel.
You found a tunnel?
We can use the tunnel to see where the building goes?
Yes.
Okay, here we go.
Oh, boy.
This, this is about as tight as it gets.
-Josh, look at this. -So more stones.
This is the western wall, yeah?
The end of western wall.
-Aha. -And this.
-Oh, this is the corner. -Yes.
-This is the northern wall. -Yeah.
Oh, my word.
Josh, look to the side.
We've got ceramics and, oh, this is painted.
Look at this.
This is painted plaster and more.
We have a red, blue, and yellow plaster.
So I have seen these colors before in Greece
in the tomb of Philip II, Alexander's father
and you have found many of these?
-Many. -This whole thing was painted.
[laughs]
This feels deeper than before. Why is this deeper?
[alarm blaring]
[yells in foreign language]
[all exclaiming]
-There is a problem. Fix! -Please, hurry, tell anyone to fix it?
Tunnel's filling with water. Get Josh out now.
The pumps are down. You have to get out of the tunnel.
The pump is broken.
-Water's coming up. -This is flooding.
This is flooding.
-Oh. -Yes, we go, we go.
Come on, come on. Let's get out of here.
[speaking other language]
[in English] Here we go, guys. Come on, come on, come on.
Keep moving.
We are about to be underwater. Come on.
[bleep]
Come on. We're going to drown in here.
I see them. They're coming out.
We're coming.
Okay.
-You guys okay? -Yeah. Yeah. What happened?
The line broke. Are you okay?
Yeah, I'm okay.
-You're okay? -I'm okay.
We're okay.
This is the first time I see the tunnel like that.
-First time it's this flooded? -Yes.
-We saw the north wall and the painted plaster. -Great.
-Now we know the size, yeah? -Yes, exactly.
Okay.
Can I get out of here now?
It's about time.
Come on, come on. Let's go.
Oh, my word.
That was close.
The past is all around us.
Oh, this is crazy.
A world of mystery.
This is a plane.
Yeah.
[Josh] Danger.
We are about to be underwater.
Whoa!
And adventure.
It's just straight down!
[exclaiming]
I travel to the far corners of the Earth
to uncover where legends end.
And history begins.
Okay, let's punch it.
I'm Josh Gates, and this is Expedition Unknown.
Oh, my God.
[sighs]
Okay.
Maybe a lunch break?
What lunch break? It's two o'clock.
-We have more to do. -Oh, man.
Mahmoud.
She's relentless.
That shouldn't be a surprise.
A person needs to be determined if they're going
to find Alexander the Great.
The last resting place of history's greatest conqueror
is also the greatest missing persons case in history,
not to mention a treasure-filled tomb beyond compare,
one that has eluded scholars and adventurers for centuries.
My own search kicked off in Vergina, Greece,
in what were once the rolling hills of Macedon,
a small tribal kingdom that grew into
a lethal fighting force, thanks to Philip II,
who began a revolution in warfare that his son,
Alexander, turned into a fun hobby called
taking over the world, spreading his empire
from Macedon into Europe and as far as the edge of India.
Using honed military skills and innovative,
long-handled spears known as sarissas,
Alexander crushed the competing powers of his day.
And how would you describe his reign?
The most successful military campaign in world history.
[Josh] In Egypt, he was welcomed as a pharaoh
and pronounced a living god.
It could be argued that no person changed
the world as much as Alexander.
Oh, and he did it all by age 32.
I've never felt less accomplished.
But then, a sudden and mysterious death
from illness turned the game board upside down.
It was probably the most devastating
piece of news that the world had seen up to that point.
[Josh] Philip's subterranean tomb in Greece glitters with
ancient treasures and is adorned with the royal emblem
known as the Vergina Star.
This gave me a good idea of the even more valuable treasure
that assuredly lies with his son, Alexander.
Except, slight wrinkle, we don't know exactly where he is.
After Alexander died in the conquered city of Babylon,
his massive funeral procession was hijacked by
one of his successors, the pharaoh Ptolemy,
who arranged for his body to be brought
to the harbor city Alexander founded, Alexandria, Egypt.
2,000 years ago, the geographer Strabo
described the tomb as an immense structure
with a pyramid roof surrounded by
a large fortification wall.
But after 20 centuries of earthquakes, tsunamis
and modern construction, Alexandria is now
the largest city on the Mediterranean.
And that's where archaeologist Calliope Papakosta comes in.
She's used ancient sources to unearth roads
that Alexander the Great himself designed.
Those landmarks led her to dig a very big hole,
30 feet beneath modern Alexandria.
You're like excavating a city down here.
In this sprawling site, we dug down
to the so-called Hellenistic or Greek layer
and found a coin from the period right after Alexander's death.
