2700 years ago, these guys are building stuff like this?
Yeah, and you can tell they're master engineers having built this.
If I were to bet, what would be
The most successful culture in Italy,
It would be the etruscans.
And yet, they're gone.
This is bone everywhere here.
It's littered all over this bed.
The more we look at this map, the more that it seems like
There might be tombs everywhere.
-Do you want to go in? -No.
-There's science in there. -No, there's spiders in there.
There's an opening here.
I think we can drop right into it. Here we go.
Look at this place, this is serious construction.
It's cut out of the hill.
If you were an outsider, it looked really imposing.
Wow. I mean, so beautiful.
I've scanned hundreds of historical sites
And I've never seen anything like this.
This is real game of thrones
Absolutely.
It is said that all roads lead to rome,
But where did those roads begin?
The groundwork for the mighty roman empire
Might have been built by a civilization
You may never have heard of, the etruscans.
They flourished around 700 bce and dominated the italian peninsula
For five centuries.
Priceless goods discovered in elaborate tombs
Are revealing they traded far and wide,
But they didn't leave behind many clues about themselves.
Etruscan literature and language is largely lost,
Some say deliberately destroyed by later conquerors.
What we're left with is their legend as told by others,
Who saw them as pirates that communed with dark gods
To foretell the future through strange, bloody rituals.
But who was this lost civilization?
This missing link of the mediterranean?
I aim to find out.
Groundbreaking new research maybe settling the controver of their origin.
A city of the dead could reveal how powerful the etruscans
Were in life.
And an archaeologist and fellow member of
The world famous explorers club
Is on a historic expedition using cutting edge technolog
To search for a vanished etruscan necropolis.
A search that may reveal how this ancient superpower
Helped give rise to the modern world.
So let's fly the flag of exploration as we unlock
The secrets of the elusive etruscans.
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 archaeolog 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.
My journey begins in the so called capital
Of the ancient world.
Even today, travelers come from all corners
To stroll among the vaunted columns of the forum,
To marvel at the colosseum, and to stand in awe
Of the magnificent vatican.
But before I get too deep in history,
I'll be damned if I'm not going to eat something.
The sistine chapel is all well and good,
But homemade cacio e pepe is a masterpiece you can eat.
The bowl's made out of cheese, it's genius.
Also, nobody looks at you funny when you drink before noon.
Today, this incredible metropolis stretches in all directions.
But the best view can be found high above
On janiculum hill.
This is the picture on the postcards.
Rome. Just the name seems chiseled in marble.
To most people rome has always been here.
It's called the eternal city after all,
And the long standing story, least the one they taught me
In grade school, is that the romans conquered the greeks
Borrowing their gods, building on their culture
And evolving into a powerhouse the likes of which
The world had never seen.
Ancient rome lasted for nearly 2000 years.
It started as a small tribal settlement
In central Italy around 750 bce,
And expanded to put it mildl
By about the year 100, the roman empire covered
Nearly two million square miles stretching from britai
To egypt.
At its height, rome governed nearly 20%
Of the world's population.
We credit the romans with awe inspiring architecture
And groundbreaking innovations in engineering.
Roman authors love to brag about the unrivaled glory
Of their empire.
A beacon of life in an otherwise dark world,
But rome didn't come out of nowhere.
Every story has a beginning and it might just be that
This one has some hidden chapters.
We all know that rome wasn't built in a day,
But what if rome wasn't even built by romans?
I descend down to the famous capitolini museum
A place that celebrates rome's monumental origins.
Well, there's definitely a mystery afoot.
It's a big foot.
The answers I'm looking for begin with a sculpture
Tied to the very foundation of this empire.
All cities have their icons.
New york has the statue of liberty.
Rio has christ the redeemer,
And this here is the capitoline wolf, symbol of rome.
The she wolf and the twin suckling below represent
The legendary founding of the city.
The kids here are romulus and remus,
Twin demigod sons of the god of war mars.
According to myth, romulus kills remus
And goes on to found the city of rome.
This image is seen as quintessentially roman.
Even today, there are depictions of this all over the city.
It's on every bridge and lamppost.
And yet, this very symbol of rome,
And many of the achievements of the city may come from
A region that's much older, a place known as ertruria
And a people known as the etruscans.
But who were they? Where did they come from?
And where did they go?
In search of answers, I leave rome in the rear vie
And head into the country in an italian classic.
This here is a fiat campagnola it was introduced
After world war ii, basically, Italy's version of a jeep
Or a land rover.
It's a pretty no nonsense 4x4 though.
Does have a touch of italian style,
And if you pull on the door handles too hard,
They're probably going to break off in your hands.
3000 years ago, this region was known as ertruria,
Realm of the mysterious etruscans,
And one of their largest cities
Was a place called tarquinia
Today, the picturesque city that stands here
Is largely medieval.
