1 00:00:01,698 --> 00:00:05,698 [narrator] What is this misshapen 9,000-year-old clay head? 2 00:00:05,732 --> 00:00:08,905 [Kevin MacDonald] The recreation of the features of the living 3 00:00:08,939 --> 00:00:13,491 suggest this was part of an ancestral cult. 4 00:00:13,525 --> 00:00:17,111 [narrator] Can this bizarre machine really harness intergalactic energy? 5 00:00:18,318 --> 00:00:20,767 [Sascha Auerbach] It could repel an alien invasion 6 00:00:20,801 --> 00:00:24,353 and improve your sex life. 7 00:00:24,387 --> 00:00:28,560 [narrator] What do the drawings on this ancient tablet mean? 8 00:00:28,594 --> 00:00:30,456 It's a map of the unknown. 9 00:00:35,732 --> 00:00:39,801 [narrator] These are the most remarkable and mysterious objects on Earth, 10 00:00:41,043 --> 00:00:43,180 hidden away in museums, 11 00:00:43,215 --> 00:00:45,732 laboratories and storage rooms. 12 00:00:46,870 --> 00:00:49,077 Now, new research and technology 13 00:00:49,111 --> 00:00:50,905 can get under their skin 14 00:00:52,180 --> 00:00:53,663 like never before. 15 00:00:54,318 --> 00:00:55,767 We can rebuild them, 16 00:00:57,491 --> 00:00:59,801 pull them apart 17 00:00:59,836 --> 00:01:03,836 and zoom in to reveal the unbelievable, 18 00:01:04,525 --> 00:01:06,043 the ancient 19 00:01:06,939 --> 00:01:08,836 and the truly bizarre. 20 00:01:11,043 --> 00:01:15,491 These are the world's strangest things. 21 00:01:25,387 --> 00:01:27,008 In a corner of the British Museum 22 00:01:27,043 --> 00:01:29,353 sits a strange misshapen head. 23 00:01:30,491 --> 00:01:33,111 It was discovered nearly 70 years ago 24 00:01:33,146 --> 00:01:36,422 in one of the world's earliest cities. 25 00:01:36,456 --> 00:01:38,215 When it was found, it was quite unique. 26 00:01:39,249 --> 00:01:40,594 No one really knew what it was for 27 00:01:40,629 --> 00:01:42,663 and no one expected anything like this. 28 00:01:44,146 --> 00:01:46,387 [narrator] Now this object can be examined 29 00:01:46,422 --> 00:01:48,215 in minute detail. 30 00:01:53,146 --> 00:01:57,353 This is the Jericho Head. 31 00:01:57,387 --> 00:02:01,422 [Kevin] The first thing that draws you in are its bright shell eyes. 32 00:02:01,456 --> 00:02:05,974 And then you notice its light brown plaster skin. 33 00:02:06,594 --> 00:02:08,043 It's a haunting object. 34 00:02:09,318 --> 00:02:12,422 [narrator] And there is a reason it looks so haunting. 35 00:02:13,146 --> 00:02:14,249 Under the plaster, 36 00:02:14,284 --> 00:02:17,215 there is an actual, real human skull. 37 00:02:17,249 --> 00:02:20,215 [narrator] Why is a human head treated this way? 38 00:02:20,663 --> 00:02:22,836 How is it made? 39 00:02:22,870 --> 00:02:26,456 And who is the person beneath the plaster? 40 00:02:31,870 --> 00:02:35,146 The ancient city of Jericho lies in the Jordan Valley 41 00:02:35,180 --> 00:02:37,974 in modern-day Palestine. 42 00:02:38,008 --> 00:02:40,698 Jericho is famous to us, for one, the bible of course, 43 00:02:40,732 --> 00:02:42,836 the famous Walls of Jericho. 44 00:02:42,870 --> 00:02:45,077 But, actually, it's a very ancient place. 45 00:02:46,284 --> 00:02:48,663 [narrator] One of the world's earliest cities, 46 00:02:48,698 --> 00:02:51,939 founded more than 11,000 years ago. 47 00:02:51,974 --> 00:02:54,215 [Altaweel] Athens doesn't exist for another 4,000 years. 48 00:02:54,249 --> 00:02:56,008 Or if we're talking about a place like London, 49 00:02:56,043 --> 00:02:57,870 it doesn't exist for another 7,000 years. 50 00:03:00,008 --> 00:03:01,939 [narrator] According to theOld Testament, 51 00:03:01,974 --> 00:03:04,043 the Walls of Jericho collapse 52 00:03:04,077 --> 00:03:06,560 when the Israelites blow their horns. 53 00:03:07,353 --> 00:03:09,077 But in 1953, 54 00:03:09,111 --> 00:03:12,353 pioneering archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon and her team 55 00:03:12,387 --> 00:03:15,974 discover that the oldest walls of ancient Jericho 56 00:03:16,008 --> 00:03:20,111 date back far beyond biblical times. 57 00:03:20,146 --> 00:03:22,594 [Kevin] We're looking at an earlier walled settlement, 58 00:03:22,629 --> 00:03:26,767 stretching back to around 10,000 years before present. 59 00:03:26,801 --> 00:03:29,939 [narrator] In the ruins of this earliest settlement, 60 00:03:29,974 --> 00:03:32,249 they make an extraordinary discovery. 61 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:37,491 [Kevin] This looked like large cobble or boulder. 62 00:03:37,525 --> 00:03:41,491 But as it was excavated and emerged, 63 00:03:41,525 --> 00:03:43,353 it became clear that what they had 64 00:03:43,387 --> 00:03:46,353 was a reconstituted human head. 65 00:03:47,767 --> 00:03:52,111 [narrator] A clay face has been sculpted onto the skull. 66 00:03:52,146 --> 00:03:54,560 [Altaweel] They see a large hole where the nose is, 67 00:03:54,594 --> 00:03:57,629 which presumably is where a plastered nose would have been. 68 00:03:57,663 --> 00:03:59,180 There's dirt also coming out, 69 00:03:59,215 --> 00:04:02,008 which the archaeologists assumed was actually infill 70 00:04:02,043 --> 00:04:05,215 after the skull had been buried by surrounding dirt. 71 00:04:05,249 --> 00:04:08,905 And there's also a large hole in the back of the skull. 72 00:04:08,939 --> 00:04:13,043 [narrator] It's unlike anything the archaeologists have ever seen. 73 00:04:13,077 --> 00:04:18,974 It's a skull which long ago was effectively brought back to life 74 00:04:19,008 --> 00:04:24,215 by the introduction of shell and earth. 75 00:04:24,249 --> 00:04:28,215 [narrator] This strange thing is crafted by someone who died 76 00:04:28,249 --> 00:04:31,077 5,000 years before the pyramids were built. 77 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,905 Why do they rebuild a face on a human skull? 78 00:04:42,353 --> 00:04:45,698 The skull is sent to the British Museum for analysis, 79 00:04:45,732 --> 00:04:50,560 but 1950s technology has limitations. 80 00:04:50,594 --> 00:04:56,456 Early attempts to X-ray it showed only a cloudy mass. 81 00:04:56,491 --> 00:04:58,353 [narrator] One thing they can see clearly 82 00:04:58,387 --> 00:05:01,663 is the large hole on the back of the skull. 83 00:05:01,698 --> 00:05:03,974 It's assumed to be burial damage. 84 00:05:04,732 --> 00:05:06,456 It's not. 85 00:05:08,111 --> 00:05:10,008 More than 60 years later, 86 00:05:10,043 --> 00:05:13,318 it's finally revealed how wrong that assumption is 87 00:05:13,353 --> 00:05:16,353 when the British Museum teams up with Imperial College 88 00:05:16,387 --> 00:05:20,284 to apply the latest CT scanning technology. 89 00:05:20,318 --> 00:05:24,353 [Altaweel] We see cutting marks at the back of the head in this hole. 90 00:05:24,387 --> 00:05:25,870 It's clear that somebody had actually 91 00:05:25,905 --> 00:05:28,043 deliberately cut out this hole, uh, 92 00:05:28,077 --> 00:05:30,525 away from the skull, that it was carefully cut, 93 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:33,146 uh, not to damage other areas of the skull. 94 00:05:33,180 --> 00:05:36,284 [narrator] The interior of the skull is packed with earth. 95 00:05:36,318 --> 00:05:39,077 It was assumed to have fallen in after burial. 96 00:05:39,111 --> 00:05:42,870 But that turns out to be just as wrong. 