[josh] tonight...
The conclusion of our epic quest to unlock the mysteries of moses.
-There's a tomb of moses? -Yeah. Yes.
Can we see it?
I venture over 3000 years into the past,
Climbing to the peak of mount sinai.
We are now above most of the other peaks,
You can just see the outlines in the darkness.
And the search for evidence that moses led his people
Into the desert.
In the world of the old testament,
This would be an israelite. This is pretty extraordinary.
And a relic from exodus may be lost in the depths
Of the sea of galilee.
It cannot be natural, it has to be manmade.
Can you show me where it is?
-The water is warm, though, right? -No.
[man] yeah.
Okay, great.
Just a couple guys under a heavy cloth in the middle
Of the desert. Really breathes in here.
Fire!
Yes!
I didn't know collecting data could be this much fun.
Hang on. Oh, boy. Yeah! [laughs]
It's an adventure with only one commandment,
"thou shalt watch."
I'd say that about sums it up.
My name is josh gates.
Hello!
Explorer,
Adventurer...
-Amazing. -Help!
...And a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
[bleep] whoo! That was exciting.
With a degree in archaeology and a passion
For the unexplained.
-[laughs] -I travel to the ends of the earth
Investigating the greatest legends in history.
Hey, let's punch it.
This is expedition unkno.
Moses, man or myth?
I'm on a hunt for answers using modern science
And archaeology to unravel the history behind this biblical mystery.
Moses is a prophet in judais christianity and islam.
A towering figure with humble beginnings.
According to scripture, moses was a hebrew raised I
The palace of the pharaoh in egypt.
One brick down, a few hundred to go.
I've opened the sealed tomb of a powerful vizier
With a unique background.
His name is aper-el. It's not an egyptian name.
So what is it?
It's a semitic name.
With evidence that a person like moses was able to reac
The highest ranks of a pharaoh's court.
I crossed into the vast deserts of the sinai peninsu
To a remote monastery at the base
Of the biblical mount sinai
[rabbi] everything was built here, because this is the place
Of the burning bush.
Wait a minute, you mean the burning bush?
[grunts] come on.
At the top of this most mystical mountain,
God himself is said to have bestowed upon moses
The 10 commandments.
You can hear the wind just sailing through.
It's getting colder and colder.
After hours of hiking,
The final test, more than 700 rock cut stairs
To the peak.
[exclaims, grunts]
After regaining my footing, I push on.
Joined by hundreds of faithful pilgrims
Who are also making the ascent.
Everyone is now racing to the top
Trying to catch the first light.
And just as the rays of the sun pierce through
The veil of darkness,
All of us arrive at the top of the mountain.
The summit. Whew!
That is incredible.
The view is quite simply, well, divine.
"and they saw the god of israel,
And there was under his feet as it were
A paved work of a sapphire stone
And the body of heaven in his clearness.
And the sight of the glory of the lord
Was like devouring fire on the top of the mount
In the eyes of the children of israel."
I'd say that about sums it up.
With the sun rising in the sky,
I enter into the shadows of a chapel kept by the monk
Of saint catherine's.
This part of my investigatio hasn't been about proof.
It's an exploration of faith
And no matter what you belie or don't believe,
There is something to be deeply respected here
The establishment of the 10 commandments,
A pivotal moment when humani tried to better itself throu
A set of fundamental moral laws.
As moses did after receivin the 10 commandments,
I begin to descend mount sinai.
Unfortunately, when moses returns,
He finds the israelites have abandoned their faith
And are worshiping a golden calf.
In an act of anger, moses throws the tablets to the ground.
As a punishment for their moment of weakness
The israelites are condemne to wander the desert for 40 years
Before reaching the land promised to them by god.
I'm hoping that such a migration would have left
An archeological footprint.
And now I hear there's an eminent french archaeologist
Working at an isolated site that may have found compelling evidence.
I drive from mount sinai deeper into the desert
Toward a place known as serabit el-khadim
Where the term remote doesn't begin to cut it.
Okay?
Guess this is the back way.
There are no roads here, just temporary tracks in the sand
From 4x4s crossing the vast desert.
Okay, I might be a little lost.