But like all of Italy, it's also a layer cake of history.
I stroll through the gates of the tarquinia national museum,
Where amidst the galleries, it's possible to do a little time traveling.
This museum is a literal treasure trove
Of etruscan art and artifacts beyond compare.
And these items paint a picture of not just
An ancient culture, but of an incredibly
Sophisticated civilization.
Everywhere I look, I'm amaze from stone, ceramic,
And terracotta to gold, bronze, and marble.
It seems there was no mediu that the etruscans
Couldn't shape into something beautiful.
And everyday items like delicate umbrellas,
Bone dice, and hand mirrors reveal a familiar
And personal side to their lives.
Each item here is more intriguing than the next.
And the collection begs one simple question,
"who were these people?"
To find out I make my way just outside the modern cit
To an archeological park, where I meet its director,
Dr. Vincenzo bellelli.
So we are on the outskirts here of what was tarquinia?
-Yes. -And this was a big etruscan city, right?
One of the most important etruscan cities.
And there were a number of these big powerful
Etruscan cities, right?
Exactly...
Etruscan civilization can b traced back to roughly 1100 bce,
When ancient greece was still in its dark ages.
The etruscans would rise to power in the eighth century bce.
Twelve individual city state that form an etruscan leagu
Ruled by wealthy families that come to dominate
The italian peninsula.
In its prime, ertruria cover thousands of square miles,
All while rome was a tiny rural backwater.
In the museum, I see these incredible objects,
Objects from etruria,
But also from all over the mediterranean.
From everywhere. Yes.
How are the etruscans getting all of this stuff?
They were traders.
The etruscans were adept seafarers,
And traded all over the known world
From egypt to the baltic.
The greeks sometimes describ them as pirates
Who practice black magic,
But no one knows if that's an honest assessment,
Or ancient fake news.
So the etruscans seem like they're very powerful,
Very sophisticated.
In what is now Italy, the etruscans were the most sophisticated people.
Right, and so where are we right now?
I mean, it just feels like endless fields out here.
What is this?
This is the necropolis of tarquinia.
A necropolis, so this would have been a cemetery?
-Cemetery. -Okay.
And these buildings we see, these are?
Tombs.
What appears to be an empty field is anything but.
Dotting the landscape are small, modern buildings
Each of which protect the entrance to an etruscan burial.
-These are the entrances of tombs, okay, -yeah.
So how many tombs are here?
Um, more or less, 6000 tombs.
-6000? -Yeah.
Oh, you get your work cut out for you.
Yes, there is a lot to do.
-Okay, can we see one of the tombs? Please. -Yes.
Josh, are you ready to visit the etruscan underworld?
It depends. Do I get to come back after?
-Yes, of course. Let's go. -Then I'm ready.
Let's go to the underworld.
Vincenzo leads me down a sloping hallway
Deep into the earth.
Oh.
Wow. I mean, so beautiful.
Oh, I mean, look at the designs and the color.
This was painted when?
Around 480 bc.
So this is nearly 2500 year old painting?
-Exactly. -And it is so vivid,
Like it was done yesterday.
Yes, it is the best preserved painted tomb of tarquinia.
Of the 6000 tombs in tarquinia,
Only 2% are painted and preserved like this one
The walls depict an idyllic party.
Even the ceiling is decorate to give us the feeling
That we're inside a kind of tent part of the scene.
Wow. Incredible.
So let's talk about what they're doing, they are feasting?
This reminds me of kind of a greek scene.
The main difference is that women are allowed
To participate.
-These are women laying down with the men? -Yeah.
-And this is not possible in the greek world. -Right.
Or in the roman world, you wouldn't really have seen this, right?
Yes.
And it goes far beyond feasting.
Women were even known to fight alongside men
In military campaigns.
Okay, forward thinking etruscans.
Yes.
And these folks look like they're wearing almost togas,
Which is again, something I think of as being roman.
But I guess the toga was around already.
The toga was everywhere in etruria.
All right, sorry, roman togas.
There's etruscan togas.
Hate to break it to you.
The etruscans seem to be an enlightened society.
So why don't we know more about them?
Dr. Ballelli leads me to another subterranean tomb
Which holds one of the most mysterious clues
From this lost civilization
Oh, oh, my word. Look at this place.
Oh, oh, my word.
Look at this place.
I'm exploring the underworl of the etruscans.
A lost civilization that I'm quickly learning
Was extremely advanced.
So what do we know from this scene?
We have, we have mourners here?
Yeah, mourners here.
And they are identified with inscription.
[josh] this is writing. Amazing.
The etruscans had their own sophisticated language,
But very few written example of it survive.
Without more inscriptions like these,
Historians aren't able to decode the writing.
So what percentage of the etruscan language
Can we understand?