97 00:05:42,905 --> 00:05:45,905 [Kevin] The scan showed that the soil within the skull 98 00:05:45,939 --> 00:05:48,974 had been carefully applied layer by layer 99 00:05:49,008 --> 00:05:53,594 to support the fragile interior bone structures of the skull. 100 00:05:53,629 --> 00:05:57,215 [narrator] We now understand how this strange thing is made. 101 00:05:57,249 --> 00:06:00,043 Someone painstakingly cuts out a hole 102 00:06:00,077 --> 00:06:02,456 and packs this skull with soil. 103 00:06:02,491 --> 00:06:05,077 They even leave behind their finger marks, 104 00:06:05,111 --> 00:06:08,698 still visible 10,000 years later. 105 00:06:11,111 --> 00:06:14,146 Then, they create the face. 106 00:06:14,180 --> 00:06:15,663 [Altaweel] Plastering the head would have taken perhaps 107 00:06:15,698 --> 00:06:17,870 some multiple applications to get it quite right 108 00:06:17,905 --> 00:06:19,111 and to mold the features, 109 00:06:19,146 --> 00:06:21,146 particularly the nose that would have likely been there. 110 00:06:21,180 --> 00:06:23,146 But also the eyes. 111 00:06:24,387 --> 00:06:26,249 We know they used shells from the Mediterranean 112 00:06:26,284 --> 00:06:29,836 that was about 60 miles away from Jericho. 113 00:06:29,870 --> 00:06:32,387 So, clearly, they're importing materials. 114 00:06:33,905 --> 00:06:35,594 So this is something that they really cared for. 115 00:06:35,629 --> 00:06:37,905 It's not something they just made haphazardly. 116 00:06:37,939 --> 00:06:39,525 They took some time in shaping this 117 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:43,663 and putting in precious objects into the skull. 118 00:06:44,905 --> 00:06:47,111 [narrator] But who could be important enough 119 00:06:47,146 --> 00:06:50,180 to deserve so much effort after death? 120 00:06:54,353 --> 00:06:56,663 The skull beneath the clay face reveals 121 00:06:56,698 --> 00:06:59,387 this was almost certainly a man 122 00:06:59,422 --> 00:07:01,284 and even his age. 123 00:07:02,732 --> 00:07:03,870 [Mark Benecke] The older you get, 124 00:07:03,905 --> 00:07:08,284 the more your bone parts start to attach to each other. 125 00:07:08,318 --> 00:07:10,939 So from that, you can deduce how old a person was. 126 00:07:10,974 --> 00:07:12,215 And in this case, 127 00:07:12,249 --> 00:07:15,732 the person was probably around 40 to 50 years when he died. 128 00:07:16,767 --> 00:07:18,146 [narrator] And stripping back the dirt 129 00:07:18,180 --> 00:07:23,215 shows that he suffers at least one injury during his life. 130 00:07:23,249 --> 00:07:26,008 [Kevin] Examining their nose which is twisted to one side, 131 00:07:26,043 --> 00:07:28,146 it was apparent that, at one point in their life, 132 00:07:28,180 --> 00:07:30,732 they had suffered from a broken nose. 133 00:07:30,767 --> 00:07:35,422 [narrator] This skull tells the story of a short hard life. 134 00:07:35,456 --> 00:07:39,422 But it also reveals something very, very strange. 135 00:07:42,215 --> 00:07:44,318 [Benecke] The head is unusually formed. 136 00:07:44,353 --> 00:07:48,456 This form of the head is not natural. 137 00:07:48,491 --> 00:07:50,767 [narrator] The shape of the skull is distorted. 138 00:07:50,801 --> 00:07:55,043 And the thickness of the bone varies more than a normal skull. 139 00:07:55,077 --> 00:07:58,870 Cranial distortion like this cannot happen after death. 140 00:08:00,491 --> 00:08:05,491 Somebody intentionally changed the shape of the head of the person 141 00:08:05,525 --> 00:08:08,353 by binding it and applying force to the head 142 00:08:08,387 --> 00:08:10,663 so it's deformed. 143 00:08:10,698 --> 00:08:13,905 [narrator] This can only be performed on an infant. 144 00:08:14,870 --> 00:08:18,111 To get a desired deformation of the skull, 145 00:08:18,146 --> 00:08:20,732 you have to do it very early, you have to start very early, 146 00:08:20,767 --> 00:08:26,146 one month after birth until six months after birth, approximately. 147 00:08:26,180 --> 00:08:31,491 [narrator] Tightly-wrapped bindings slowly squeeze his soft infant skull. 148 00:08:31,525 --> 00:08:33,974 When the bones fuse at around two years, 149 00:08:34,008 --> 00:08:36,939 his deformed head shape is fixed forever. 150 00:08:40,387 --> 00:08:45,629 This unusual practice is known in a number of cultures. 151 00:08:45,663 --> 00:08:49,215 [Kevin] Cranial deformation has been practiced in many different times 152 00:08:49,249 --> 00:08:52,353 and places throughout the world. 153 00:08:52,387 --> 00:08:55,974 [Altaweel] The head is often used as a way to make someone more prominent, 154 00:08:56,008 --> 00:08:57,801 to perhaps make him stick out. 155 00:08:57,836 --> 00:08:59,318 So it is a kind of cultural practice 156 00:08:59,353 --> 00:09:02,387 to make an individual become sort of distinct. 157 00:09:03,767 --> 00:09:06,387 [narrator] This can be a mark of tribal allegiance, 158 00:09:07,870 --> 00:09:09,594 a sign of beauty 159 00:09:10,767 --> 00:09:14,077 or elite social status. 160 00:09:14,111 --> 00:09:17,008 Whatever it means to the people of ancient Jericho, 161 00:09:17,043 --> 00:09:20,043 it tells us this man is special from birth. 162 00:09:21,008 --> 00:09:22,870 Who is he? 163 00:09:30,663 --> 00:09:32,456 [narrator] More than 9,000 years ago, 164 00:09:32,491 --> 00:09:34,629 someone carefully and deliberately 165 00:09:34,663 --> 00:09:39,215 created a clay face on the skull of a dead man. 166 00:09:39,249 --> 00:09:41,353 Modern facial reconstruction techniques 167 00:09:41,387 --> 00:09:45,801 finally allow us to stare into his living face. 168 00:09:45,836 --> 00:09:48,525 [Altaweel] So they're doing effectively what the ancients were trying to do 169 00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:49,663 with regards to the skull, 170 00:09:49,698 --> 00:09:52,525 which is recreate what the face actually looked like, 171 00:09:52,560 --> 00:09:54,456 but this time using laser scans 172 00:09:54,491 --> 00:09:57,801 and 3D printing to create a face. 173 00:09:57,836 --> 00:09:59,525 [narrator] Modeling the missing lower jaw 174 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:02,215 on other ancient Jericho skulls 175 00:10:02,249 --> 00:10:03,836 muscle by muscle, 176 00:10:03,870 --> 00:10:07,318 through layer upon layer of tissue and skin, 177 00:10:07,353 --> 00:10:10,180 the face of a man appears. 178 00:10:11,318 --> 00:10:13,801 The process that begins with clay and shells 179 00:10:13,836 --> 00:10:16,008 nearly 10,000 years ago 180 00:10:16,043 --> 00:10:18,215 is finally complete. 181 00:10:19,594 --> 00:10:22,491 This is the face of someone very important 182 00:10:22,525 --> 00:10:25,043 to the people of ancient Jericho. 183 00:10:25,077 --> 00:10:27,008 And he is not alone. 184 00:10:30,077 --> 00:10:33,525 More than 50 other decorated skulls have now been found 185 00:10:33,560 --> 00:10:36,008 across the region, 186 00:10:36,043 --> 00:10:39,456 including ten from Jericho alone. 187 00:10:39,491 --> 00:10:43,077 This curation of plastered skulls 188 00:10:43,111 --> 00:10:46,008 was undertaken much more widely 189 00:10:46,043 --> 00:10:49,043 than was previously thought. 190 00:10:49,077 --> 00:10:52,215 [narrator] And they all share something in common. 