Finding an archaeological si out here is going
To require some help.
Fortunately, my contact has arranged for a guide.
That is, if I can find him.
Gps says I should be about 15 miles away,
But, out here, well, that might take a while.
Driving in the desert is not for the faint of heart.
Thousands of these criss-crossed trails
Leading in every direction,
Not to mention blind corners, sudden drops.
And, of course, enough sand to swallow even the most rugged tires.
The key is to just keep moving.
After all, if you get stuck, there's nobody here
To help dig you out.
Also, though, it's extremely fun.
Here we go.
To your left and your right, left, right.
Straight.
Okay.
Running out of plateau here.
Need to find a way down.
Maybe here?
Sure. Why not?
Hang on. Oh, boy!
[exclaims, laughs]
[whoops]
Oh.
I think I threw my back out on that one.
Oh. It's a rental.
This guy should be somewhere around here.
Oh, I see a structure. Okay, here we go.
This has gotta be it.
In a place that seems utterly inhospitable,
I find signs of life.
A small bedouin camp and the guide I've traveled far to find.
[both greeting in foreign language]
-You rabia? -Yes, my name is rabia.
Josh. I hear you're the man if I want to go to the site
-Known as serabit? -Yes.
Okay, so we, we drive?
-No, no, no, we'll go walk. -We walk?
-How far is it? -It's far, yeah.
-Perfect. Okay, I'm right behind you. Come on, let's go. -Yeah.
My new bedouin friend leads us away from camp
And into a steep walled ravine.
The bedouins are the masters of the desert.
Without my guide here, I'd never find this hidden trail.
As it is, I'm mostly focused on not falling off of it.
A little bit of a drop off.
We climb higher and higher toward a hidden site,
A place that might reveal if the semitic people
From exodus traveled throug the sinai.
My guide is climbing in sandals, but the higher we get,
The more I'm relying on the grip of my boots.
Okay.
No room for error here.
Very narrow.
Finally, we emerge on a high desert plateau.
Oh!
-This is the top, yeah. -It's the top.
Amidst all this natural desolation,
I'm stunned to see ancient manmade construction
In the distance.
The temple here.
-Okay. -Me, I go back.
-Okay, I leave you here. -Okay, goodbye.
-Thank you so much. -Welcome. Welcome.
Bye-bye.
I walk toward the site, which feels like something
From another world.
To find out what it's doing out here,
I'm meeting french egyptologist pierre tallet.
-Pierre, I'm josh, nice to meet you. -Pleased to meet you.
I'm kind of in shock looking at this.
This is not at all what I expected to be up here.
Well, it is one of the most remote temples in egypt.
It has been built around 2000 bc by miners.
While the sinai might look empty,
That's only on the surface.
Ancient egyptians sent expeditions vast distances
From the nile delta to recov commodities like copper,
Or in this case, turquoise.
Precious beautiful stone, valuable to egyptians.
Yeah.
Atop this plateau are no fewer than 30 ancient turquoise mines.
And in the center of the sit the egyptians built this,
A hilltop temple nearly 4000 years old
Carved by the miners who toiled here far from hom
I got it. So every year when an expedition would come here
From egypt, they would erect a monument.
-Yeah, basically recording everything. -Everything?
You can even find the record of the food and drinks.
Stele like this are some of the earliest forms
Of posting on social media.
Right down to the annoying pictures of food.
-Even the menu's on here. -Yeah, even the menus and feasts are there.
Okay, let's keep moving.
But not everything in this lost temple is egyptian.
There's someone else here.
Here's something very special. You see this guy here?
-Yes, he's on an animal. -[speaking]
Okay.
Ever?
This is a semitic person?
In the world of the old testament,
This would be an israelite, this would be someone
-Yeah. -From the land of canaan?
-From the land of canaanite. -This is pretty extraordinary.
Holy moses.
This is evidence literally carved in stone
That israelites were working in the sinai desert
Around the time of the exodus story.
You look historically for connection points
For things that may have inspired these stories.
But the idea that there are semitic people here
Working here in egypt in the sinai,
You start to see at least some linkage with the idea
That you have this movement of people.
Yeah, this is a meeting point of cultures.