-30% only? -Yeah.
And then we have this big scene on this wall.
Help me understand this. What,
What are we looking at here?
It's not just a funeral. It's a spectacle.
-It's an event. -Yes.
Wow.
This gory fighting scene depicts a slave
Who is in this case, also a professional fighter
Which come to think of it rings a bell.
So slaves who are professional fighters
Brought here to entertain this family?
-Yes. -Which sounds a lot like gladiators.
That sounds like something we see later in rome, right
That's exactly right.
So, wait a minute, this, this thing that
We totally associate with rome,
Gladiator games,
I mean, there's, there's nothing that we think of is more roman
Than that. It comes from the etruscans?
-Yes, for sure. -Wow.
That's incredible.
And across from our etruscan gladiator
Is an unusual figure.
So, phersu, what does that, what does that word mean?
Okay, and that's what he's wearing,
This red covering on his face?
The character is perhaps an actor playing
A kind of executioner.
Again, without more writing it's hard to know.
But this phersu has trickled down
To our own language.
So the word persona and the word person
That we use today comes from phersu?
-Comes from the etruscans? -Yes.
Who knew every time we use the word person,
We owe a debt to the etruscans?
And what do we think these birds represent here?
The birds are probably associated to the augury.
Okay, so augury is kind of weird.
In this case, it is the mystic art of reading
The patterns of birds in flight to tell fortunes.
Etruscans were also big into haruspicy,
A killer scrabble word to find as reading
The livers of animals to predict the future.
But apparently, the etruscan were really good at it.
So much so that the romans later employed
Etruscans to practice this strange magic.
And speaking of the supernatural,
I'm led into one last tomb,
One that is decidedly darke than all the rest.
-The blue demons? Okay, this blue character here, -yes.
-And somebody here with blue eyes and blue hair. -Yeah.
That's right, demons,
And as time marched on, the depiction of these demon
Grew more and more dark.
These monsters appear to represent a threat,
A rising enemy to the very existence of the etruscans.
But at that point, when we see them
In their darkest representations.
-Yeah. -Rome is coming.
By the fourth century bce, rome is beginning to expand
And only 100 years after tha they've conquered etruria.
To learn more, I thank dr. Ballelli and take to the road,
Happy to return to the land of the living.
The tombs here in tarquinia tell us a lot about the lives
Of the elusive etruscans,
But history has done a pretty good job
Of obscuring their full story.
To solve more of the etruscan mysteries,
Where they're from, how they fell,
And what made them so powerful,
We have to do more than just visit historic sites.
We have to dig.
I floor my fiat toward another etruscan settlement
About 30 miles away.
That is if I don't get stuc trying to navigate through
The tightest streets in ital
Very narrow. Okay. Oh!
This is the charming town of barbarano romano.
It's 1000 years old and one of the prettiest
Little villages in Italy.
I'd stop, but there's no wa the doors would open.
[exclaims]
We're alive.
I make it through with both my side mirrors
And drive on, reaching the hills of san giuliano.
My gps leads me to a wooded area
Where I hike up to discover an active dig.
And archaeologist dr. Davide zori.
-Look at this beautiful site. -Yeah, archaeological paradise.
[josh] yeah, it's amazing.
This is a flag I recognize here.
It is, the explorers club flag.
Yeah, you're in some good company.
Yes, we are.
[josh] the explorers club was founded in 1904
To celebrate accomplishment in field sciences.
It's a gathering place for trailblazers,
And its daring members have included teddy roosevel
Sir edmund hillary, buzz aldrin,
And, you know, charming tv hosts.
Since 1918, flags like this one have been carried
To the farthest corners of the earth,
And even into outer space.
Okay, so let's talk about what's going on here in central Italy.
What's happening at this site?
-Let me show you. -All right, please. Yeah.
Davide brings me to see his site.
His project was partially financed by a discovery
Expedition grant working in partnership
With the explorers club.
This was originally an etruscan site.
This was a large etruscan town,
Several thousand people living up here.
And let's talk about why they're here.
We're up on a big hill here.
So is that why they're here? Because it's defensible?
That's why they're here. The most defensible
-Are the isolated plateaus that are defensible -yeah.
On all approaches.
And in this period, you want a well defended site,
Because folks seem to be allies
-Than enemies a lot, right? -Right.
So these etruscan city states, there's an etruscan league of 12 cities,
And sometimes they're allie with each other,
-Let's say fighting against rome, -yeah.
Or other external enemies.
But when not fighting external enemies,
They're trying to kill each other.
Right, this is, this is real game of thrones.
-Absolutely. That's exactly... -Like it is.
I mean, minus the dragons. It's game of thrones, righ?
Right, right.
But the challenge is findin the etruscans under
The other layers of history
Davide leads me to where his team is hard at work
Digging into the more recent part of the site,
Which is still 1000 years ol
You got an army at work here. What's, what's, what's going on?