191 00:10:52,249 --> 00:10:54,560 There is no body. 192 00:10:54,594 --> 00:10:55,698 [Altaweel] Keeping the skull, 193 00:10:55,732 --> 00:10:57,353 not necessarily the rest of the skeleton, 194 00:10:57,387 --> 00:11:00,111 shows that the head had a great importance, 195 00:11:00,146 --> 00:11:02,318 which was treated in a very venerated way 196 00:11:02,353 --> 00:11:04,974 relative to the rest of the skeleton. 197 00:11:05,008 --> 00:11:09,077 [narrator] Could this decorated skull be part of a religion? 198 00:11:09,111 --> 00:11:11,422 Some kind of skull cult? 199 00:11:15,387 --> 00:11:17,215 [Altaweel] Most of the skulls that have been found in Jericho 200 00:11:17,249 --> 00:11:19,663 were in places that were prominent in display. 201 00:11:19,698 --> 00:11:21,353 They're looking the same direction. 202 00:11:21,387 --> 00:11:22,491 They often are near each other. 203 00:11:22,525 --> 00:11:25,043 So they probably even put down a kind of a shelf 204 00:11:25,077 --> 00:11:28,180 or some kind of pedestal to show them. 205 00:11:28,215 --> 00:11:30,318 [narrator] It seems that in ancient Jericho, 206 00:11:30,353 --> 00:11:33,801 these decorated skulls take pride of place, 207 00:11:33,836 --> 00:11:36,939 keeping their shell eyes on the living. 208 00:11:36,974 --> 00:11:41,525 [Kevin] Current interpretations suggest that these skulls 209 00:11:41,560 --> 00:11:44,732 brought back to life through the addition of plaster 210 00:11:44,767 --> 00:11:48,629 were part of a kind of ancestral cult. 211 00:11:48,663 --> 00:11:50,939 [narrator] But why do the living of ancient Jericho 212 00:11:50,974 --> 00:11:53,353 create a cult of their dead ancestors 213 00:11:53,387 --> 00:11:55,456 in their own homes? 214 00:11:57,284 --> 00:12:01,939 The explanation may lie in Jericho's most famous innovation. 215 00:12:01,974 --> 00:12:05,698 It is one of the world's first cities. 216 00:12:05,732 --> 00:12:08,318 [Altaweel] This is a period of great innovation for societies. 217 00:12:08,353 --> 00:12:10,663 They began to use agriculture, 218 00:12:10,698 --> 00:12:14,284 specifically domestication of different plants and animals. 219 00:12:14,318 --> 00:12:17,077 Some had decided to settle into villages, 220 00:12:17,111 --> 00:12:19,008 decided to live for long periods of time 221 00:12:19,043 --> 00:12:21,525 or even the entire year in one specific site, 222 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:23,629 which was quite a novelty in this period. 223 00:12:23,663 --> 00:12:25,525 [narrator] For the first time in history, 224 00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:28,870 large numbers of people call the same place home. 225 00:12:30,387 --> 00:12:34,594 But this means finding an entirely new way to live with each other, 226 00:12:34,629 --> 00:12:38,456 crowded in together behind the city's 12-foot walls. 227 00:12:39,353 --> 00:12:41,560 They need a way to avoid conflicts 228 00:12:41,594 --> 00:12:45,456 developing between that other great invention of the city, 229 00:12:45,491 --> 00:12:46,905 neighbors. 230 00:12:46,939 --> 00:12:48,456 [Altaweel] When humans begin to settle, 231 00:12:48,491 --> 00:12:51,456 they have to create a range of different cultural practices 232 00:12:51,491 --> 00:12:54,077 that allow them to succeed in this kind of lifestyle 233 00:12:54,111 --> 00:12:55,594 of where they stay in one place 234 00:12:55,629 --> 00:12:57,008 for long periods of time. 235 00:12:57,043 --> 00:12:58,560 [narrator] Archaeologists suspect that 236 00:12:58,594 --> 00:13:01,698 the cult of ancestors this skull represents 237 00:13:01,732 --> 00:13:04,594 acts as a kind of social glue, 238 00:13:04,629 --> 00:13:08,284 connecting the citizens to their past, to their home 239 00:13:08,318 --> 00:13:10,974 and, most importantly, to each other. 240 00:13:11,008 --> 00:13:14,629 Innovating ancestors as a way of associating ownership 241 00:13:14,663 --> 00:13:15,974 and tying yourself to the land 242 00:13:16,008 --> 00:13:18,180 becomes a kind of cultural phenomenon 243 00:13:18,215 --> 00:13:20,663 and reflects a kind of practical understanding 244 00:13:20,698 --> 00:13:21,974 that you need to belong to the land 245 00:13:22,008 --> 00:13:24,111 and you need to take care of the land. 246 00:13:24,146 --> 00:13:27,387 [narrator] This dead man helps bind living people together 247 00:13:27,422 --> 00:13:29,698 in a whole new way, 248 00:13:29,732 --> 00:13:34,491 which makes this strange thing incredibly important. 249 00:13:34,525 --> 00:13:37,111 This decorated skull may have been central 250 00:13:37,146 --> 00:13:41,318 to the early success of one of mankind's greatest achievements, 251 00:13:42,905 --> 00:13:44,594 the city. 252 00:13:50,663 --> 00:13:54,111 Hidden among trees in a small forest near Rangeley, Maine, 253 00:13:54,146 --> 00:13:56,008 stands a strange machine 254 00:13:56,043 --> 00:13:59,215 designed to harness a powerful source of energy. 255 00:14:00,629 --> 00:14:03,629 It looks big and long, but also futuristic. 256 00:14:04,594 --> 00:14:06,249 [narrator] According to its inventor, 257 00:14:06,284 --> 00:14:08,836 it can drill holes in the atmosphere 258 00:14:08,870 --> 00:14:11,249 and trigger tornadoes. 259 00:14:11,284 --> 00:14:15,318 This contraption effectively looks like a massive ray gun. 260 00:14:15,353 --> 00:14:17,387 [narrator] Now, using the latest technology, 261 00:14:17,422 --> 00:14:20,525 we can examine it in unprecedented detail. 262 00:14:23,249 --> 00:14:26,767 This is the cloudbuster. 263 00:14:26,801 --> 00:14:29,974 [Andrea Sella] It was supposed to control the weather. 264 00:14:30,008 --> 00:14:32,353 It could make it rain. 265 00:14:32,387 --> 00:14:34,698 It could stop the rain. 266 00:14:34,732 --> 00:14:38,043 Just imagine being able to control droughts 267 00:14:38,077 --> 00:14:39,905 or control a flood. 268 00:14:39,939 --> 00:14:43,732 [narrator] But this isn't the only trick of this new form of energy. 269 00:14:43,767 --> 00:14:46,456 [Sascha] And as an added bonus, 270 00:14:46,491 --> 00:14:48,870 it could repel an alien invasion 271 00:14:48,905 --> 00:14:51,939 and improve your sex life. 272 00:14:51,974 --> 00:14:54,387 [narrator] This energy seems to have the potential 273 00:14:54,422 --> 00:14:56,180 to change the world. 274 00:14:56,215 --> 00:14:57,939 If you could control this, 275 00:14:57,974 --> 00:15:01,077 you could make essentially anything you wanted happen. 276 00:15:01,111 --> 00:15:04,491 [narrator] Who builds this game-changing weather gun? 277 00:15:04,525 --> 00:15:07,111 What is the source of its power? 278 00:15:07,146 --> 00:15:09,353 And could it actually work? 279 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:20,249 [narrator] The cloudbuster is created in 1952 280 00:15:20,284 --> 00:15:22,180 by Dr. Wilhelm Reich. 281 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:25,836 Now, this is quite a contraption, 282 00:15:25,870 --> 00:15:28,043 this multiple-tubed device 283 00:15:28,077 --> 00:15:30,974 mounted on a klin then a swiveling mechanism 284 00:15:31,008 --> 00:15:34,180 so it can be pointed in any direction. 