-Wow. -Now there is something very interesting
I want you to see inside.
-Inside? Yeah. -Inside the cave.
-What's more interesting than this? Please. -Yeah.
Josh, this is most important part of the temple.
The shrine, which is devoted to the main divinity.
Right, this is the goddess here
-And this is the king? -[speaking]
Hathor is the cow goddess?
Hathor, the egyptian goddes of love, fertility, music
And pleasure was depicted as a woman, often with horns
She's shown in the human form here.
The horns are there because she was also represented as a cow
Which has a very intriguing parallel with exodus.
Remember that golden calf the israelites were worshipping at mount sinai?
This is a really tantalizing possibility.
The idea that we have in exodus,
This golden calf that these people start worshipping.
And here we have semitic people
-Who are worshipping a cow goddess. -Yeah. Yeah.
This place isn't just a turquoise mine.
It's an archaeological goldmine.
And in one of the nearby chambers,
Pierre shows me one more piece of history,
One that applies to all of u
These miners, these semitic people that are here,
They start scribbling this into the wall.
-Yeah. -Why? What, what does it represent?
Aleph?
Aleph is the semitic word for an ox,
Hence the horns.
But it's the first sound of aleph that the semitic people
Were trying to represent.
What happens if you flip it upside down?
-It's an egg. -Exactly.
So, aleph is an ox.
You draw an ox, you flip it upside down,
-We have the letter a? -You have an a.
Or this symbol for water pronounced "mem".
Or if you cover the edges, we would know it as an m.
That's where we get the word alphabet?
-Yeah. -I quit.
-I just... -Yeah.
You just made my brain explode.
[laughs]
This is crazy.
What you were seeing here is perhaps the most importan graffiti in the world.
That ox and the other symbol would be used by the phoenicians
Then in hebrew, greek and latin.
And on and on, until you learned it as a ki
And it started here.
When it comes to the israelites,
When it comes to the semitic people.
This is as personal a connection to these people
As you can imagine.
This is their fingerprints, someone sat here, right here.
-Yeah. -And carved the very beginnings
-Of our written language. -Yeah.
This is really extraordinary. Everybody should see this.
After all, we're writing it every day.
Yeah, of course.
I thank pierre and leave the ruins of serabit el-khad
In a state of amazement,
Having seen evidence of ancient semites
Passing through here during the time of moses,
Along with a lesson in my abcs.
I returned to the desert and my wanderings
Following the israelites sto through history.
After 40 years in the sinai god finally allowed his chosen people
Into the promised land.
It only takes me another day another country
And another rented truck to cross the 250 or so miles
We are approaching the spot where the bible says
The hebrews entered the land of canaan.
At this point led by my namesake, joshua.
And just like him, I've got to cross the river jordan.
Cue the gospel music.
[gospel music playing]
Welcome to the holy land.
Today, this is israel and the palestinian territories,
And civilization is everywhe you look.
But when did it arrive here and who brought it?
To find out, I drive into the west bank
At a place known as el-mastarah
Where an international team is using cutting edge scienc
To learn about who was livin in this area
During the potential time of exodus.
[music ends]
I park and hike up to meet archaeologist david ben-shlomo.
-Hey. David. -Oh, hi.
-Hi, josh. -Nice office.
-Oh, yeah. -Not the easiest place to find.
Yeah, it's a good location.
Especially if you don't want to be bothered.
-Yeah. -So, okay, I've come to talk to you about
The bible, specifically moses, exodus.
So in the story, we have the israelites coming here
Into the land of canaan, right?
And they are effectively nomads at this point.
So, do we have any evidence for this part of the story?
Are there nomadic people moving through this land?
Well, we might have.
-Right here. -Like, right here, right here?
-This is a circle. -Yeah, have a look.
These are all structures.
So what do we think these were used for?
Do we have evidence that people were living in here?
Right.
But we didn't find anything.
But nearby, there's a site which we can get much more evidence.
-I like evidence. Please. -You want to see that?
Then follow me.
We climb up a rocky hill which leads to an incredible view
And some serious ruins.
-Okay. -So this is our main site.
So, we have a lot more than just stone circles here.
