[narrator] A strange tomb is uncovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
But while excavating below the temple,
a wooden coffin was discovered largely intact.
But the most arresting aspect of the mummy was its face.
It was open mouth as if screaming.
So who was this person and what happened to her?
A team of archaeologists is studying aerial footage in Iraq
when they make a surprising discovery.
The images showed evidence of the subsurface remains
of a huge complex that had gone undiscovered
up until that point. But what was this place?
In the vast desert of New Mexico,
researchers unearthed an ancient roadway.
But this was no modern road.
Its origins went back roughly a thousand years.
It was assumed the road was somehow connected
to the Pueblo settlements, but its exact purpose
and function was a mystery.
Ancient lost cities...
...forgotten treasures...
...mysterious structures.
As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath
the deserts of the world, the "Secrets in the Sand" will
will finally be revealed.
East of Egypt's Nile River, the city of Luxor
spreads across a dry flood plain for 150 square miles.
Like most of Egypt, Luxor has a hot desert climate,
making it clear and sunny pretty much every day.
It's so dry that a year can pass without a single
drop of rain.
And yes, the Nile does provide water for agriculture,
but the surrounding geography is as dry as a bone.
You've got desert landscapes, rolling sand dunes,
rocky plateau, and mountains.
Today, the city is a thriving center of commerce
and industry, but Luxor is best known as the former city
of Thebes, capital of Upper Egypt during the Middle
and New Kingdom eras.
Thebes first rose to prominence in the 4th century BCE
after the Peloponnesian War,
when it became a major military force.
And it remained a powerful capital for most
of the following 500 years.
Many of the ancient monuments and temples can still be seen
dotting the urban landscape of Luxor.
On the west bank is the Theban Necropolis,
featuring the Valley of the Kings,
an ancient burial ground for Egyptian pharaohs, noblemen,
and their families from the 18th to the 20th Dynasty.
A team of archaeologists is excavating a tomb
in the Valley of the Kings
when they make a surprising discovery.
There's a long row of connected mortuary temples
in a valley called Deir el-Bahari.
That's an Arabic name for a monastery.
Below the temples is a series of individual tombs,
including one temple for the site's architect,
Senenmut, along with his parents.
But while excavating below the temple,
a wooden coffin was discovered, largely intact.
[Dr. Agbedor] The coffin was opened to reveal a mummy,
also intact, of an adult female.
It was laying on its back with extended legs and both arms
were angled inward so the hands were covering the pelvic area.
But the most arresting aspect of the mummy was its face.
It was open mouth as if screaming.
So who was this person and what happened to her?
[Dr. Cantor] The mummy was just over five feet in length
from heel to crown.
Its reddish brown skin was hard and thick and intact.
Its fingernails and toenails were also all accounted for,
and while some of the mummy's teeth were missing,
those present were large, white, and strong.
Aside from the open mouth scream position,
the other notable feature was a large, thick wig braided
right into the mummy's sparse hair
on either side of the skull.
The wig was composed of dark human hair
falling to the shoulders as opposed to being bound,
as was the tradition.
So is it possible the mummy's wig
could be a clue to her identity and her fate?
The use of wigs and hair extensions
is an illustration of the Egyptians' desire
to attain physical beauty through lavish accessories.
[Dr. Riskin] Wigs and extensions were frequently used
in Egyptian funerary rites,
along with other symbols of wealth and power,
like precious amulets and jewelry.
But those were all also worn by living Egyptians,
men and women, for the same reasons,
to indicate their socioeconomic status.
Egyptians crafted the wigs from human hair
and supplemented them with plant or flax fibers.
It's believed that dark or black hair was preferred
as it represented youthful beauty.
And while a lot of effort went into the aesthetics
such as styling with curls and braids,
the wigs were also practical
as they protected shaven scalp from the sun
and maintained hygiene by reducing lice.
The close examination of the Screaming Woman's wig
leads to a critical connection.
The mummy's wig was cleaved in two halves down the center,
much like a middle part of natural hair,
and the braids were tapered slightly at each end.
It was an arrangement that was very similar
to that of another female mummy buried nearby,
the mother of the tomb's designer and builder, Senenmut.