285 00:15:34,215 --> 00:15:37,111 It's got the metallic umbilical cables 286 00:15:37,146 --> 00:15:39,215 that kind of thread down. 287 00:15:39,249 --> 00:15:41,525 [narrator] These are designed to channel energy 288 00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:44,456 that triggers a change in the atmosphere. 289 00:15:44,491 --> 00:15:49,422 So Reich's idea is that by attaching this umbilicus 290 00:15:49,456 --> 00:15:50,836 to a body of water 291 00:15:50,870 --> 00:15:53,663 and pointing the muzzles of the device 292 00:15:53,698 --> 00:15:56,870 at the correct direction in the atmosphere, 293 00:15:56,905 --> 00:16:01,043 it could draw this energy out of the sky 294 00:16:01,077 --> 00:16:03,939 and deposit it into the water. 295 00:16:05,870 --> 00:16:07,974 The movement of this mysterious energy 296 00:16:08,008 --> 00:16:10,111 out of the atmosphere 297 00:16:10,146 --> 00:16:11,836 would cause clouds to form 298 00:16:11,870 --> 00:16:14,525 and, subsequently, rain to fall. 299 00:16:16,698 --> 00:16:20,870 [narrator] Who is the man who believes he can really control the weather 300 00:16:20,905 --> 00:16:23,146 with his astonishing cloudbuster? 301 00:16:25,905 --> 00:16:28,525 Wilhelm Reich is not the kind of person you'd expect 302 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:31,146 to dream up a world-changing weather machine. 303 00:16:33,146 --> 00:16:37,043 His interests begin not in physics or engineering, 304 00:16:38,077 --> 00:16:39,836 but in the mind. 305 00:16:39,870 --> 00:16:42,870 Reich was born in Austria in 1897, 306 00:16:42,905 --> 00:16:45,525 a time which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 307 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:49,560 and he studied medicine at the University of Vienna. 308 00:16:49,594 --> 00:16:53,594 [narrator] In the 1920s, Reich is a brilliant psychoanalyst 309 00:16:53,629 --> 00:16:57,284 and protege of the discipline's founding father, 310 00:16:57,318 --> 00:16:59,043 Sigmund Freud. 311 00:16:59,077 --> 00:17:01,560 [Keon West] He took a lot of Freud's ideas about 312 00:17:01,594 --> 00:17:03,698 people having these needs and these desires. 313 00:17:03,732 --> 00:17:06,284 And there's always this tension between what we need 314 00:17:06,318 --> 00:17:07,491 and whether that need is fulfilled. 315 00:17:08,939 --> 00:17:11,939 [narrator] The more Reich digs into needs and desires, 316 00:17:11,974 --> 00:17:14,422 the more he focuses on Freud's ideas 317 00:17:14,456 --> 00:17:18,387 about the role of sexual desire in mental health. 318 00:17:18,422 --> 00:17:20,629 [Sascha] He believes that repressing sexual outlets 319 00:17:20,663 --> 00:17:22,560 can lead to neuroses. 320 00:17:22,594 --> 00:17:24,974 So his argument is that 321 00:17:25,008 --> 00:17:28,215 if you discharge these sexual urges, 322 00:17:28,249 --> 00:17:31,525 it will have a psychoanalytic healing effect. 323 00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:34,008 [narrator] But Reich is just getting started. 324 00:17:34,043 --> 00:17:38,698 He gradually becomes convinced that sex is the sole cause 325 00:17:38,732 --> 00:17:42,008 and sole cure for almost any illness, 326 00:17:42,043 --> 00:17:43,939 mental or physical. 327 00:17:43,974 --> 00:17:47,353 This increasingly extreme interpretation of Freud's work 328 00:17:47,387 --> 00:17:49,456 doesn't go down well. 329 00:17:49,732 --> 00:17:51,422 By 1939, 330 00:17:51,456 --> 00:17:53,698 his ideas are considered so radical 331 00:17:53,732 --> 00:17:55,767 and so contrary 332 00:17:55,801 --> 00:17:58,560 to the general clinical practices of psychoanalysis 333 00:17:58,594 --> 00:18:00,180 that he is kicked out of the movement. 334 00:18:02,594 --> 00:18:06,836 [narrator] And Freud's followers aren't the only ones Reich falls out with. 335 00:18:06,870 --> 00:18:09,870 He also falls out with the actual Reich... 336 00:18:09,905 --> 00:18:11,353 [soldiers] Heil! 337 00:18:11,387 --> 00:18:13,077 ...the Third Reich. 338 00:18:15,111 --> 00:18:19,008 The Nazis assert that he is part of a Jewish conspiracy 339 00:18:19,043 --> 00:18:22,698 to undermine the health and well-being of Europe 340 00:18:22,732 --> 00:18:25,629 and they ordered his books burned. 341 00:18:25,663 --> 00:18:28,767 [narrator] Reich is forced to flee to the United States. 342 00:18:31,836 --> 00:18:36,215 And it's there that he creates the cloudbuster. 343 00:18:38,077 --> 00:18:41,491 But how does he make the leap from upsetting fascists 344 00:18:41,525 --> 00:18:43,836 to upsetting the weather? 345 00:18:46,284 --> 00:18:47,698 In the 1930s, 346 00:18:47,732 --> 00:18:50,663 with the help of some very accommodating friends, 347 00:18:50,698 --> 00:18:53,663 Reich sets out to find a scientific explanation 348 00:18:53,698 --> 00:18:56,870 for the healing properties of sexual desire. 349 00:18:57,939 --> 00:18:59,767 [Keon] So he took Freud's idea 350 00:18:59,801 --> 00:19:01,353 and tried to measure something, 351 00:19:01,387 --> 00:19:04,043 something bioelectrical or chemical or physical. 352 00:19:05,111 --> 00:19:07,629 [narrator] As the friends get friendlier, 353 00:19:07,663 --> 00:19:10,767 Reich records an increase in electrical activity. 354 00:19:11,905 --> 00:19:14,456 He's certain it's evidence of some kind of 355 00:19:14,491 --> 00:19:17,560 previously unidentified bioelectrical energy. 356 00:19:18,318 --> 00:19:20,594 He names it orgone. 357 00:19:24,180 --> 00:19:26,836 Through an elaborate series of experiments, 358 00:19:26,870 --> 00:19:31,111 Reich convinces himself that he's rewritten the laws of the universe. 359 00:19:32,180 --> 00:19:35,560 Reich argues that the entire planet is covered 360 00:19:35,594 --> 00:19:39,008 with an envelope of this orgone energy. 361 00:19:40,836 --> 00:19:44,456 [Andrea] It was responsible for stuff out in space, 362 00:19:44,491 --> 00:19:46,284 like galaxies. 363 00:19:46,318 --> 00:19:47,939 But at the same time, 364 00:19:47,974 --> 00:19:52,249 it was also kind of channeled through people. 365 00:19:52,284 --> 00:19:55,318 It produced the life force. 366 00:19:57,560 --> 00:19:59,146 [narrator] In 1940, 367 00:19:59,180 --> 00:20:02,767 Reich invents a device to harness the healing powers 368 00:20:02,801 --> 00:20:05,422 of this miraculous energy. 369 00:20:05,456 --> 00:20:09,525 He built what he calls an orgone accumulator. 370 00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:12,939 [narrator] Reich claims that inside the wood and steel box, 371 00:20:12,974 --> 00:20:16,111 orgone is absorbed through the patient's skin 372 00:20:16,146 --> 00:20:18,456 to cure them of almost anything. 373 00:20:18,491 --> 00:20:21,974 And he started to conduct experiments and treatments 374 00:20:22,008 --> 00:20:24,180 using the accumulator box on patients 375 00:20:24,215 --> 00:20:27,111 who had cancer and schizophrenia. 376 00:20:28,870 --> 00:20:30,525 [narrator] But Reich goes further, 377 00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:34,663 theorizing that orgone can literally change the world. 378 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:39,180 And in 1952, he sets out to prove it 379 00:20:39,215 --> 00:20:41,801 by creating the cloudbuster. 