-I can see immediately. -Yeah.
And so, walk me through the architecture here.
-I see what looks like a wall over there? -Yeah,
You can see the basic thing is the whole settlement
Is surrounded by fortification wall.
We call it the casemate wall.
It's made out of two lines of stones.
It's very typical of the iron age
Or the first temple period.
The iron age in this part of the world stretched
From about 1200 to 600 bce,
Just after the time of the events described in exodus.
So if we kind of put this in the world of moses,
He would have lived in what we call the end of the bronze age.
-Yeah. -And so, the iron age is the...
-Or the first temple period? This is what comes after that? -Yeah.
At the end of this bronze age period going into the iron age,
-Like, a huge shift does happen, right? -Yeah.
A transition towards a more complex state society
With kings and priests and taxes and writing.
-And that's, that's coming from somewhere? -Yeah,
It has to come from somewhere, it cannot pop up from nothing.
Where are the seeds of this?
As we can see by these elaborate ruins,
By the time the iron age arrives,
A complex society is taking root.
So did it arrive here with the children of the exodus
In the bronze age?
It's really a problem not yet solved,
I think because so far from that period,
We don't have any evidence, but we are looking for it.
Maybe there isn't signs of earlier habitation here.
-Underneath the iron age? -Underneath, yeah.
In order to find earlier, we have to dig deeper.
And so your team primarily is working down here?
Yes, we are working down there in the northern part of the site.
To pinpoint how deep we nee to dig for bronze age relics
I head down the hill,
Passing excavators hard at work uncovering the past.
Until I find geo archaeologi oren ackermann.
-Hi, how are you? I'm josh. -Hi, josh.
-Nice to meeting you. -Nice meeting you too.
And what are you working on here?
-Have a seat and I'll show you. -Sure.
So, what have we got here?
So, josh, we are archaeologists and we deal with layers.
History is all about layers.
So I'm using a new technique.
-Okay. -Portable osl.
Portable osl? What is osl?
Osl is optically stimulated luminescence.
So, in the sediment there is quartz.
There's quartz, right? So this is bits of quartz crystals
-That are trapped in the dirt here. -Yes.
Okay.
When the particles of quart become trapped in the earth
They begin to accumulate radiation from the surrounding soil.
The longer the quartz is there,
The more radiation it absorb which is where oren's machine comes in.
What we do, we stimulated this radiation in the lab
Or in the portable equipment that we have here.
How are you stim-- what do you mean?
Like, what, you put on some marvin gaye?
What do you mean you stimulate it?
What are you, what are you talking about?
The osl releases the radiati in the quartz crystals
And counts the number of photons that are discharged.
The higher the number of photons, the older the sample.
So if we want to see if there are bronze age people here,
If we want to think about this biblical story of the time of moses,
We have to maybe look deeper.
Yes, but there's one problem.
-Okay. -Because when I sample it,
It might be exposed again to the sun.
-So we need to make it dark? -So I have this cover.
-So I put above the section and then I go inside. -Uh-huh.
You would like to join me?
Jeez, thought you'd never ask.
-[laughs] -let's go.
In order for the machine to get an accurate reading,
The samples must be totally shielded from the su
And unfortunately, it's abou noon here in the middle east
This is weird. Here we go.
Okay.
-Hi. How are you? -Hi.
-Okay, how are you? -I'm, I'm good. I'm good.
Well, here we are, just a couple guys under
A heavy cloth in the middle of the desert.
Really breathes in here.
Why are you taking your pants off?
-Just kidding. -[laughs]
Okay, so...
So, okay, what's our plan?
-We're gonna scrape some soil here? -Yes.
So do we just start on the wall here, what do we do?
First, I have to make a clean cut.
To soil that has not been exposed to the air.
For comparison, oren collects samples from near
The surface layer,
Then the iron age and finally deeper in the earth
And what we hope is the bronze age.
All right, we've got our samples.
Whoo!
Tell you one thing, pretty, pretty warm in here.
-Yes. -Time to go into the light?
-Time to go to the light. -Let's go into the light.
[grunts] okay.
Whoo.
Samples safely in hand, we bring them to a light-shielded tent
Where the machine can count their photons.