You know, just a 2,000-year-old coin,
no big deal.
As well as the top of an ancient pillar.
The question is, a pillar from what?
Calliope has also discovered part of the foundation
of a building from the same period.
By exploring and escaping from a flooded tunnel,
we now know that the mystery building
was 140 feet long and 110 feet wide,
massive enough to be Alexander's long-lost tomb.
But it's still circumstantial.
Calliope will need to uncover more secrets about
the structure before she's able to declare victory.
-So let me show you this. -[Josh] This is painted.
-[Calliope] It is painting. -[Josh] These red bands on here.
-Yes. -This is similar to decoration we find in tombs.
So this may be like a funerary painting.
I think it's a funerary painting.
[Josh] These colors match those that I saw deep under
the street on the other side of the building.
So does this convince you that somebody was buried here?
No, it's not enough. We must find much more to be sure about this.
Yes.
One of those things is something that appears
just outside the mystery building.
You see these line of blocks?
-Yes, these big limestone blocks. -Yes.
These look like the big limestone blocks
from the foundation of the building.
The same size and material with
the stones of the building.
But it's not the only line of blocks.
We have one here.
-Oh, behind us. -See?
-One and second one. -Running parallel.
Quite parallel to this line.
So this is maybe a wall with fill in between.
We have to continue the excavation to confirm that.
[Josh] The ancient writer Strabo says that Alexander's tomb
was surrounded by a peribelos, or a large wall.
Could that be what we're seeing here?
Just the fact that this building might have a wall
around it further reinforces that the building
must have been very important.
-Yes. -You don't build a huge fortification wall
around an insignificant building.
So if this is a wall and it's running parallel
to the building and maybe wraps around it,
-that would be huge. -Exactly.
Do we see more blocks on the other side?
We have found a few, but we must see if they continue.
Okay. Can you show me?
-Of course. -Yeah.
To determine if this wall was constructed to surround
the building here on the site, we go to see how far it extends.
So here we are.
Yes, and you see that we found the continuation of the stones.
The stones continue, at least for a little bit.
Yes, but not only here.
-There is the other line also. -Oh, the big stone over here.
-See this big block. -Yes.
[Calliope] So we have the two lines of stones.
[Josh] So two lines of stones continuing,
and maybe the fill in the middle.
And it's headed in the direction of the building,
which is over there.
The mystery building is here, and Calliope has discovered
what looks like a run of blocks that could be signs of
a double-sided wall.
Now, if those blocks continue and truly run parallel
to the building, she could prove that
this is a wall matching the one that surrounded
Alexander's tomb.
So we need to go deeper.
Deeper in the same layer with the stones, with the blocks.
-Okay, so we dig? -Of course.
[Josh] Calliope's team is ready to search for
the critical evidence below our feet,
which means...
it's time to get to work.
Step one, move dirt.
Along with my friend from the tunnel, Mahmoud Samir,
I join the dig team and we start progressing
further and further back in time.
-Calliope, when do we get a break again? -Twelve o'clock.
-Is that okay? -Midnight, you mean?
[laughs] You are already tired?
No, no, no. Not at all.
Why am I the only one digging?
-[speaking other language] -[laughs]
[in English] He said that you don't work, you make jokes with me.
[Josh] Step two, stop joking and examine dirt.
-We start sifting now. -Sifting the soil.
Yes, okay, let's do it.
The soil we've moved could contain priceless artifacts
from the distant past, and we don't want to miss them.
Okay, so what will we keep here? What are we looking for?
Sometimes we found coins or charcoal like this.
-Ah, there's charcoal, yeah. Look at that. -Yes.
-So evidence of burning here. -Yes.
Like this layer.
[Josh] Alexandria has fallen victim to earthquakes and conflict,
I join the is most likely how the tomb became lost
in the first place.
Calliope, this burning layer here,
is that like a destruction layer?
I suppose so.
We know that Alexandria had been burned many times.
So this is a very interesting element.
-Most of our coins, we found it like that. -Yeah?
-Most of them you found in the sifting? -Yes.
-See. -Pottery?
My God. There's just material everywhere.
So bone here?
-Bone? -Yes, bones.
So small animal bones here.
We keep digging, our eyes peeled
for telltale blocks of stone.
Stone isn't the only thing here that tells tales.
[speaking other language]
[Josh in English] Oh, something green?
Coin?
Ah, another coin!
It's corroded, but you can almost
already make out something on there.
-So what do you think, Calliope? -Yeah.
-It can be cleaned more, but it's in a good condition. -Yeah.
Okay, so maybe we can date the coin.
That would be huge.
Help give us an idea of when we are here.