Yes, this archaeological army is excavating inside of
A medieval crypt.
So here in this crypt, we have these, these cuts here,
These are all burials?
These are all medieval christian burials
With their heads to the west, which is classic medieval tradition.
These remarkable burials show us just how long
This plateau was occupied.
There's even the footprint of a large hall from a medieval castle,
You really just barely have to squint
And you can totally imagine this place.
You can see it, right?
But the middle ages, right? We're in, like, 1100 ad here.
-Correct. -We got to go back 1500,
2000 years earlier to get to the etruscans.
They were up here, right?
They were living in this same spot.
This would have been the ritual heart
-Of their cities. -Right.
So there would have been temples and houses up here for sure.
And we can't go any deeper here to find them.
-Because this is bedrock. -We're on bedrock.
So how do we get to the etruscans?
I think there's still remains underneath this bedrock...
-Okay. -...In the subterranean parts of their city.
Okay. And how do we get there?
We got to find another way down.
I'll show you.
Okay. We're going down.
We walk over to the edge of the plateau
Where I immediately notice two things.
A lot of rope and a very steep drop.
What is this?
We've arrived at the edge of the etruscan city.
[josh] like literally the edge, there is a cliff here
That drops straight down. Okay.
And what is all this?
This is the rigging that's going to take us down
Over the edge.
No. Why? What, what is down here?
There's a tunnel made by the etruscans.
We saw it with the drone, we map the edge of the plateau
And we saw a tunnel leading in underneath the city.
Okay, and what is it?
We think it's a water management system.
Are you trying to say sewer?
-It's a sewer. -It's a sewer.
We're climbing into an ancient sewer.
-Good idea, right? -Yeah, no, it's one of your best. Yeah.
Here we go.
To learn about the etruscan city
From the perspective of their sewer,
Davide and I gear up and prepare to rappel down
The cliff.
-You ready? -I'm excited to go down and see it.
Are you excited?
You don't look... If I'm being honest,
You don't look that excited.
You're not scared of heights, are you?
-I'm very scared of heights. -Are you really?
-Yeah. -Let me give you a tip,
Some people say don't look down.
-Yeah. -The real key is don't do things like this
In the first place.
-Right. -That's the secret.
I've been trying to avoid this my whole life.
Perfect. Okay. Well, today's the day.
All right, we're ready?
[laughs]
All right.
-Davide, ciao. -[speaking italian]
All right, I'm headed down.
[laughs] don't look down.
Hey, davide, I can see a tunnel.
We got an opening.
Yeah, there's an opening here.
What do you see down there?
It looks like a narrow slot that goes back.
-Can we get in? -Yeah, I think we could drop right into it.
Here we go.
Archaeologist and explorers club member dr. Davide zori
And I are rappelling down into an ancient sewer
Beneath a lost etruscan city,
Hoping to find rare artifact from the people
Who once lived here.
Okay, I'm coming into the tunnel.
Okay, got a little bit of purchase here.
Okay, I got a little handhold here.
I can see the tunnel, man. It goes way back.
All right, josh, I'm coming.
Look at this.
Now it's david's turn.
Oh, good lord, that's high.
Ooh.
Okay, davide, you got this.
I think I can get down.
Yep, like, right here, there's a little foothold right here.
Okay.
Boom.
Okay. Let's see what's in the dark here.
How are the spiders back there?
What does that mean?
Should I be expecting to see them?
-You should. -Oh, yeah.
There's, like, some hollywood style spider webs down here, dude.
Don't worry, they usually don't bite.
All right, walk me through this place. We are in a sewer.
We're in a water pipe literally?
We're in a etruscan pipe underneath the city.
And 2700 years ago, these guys are advanced enough
That they're building stuff like this?
Yeah, they're the most advanced culture
And central Italy, definitely in terms of engineering,
You can tell they're master engineers.
They're collecting water to use,
They're collecting cisterns, so they can draw the water up
On top of their city for drinking water.
They're also making sure that the water stays off
-Of the top of the plateau. -Like storm drains?
Yeah, these are usable, manageable systems
Of drainage and water collection.
I mean, when I think about this kind of engineering,
I think about rome.
That's right. The drainage of the roman forum
Was accomplished during the reign of the etruscan kings.
Almost 3000 years ago, the roman forum
Was marshland along the tiber river,
But an etruscan king during the earliest days of rome
Commissioned massive drainage systems
That made the area habitable
Cutting edge for the etrusca and rome has been
Bragging about it ever since
Literally rome was built on etruscan engineering.
So all that talk about roman sewers
And water management, that starts here?
It starts in the etruscan cities.
Wow.
I mean, that's insane.
So every time I flush my toilet?