380 00:20:41,836 --> 00:20:43,284 [Sarah] Reich had made a lot of claims about 381 00:20:43,318 --> 00:20:45,629 what the cloudbuster could do, but the key thing was 382 00:20:45,663 --> 00:20:47,663 the fact that you could take it anywhere, 383 00:20:47,698 --> 00:20:49,180 you could point it at the sky 384 00:20:49,215 --> 00:20:51,318 and you could make it rain. 385 00:20:51,353 --> 00:20:54,387 [narrator] Reich's momentous claims seemed crazy. 386 00:20:54,422 --> 00:20:58,077 Could there be any real science to support his idea 387 00:20:58,111 --> 00:21:00,974 of controlling the weather with the cloudbuster? 388 00:21:07,525 --> 00:21:11,111 [narrator] In the 1950s, Wilhelm Reich's bizarre cloudbuster 389 00:21:11,146 --> 00:21:13,525 promises to bring an end to droughts. 390 00:21:14,146 --> 00:21:16,353 But will it work? 391 00:21:16,387 --> 00:21:17,663 [Sarah] In 1953, 392 00:21:17,698 --> 00:21:20,284 there had been a drought that had been going on for months 393 00:21:20,318 --> 00:21:21,939 in Maine in the US. 394 00:21:21,974 --> 00:21:23,594 And, in particular, the blueberry farmers 395 00:21:23,629 --> 00:21:25,249 were worried about their crop. 396 00:21:25,284 --> 00:21:28,767 [narrator] Blueberry plants take seven years to mature. 397 00:21:28,801 --> 00:21:32,939 So a dead crop means years of financial hardship. 398 00:21:32,974 --> 00:21:35,422 The farmers are desperate. 399 00:21:35,456 --> 00:21:38,387 Enter Wilhelm Reich and his cloudbuster. 400 00:21:39,387 --> 00:21:41,801 [Andrea] He wheels out his device. 401 00:21:41,836 --> 00:21:46,525 He connects it up to a source of clear, pure water. 402 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:48,663 He points it at the sky. 403 00:21:48,698 --> 00:21:50,284 And they begin to operate it. 404 00:21:54,111 --> 00:21:55,560 And the next day... 405 00:21:57,456 --> 00:21:58,905 it rains. 406 00:22:02,870 --> 00:22:05,905 [narrator] Official records confirm a quarter of an inch of rain 407 00:22:05,939 --> 00:22:07,629 falls the following day. 408 00:22:09,249 --> 00:22:11,008 The blueberry farmers are very happy. 409 00:22:11,043 --> 00:22:12,146 Reich gets paid. 410 00:22:12,836 --> 00:22:15,422 For Reich, this is a triumph. 411 00:22:15,456 --> 00:22:18,525 There is clearly cause and effect. 412 00:22:19,767 --> 00:22:22,456 [narrator] Does this prove the cloudbuster works? 413 00:22:22,491 --> 00:22:25,111 Or has Reich just caught a lucky break? 414 00:22:25,732 --> 00:22:27,732 It sounds nuts, 415 00:22:27,767 --> 00:22:30,318 but can you really control rainfall? 416 00:22:32,939 --> 00:22:34,594 [Andrea] One of the key requirements 417 00:22:34,629 --> 00:22:37,905 in order to be able to make an actual raindrop 418 00:22:37,939 --> 00:22:40,008 is to have something, 419 00:22:40,043 --> 00:22:41,594 what's called a condensation input, 420 00:22:42,456 --> 00:22:44,525 a little sort of starting point 421 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:47,008 on which the drop can form. 422 00:22:47,043 --> 00:22:51,387 And so if you put tiny solid particles into the air, 423 00:22:51,422 --> 00:22:53,077 then they will be enough 424 00:22:53,111 --> 00:22:55,594 to actually start the formation of droplets 425 00:22:55,629 --> 00:22:58,043 which will then fall to Earth. 426 00:22:58,077 --> 00:23:02,318 [narrator] Scientists have tried deliberately depositing silver iodide, 427 00:23:02,353 --> 00:23:06,284 or dry ice, inside clouds to induce rain. 428 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:09,663 It's called cloud-seeding. 429 00:23:11,249 --> 00:23:14,111 And the jury's still out on whether it works. 430 00:23:16,249 --> 00:23:20,008 But that didn't stop the US government from weaponizing it. 431 00:23:20,043 --> 00:23:24,387 In 1967, the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron 432 00:23:24,422 --> 00:23:27,215 conducts what's called Operation Popeye. 433 00:23:27,249 --> 00:23:30,146 The motto of which was "make mud, not war." 434 00:23:30,180 --> 00:23:33,146 And their goal was to extend the monsoon season 435 00:23:33,180 --> 00:23:36,974 over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, softening the roadbed 436 00:23:37,008 --> 00:23:41,318 and causing transportation problems in the movement of supplies 437 00:23:41,353 --> 00:23:43,698 from North Vietnam into the combat areas. 438 00:23:45,318 --> 00:23:48,008 [narrator] It's impossible to know if it really works. 439 00:23:48,043 --> 00:23:50,594 After all, it can rain a lot in the jungle 440 00:23:50,629 --> 00:23:53,456 pretty much whatever you do. 441 00:23:53,491 --> 00:23:55,905 But one thing we do know is this approach 442 00:23:55,939 --> 00:24:00,249 can only work if you add particles to the clouds. 443 00:24:00,284 --> 00:24:03,284 And that's a problem for the cloudbuster. 444 00:24:03,318 --> 00:24:07,284 It doesn't blast particles into the atmosphere. 445 00:24:07,318 --> 00:24:10,491 In fact, it doesn't actually seem to do anything. 446 00:24:11,594 --> 00:24:14,353 [Sascha] The device has no buttons or trigger 447 00:24:14,387 --> 00:24:16,387 or on switch of any sort. 448 00:24:16,422 --> 00:24:18,905 You just point it at the clouds, 449 00:24:18,939 --> 00:24:20,767 and that's that. 450 00:24:20,801 --> 00:24:24,146 [narrator] So why does it rain on the blueberry crop? 451 00:24:25,456 --> 00:24:28,456 Maybe it's nothing more than the luck of the draw. 452 00:24:28,491 --> 00:24:31,422 [Andrea] Most of us can buy a lottery ticket. 453 00:24:31,456 --> 00:24:32,939 You might win once. 454 00:24:33,525 --> 00:24:34,767 What you need to do 455 00:24:34,801 --> 00:24:37,629 is to do it over and over again 456 00:24:37,663 --> 00:24:41,284 and really show that there are statistics there. 457 00:24:41,318 --> 00:24:45,353 And what Reich does is he tries it once 458 00:24:45,387 --> 00:24:48,491 and he sees what he wants. 459 00:24:48,525 --> 00:24:51,353 But the reality is that it tells him nothing. 460 00:24:52,456 --> 00:24:53,939 [narrator] Despite the grand claims, 461 00:24:53,974 --> 00:24:57,732 there's no scientific evidence that the cloudbuster works. 462 00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,043 But that doesn't stop Reich. 463 00:25:01,077 --> 00:25:03,353 His cloudbuster is about to graduate 464 00:25:03,387 --> 00:25:05,215 from saving blueberries 465 00:25:05,249 --> 00:25:06,836 to saving the world. 466 00:25:10,525 --> 00:25:12,870 Reich goes on to test his experiments 467 00:25:12,905 --> 00:25:14,491 in the Arizona desert. 468 00:25:14,525 --> 00:25:16,043 Whilst he's operating the cloudbuster, 469 00:25:16,077 --> 00:25:18,905 he notices that there is an increase in cloud cover 470 00:25:18,939 --> 00:25:20,387 and in humidity. 471 00:25:20,422 --> 00:25:23,422 And he attributes this to the power of the cloudbuster 472 00:25:23,456 --> 00:25:25,249 and the orgone energy. 473 00:25:25,284 --> 00:25:28,939 [narrator] Then the cloud cover mysteriously breaks up. 474 00:25:28,974 --> 00:25:31,215 But Reich has an explanation for this. 475 00:25:32,629 --> 00:25:34,836 [narrator] And even by Reich's standards, 476 00:25:34,870 --> 00:25:36,318 it's pretty out there. 477 00:25:36,353 --> 00:25:39,836 [Sascha] Spotting a light over the Catalina Mountains, 478 00:25:39,870 --> 00:25:44,318 Reich becomes convinced that the Earth is under attack 479 00:25:44,353 --> 00:25:45,491 by aliens. 