Senenmut is best known today for being the architect
of the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut,
a female pharaoh who ruled for more than 20 years,
starting in 1479 BCE.
Her temple was a stunning example
of ancient Egyptian design, with three levels of terraces
all connected by ramps.
As chief architect, Senenmut would have had high status
in Hatshepsut's court.
And with that, he was entitled to such privileges
as securing a burial spot for his parents
among the royals and other elites.
However, while Senenmut's own tomb was to be built
under Queen Hatshepsut's courtyard,
along with his parents, it was never completed.
[Dr. Cantor] Even more mysterious is the fate of Senenmut himself.
He left public life abruptly, and we still don't know why.
And his remains were never interred in his elaborate
but unfinished tomb.
With so many open questions surrounding Senenmut,
we can't conclude with any degree of certainty
that the Screaming Woman was a relative of the architect.
Professor Sahar Saleem,
whose forensic and historical analysis of the Screaming Mummy
revealed another clue.
All of the vital organs, including the brain
of the Screaming Woman, were still intact,
and there was a complete absence of incisions to the body.
This was inconsistent with the traditional
Egyptian embalming process for high status individuals,
in which the body's viscera was removed before burial.
[Dr. Riskin] It's possible that the people doing the embalming
did a sloppy job, maybe they were rushed,
maybe they just didn't know what they were doing,
they were incompetent, I don't know.
That feels unlikely to me.
I think a better explanation is that the mummy,
the Screaming Woman, just wasn't a member
of the royal family or the elite class at all.
That idea is supported by the fact that aside
from two scarab rings on her left hand,
there were practically no jewels or ornaments
or grave goods on the mummy or surrounding the coffin.
Also, her recumbent body position,
where both arms were inclined toward her groin,
was inconsistent with other elite women's burials
in the New Kingdom.
Female members of the royal family
were typically buried with the left arm flexed
across the chest and the right arm to the side.
So is it possible that the Screaming Woman
was some kind of outlier, a commoner buried
among the elite of Egypt?
A team of archaeologists is excavating a tomb
in the Valley of the Kings
when they make a surprising discovery,
The Screaming Woman.
The Egyptians believed that it was critical
to preserve the bodies of their pharaohs and kings
in order to ensure their safe passage into the afterlife.
This involved removing vital organs,
but also dehydrating the body with salt,
and then covering the dried skin
with a blend of natural substances, oils,
fats, and resins, to prevent decay.
Samples taken from the skin of the Screaming Woman revealed
she'd been embalmed with juniper and frankincense resin.
Not only were these costly items,
but they likely had to be imported
from neighboring countries.
Hair fibers from the wig had been dyed red with henna,
a rare dye prepared with the powdered leaves
of the henna tree.
Taken together, the expensive imported embalming materials
plus the well-preserved condition
of the Screaming Woman's body indicate that her burial was
consistent with those of the pharaohs and elites
that surrounded her.
So maybe she was a member of that elite class after all.
Although rare, the Screaming Woman
isn't the only mummy in Egypt to be discovered
with its mouth open wide.
During the 18th Dynasty, Princess Ahmose-Meritamun became
the great royal wife of her younger brother,
the Pharaoh Amenhotep I.
As with the Screaming Woman, Meritamun's remains
were discovered in a wooden coffin
in the Deir el-Bahari section
of the Theban Necropolis.
Her face also an open mouth death mask.
A CT scan of Meritamun's skeleton
revealed the young queen had suffered
from sclerosis and arthritis,
both of which can result in bone curvatures
and constrictions of the body's joints.
These findings indicate she may have died of a heart attack,
and her body was not found before rigor mortis kicked in.
And Meritamun's open mouth was likely due to the natural
postmortem muscle relaxation.
So it's possible
that the Screaming Woman's open mouth
was a direct result of a serious health condition or disease.
If that's the case, is that what killed her?
A CT scan performed on the mummy leads
to a breakthrough.
The opening and closing of the mouth is controlled
by a bunch of muscles around the temporal mandibular joint.
Ordinarily, when those muscles relax,
like when you're asleep or after you die,
the mouth opens a little bit,
but this extreme gait, this wide open mouth,
suggests that the muscles were firing.