-Think of the etruscans. -Think of the etruscans.
This is crazy, dude.
So the question is what's left in the sewers here?
-Let's find it. -Yeah.
Let's see what's here, come on.
It's almost getting a little shorter.
Yeah.
Just like today, all manner of personal articles
Would get flushed into the sewers of etruria.
Remind me to wash my hands when we get out of here.
Definitely a layer of fill here on the ground.
Looks like pottery here, look at this.
We got a piece of pottery.
Yeah, this pottery looks medieval
And that makes sense because they built
A medieval castle on top.
-Right. -And then they reutilized these tunnels.
Right, these, these tunnels were still perfectly good
-At that time. -Oh, yeah.
Much like the ground above,
This tunnel was repurposed through the middle ages,
Which means we might have to pick through some thorns
Before we find a rose.
Davide, I got something here that feels like...
First I thought it was a piece of stone, but it's, like, waxy.
It's a candle.
-This is a candle? -Yeah.
It is a candle. Look at that,
I can actually see the wick in it.
Wait, when is this from?
-It's not etruscan, it's not medieval. -No.
Like, that's pretty modern.
It's remnants of a looter probably having worked in here.
Wow. That's crazy.
Evidence of tomb raiders right there,
Although I guess they're not tomb raiders,
They're sewage raiders? Yeah.
Poop raiders.
The looters obviously left this candle here by "wax-ccident."
I know, one of my worst.
The question is what else did they leave?
Soon the tunnel narrows and forks.
Davide should probably get a look at what's ahead
Somehow.
You're gonna have to get ahead of me,
Although I have no idea how that's gonna happen.
-Okay. -Can you get over me?
I can't, man, there's three of these cave spiders right above you.
-What kind of spider? -A cave spider.
Just don't tell me about that and climb over me.
[chuckles] wow, those are really ugly spiders.
Okay, this is great.
I'm laying facedown in ancient sewer.
You smell anything?
Just my career drying up.
[laughs]
Oh, yeah, how many creatures can get in this tunnel?
Oh, my god.
All right, here you go. I'm almost there.
This is, this is very intimate.
[laughs]
I can see what you mean.
Divides in two.
[josh] all right, so what's our move?
I think we've come almost as far as we can.
If the looters left anything from the etruscan period,
This is where we'd find it.
Back to digging.
Yes, this is kind of a loose, loose debris on top.
But then within just a couple centimeters,
You get to this more hardpacked stuff.
I think this is slowly filled up in the medieval period.
Uh-huh.
Oh, here you go. Here's something.
What do you got?
A piece of black pottery?
-Let me see. -Yeah.
Here you go.
See what I mean?
Yeah, it's just black on the outside.
I think it could be bucchero
Bucchero is the signature ceramic style
Of the etruscans.
Gleaming black thanks to a unique method
For firing the pottery.
To think that this could be 2500 years old is crazy.
And maybe just a little trace of the etruscans here,
But, man, they are elusive.
Yeah, you're telling me about it.
[laughs] I know.
These tunnels though look pretty clean.
You know, some, some medieval refuse,
But looks like the looters have been through here,
So I don't think we're gonna find anything
Major down here, do you?
Not from the etruscan period, but you ain't seen nothing yet.
-Really? -There's a part of this site
That will blow your mind.
Okay.
Better than the sewers, davide?
Well, this is hard to beat,
But there's a part of this site that will make your jaw drop.
-Really? -Etruscan. Absolutely.
All right, let's move. Here we go.
Davide and I returned to the surface
Having seen firsthand the ingenuity of etruscan plumbing.
But to understand more about who the etruscans were
What else they accomplished and where they went,
Davide leads me to a part of their city
That needs to be seen to be believed.
Okay, take a look at this landscape.
This is crazy. It's like we're in a slot canyon.
Exactly like that, but it's a road.
This is a road?
This is an etruscan road carved into the hillside
To create a ramp leading down through the necropolis
And towards the city.
If you were an outsider coming into the city,
This would have looked really imposing.
Absolutely, there are tombs everywhere here,
Several layers of tombs on the right
And on the left on either side
And looking down on us as we approach the city.
Known as etruscan cuts,
Remains of roads like this o can be found all over central Italy.
Before all roads lead to rome, the etruscans had things covered.
The etruscans are the road builders.
That's right, they build a whole network of roads
Across the central italian peninsula.
And when rome comes, they build on that infrastructure
And create the famous roman road network.
The etruscans need a better pr agency.
-Right? Can you work on that? -I'm trying.
I mean, because this is another thing that
We think of as a roman innovation.
The romans were the original plagiarizers.
They were masters at taking innovations of other cultures
And incorporating them into their own empire.
Meanwhile, underneath all that, etruscan highways.
That's right, and we're walking down one.
Okay, let's see where this road leads.