Just above the site is a makeshift lab
where Mahmoud catalogues the team's discoveries,
including several other coins that have been unearthed
in the past few days.
With him is Khalid Ismail, a numismatist, or coin expert,
who can hopefully tell us about the loose change
we've pulled out of the ground.
So these are all bronze coins, right?
So we have this corrosion, this kind of blue-green corrosion on them.
So how do we get them to a point where we can read
what's on the coin?
We have to completely cover coin by solution.
Got it.
The solution is 5% formic acid mixed with distilled water,
designed to eat away at the thick crust of corrosion
formed over thousands of years.
Even after a few seconds here,
we see this water's turning blue.
Yes, it means we have active corrosion.
-Active corrosion. -Active corrosion.
So that's being pulled out of the coin?
-Yes. -Okay.
Next up, a little elbow grease.
Our expert applies a motorized copper brush
to the face of the coin.
This is delicate because you want to get rid of
the corrosion,
but not the markings on the coin.
Okay, let's see what we can see.
Khaled, you're up.
An eagle.
Yeah.
-May I? Look at that. You can see the eagle here. -Yes.
-Isn't that beautiful? -Yes, it's amazing.
And can we see anything on the front side?
A face?
And?
-It's Alexander the Great. -That's Alexander.
Yes.
Oh, it's Alexander the Great.
-That's Alexander? -Yes.
-This is the head of Alexander. -Yes.
[Josh] I'm in Alexandria, Egypt, at a dig site searching
for evidence of a fortification wall
that we hope once surrounded a mysterious building
that could be the tomb of Alexander the Great.
Right now, though, we found some cold, hard,
and historic cash.
-He's looking to the right. -Yeah.
You can see his nose and mouth.
Alexander the Great.
Yes.
[Josh] As we can see with a slightly less weathered coin,
Alexander's very face was currency here in Alexandria,
but surprisingly, not in his lifetime.
-It's a coin that Ptolemies minted, not Alexander. -Right.
That means that Ptolemies continued to make coins
with the head of Alexander.
This tells you everything you need to know about
his influence, his power.
[Calliope] Yes, of course.
That's why Ptolemy wanted to bring his body in Alexandria.
Whoever had the body of Alexander should be
the greatest king.
Incredible.
Well, it's not the tomb of Alexander, but it's Alexander.
At least we have a coin.
Yes, that's history right there.
The coin stamped with Alexander's face is likely
from the centuries after his death,
when the pharaohs that followed him co-opted
his image to consolidate their power.
But it's a huge sign that our dig is getting close to
the layer from the time of Alexander's burial.
We return to the trench, knowing from the coin
that we're likely right above the layer where
the fortification wall should be.
On our way down, we find the remains of ceramic wine vessels.
Look.
It's very beautiful, huh?
So we can see, we can get a sense here
of the size of these containers.
A lot of them.
Look at that.
Big piece of the neck.
Ooh, part of the handle down there.
-[Calliope] Yeah. -Here we go.
-Broken but beautiful. -Yes.
Why do you think all these vessels were here?
Because there were people working or living here.
Something else?
-So this would be the very top of the vessel. -Yes, yes.
Look at that.
Beauty.
But no wine left. This is a tragedy.
-Yeah. -This is a tragedy.
And speaking of wine, I'm going to start drinking
if we don't find something soon to confirm that
this line of stones was once a wall.
Of course we will continue.
We have to excavate all this area.
-Right. -I hope that in another spot
-we'll find also this line to be continued. -Right.
Calliope has been in this position before,
but doesn't give up easily.
So we cross our fingers and keep going,
finding only small pieces of broken stone.
Look how many pieces there are.
-[Josh] Limestone everywhere. -Yeah.
Wow.
-But we could... -[speaking other language]
-[in English] Oh, no. -Really?
-Did you find a stone? -Yes.
-It continues.
-Yes. -Ha!
This is for sure another one of these big limestone blocks
that continues right through here.
-This is just broken up in here. -Oh, my God.
I will start crying now.
No, I was disappointed when I didn't see this area
having the same stones. I said, maybe I'm wrong.
But now you see. Look at it.
-You see? -It's amazing.
-It means I'm right. -Yeah.
[Calliope] Great, great.
[Josh] Let's go in and take a look. Come here.
So up close and personal here, we can see
this big limestone block,
which looks exactly the same dimensions
as the one leading up to it here.
So this does continue.
This is a long, continuous foundation of some kind in
a parallel line with another one over here.
So I mean, that's pretty cool.
We measure the stone to see if it matches the width
of the previously found section.
-How wide? -60.
-60 centimeters, okay? -Okay.
Let's check this one now.
-60. -60.
-Exact same width. -Yes.