480 00:25:46,594 --> 00:25:49,284 He claims that they are releasing a substance 481 00:25:49,318 --> 00:25:51,698 called deadly orgone radiation. 482 00:25:52,939 --> 00:25:55,491 He writes that we are at war with a power 483 00:25:55,525 --> 00:25:57,629 previously unknown to man. 484 00:25:59,284 --> 00:26:04,318 [narrator] Luckily, Reich has the perfect weapon to defeat the aliens. 485 00:26:04,353 --> 00:26:06,456 [Sascha] Armed with two cloudbusters, 486 00:26:06,491 --> 00:26:09,284 Reich fights what he claims to be 487 00:26:09,318 --> 00:26:12,043 "a climactic interstellar battle" 488 00:26:12,077 --> 00:26:15,663 with the aliens over the skies of Arizona. 489 00:26:17,077 --> 00:26:18,939 Not the craziest idea ever floated in Arizona, 490 00:26:18,974 --> 00:26:20,043 just for the record. 491 00:26:21,939 --> 00:26:25,318 [narrator] But while Reich is busy fighting aliens, 492 00:26:25,353 --> 00:26:28,215 he's missing a much more dangerous enemy. 493 00:26:38,249 --> 00:26:39,836 [narrator] Armed with his cloudbuster, 494 00:26:39,870 --> 00:26:42,525 psychoanalyst and inventor Wilhelm Reich 495 00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,422 battles drought and blasts aliens. 496 00:26:47,077 --> 00:26:48,939 But his work is attracting the attention 497 00:26:48,974 --> 00:26:51,698 of an even more powerful adversary, 498 00:26:52,629 --> 00:26:54,629 the US government. 499 00:26:55,422 --> 00:26:57,249 Reich is a committed socialist 500 00:26:57,284 --> 00:27:00,767 with a radical attitude to sexual freedom. 501 00:27:00,801 --> 00:27:02,801 He rings all the alarm bells 502 00:27:02,836 --> 00:27:04,215 for a government paranoid about 503 00:27:04,249 --> 00:27:06,732 the threat of subversives. 504 00:27:06,767 --> 00:27:09,594 He attracts quite a lot of negative media attention. 505 00:27:09,629 --> 00:27:12,698 [narrator] The government turns Reich's work against him, 506 00:27:12,732 --> 00:27:16,215 not the cloudbuster, but his earlier invention, 507 00:27:16,249 --> 00:27:18,249 the orgone accumulator. 508 00:27:18,284 --> 00:27:21,629 [Sarah] He was presenting the orgone accumulator box 509 00:27:21,663 --> 00:27:23,663 as a legitimate medical device, 510 00:27:23,698 --> 00:27:27,560 which they argued he didn't have the evidence to back up. 511 00:27:27,594 --> 00:27:29,939 [narrator] The orgone accumulator is banned. 512 00:27:30,939 --> 00:27:32,249 [Sarah] Unfortunately, for Reich, 513 00:27:32,284 --> 00:27:35,456 one of his agents sells one of the boxes 514 00:27:35,491 --> 00:27:37,387 without him even being involved, 515 00:27:37,422 --> 00:27:39,008 and the FDA considered this to be 516 00:27:39,043 --> 00:27:40,146 a breach of the injunction. 517 00:27:41,422 --> 00:27:44,594 [narrator] Reich is sentenced to two years in prison. 518 00:27:46,387 --> 00:27:51,180 And FDA agents destroy his accumulators and books. 519 00:27:51,215 --> 00:27:54,353 [Sascha] Over 6 tons of Reich's writing are collected 520 00:27:54,387 --> 00:27:57,629 and burned at a public incinerator. 521 00:27:57,663 --> 00:28:00,180 Any material related to orgone is fair game. 522 00:28:00,215 --> 00:28:02,560 And it all goes up in smoke. 523 00:28:02,594 --> 00:28:04,939 [narrator] Reich's reputation is ruined. 524 00:28:07,111 --> 00:28:10,491 Aged 60, the creator of the radical cloudbuster 525 00:28:10,525 --> 00:28:13,146 dies of a heart attack while still in prison. 526 00:28:15,698 --> 00:28:18,215 But his ideas don't die with him. 527 00:28:19,249 --> 00:28:21,043 And it's easy to see why. 528 00:28:22,732 --> 00:28:24,939 [Keon] It's really nice to believe that there's just 529 00:28:24,974 --> 00:28:26,974 one energy that flows through the universe, 530 00:28:27,008 --> 00:28:28,387 and that it's the source of everything 531 00:28:28,422 --> 00:28:30,318 and the solution to everything. 532 00:28:30,353 --> 00:28:32,629 When you have a really complicated, difficult world, 533 00:28:32,663 --> 00:28:34,801 you can understand the appeal of an answer 534 00:28:34,836 --> 00:28:36,905 that's both simple and enjoyable, 535 00:28:36,939 --> 00:28:38,491 even if it's not the right answer. 536 00:28:40,215 --> 00:28:43,905 [narrator] Despite no scientific proof that orgone exists, 537 00:28:43,939 --> 00:28:46,905 Reich's fans are still turning out online plans 538 00:28:46,939 --> 00:28:50,111 to build your very own cloudbuster today. 539 00:28:51,284 --> 00:28:53,180 Just don't expect it to rain. 540 00:29:01,491 --> 00:29:03,870 Locked away in the vaults of the British Museum 541 00:29:03,905 --> 00:29:05,974 is a strange clay tablet. 542 00:29:07,249 --> 00:29:12,284 It took years to be deciphered and its importance understood. 543 00:29:13,353 --> 00:29:15,594 It's a map of the unknown. 544 00:29:17,043 --> 00:29:19,387 [narrator] Now, using the latest technology, 545 00:29:19,422 --> 00:29:23,043 we can begin to decode this ancient artifact. 546 00:29:27,698 --> 00:29:31,215 This is the Babylonian Map of the World. 547 00:29:32,663 --> 00:29:35,043 [Abigail Graham] While this is, technically speaking, a map, 548 00:29:35,077 --> 00:29:37,215 it's so much more than that. 549 00:29:37,249 --> 00:29:41,318 It is the oldest map of the world. 550 00:29:41,353 --> 00:29:45,077 This map dates to more than 2,500 years ago. 551 00:29:46,180 --> 00:29:48,525 [narrator] It stands 4.8 inches high 552 00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,836 and 3.2 inches wide. 553 00:29:51,870 --> 00:29:57,008 Curious diagrams and cryptic text cover its surface. 554 00:29:57,043 --> 00:30:00,043 [Kevin] You've got living cities, you've got dead cities, 555 00:30:00,077 --> 00:30:02,594 you've got mythological places, 556 00:30:02,629 --> 00:30:05,146 you've got the notion of the end of the world. 557 00:30:10,594 --> 00:30:15,043 [narrator] And at the heart of this map is a mystery. 558 00:30:15,077 --> 00:30:17,387 What do the symbols and writing mean? 559 00:30:18,870 --> 00:30:20,525 Why was it made? 560 00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,491 Is this really a map of the world? 561 00:30:30,284 --> 00:30:32,318 The map is discovered in 1881 562 00:30:32,353 --> 00:30:35,215 in the lost city of Shapur, 563 00:30:35,249 --> 00:30:38,353 17 miles southwest of modern-day Baghdad. 564 00:30:40,215 --> 00:30:43,836 It is part of a 70,000-tablet bonanza. 565 00:30:43,870 --> 00:30:46,043 And under this avalanche of finds, 566 00:30:46,077 --> 00:30:48,594 its significance is missed. 567 00:30:51,249 --> 00:30:55,180 [Kevin] This object was pretty much put to one side 568 00:30:55,215 --> 00:30:58,318 for eight years until its importance was discovered 569 00:30:58,353 --> 00:31:01,180 as one of the first maps of the world. 570 00:31:01,215 --> 00:31:04,215 [narrator] The information on the tablet is in cuneiform form, 571 00:31:04,249 --> 00:31:07,111 the oldest written language on Earth, 572 00:31:07,146 --> 00:31:09,870 and it reveals a lost civilization. 573 00:31:13,663 --> 00:31:16,456 In the center of the map is a hole, 574 00:31:16,491 --> 00:31:19,801 a device often found on cuneiform tablets. 