-All right. Onward. -Yeah, onward.
Here the road has now spit us out into a plaza,
Tombs all surrounding us
And we have entered into the heart of the necropolis.
Look at this place.
These cities weren't just built for the living.
This is what's known as a ci of the dead,
A community of souls that surrounded
And watched over the etruscans.
This is insane. I feel like I'm in angkor wat
-In southeast asia. -Looks like that, right?
We've entered into a different environment here
In the bottom of the ravine.
This area here is meant to be awe inspiring.
-It's meant to impress, -yeah.
It's meant to give this sensation that
We're entering into a landscape
That's already claimed by the etruscans,
By the inhabitants of the city.
Right? The etruscans are one with this land.
That's right and especially this city is one
With this landscape.
-That's right. -Maybe in contrast to other etruscans,
Remember, there's always conflict and rivalry.
-Right. -Who's got the best necropolis,
Who's got the most impressive tombs,
All these are meant to impress visitors,
And maybe even attract alliances.
Right.
And when it comes to trying to impress,
Davide leads me toward a nearby clearing to see
Just how far the etruscans would go.
-Whoa. -Look at this.
What is this thing?
[josh] look at this thing.
This is what's known as a tumulus.
A tumulus.
It's a tomb cut into the summit of a hill.
[josh] literally cut into the top of the hill?
[david] that's right.
So you have to imagine this being kind of the main tomb area
Of a whole family and there are tombs
-Carved in all along the outside of this tumulus. -Right.
And then there's one of the biggest,
The principal tomb,
Which would have been maybe for the founder of a dynasty
Or definitely the leader of that family group.
-Wow, can we see it? -Yeah, let's go.
Would you look at this place.
This is serious construction that's cut out of the hill.
A big passageway leading into the main tomb,
But you can see here how it's carved into
The summit of the hillside
And then blocks are used to build up the top
To make an even more impressive entryway.
This is definitely like the big boss' tomb.
The big boss in the middle of the seventh century bc
Was buried right in here.
-And what's going on inside? -Let's go see.
The painted chambers we saw back in tarquinia
Aren't the only type of etruscan tomb.
Here, we see them carving what life may have been lik
In three dimensions.
Now, this is legit.
Look at this carved columns.
This is like very regal.
Back in the day, these huge family tombs,
They must have looked so impressive.
I think they would have been magnificent.
Crowning the hilltops of the necropolis
On all the hills surrounding the city of the living.
Absolutely unbelievable.
One such hilltop still exist
A nearby etruscan necropolis called cerveteri
Has stone made to look like wood beams,
Benches, long hallways, and detailed reliefs.
There's even a carving of a book on a night table,
Evidence that the etruscans once had literature,
But those tombs like the one I saw at tarquinia
And even the sewer here had been largely raided.
When this tomb was discovered, it had been looted?
It had been looted. We have some objects
And some sculptures from inside.
For instance, there were two griffins guarding the entrance.
This gives you an idea of how important the individual was.
This really is a tomb fit for a king.
-Very high status. -Yeah.
Davide is determined to fin undisturbed burials here
At this site, which may contain inscriptions
That could unlock etruscan language,
As well as priceless grave goods
To explain their culture and origins.
But as it turns out, even so of the tombs that have been
Broken into aren't totally empty.
Right under our feet, is an old funerary path
That leads along the side of a row of tombs.
-There's one here. -Huh?
-And there's another one here. -Oh, wow, look at this.
I mean, I would never have seen this.
It's just totally filled up and overgrown.
This is a good example of what the tombs look like
When we first encountered them.
So why isn't this fully covered?
Because at some point in the past,
Somebody broke into this tomb by removing the top lock
Of the doorway.
So it's been looted. Has it been excavated?
It has not been excavated, but typically the looters
Leave a wealth of information inside the tomb for us
-To document. -Okay.
-Do you want to go in? -No.
-There's science in there. -No, there's spiders in there.
-Spiders and science. -Yeah, but a lot of spiders.
-Let's go. -You're going first though.
All right.
Spiders or not?
We're going in.
All right, here we go.
[sighs]
This is horrible.
[grunts]
Okay. Whoo.
I'm in.
Wow.
This is awesome in here, actually.
Okay, so we've got two beds here.
With these kind of lower bunks carved out here.
That's right, there's room for two on each side here
To be laid out.
Each tomb has its own particularities.
All right, let's have a look around, yeah?
Oh, wow, josh, look over here.
-What do you have? -This is bone everywhere.
Here, it's littered all over this bed.
All these little white flakes that we see here,
This big piece, that's all human bone?
[david] that's right.
[josh] these remains weren't deliberately damaged
Chances are the ancient brittle bones shattered
As the tomb was being looted
What is that? That dark thing?
This is a piece of a bronze.