-Okay. -Great, great, great.
[Josh] This could be it.
We've confirmed that there was likely a fortification wall
that surrounded our building, a wall like the one
mentioned in the ancient account of Alexander's tomb.
We have this huge building with massive foundations
right in the middle of the city,
maybe surrounded by a large wall.
In the royal quarter of ancient Alexandria.
Do you think that could be his tomb?
For sure, it is a very important building
of the royal area, of the royal court.
We need more evidence, more clues to understand the identity.
Are you hopeful?
Of course, hope is everything in our work.
Alexander is one of the most towering figures in history.
It is kind of remarkable that he's lost in a way.
Yes, that's why it's so important to find the tools.
So now we just need to excavate all of this
all the way to the end of the site today.
I don't promise you this.
We can do it. Come on, guys.
Let's get digging.
Got a lot of work to do.
Calliope has invested decades into this dig,
and I rest easy knowing that she won't stop
until she's turned over every stone to confirm
whether this is Alexander's tomb.
But while she continues to investigate here,
another theory has emerged from an expert
who believes Alexandria was not the final stop
for the conqueror's remains.
In fact, he's got a wild theory that, if true,
would change everything we think we know about Alexander.
To meet this researcher, I bid farewell to Egypt
and fly 2,000 miles to London?
[majestic music playing]
The River Thames is flanked by some
quintessentially English landmarks.
This is not one of them.
Cleopatra's Needle is a 70-foot tall,
180-ton Egyptian obelisk.
Here to tell me how this 3,500-year-old monument
ended up here is historian and author of five books
on Alexander the Great, Andrew Chugg.
How wild is that to see an ancient Egyptian monument
right in the middle of London?
Yes.
It's migrated its way from Heliopolis in Egypt to Alexandria,
and from Alexandria eventually to here.
Yeah.
We actually have one of these as well right in the middle of
-Central Park in New York City. -That's right.
They used to stand together in the middle of Alexandria
-outside the Caesarean temple. -Right.
So this was, at one point,
where I've just come from, Alexandria, Egypt.
And I guess it's a good reminder
that many treasures from the ancient world
had a way of migrating to other empires.
Yes, things didn't always stay put.
Exactly.
And that brings me to Alexander.
You know, I've just seen these incredible excavations
happening in Alexandria.
What do you think?
Do you believe Alexander and his tomb
are still buried somewhere in the city?
Well, I think it's more likely that they too have migrated.
Like The Needle here?
Like The Needle here, exactly.
Okay, and what about his tomb?
Part of his tomb may also have migrated.
Not just that, but I'm hoping to show you
-the proof. -Okay, I'm ready to be convinced.
-Where do we go? -It's not far from here, just down the street.
-Okay. -Follow me.
Down the street.
I follow Andrew to a very famous address.
As the sun begins to set, I'm geeking out
because we're about to get an after-hours pass
to spend a night at the British Museum.
Welcome to the greatest collection of antiquities
in the Western world and for a few hours,
we have it all to ourselves.
Absolutely stunning.
Over eight million objects spanning all of human history
including a classic bust of Alexander the Great
and this little beauty, the Rosetta Stone.
A tablet inscribed in three languages,
Egyptian, Greek and Demotic.
This was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphics
of ancient Egypt and changed our understanding
of their world forever.
[Andrew] One of the world's great museums designed
to inspire awe.
And that it does.
I'm just trying to keep from doing cartwheels
as Andrew leads me into the Egyptian wing
and one often overlooked object.
Josh, I present to you my candidate for
the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great.
You're saying this could be the sarcophagus of Alexander?
-I think it very probably is. -Very probably is?
That's a big claim, Andrew.
Absolutely, but all the evidence points that way.
[Josh] I've joined historian Andrew Chugg on his quest
for the last resting place of the conqueror Alexander the Great.
Which he believes is connected to this relic
in the British Museum.
There's only one problem with it that I can see.
All right, let's start with this. It's empty.
-Yeah. -So let's talk about this.
This is a huge granite sarcophagus,
and it looks very Egyptian, right?
Covered in hieroglyphics.
So any chance these say, here lies Alexander the Great?
If only it were that easy.
We can read the hieroglyphs thanks to the Rosetta Stone,
and they identify the sarcophagus as that of
a preceding pharaoh called Nectanebo II.
[Josh] Okay, buckle up.
Nectanebo II was the last native-born pharaoh of Egypt,
driven out of the country by the invading Persian Empire.
And when he blew town, he left all of his stuff behind,
and I do mean all of it.
In the deserts of Saqqara in Egypt,
historian James Rahm showed me where Nectanebo's
unused funerary temple once stood.
Since it was empty when Alexander died,
it may have been the perfect place to temporarily store his body.