575 00:31:21,284 --> 00:31:23,077 Above this lies a rectangle, 576 00:31:23,111 --> 00:31:26,698 representing a mighty city labeled as Babylon. 577 00:31:28,077 --> 00:31:30,043 [Abigail] We know it's the city of Babylon 578 00:31:30,077 --> 00:31:32,939 because the other rectangle that runs through it 579 00:31:32,974 --> 00:31:34,456 is the Euphrates River. 580 00:31:34,491 --> 00:31:36,387 And Babylon was famous for being the city 581 00:31:36,422 --> 00:31:39,698 that was on both sides of the Euphrates River. 582 00:31:39,732 --> 00:31:43,077 [narrator] When the map is made around 2,600 years ago, 583 00:31:43,111 --> 00:31:46,560 Babylon is home to 200,000 people. 584 00:31:46,594 --> 00:31:49,387 It is the largest city on Earth 585 00:31:49,422 --> 00:31:53,146 and the location of the greatest wonders of the ancient world, 586 00:31:54,111 --> 00:31:56,284 the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 587 00:31:57,629 --> 00:31:59,732 the Ishtar Gate 588 00:31:59,767 --> 00:32:02,180 and theBible's Tower of Babel. 589 00:32:03,318 --> 00:32:05,698 So it's no surprise that this map of the world 590 00:32:05,732 --> 00:32:08,732 revolves around mighty Babylon. 591 00:32:08,767 --> 00:32:13,043 [Abigail] They're setting out their concept of their kingdom and who they are 592 00:32:13,077 --> 00:32:15,353 through the means of a map 593 00:32:15,387 --> 00:32:18,422 in which they place themselves in the center. 594 00:32:18,456 --> 00:32:20,836 And everything that isn't themselves 595 00:32:20,870 --> 00:32:22,663 on the periphery. 596 00:32:22,698 --> 00:32:24,249 [narrator] Beyond Babylon itself, 597 00:32:24,284 --> 00:32:27,974 other features of this lost world appear. 598 00:32:28,008 --> 00:32:30,422 [Abigail] There are also just plain circles 599 00:32:30,456 --> 00:32:32,008 that fall in various places, 600 00:32:32,043 --> 00:32:35,146 and these are ruins of ancient cities. 601 00:32:37,767 --> 00:32:39,974 [narrator] There are mountains marked in the north 602 00:32:40,008 --> 00:32:44,353 in roughly the same location as the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. 603 00:32:47,146 --> 00:32:50,594 A swamp in the south corresponds to the marshlands 604 00:32:50,629 --> 00:32:53,525 of the Euphrates and Tigris floodplains. 605 00:32:54,698 --> 00:32:57,974 But there is something strange about this tablet. 606 00:32:58,698 --> 00:33:00,663 Unlike maps as we know them, 607 00:33:00,698 --> 00:33:03,491 it has no scale, no measure of distance, 608 00:33:03,525 --> 00:33:06,732 no roads, no paths. 609 00:33:06,767 --> 00:33:10,836 The Babylonian map is not a map which will allow you 610 00:33:10,870 --> 00:33:14,008 to find where you are in the world. 611 00:33:14,043 --> 00:33:17,180 [narrator] This map clearly isn't for navigation. 612 00:33:17,215 --> 00:33:19,387 So what is it for? 613 00:33:27,284 --> 00:33:30,146 [narrator] Getting from A to B using the oldest map of the world 614 00:33:30,180 --> 00:33:32,456 would be impossible. 615 00:33:32,491 --> 00:33:35,836 Yet the Babylonians do seem to have the knowledge and the skill 616 00:33:35,870 --> 00:33:37,767 that a mapmaker would need. 617 00:33:40,456 --> 00:33:44,043 [Kevin] We know that the Babylonians had surveying skills. 618 00:33:44,077 --> 00:33:47,077 So if you could make a more accurate map, 619 00:33:47,732 --> 00:33:49,043 but you make something 620 00:33:49,077 --> 00:33:51,939 which is rather less detailed and crude, 621 00:33:51,974 --> 00:33:53,456 there must be another reason for it. 622 00:33:54,974 --> 00:33:56,594 [narrator] The answer to that may begin 623 00:33:56,629 --> 00:34:01,008 with the lines surrounding this lost Babylonian world. 624 00:34:01,043 --> 00:34:03,180 There's a circle that goes around it 625 00:34:03,215 --> 00:34:05,836 called the Bitter River. 626 00:34:05,870 --> 00:34:09,008 By "bitter," we're talking about the kind of salt seas. 627 00:34:09,043 --> 00:34:11,974 [narrator] The map does not end at the Bitter Sea, 628 00:34:12,008 --> 00:34:14,249 it shows land beyond it, 629 00:34:14,284 --> 00:34:16,353 but it looks very different. 630 00:34:16,387 --> 00:34:21,008 The outer bodies of land are shaped like triangles, 631 00:34:21,043 --> 00:34:24,663 reducing as they head towards the abyss 632 00:34:24,698 --> 00:34:27,353 at the edge of the world. 633 00:34:27,387 --> 00:34:30,077 Some people have even said the way that they're presented 634 00:34:30,111 --> 00:34:32,491 as kind of triangles coming out 635 00:34:32,525 --> 00:34:36,353 represents the way you'd have seen the land approaching by sea. 636 00:34:40,456 --> 00:34:42,353 [narrator] These are distant places 637 00:34:42,387 --> 00:34:44,560 outside the boundary of the Bitter Sea 638 00:34:44,594 --> 00:34:46,698 and beyond the lands of Babylon. 639 00:34:47,318 --> 00:34:48,456 Some of the labels say, 640 00:34:48,491 --> 00:34:51,560 "Oh, the sun never shone here. 641 00:34:51,594 --> 00:34:54,043 It was dark as night." 642 00:34:54,077 --> 00:34:57,663 And there were places where birds wouldn't fly. 643 00:34:57,698 --> 00:34:59,939 [narrator] These may well be partially-known places 644 00:34:59,974 --> 00:35:03,318 based on travelers' tales or handed-down stories. 645 00:35:05,422 --> 00:35:07,318 [Abigail] They have it on the map 646 00:35:07,353 --> 00:35:09,043 and they've tried to map it out. 647 00:35:09,077 --> 00:35:12,180 It's something that you know is there, 648 00:35:12,215 --> 00:35:15,836 but you don't really have enough information 649 00:35:15,870 --> 00:35:21,422 to describe it or even kind of put it properly. 650 00:35:21,456 --> 00:35:24,318 [narrator] Later mapmakers called such unknown lands 651 00:35:24,353 --> 00:35:26,732 "terra incognita." 652 00:35:26,767 --> 00:35:29,111 [Abigail] In cartography, terra incognita 653 00:35:29,146 --> 00:35:31,284 is the "land unknown." 654 00:35:32,353 --> 00:35:35,698 We often get the phrase "hic sunt leones," 655 00:35:35,732 --> 00:35:37,491 "here be lions." 656 00:35:38,043 --> 00:35:40,146 "Here be dragons." 657 00:35:40,180 --> 00:35:43,560 [narrator] In the absence of facts or firsthand experience, 658 00:35:43,594 --> 00:35:47,732 mapmakers use their imagination to fill in the gaps. 659 00:35:47,767 --> 00:35:52,560 It's amazing, really, because it's not just describing a place, 660 00:35:52,594 --> 00:35:57,180 but it's almost describing a philosophical concept 661 00:35:57,215 --> 00:35:59,387 of something that you don't know 662 00:35:59,422 --> 00:36:02,180 and, therefore, can't even imagine. 663 00:36:05,663 --> 00:36:08,387 [narrator] The text on the tablet also includes references 664 00:36:08,422 --> 00:36:11,215 to strange wildlife. 665 00:36:11,249 --> 00:36:14,525 [Abigail] You have all different types of exotic animals, 666 00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,077 almost otherworldly creatures, 667 00:36:17,111 --> 00:36:21,146 like gazelles and a scorpion man. 668 00:36:21,180 --> 00:36:22,801 And that kind of captures the idea 669 00:36:22,836 --> 00:36:26,456 that they're seen as these otherworldly, mythic places. 670 00:36:27,698 --> 00:36:29,974 [narrator] The heavily damaged text on the front 671 00:36:30,008 --> 00:36:32,560 includes references to legendary figures 672 00:36:32,594 --> 00:36:35,284 and the Babylonian creation myth. 673 00:36:36,318 --> 00:36:38,215 This map and the writing on the tablet 674 00:36:38,249 --> 00:36:43,594 are effectively a description of more than just the Babylonians physical world. 