[oren] open the drawer.
And put the sample into the slot here.
Uh-huh.
Close it.
First, top layer.
-Okay. -And we run the first sample.
Here we go.
In short order, we process every sample we collected.
Thankfully, the computer doesn't need to work for lon
-Okay, we have results. -Okay.
-So what are we looking at here? -For each layer, we have
A photon counts.
So for the top layer close to the surface,
Photon count is 3902.
-The transition. -And then we jump way down
-To the iron age where the number's way higher. -Yes.
We have 30,036.
-Yes. -Way above.
-And if you go deeper. -Bronze age.
-Yes. -We have a signal
All the way up to 83,205 photons.
-So we have middle bronze age. -We have middle bronze age
-In this site. -And soil that emits over 80,000 photons
Should be from the bronze age.
Absolutely.
If we find material with this signal, we are in the money.
We're in the money. Okay, bronze age.
Let's look.
Now that we know exactly in which layer to dig,
I linked back up with david and his team.
We begin excavating below the iron age structures in the soil
That has now been identifie as coming from the bronze ag
It's meticulous dusty work, but at least I'm not doing I
Under a black tarp.
And it doesn't take long for david to uncover something.
-Hey, josh. -Did you find something?
Yeah.
-What'd you find? -Look at this.
Oh, my word.
Hey, josh, look at this.
-Ooh, it's a vessel. -Yeah, it's a vessel lying on the floor.
-Big piece here. -Yeah, big pieces.
And here and then a couple of shards.
Look at this.
In the hills of the palestinian territories
I'm working with a team to see if we can find bronze age relics
That might coincide with the era of moses and the exodus.
Look at this.
So we've got the rim here?
-It's the rim of a little jar. Yeah. -Uh-huh.
The shape of this rim is typical of the middle bronze age.
-This is middle bronze age? -Yeah, it's not iron age.
-Really? -Yes.
The design of this pottery and the soil we found it in
Puts this squarely in the bronze age
Within a few 100 years of the purported timeline of moses.
This is the first bronze ag item of its kind found here
At el-mastarah and perhaps a sign
That a settlement existed he before the iron age.
If more evidence can be foun that nomadic people came into this land
And settled here, it would a credence to the events of exodus.
-So let me know what you find next, all right? -Will do.
Thank you so much.
I thank david and his team before moving on to a locati
In israel that might produc evidence to support another part
Of moses story.
And for once, I won't be digging through sand.
Welcome to the sea of galilee.
This is israel's largest source of fresh water
And it's 686 feet below sea level.
It's actually the lowest freshwater lake on earth.
It's also where the christian gospels say that
Jesus preached to the multitudes,
Fed the 5,000 and, you know, walked on water.
But that's a different testament.
We are here looking for evidence that is much, much older.
And there are two scientists nearby who believe
They may have found it.
Investigating a mysterious formation in this legendary lake,
Are geosciences professor dr. Michael freikman,
And dr. Shmulik marco, an archaeologist
And geophysicist.
Welcome to the sea of galilee.
-A beautiful place to be. -Yeah.
Absolutely incred-- very historic place.
Have you ever heard of an object called well of miriam?
Yes, I've heard of the well of miriam,
Although I'm not totally sure I understand it.
It's supposed to be like a stone of some kind, right?
That provides water to moses and the israelites.
It's like a mobile spring.
It's following the people of israel
Or it just emerges everywhere they stop, but it's always there,
And it's always providing them with water.
As the israelites first ente the desert,
God tells moses to strike a particular rock
With his staff.
And one miracle later, fresh water pours from the stone.
It is later referred to as miriam's well
Named after moses' sister.
As the israelites wander the desert,
Miriam's well appears whenev they need it,
Sustaining the faithful and ensuring that they will make it
To the promised land.
And what happens to it?
The later sources say, whilst the israelites come into
The promised land, the well sunk in the water.
-Okay. -The question is,
Where did this miraculous stone submerge?
The sacred jewish writings of the talmud provide
A tantalizing clue.
And the sea of tiberias is the old name for the sea of galilee,
-Correct? -That's correct.