And what about the sarcophagus?
Does this stay in Saqqara? Is that where it was found?
No, the sarcophagus is discovered in Alexandria.
Wait a second.
This sarcophagus, which weighs what?
-Seven tons. -Seven tons.
Was moved hundreds of miles to Alexandria.
Exactly, yes.
So why move this thing?
He would only move this thing in order to carry the body
of somebody really important.
Like Alexander the Great?
Such as Alexander the Great, specifically Alexander the Great.
[Josh] Andrew believes that this sarcophagus containing
the gold-lined mummy of Alexander was brought to Alexandria,
where it was used to hold the body inside his tomb
and where it remained until the tomb itself disappeared
around the year 400.
Okay, this part sounds plausible,
but now things get murky.
Andrew also believes that the body and the sarcophagus
go their separate ways because of a major religious shift in Egypt.
What happens historically is that the emperor of Rome
decrees that Christianity will now be
the only legal religion.
-Right. -And Alexander is a pagan god
by order of the Senate, so this is a big problem.
[Josh] Andrew contends that the sarcophagus
and the body within were hidden to keep them safe
from the threat of a newly dominant religion.
And what of this sarcophagus? Where does it go?
We know that it must have been moved from the tomb
'cause it turns up in a rather unusual place.
[Josh] And just as I'm starting to think that Andrew has read
too many Dan Brown novels, he shows me this.
A map of Alexandria from 1575.
On it is a structure known as the Attarine Mosque,
depicted by a minaret and a small octagonal building.
And Josh, can you see what's written underneath
that small octagonal building?
[Josh reading]
[Andrew] Exactly.
And that is Latin for the House of Alexander the Great.
[Josh] Andrew explains that by the late 1500s,
the sarcophagus had moved to the mosque for safekeeping.
And he's got the receipts.
-We know that because of Napoleon. -Napoleon?
Yes.
Napoleon came to Egypt in 1798 with an invasion fleet,
and he took Alexandria.
-[Josh] Right. -[Andrew] And that's when he found the sarcophagus.
If you look here on the next view...
Uh-huh.
This is an engraving made by Napoleon's scholars.
And now, are we inside this mosque?
We're inside the courtyard of the mosque.
You can see the minaret again here.
And you can see the small octagonal building.
And inside, if you look very carefully...
[Josh] Get out of here.
You can see the sarcophagus that stands right behind us.
-It's here in the mosque? -Yes.
[Josh] Once the British took Egypt from Napoleon in 1801,
the sarcophagus was brought here to London.
This means, though it sounds crazy,
this seven-ton chunk of granite may actually have held
none other than Alexander himself.
But Andrew is sitting on an even bigger bombshell,
the true location of Alexander's body.
Right around the time
that Alexander's tomb disappears,
we have the appearance of another really important tomb,
the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist, no less.
As in the Book of Mark, as in from the Gospels of The Bible?
Exactly that Mark.
[Josh] Saint Mark the Evangelist was not only the source
for a New Testament gospel, he was the founder of
the Christian church in Alexandria.
And it is true that his tomb conveniently
materializes there just as Alexander's disappears.
So what about the body? Where does the body go?
Andrew thinks that the body of Alexander
and the magnificent Soma, his lavish tomb,
were simply repurposed.
Instead of belonging to the founder of Alexandria,
they were rebranded as belonging to the founder
of Alexandria's church, St. Mark.
Now, wait a minute. I thought that St. Mark's body was in Venice.
Isn't it in Italy in this giant basilica there?
Yes, that's because...
uh, in 828 AD, when the Christians in Alexandria
were under pressure from Islam,
they allowed some Venetian traders to take
the body back to Venice and rebury it there
as the patron saint of the city.
Wait a minute. Are you saying that the body of
Alexander the Great is in the tomb of St. Mark in Venice?
That's certainly the idea.
[Josh] We are now in full Da Vinci Code territory.
This theory, if it's true,
would be like dropping a grenade into history,
a revelation that the long-lost body of Alexander the Great
has been lying in Venice since the ninth century,
masquerading as Saint Mark the Evangelist.
And how could you possibly prove that?
The body of St. Mark used to be in a crypt in Venice,
but the body in 1811 was moved upstairs
because of the threat of continual flooding in the crypt.
Uh-huh.
Then, in 1960, an archaeologist discovered
embedded in the wall of the crypt
an astonishing artifact,
a block of sculpted ancient limestone depicting
a long-handled spear, as well as a shield bearing
the Star of Vergina, the same Macedonian symbol
that appears on the funerary box of Alexander's father, Philip.
What is it?