Wow, look at that.
What do you think this is from?
I think it would have been a decorative element
-Or... -Something they were wearing?
Yeah, probably a breastplate, maybe part of a belt.
These people would have been laid out here
-Wearing their best, right? -They would have been
Laid to rest in their finest clothes.
Right.
Look at that. It's the tooth, the molar.
Oh, my word.
That is a tooth, that is a human tooth.
[david] that is an etruscan tooth right there.
Not just a trace of their pottery now,
Not just a trace of their architecture,
But actually the remains of an individual.
That's right and this is important data,
We can do a series of analyses on bones like this,
That'll tell us about the life, the diet,
The health and migrations and the origins of
The etruscans.
This is a big question, their, their origins, right?
-Right. -Because they do seem to us
To be this culture that just kind of comes out of nowhere,
And people have been debating their origin since ancient times, right?
That's right.
From their writings, the romans and greeks
Looked at the etruscans as an exotic culture
That could not have been from the italian peninsula.
The roman writer livy speculated they were from turkey,
Home of the mighty trojans.
Others thought they were originally from greece,
But because the etruscan language hasn't survived,
They've never been able to speak for themselves.
Recently, there's been an increasing number
Of genetic studies both using modern populations
-And ancient populations. -Okay.
And those studies may show us where the etruscans were really from.
[josh] recently, scientists gathered genetic informatio
From the ancient remains of 82 etruscans
To compare the dna against other ancient
And modern peoples.
Okay, so where are they really from?
Here.
On the italian peninsula?
In the middle of Italy.
So they're not from somewhere else at all.
It doesn't seem that way.
So they're just part of this landscape.
Literally, they're from here.
-They're italians. -They're italians.
They're from here.
Identifying the origins of the etruscans is a major win,
But even with these human remains,
We're left with more questio than answers.
Right here in front of us, we have in many pieces,
An etruscan, an individual.
A person.
I don't think that story is fully told.
In order to fully know who the etruscans were
And why they fell to rome,
Archaeologists need unlooted tombs,
But every burial david's tea has found to date
Has been robbed,
And the tombs are hard to locate since they're overgrown,
Buried or hidden along steep cliffs.
In other words, we need some high tech help.
Josh, this is forest, laura and natalie
From lidar, usa.
I'm very familiar with lidar, usa.
I've worked with your company before.
Yes, you have, you worked with our dad jeff
-In roanoke. -That's right.
And my brother daniel in guatemala.
Yes, at el mirador.
I think I made your brother throw up in a helicopter.
[laughing]
-He's okay now? -He's fine.
He's recovered. Okay. Sorry about that.
Sorry. And here we are again.
-Yeah. -So, okay. Talk to me.
What's, what, what's the plan here?
I'm excited about this because this is,
As you've seen a very hard site,
-Very challenging to actually see what's on the surface. -Yeah.
A lot of hills, a lot of vegetation.
That's right, the lidar will get us through those trees.
Right.
The plan is for the lidar to peer down and image
Any additional cavities around the site.
Targets for potentially unlooted tombs.
And what kind of area are we going to be scanning here today?
So we're looking at somewhere around 250 acres.
250 acres is a lot and that will take this drone how long?
About 15 minutes.
15 minutes and in that 15 minutes or so,
How many data points will this collect?
-Millions. -Millions?
It doesn't make any sense.
-You ready to fly forrest? -I'm ready.
All right, let's do it.
He's alive.
The drone hovers in the air scanning along
A pre-programmed route that will cover the same territory,
It would take years to explore on foot.
The really mysterious thing about the etruscans
Is that the more you learn about them,
The more you understand that they were this really robust civilization.
Right? They were politically smart.
They were trading far and wide.
They were innovative.
And yet, it seems today like they've just vanished off
The face of the earth.
I mean, if I were to bet, let's say around 500 bce,
What would be the most successful culture in Italy.
It would be the etruscans, definitely not the romans.
Why is it do you think in the end that the etruscans
Couldn't stand up to rome?
I think the city state division may have worked against them.
There were rivalries between nobilities
May actually in the end have weakened them
When they were faced with a power as strong as rome.
Right. And they were a divided group.
They were these independent city states.
A league of 12, but not always supporting
Each other militarily when it came down to it.
Right.
It's an age old lesson, united we stand, divided we fall.
By the time rome grew into a threat,
The etruscans weren't cohesi enough to withstand them.
While davide and I ponder the past,
The drone finishes its progr and gently touches down.
-Nice flying, by the way. -Thank you.
-You're excited? -Oh, man, let's get this data.
Once the data is extracted from the drone,
It's time to process it through the computer
To see if this forest has been hiding some
Intact etruscan tombs for over 3000 years.
-Oh, look at that. -Wow.
Hello, sir, how's your pasta?
Eccellente.