The rabbinical writings also describe a sick man
Who was healed by the well of miriam in the sea of galilee.
Another source places this round object
Not far from the shore, about midway up the sea's coast.
Okay, so we have a connection between this story from exodus
-And this location? -Yes.
Right.
Does it happen to be round?
Can you show me where it is?
Please.
We set off in a research vessel
And support boat and steam o into the sea of galilee
Using gps coordinates and onboard sonar
To locate the unknown structure.
Come on, josh, we're approaching the site.
In a second, we're gonna be able to see it on the sonar.
Okay, so right now we've just got flat bottom?
-Oh. -Oh, this...
-[man] here we are. -[josh] wow, look at that.
Huge sonar return.
I mean, there's nothing down there
And then out of nowhere, suddenly,
Something's 15 feet underneath us.
So, what is that?
Well, we have to get in the water to see that.
-In the water? -In the water.
-The water is warm, though, right? -No.
-Yeah. -[chuckles]
Okay, great.
Let's try to stay positive, guys, come on.
Visibility in the sea of galilee is notoriously ba
So we throw over a shot lin to follow to the bottom.
Then mike and I suit up to look for evidence of miriam's well
By diving into some very chilly water.
Top side, shmulik will monit communications
As we explore the anomaly.
[shmulik speaking]
[josh speaking]
The algae makes it difficul to see as we descend toward our target.
Until...
Josh, try to see if you see any arrangement of the stones.
[shmulik speaking]
[josh speaking]
[shmulik speaking]
The algae and clouds of disturbed silt reduce
Our visibility to the point that any interior exploratio
Of the pile is futile.
We therefore ascend to the surface to regroup.
Good to see you.
Whoo, I mean...
Really incredible down there.
So did you see any formation, any arrangement?
There are areas where it almost seems like it's in tiers.
The frustrating part is you can't see very much.
The visibility is so bad,
You can only really take it in a few feet at a time.
I wish I could see more of it.
Yeah, maybe we can.
How?
To tackle our visibility problem,
I climbed back aboard and dry off.
Shmulik has arranged a high tech solution
To get a clearer picture of whatever's beneath us.
-Hello. -Hi.
-Josh. I'd like you to meet mor. -Hi.
Mor, nice to meet you. Okay, so...
What are we going to do here?
Here, mor is going to operate the air gun.
I'm sorry? The air gun?
-Yeah, air gun. -That's this?
That's the air gun.
[josh] okay, I'm not familiar with this device.
-What? How does this work? -We don't shoot people with it.
That's good news. All right.
But we do use it to shoot seismic surveys.
This generates the acoustic sound
That travels through the water into the seafloor
And back to the recorder on the other side.
We are using that as our data to image our object.
Try to imagine, like, ultrasound for younger babies,
That will be the same.
[josh] got it, okay.
[hissing]
The air guns are pressurize before being lowered into position.
It's one meter...
-Two meters. -And then it's time to rock
-Okay, we are in position. -In position, ready to echo.
The seismic air gun is prime and ready to go.
We're either about to make history
Or blow our boat into a million pieces.
-May I? -Yeah.
Fire!
[explosion]
Ready to echo it.
May I?
Fire!
Yes! I didn't know collecting data could be this much fun.
We're dropping a seismic air gun in the sea of galile
To scan an underwater anomal that could be connected
To the biblical legend known as miriam's well,
Providing a historical link to the story of exodus.
I like this.
Okay, fire it again!
To get a clear digital pictu of what lies in the murky waters below,
We do this again...
Fire!
...And again...
Fire!
...And again.
Fire it again.
A total of eight charges are set off in a circle arou
The anomaly we found in the sea below.
This seismic survey of the area has generated
Enough data to form a 3d ima on a computer.
Right.
Oh, it continues under the sediment here?
Wow.
Right.
So we're in the bronze age here.
In terms of our exodus story, we're in the neighborhood.
Okay, so if we take a look at our final product
Of the, of the imaging,
We can see that this image is three dimensional,
It's been crossed in different profiles in different angles.
[josh] oh, that is unbelievable. Look at that.
Now you can look at a three dimensional image
-Of the structure. -Look at the size of it,
-It's huge. -Yeah.