So did that happen after death from rigor mortis,
or is this something that happened during death?
To keep the mouth closed for burial,
Egyptian embalmers typically wrap
the deceased's mandible
around the skull, keeping it shut.
But the Screaming Woman's mouth was discovered
in an unnaturally wide position,
as if she had been crying out in agony when she died.
[scream]
And there's a biological phenomenon
that supports this possibility,
a rare event called a cadaveric spasm,
which causes muscles to freeze in the position the person
was in at the time of death, not unlike rigor mortis.
[Anthea] Cadaveric spasms are usually associated with brutal,
violent deaths under extreme
physical conditions and emotions.
So while the exact cause of death can't be determined
for the Screaming Woman, nor her identity,
the expression on her face certainly aligns
with intense suffering and pain.
The screaming mummy remains a fascinating curiosity
and its discovery offers a true time capsule for just one
of the human mysteries of ancient Egypt
waiting to be solved.
Roughly 185 miles southeast of Baghdad lies Tello, Iraq,
a city in the Dhi Qar Governorate.
The region is known as the cradle of civilization
because it was home to the Sumerians,
the oldest known culture in Mesopotamia.
They were responsible for a host of human advancements,
including the development of cuneiform,
one of the earliest known writing systems
that involved engraving pictograms
and symbols into clay with a reed stylus.
The Sumerians were also pioneers
in math, science, architecture,
and societal organization, all of which helped to build
the foundations for future civilizations.
Archaeological evidence tells us that the Sumerians built
about a dozen city-states in the fourth millennium BCE.
These urban centers are the first known cities
in world history.
One of them, known as Girsu, stood where the modern city
of Tello in Iraq is located today.
At its peak, around 2500 BCE, Girsu was the heart
of the Lagash city-state.
The walled city covered an area around 600 acres,
and some estimates put the population at between
15,000 and 20,000 people.
Girsu was first discovered in 1877
by a French archaeologist, and it was extensively excavated
over the next 56 years.
But political instability and armed conflict in the area
put a halt to any further exploration in the 1930s,
and Girsu was largely forgotten about, but not by everyone.
A team comprised of British and Iraqi archaeologists
are analyzing drone footage of Girsu
when they notice something unexpected.
The images showed evidence of the subsurface remains
of a huge complex that had gone undiscovered
up until that point. So what was this place?
Cuneiform tablets discovered by the French excavations claim
that Girsu was considered a sacred city because it was
said to be home to the sanctuary of Ningirsu,
the Sumerian god of war, who was revered because he was
believed to battle mythical beasts,
which ensured the spring rains would come
and provide water for the irrigation-based
agricultural systems of the region.
[Anthea] But the French teams were never able to locate this
legendary temple dedicated to Ningirsu,
leaving some doubt as to whether or not
it even existed.
So is it possible that the complex detected
by the drone images is this elusive structure?
In 2020, archaeologists investigating an area
of Girsu known as Uruku, which means "The Sacred City "
unearthed evidence of ceremonial practices
dedicated to Ningirsu.
It was a huge find.
Over 300 broken ceremonial ceramic cups, bowls,
jars, spouted vessels, and many animal bones.
One of the artifacts found was a fragment of a vase
with an inscription dedicated to Ningirsu.
The items were in or near a ritual pit
known as a "favissa" that was around eight feet deep.
The vessels found were probably used
in a ceremonial banquet
before being ritually thrown into the pit,
while the bones were likely the remains of animals
that were either eaten or killed during sacrifices.
The area also had a thick layer of ash, believed to be
the remnants of large ritual fires.
The ceremonial ceramics, the evidence of fire,
and a favissa indicate that this is where religious gatherings
took place and where the people of Girsu gathered to feast
and pay respects to their gods.
In 2024, researchers discovered
a cuneiform tablet from the 15th century BCE
at the Alalakh archaeological site in Reyhanli,
a southern Turkish city near the border with Syria.
At the time the tablet was inscribed, Alalakh was
the capital of the kingdom of Mukish and the largest city
in the region.
It was occupied by the Amorites, a culture
from western Mesopotamia.
The tablet itself is tiny, measuring only
1.6 by 0.6 inches, and weighing just 28 grams.