Well, Andrew believes that Alexander's sarcophagus
was wrapped in a custom casing,
a Macedonian layer covering the original Egyptian inscriptions,
meaning that the block in St. Mark's Crypt
was once mounted on the sarcophagus
that is currently here in London.
It's a jigsaw puzzle.
If we could prove that this star shield block fits
the sarcophagus, it would prove the theory.
It's unlikely that the church will allow us to bring
the block here, but if we could get
a scan of the block, then...
If it interlocks with the sarcophagus,
we would have proved the theory.
It would demonstrate that Alexander's body
was in this sarcophagus, and it would demonstrate that
the body that was brought to St. Mark's originally
was also Alexander.
Exactly.
Okay.
Does this mean we're going to Venice?
-You're going to Venice. -All right, off to Venice.
You just wait here, and I'll be right back.
Maybe don't wait here. It's going to take a few days.
-But I will be back. -Bon voyage.
Okay.
I'll be back.
To investigate Andrew's theory,
I rush to Heathrow and fly from London,
700 miles, to Venice, Italy.
This place has many names.
City of bridges, city of canals, the floating city.
Take your pick. They all fit the bill.
That's because while Earth has plenty of perfectly
good land to build on, at some point in history,
somebody said, nah, let's do something much harder.
And well, here we are.
Believe it or not, this is my very first visit to Venice.
That's right, I've been to over 100 countries,
but I've never been to one of the most popular
tourist destinations on Earth.
126 islands connected by 472 bridges.
It is as improbable as it is beautiful.
There's just no place else like it on the planet.
And at the center of this floating dream
is the Square of St. Mark's, lorded over by
its stunning basilica.
When you first see St. Mark's, it literally takes your breath away.
And whether you find it majestic or a little gaudy
or divine, one thing's for sure,
it is unforgettable.
Subtle it is not.
Beneath the domes of the church are
86,000 square feet of mosaics, marble, and gold,
enough to cover nearly two football fields.
It is one of the most opulent houses of worship
in the world, and it is all to honor St. Mark.
In particular, take a look at the mosaics
on the outside of the basilica.
So St. Mark's remains were allegedly brought here
in the year 828, when Venetian sailors stole his body
from a church in Alexandria.
They smuggled him out in a barrel of pork fat,
which, judging by the reactions,
probably didn't smell very good.
What's really weird, though, is the condition of his body.
So they brought him here 700 years after his death,
but do those look like 700-year-old remains?
The mosaic shows onlookers gathered around
a fully intact corpse.
Not a skeleton or a box of bones
as one might assume after so many centuries,
which could suggest the body was preserved
or even mummified.
Now, there is one really easy way we could solve this mystery.
A scientific analysis of whoever's entombed inside
could certainly help identify the individual.
But unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church
is not all that jazzed about the possibility of
a St. Mark, Alexander switcheroo.
So I've probably got a better chance
of being made a saint than getting access
to whoever's inside.
But lucky for me, the thing I'm here to investigate
isn't inside the church at all.
Far from the crowded square, tucked away
in the labyrinth of Venice's canals,
is a place most visitors never see,
the Cloister of St. Apollonia.
It's here that the church has stored
the mysterious block discovered in the crypt of
St. Mark.
I'm meeting with imaging expert Pietro Meloni,
who leads me to the relic.
-Well, Josh, this is it. -This is the piece?
Yeah.
[Josh] That's the symbol of Alexander.
Right away, you can see that
this is something really special.
This is clearly that star shield that is like
the symbol of Macedonia.
I'm in Venice, Italy, home to St. Mark's Basilica,
in whose crypt this ancient casing block was discovered.
One researcher believes it once adorned
the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great,
which, if true, could tell us where
his long-lost remains lie today.
And this shield with the Macedonian symbol
known as the Vergina Star isn't the only thing
that connects to Alexander.
-And have you seen the spear? -Oh, yes, this is a spear.
This is the tip, and then it actually
is broken off where the stone is broken,
but clearly a long spear.
-It was a sarissa spear. -It does.
It looks like a sarissa spear, like the exact spear
that Alexander's army used to great effect.
Sarissas were long-handled spears
pioneered by Alexander's father,
which helped Alexander conquer most of the known world.
And then we have something else here that
can't really tell what this is.
Could be an arm, somebody holding the spear.
Could be a leg, the way that it tapers.
But these are very evocative of Macedonia.
Like, this is a very weird thing to find
in the tomb of a Christian saint.
Sure.
-We have to get a scan of this so that I can bring... -Yeah.
...that data back to the British Museum
and see if this somehow links in with the sarcophagus
-they have there. -No problem.
-I have a scanner with me. -Let's get into it.
Pietro breaks out an Artec Leo scanner.