It has to be artificial.
Somebody had to bring this huge boulders of basalt,
-Right. -And put them one on top of the other.
It never happens naturally.
[josh] there's no question this was constructed.
It's just such an oddity on the sea floor.
And it does not match the topography of the seafloor, so...
-Right. -This is also supporting the possibility that
It was built and leveled by someone.
[josh] so we have this jerusalem talmud
That says that you could look down into the sea of galilee
And see this, this bump.
Is there anything else like this that rises up out of the lake here?
No, that's the only place that we know of.
This mysterious manmade structure is the only thing
Like it in the sea of galile
And it matches the location of where miriam's well
Was said to have been interred.
So the million dollar question, what the hell is this thing?
So is it possible then that there's something inside of this?
I mean, it will be hugely significant, right?
Exactly, it would be the only one untouched tomb
Of this kind in this region.
Right. Obviously, this isn't a magic rock
That followed the israelites through the desert.
But, you know, is it possible that this is connected
To the story of exodus?
Well, in general, religions are known for
Incorporating the unique landscape features
Into their own oral tradition.
Right, but you could see how something like this
Could become the well of marian,
Something dry that then is consumed by water?
It is definitely a possibility.
The next step will be to investigate exactly
What lies inside the structure,
Which will be an arduous undertaking.
For now though, I'll settle for the amazement
Of imaging this most mysterious object.
There's much work to be done.
This is just the beginning of the story.
The story of miriam's well is both miraculous and tragi
Because shortly before reaching the promised land,
Miriam dies and her namesak well runs dry.
To restore it, god tells mos not to strike the rock as he did before,
But to speak holy words instead.
Yet, when the panicked and thirsty israelites
Angrily demand that moses tu the water back on,
Moses defies god by striking the rock with his staff.
The water comes, but with grave consequences
For his pride and insolence god punishes moses
By forbidding him from entering the holy land
With his people.
They will cross the jordan river into canaan
But first moses will die 120 years old.
And it's this final part of his story that's in my he
As I set off back into the desert.
I have a nagging question about the exodus story.
And, you know, something that would really help
To cement this as an historical event
Would be to find the body of moses himself.
After all, someone this significant
Must have been buried with some real pomp and circumstance.
So I just have one question, where's moses?
Turns out there's more than one answer to that question
To learn why, I'm headed back to the palestinian territories
Here in the rolling and empty hills of the west bank,
An unlikely sight emerges in the distance.
A huge walled compound called nabi musa,
Which translates to the prophet moses.
Here to greet me is archaeologist
And islamic studies professor tawfiq da'adli.
Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.
-This is spectacular. -Yeah.
I have questions about the e of the story of moses.
So, okay, if there is a historical moses,
Where is this guy? I mean, where was he buried?
According to the biblical tradition,
He ended on the other side of the valley.
-And he dies where? -At mount nebo.
Mount nebo, so, literally just across the way there?
Across the dead sea in what is now jordan
Sits mount nebo.
This place has been associat with the burial of moses
Since at least the fourth century,
When a church was built here
So over at mount nebo, archaeologically,
Do we have evidence for this burial?
-No hard evidence. -Okay.
-There's also another story. -Uh-huh.
Islamic tradition.
Moses is mentioned a lot in the quran.
Yeah, you have more than 130 times his name
Is mentioned in the quran, more than any other prophet.
According to this tradition, moses did cross the river
And he ended in this side, like, where we are standing.
The prophet muhammad ascended to heaven from jerusalem,
Which is not so far from here.
-Yes, the dome of the rock. -The dome of the rock. Yes.
So, when he ascended to heaven,
In his way, he said, I saw moses praying on his dome
And the dome is believed to be here.
-On this side of the jordan river? -Yeah.
Uh-huh, so we have one tradition over there
-And one tradition over here. -Yeah.
What evidence is there here? What, what is at this site?
Here, this site, we have the tomb of moses.
-There's a tomb here? -Yeah.
-Of moses? -Yes.
Can we see it?
I'm here in the west bank and this barrier separates
Israel from the palestinian territories over here.
Now, you've all heard of the waldorf hotel?
Well, this isn't it. This is the walled off hotel.