What brings you to Italy?
We're looking for the etruscans.
You know, we have here in the restaurant
An etruscan tomb.
-In the restaurant? -Yeah, of course.
It's there under your feet.
I show you. Move the table.
Move the table.
-What? -That's it.
Are you kidding me? It's a real tomb?
Of course. Yes. Do you want to jump down?
-Yes. -Luciano, please come here.
Wow, okay.
We're gonna, we're gonna open it.
Oh, thank you.
-[grunts] -you got it?
-I can go down here, really? -Yeah, of course. Yes.
Okay, I'll see you later, guys.
Jump down!
There is literally a tomb thousands of years old
Underneath this restaurant.
Just goes to show that when you eat out,
It's important to inquire about specials
That are off the menu.
Hello?
[speaking in italian]
Guys?
Oh, my word, so that's the whole site?
[man] it's the whole plateau with the surrounding hillsides.
[josh] that is so cool.
No unlooted etruscan tombs have been found at this site
Locating one could mean finding historic artifacts
Or inscriptions that could help decipher
Their lost language.
And so walk me through the color pattern here.
So this is colored based on height.
-Yes. -So the dark blue is the lowest sections
And the darkest red is the highest portions.
And now can we remove that layer?
Yes. So that's what we're gonna do now.
Look at that. How cool is that?
So now that we can see this without any of the vegetation,
Let's get our bearings,
So the main part of the site is where?
Here and this would have also been where the acropolis,
The ritual center of the etruscan city,
Which extended across the plateau.
Okay, so what jumps out on here for you?
What jumps out? First of all, you may be seeing segments
Of the circuit walls that might date back
To the etruscan period.
Right, like above the site there?
Can we zoom in on that? This looks really squared off.
Yes, this looks excellent. Right here and right there.
You think that's part of a defensive wall?
I would say it is.
So if these are all sections of a defensive wall,
Does that mean this whole plateau
Might have been part of the city?
It's further evidence that the city extended
Across the entirety of the plateau.
Look at this down to the south.
This feature comes in very clearly.
[josh] right, this is one of these etruscan roads here?
Yeah, this is a road cut like a ramp
Leading down from the hilltop, down into the necropolis,
Then this down here, there's our tumulus right there.
-Yeah. -That's right.
And down the escarpment here of the hillside,
Layers of tombs, in sequence
Would have been laid along the roads that connect
The city of the dead.
So all these pock marks we see,
All these dark areas here, some of which look kind of squared off,
Actually are those tombs?
I think those might be tombs.
Oh, man.
And did they occur on the other hillsides as well?
Can we, can we zoom out?
Oh, look at that.
Look, how many potential tombs are right there.
You see these, these cluster of tombs
Would have been looking right towards the city
Of the living, right towards the ritual center.
And up on the top here,
We have additional constructed tombs.
Could you zoom in there a little bit?
Look at that, you can see them just cut out of the hillside there.
That's right.
The more we looked at this map,
The more that it seems like there might be tombs everywhere here.
Oh, there certainly are.
How many tombs did you survey on the ground
Just from what you could see?
Our pedestrian survey documented 543 tombs.
Sorry, 543 tombs?
543 tombs, but there must be many more.
And this image helps to show that.
I mean, I think there are thousands of tombs here.
-[josh] thousands? -Thousands of tombs.
This model here shows us the pinpointing locations,
Probably even more.
I've scanned hundreds of historical sites around the world
And I've never seen anything like this.
[josh] I mean, it really doe seem like everywhere you zoom in here,
There are potentially tombs.
There might be unlooted tombs here because we do not see
Those looters pits that penetrate down.
We've not found an unlooted tomb.
An unlooted tomb really would provide a wealth of data for us.
An unlooted tomb is a goldmine in terms of understanding
-The etruscans. -It's the holy grail.
Right.
And that grail may be within david's grasp,
Unlooted tombs that could finally give us the ke
To the etruscan language,
Or offer us stunning example of their art and architectur
This lidar has just opened yet another door
Into the etruscans' world,
And davide and his team will continue to chase down
Every lead in their pursuit of the past.
Before heading home, I return to the eternal city,
As if seeing it for the first time.
Now through the eyes of an etruscan.
This is the terminus of the cloaca maxima,
That massive sewer system that once ran beneath ancient rome.
Waste from around the city would flow out into the tiber river,
And it quite literally drain the swamp,
Paving the way for the construction of the roman forum.
And as we now know, it was the etruscans who first built it.
And not just the plumbing, chariot racing and gladiator games,
The first roads, fashion, and elements of their religi
Are all part of a rome that exists to this day.
Yet were born with the etruscans.
If all roads lead to rome, those roads begin with the etruscans.
And where did the etruscans go?
Well, it turns out nowhere.
They've been right here all along.