It takes 40 photos a second, which are knitted together
to create an ultra-detailed 3D image of the block,
accurate to within fractions of a millimeter.
We start scanning every square inch of the stone,
making sure to grab data from multiple angles.
It's painstaking work.
For those hard-to-reach spots, I stand atop a step ladder
to scan above and behind the artifact.
Eventually, though, we manage to cover the entire thing.
Okay, moment of truth.
Do we have a good scan?
Yes, and it looks great.
[Josh] Oh, look at that!
-[Pietro] Yes. -[Josh] Amazing.
All of these features really jump out.
We can even see, to some extent, behind it.
[Pietro speaking]
Wow. But that's really interesting,
because you get a lot of highlights.
[Pietro] Yes. More details.
[Josh] Much more detail when you look at it monochromatically.
[Pietro] Sure.
This looks awesome. Thank you so much.
-No problem. -Okay.
Well, back to London.
With the scan complete, I hurry back to the British Museum,
where I reconnect with historian Andrew Chugg.
-Hi, Josh. -Right where I left you.
Hi, welcome back.
[Josh] To see if the block from St. Mark's in Venice
once belonged on this sarcophagus found
in Alexandria.
I'd like to introduce to you Joe Steel,
director and co-founder of Visualskies.
-Great to meet you. -Nice to meet you, Josh.
It's a 3D scanning company that can help us
with our reconstruction.
-Terrific. -That's right.
And you got the data that I sent from Venice?
Absolutely. I have it loaded here now.
-Did I do okay? -Fantastic scan.
I've never seen better. I'm out of a job almost.
Oh, come on now.
-You're laying it on too thick, Joe. -Yeah, I know. Sorry.
So let's take a look at it.
Yeah, so here we go. Here's the scan you did.
[Josh] This is amazing. It's like floating in free space here.
[Joseph] Yeah, that's right. This is augmented reality.
[Josh] Augmented reality will allow us
to virtually place the casing block in real space
and to see if it fits onto the sarcophagus in front of us.
And I have to say, Andrew, it really is, as you described it,
this looks so Macedonian.
This looks like that classic star shield.
Absolutely.
It has the symmetries and the spareness in the design.
It has life-size weapons.
We can see a Macedonian cavalry sarissa.
We can see the star shield itself.
With the famously emblazoned Star of Vergina.
And that very badly damaged feature there
is a pair of greaves, lower leg armor.
So you think this would have been like battle armor?
It's what we see in the same kinds of scenes in other contexts.
Right.
In fact, the greaves, or leg armor,
of Alexander's father were prominently placed
in his tomb back in Greece.
On the side, if we rotate it around a bit,
we can see that there's a Macedonian kopis sword,
and it's suspended diagonally from a tasseled belt,
which is hung around a peg.
[Josh] And this is also a Macedonian symbol?
Absolutely pure Macedonian symbol seen in
other Macedonian tombs of high status.
[Josh] Okay, so now the big question is,
does this fit on top of the sarcophagus?
So how do we figure that out?
So what we can do is layer this on top of the sarcophagus
as it exists today using augmented reality.
We can actually walk around it and see if it fits.
-Correct, exactly. -Wow, the future's amazing.
-Okay, let's do it. -Yeah.
[Josh] It is so cool to see this digital scan projected
into the real world here.
First thing I notice is that the block and the sarcophagus
are really similarly sized.
Yeah, I noticed the same thing,
and the block and the sarcophagus
are the same size within a centimeter,
which is just crazy.
Andrew, that's really promising
right out of the gate.
That's absolutely incredible.
But it doesn't quite work with this on the end, though, right?
It would kind of be hovering off there
in free space.
That's right. Let's try it over here.
-Yeah, down here? -Yeah, let's go.
What do you think?
This doesn't work either because there's no real indication
that this stone connected to a curved segment.
If anything, it seems like a straight piece came in there.
Okay, we keep looking?
We continue to test the block all around the sarcophagus.
Andrew's theory is on the line here.
What if it doesn't fit anywhere?
Oh, I think it will. I have faith.
You have faith?
-All right. -Absolutely.
Well, I hope that works out for us.
Otherwise, we're all going to be at the pub in about a half an hour.
If the block doesn't fit, then the body in St. Mark's Basilica
may only be St. Mark, not Alexander the Great.
And how boring would that be?
So this also seems like a bad fit.
We're not quite there yet.
Could it have fit in the center somewhere,
or you think it's an end piece?
It's an end piece, I'd say,
because of the sword on the side.
Come on, come on.
-There you go, yeah. -Oh. It fits.
-That's it. -That is it.
Absolutely.
Oh, my God.