The entire hotel is a living work of art.
A collaboration between local palestinians
And the enigmatic anonymous british street artist banksy
Welcome, sir.
Are you banksy?
-No. -Wink, wink if you're banksy.
Mor than 70 pieces of banksy's work
Offer whimsical and searing commentary
On the tumultuous state of the region.
A not so secret passage through a bookcase
Leads the way to the guest rooms,
And of course, more art to ponder.
And the rooms are lavishly decorated
In that provocative banksy style.
Here in the presidential suite,
The hotel proudly advertises the worst view in the world.
All while offering us a vision of a future without walls.
-There's a tomb here... -Yeah.
-Of moses? -Yes.
-Can we see it? -Yeah, it's downstairs.
Please. Here we go.
To answer the question of where the prophet moses is buried,
I've come to the palestinian territories
To visit a site called nabi musa
And what the islamic faith contends is his tomb.
Okay, josh.
Here we have the mosque.
Wow.
And here we have the tomb.
-Tomb of moses? -Yes. Here.
Please.
Wow.
-So this is the burial? -Yeah.
When can we date all of this to?
This is the oldest part of the site
And near the entrance to this mausoleum,
There is an inscription from the 13th century
And we have the date. It's 1269.
So, the 13th century we're talking about,
-A few thousand years after the life of moses. -Yeah.
-Yes. -So do we have any indication
Of what was in this spot before the building was here?
There are written evidences
Earlier than the 13th century, but not much earlier...
-Okay. -...Mentioning the tomb of moses in this area.
But nothing earlier than that?
Something that you can touch, though.
Right, maybe an oral tradition, but it's been lost to history.
-Yes. -Okay,
So do we know who's inside this?
This was moses' tomb.
It's relying on muslim traditions
And then they pointed on this place.
-And since this 13th century point, -right.
It became a whole compound not only the mausoleum
And the mosque,
It became like a caravanserai, what we call a clan,
Like, people will come and stay for a few days.
-They will have food. -So it became like a pilgrimage site?
-Yeah. -And what about today?
Do people still pilgrimage here?
Do people still come here?
Yeah, even from indonesia, even from india,
These people still believe this is the tomb of nabi musa.
Has this ever been opened? Examined?
It's religion.
You don't mix religion with science and excavations,
Especially in the holy land.
So as an archaeologist,
This is one of the great challenges
Is how to look at the stories of the bible,
The stories of the quran and places like this,
And find that intersection between faith and history
And archaeology.
Because we don't really know what's here.
-Yeah. -But, spiritually,
It's a place that's true for so many people.
And how do we square that off, because we're never going
To be able to open this.
We don't need to open that, like, we have the inscriptions
Around the building.
So it's a different kind of archaeology.
-You read the buildings, you don't have to go down -right.
And dig the place to see or meet the person
Who is buried here.
For us, you have to accept it.
Even for archaeologists, some things have to be left to faith.
You can't turn over every stone,
You have to accept some traditions, some beliefs.
By asking to see what's insi this tomb,
I'm knocking on a door that will never open.
At nabi musa, science and faith have reached
An impasse and neither will yield to the other.
But on my journey, I have se how science and faith
Can intermingle.
In an egyptian tomb in saqqara, I've learned tha
A semitic man rose to great power in pharaoh's court,
Just as moses did.
Ancient monuments recounted israelites fleeing egypt
Just as moses did.
Again and again, verifiable historical event
That echo the words of exodu
Though the specifics are slightly different
And the timing doesn't line to a single person's lifespa
Is it possible that this is connected to the story of exodus?
There's much work to be done.
This is just the beginning of the story.
My journey has also taught m that in this case,
The literal is not all that matters.
Here we have semitic people who are worshipping a cow goddess.
The story of moses represent the movement of people
And culture,
With values that ring true across the human experience
The moral urgency for man to live free.
Laws that bind us not just to god,
But to each other.
And the importance of servic and humility,
During even the most arduous of trials.
We may never be able to pinpoint the historical moses,
But his story shows us a real person.
Someone just like you or me
Proud,
Maybe a little too stubborn
But with the right guidance capable of greatness.