675 00:36:43,629 --> 00:36:45,939 It's their cosmology. 676 00:36:45,974 --> 00:36:49,422 This is a strange blending of worlds, 677 00:36:49,456 --> 00:36:51,836 of the known world, 678 00:36:51,870 --> 00:36:55,077 of a mythological world beyond. 679 00:36:55,111 --> 00:36:58,663 [narrator] But one theory suggests that this map could be more 680 00:36:58,698 --> 00:37:01,939 than just a description of a belief system. 681 00:37:01,974 --> 00:37:04,801 Could it have a more Earthly purpose? 682 00:37:10,111 --> 00:37:13,215 1,700 years before the map is made, 683 00:37:13,249 --> 00:37:17,180 Babylon is part of the first great empire on Earth. 684 00:37:17,215 --> 00:37:20,215 And at the center of everything is its ruler, 685 00:37:20,249 --> 00:37:23,594 the legendary Sargon the Great. 686 00:37:23,629 --> 00:37:27,008 [Kevin] The time of Sargon was the golden age. 687 00:37:27,043 --> 00:37:32,249 This goes back many centuries to around 2,300 BC. 688 00:37:32,284 --> 00:37:37,249 A multiethnic civilization stretched over a great breadth of land 689 00:37:37,284 --> 00:37:40,732 with roots by land and sea. 690 00:37:42,318 --> 00:37:46,491 This was potentially the world's first empire. 691 00:37:49,353 --> 00:37:51,422 [narrator] But since then, Babylon has become 692 00:37:51,456 --> 00:37:55,801 just a pale shadow of its former greatness. 693 00:37:55,836 --> 00:37:59,043 [Kevin] It was no longer the golden age of Sargon. 694 00:37:59,077 --> 00:38:02,905 This region was no longer a world leader. 695 00:38:02,939 --> 00:38:06,043 Babylon had been conquered by Assyria 696 00:38:06,077 --> 00:38:09,387 and was in a perpetual state of revolt. 697 00:38:09,422 --> 00:38:13,008 It was ridden by conflict and civil war. 698 00:38:13,043 --> 00:38:17,180 [narrator] Yet this map shows a Babylon-centric world view. 699 00:38:17,215 --> 00:38:20,594 That could be because the empire strikes back. 700 00:38:20,629 --> 00:38:23,594 They kick the Assyrians out of Babylon. 701 00:38:23,629 --> 00:38:25,939 [Kevin] By the 7th and 6th centuries BC, 702 00:38:25,974 --> 00:38:28,491 we do see a glimmer of change 703 00:38:28,525 --> 00:38:32,422 with a short-lived Neo-Babylonian Empire. 704 00:38:32,456 --> 00:38:33,870 [narrator] In this period, 705 00:38:33,905 --> 00:38:36,491 Babylonian culture and arts blossomed 706 00:38:36,525 --> 00:38:41,215 and spectacular palaces and temples are built across the empire, 707 00:38:41,249 --> 00:38:43,732 particularly in Babylon. 708 00:38:43,767 --> 00:38:47,732 This era features the iconic King Nebuchadnezzar, 709 00:38:47,767 --> 00:38:51,491 who, of course, we all know created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 710 00:38:53,353 --> 00:38:55,111 [narrator] In the text on the front, 711 00:38:55,146 --> 00:38:57,560 the map talks of the Babylonian creator god, 712 00:38:57,905 --> 00:38:59,732 Marduk. 713 00:38:59,767 --> 00:39:03,180 And it suggests one of the distant triangular lands 714 00:39:03,215 --> 00:39:05,801 may be home to both Utnapishtim, 715 00:39:05,836 --> 00:39:07,974 their equivalent of Noah, 716 00:39:08,008 --> 00:39:10,422 and Sargon himself. 717 00:39:10,456 --> 00:39:14,353 It's like a golden hits of Babylonian mythology. 718 00:39:14,387 --> 00:39:17,698 One means of interpretation might be to say 719 00:39:17,732 --> 00:39:22,043 that this map served as a harkening back to that age. 720 00:39:22,077 --> 00:39:25,353 [narrator] Could its purpose have been to revive ideas 721 00:39:25,387 --> 00:39:28,594 of Babylon's lost golden past? 722 00:39:28,629 --> 00:39:32,974 It's tempting to connect it with the resurgence of Babylon 723 00:39:33,008 --> 00:39:35,146 in the 7th and 6th centuries 724 00:39:35,180 --> 00:39:38,594 and this short secondary golden age 725 00:39:38,629 --> 00:39:41,663 and see it as an attempt to appeal 726 00:39:41,698 --> 00:39:44,456 to the glorious past of the area. 727 00:39:46,939 --> 00:39:49,146 [narrator] That's consistent with what we know 728 00:39:49,180 --> 00:39:51,870 of the Neo-Babylonian world. 729 00:39:51,905 --> 00:39:54,353 [Kevin] Archaeologically speaking, there's other evidence 730 00:39:54,387 --> 00:39:56,663 of the Neo-Babylonian state 731 00:39:56,698 --> 00:40:01,318 using the past as a form of legitimation. 732 00:40:01,353 --> 00:40:05,077 [narrator] We know they restore one of Sargon's great ancient cities, 733 00:40:05,111 --> 00:40:08,180 Ur, including its towering ziggurat. 734 00:40:09,077 --> 00:40:11,836 And they restore the Esagila, 735 00:40:11,870 --> 00:40:15,905 the great temple to Marduk in the center of Babylon itself. 736 00:40:18,491 --> 00:40:21,387 The Neo-Babylonians certainly wouldn't be alone 737 00:40:21,422 --> 00:40:25,836 in using a glorious past to help shape the present. 738 00:40:25,870 --> 00:40:29,732 [Kevin] If we look, for example, at Mussolini in the 1930s, 739 00:40:29,767 --> 00:40:33,284 he used the Roman past and archaeology 740 00:40:33,318 --> 00:40:38,249 as a means of discussing Italian greatness 741 00:40:38,284 --> 00:40:42,215 and the Italian right to reconquer North Africa. 742 00:40:42,836 --> 00:40:45,732 More recently in history, 743 00:40:45,767 --> 00:40:50,043 we see Saddam Hussein doing the same thing in Iraq. 744 00:40:50,077 --> 00:40:51,560 [narrator] Could the Babylonian map 745 00:40:51,594 --> 00:40:54,387 also have been intended to draw a parallel 746 00:40:54,422 --> 00:40:56,836 with past greatness? 747 00:40:56,870 --> 00:41:00,215 Although it's a tempting theory and seems to fit, 748 00:41:00,249 --> 00:41:03,077 modern scholars are skeptical. 749 00:41:03,111 --> 00:41:06,008 The one thing we can say with some certainty 750 00:41:06,043 --> 00:41:08,905 is this ancient clay tablet shows us the world 751 00:41:08,939 --> 00:41:10,836 the mapmaker wants us to see. 752 00:41:13,043 --> 00:41:15,801 [Kevin] Much like the map of the world today 753 00:41:15,836 --> 00:41:17,249 and its projections, 754 00:41:17,284 --> 00:41:19,525 the relative size of continents, 755 00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,387 This is all guarded by the priorities of 756 00:41:22,422 --> 00:41:24,043 the people who were drawing the maps. 757 00:41:26,629 --> 00:41:30,663 [narrator] We just can't be certain what this mapmaker intended. 758 00:41:32,043 --> 00:41:34,939 Is this strange thing made as a map? 759 00:41:34,974 --> 00:41:37,111 As a cosmological guide? 760 00:41:37,146 --> 00:41:39,560 Or as a piece of propaganda? 761 00:41:39,594 --> 00:41:42,249 [Abigail] What's so intriguing about his object 762 00:41:42,284 --> 00:41:46,456 is the fact that we probably won't ever know 763 00:41:46,491 --> 00:41:51,249 exactly what it was meant to be used for. 764 00:41:51,284 --> 00:41:55,387 [narrator] Unfortunately, the Neo-Babylonian Empire that likely created it 765 00:41:55,422 --> 00:41:58,560 lasts less than a century. 766 00:41:58,594 --> 00:42:02,767 But this remnant of that short-lived period remains, 767 00:42:02,801 --> 00:42:07,215 the oldest-known map of the world in existence.