[Josh] At Calliope Papakosta's dig in Alexandria,
her supervisor, Hosni, is in charge of
keeping everything moving.
That, I quickly learn, includes me.
[speaking other language]
[in English] Okay, wait.
What is yalla, yalla?
-And then what is the other one? -[speaking other language]
What is [speaking other language]
-[in English] Quickly, quickly. -Quickly, quickly.
-Quickly, quickly? -Yes.
-What is yalla, yalla? -The same.
Same, same.
It's all just you screaming at me.
Okay, I got it. I got it. Okay.
Okay, I got it. Back to work. I got it.
[speaking other language]
-[in English] It's all just being screamed at. -[speaking other language]
Okay. [speaking other language]
-Yalla, yalla. -[speaking other language]
[in English] Help me.
-There you go. Yeah. -Oh!
-It fits. -[Andrew] That's it.
That is it.
-Absolutely. -Oh, my God.
-That is a perfect fit. -That's where it fits.
Bang on.
[Josh] In the British Museum in London,
we're using augmented reality and have just matched
a Macedonian funerary block found in the crypt of St. Mark
to a sarcophagus found in Alexandria, Egypt.
It means the body inside may have been none other than
the conqueror Alexander the Great.
Look at how perfectly that sits there.
[Andrew] It's an excellent fit.
I mean, right down to this almost seems like it interlocks
into the very edge of the corner here.
So the next step here is we can actually try
to reconstruct the blocks that we're missing.
Okay.
Andrew and Joseph have worked together,
and using Andrew's decades of research on ancient Macedon,
they've managed to visually reconstruct
the rest of the casing that surrounded the sarcophagus,
so that we can view what the complete tomb
might have looked like for the very first time.
-If this stone wasn't broken, it would look like what? -Let's go. Exactly.
There we go.
That's incredible.
We need to test that the corner of the spear hits
the bottom right-hand corner of the block.
[Josh] Get out of here. Oh, my word.
There it goes. Yep.
It's through exactly the spot.
And this goes right to the edge of the curve
of the sarcophagus.
[Joseph] Exactly where there would have been another block.
This is like magic.
It means we have a fit between the casing
and the sarcophagus in length as well as in height.
And can you reconstruct the other sides?
-Yeah, absolutely. And the end. Let's go. -Okay, what's that look like?
Unbelievable. That is incredible.
And can we see the long side over here?
Yeah, let's go.
Okay, so now this side.
-There we go. -Unreal.
-[Andrew] A mirror of the opposite side. -[Josh] Yeah.
They were big into symmetry, yes?
[Andrew] Absolutely.
Symmetry was the whole thing.
Look at that.
That is unbelievable.
-It just looks so perfect wrapped around it. -Perfect.
Just perfect in every way.
That's the way it fits.
Perfectly.
Okay, so, Andrew, I don't want to say that I doubted you,
but when you first hear this story,
it sounds far-fetched, right? It sounds wild.
But when you step through it, it sounds incredibly logical.
We have followed the evidence.
We've ignored opinions and followed the evidence
at every step.
And we've unwound what you're correct is
a very tortuous story.
And at the end, we found that
we can bring the two parts of the story together,
the sarcophagus in the British Museum
and the body that went to Venice.
And when we bring them together,
we find they click together precisely,
and they're literally a physical fit.
-Literally. -We've seen it today, haven't we?
We have.
Are you convinced?
I'm absolutely convinced this is definitely
Alexander's tomb.
I have to say I'm really gobsmacked by all of this.
I just can't believe how compelling the data is
and how well this fits.
And the digital picture painted here is just really,
really hard to ignore.
-Incredible. -Incredible.
Thank you so much.
-You're welcome. -Cheers. Thank you.
-Awesome work. -Thank you.
[Josh] The world has been around for quite a while.
Don't take my word for it.
Just dig down into the soil of Egypt
and you'll see centuries and empires reduced to an inch of earth.
Or as a better writer than I once put it,
"Look upon my works ye mighty and despair."
Well, not to contradict Mr. Shelley,
but Alexander the Great is eternal.
Not just a player within history,
but one of its guiding forces.
His brilliant military mind brought millions of lives
under his control, and his singular vision
married cultures.
There is likely nobody before or since who has had such
a lasting impact on the world.
In death, his body became a symbol of power,
and his tomb a sacred place.
Through the millennia, many have searched for
his remains, for his mausoleum,
and for the treasure that may lie with them.
Perhaps his soma, the temple where he rested,
is only a few layers of dirt away,
hidden beneath a modern city.
And it's possible that his sarcophagus lies in
a country he never knew, as his remains
inspire millions in an unprecedented case
of mistaken identity.
One thing, though, is certain.
Alexander the Great will never be forgotten.