It's written in Akkadian, one of the oldest known
Semitic languages,
and it's one that's no longer spoken anywhere in the world.
Akkadian's cuneiform script was made up of around 600 signs,
some of which represented full words, while some were
just single syllables.
When they translated the tablet, it was discovered
that it details the purchase of chairs, tables, and stools
by an unknown buyer, basically an ancient receipt
or bill of sale for furniture.
While it may seem like kind of a mundane item,
it actually offers insights into the economic systems
of the region during the Late Bronze Age.
So maybe the tablets discovered at Girsu tell a similar story,
and the complex isn't a temple, but rather a marketplace
for business transactions.
[Anthea] Sure enough, they unearth the mud-brick walls
that make up the mystery complex,
and the scope of it is staggering.
This was no simple structure.
There are what looks to be the remains
of different buildings and multiple rooms and chambers.
But that still doesn't tell us exactly what it was
and what purpose it served.
The cuneiform tablets are analyzed in the hopes
that they will provide some answers,
and the researchers are stunned by the results.
The tablets are essentially
the government's administrative archives of Girsu
from when the city was under the control
of the Akkad dynasty, from 2300 to 2150 BCE.
This is an incredible find.
It's the oldest physical evidence of the first empire
in recorded history.
Girsu was one of the Sumerian cities conquered
by the Mesopotamian king Sargon around 2300 BCE.
Sargon developed a new form of government by vanquishing
all the Sumerian settlements and creating what many call
the first empire in the world.
Until the discovery of the tablets,
information on this empire was scarce.
The only documented records were fragments
of royal inscriptions or copies
of unreliable Akkadian inscriptions
recorded much later.
The tablets could be called the spreadsheets of the empire,
and they reveal a complicated bureaucracy,
Deliveries and expenditures
on everything from textiles and precious stones,
to fish and domesticated animals,
to flour and barley.
Some of the tablets even have maps of canals,
architectural layouts of buildings, and other plans.
Believed to have been built around 4,500 years ago,
the Lord Palace of the Kings was the centerpiece
of the grand city of Girsu,
but it had been lost for centuries.
The palace complex would've been a central part
of Sumerian city life,
with the king and his court residing there.
It was also an administrative center,
a hub for governing the city and its surrounding territories.
Incredibly, other excavations at Girsu finally uncovered
the main temple dedicated to Ningirsu, called E-ninnu,
also known as the "Temple of the White Thunderbird."
It was located near the palace complex,
showing just how intertwined religious and imperial life were
during the Sumerian period.
Before these excavations, the existence of the palace
and temple was only known because of passing references
made to them that were discovered
by the early French excavation.
The Lord Palace of the King's discovery sheds light
on the history, culture, and governance
of the ancient Sumerian civilization,
and offers valuable insight into the daily life
of one of the oldest cities on the planet.
The Northwestern region of Arabia extends
tens of thousands of miles between modern-day Jordan
and into the ecoregion of Iraq.
This is a vast, incredibly arid ecoregion
with annual rainfall generally between
just two and eight inches.
There are also extreme temperature variations,
with lows of just 35 degrees in winter and highs reaching up
above 100 degrees in summer.
Plants like small shrubs
and certain hardy desert flowers do actually grow here,
and the animal species in the area include predators
like foxes, caracals, and honey badgers,
as well as herds of ibexes and antelopes.
These animals graze alongside domesticated herds of cattle,
sheep, and goats who belong to the nomadic pastoralists
who live throughout the desert.
In fact, despite the inhospitable climate,
the region has a rich history of human presence
dating back thousands of years.
In Saudi Arabia, a team working at the Al-Natah
archaeological site notice an unusual structure
rising out of the desert landscape.
The outer reaches of the site are marked by the remains
of an enormous wall.
In some places, there are only a few piles of brick to tell us
where it stood, and other parts are covered in piles of rubble.
Still, based on the existing evidence, it's estimated
to have once been over nine miles long.
The southern reaches of the site show us
how formidable this wall really was.
Here, the ruins are up to 19 feet thick,
and two large towers were added.
A fortification this huge, with defensive features
like these, was likely built for protection.
The question is, from what?
Excavations in the central area of the Al-Natah site
yield another discovery that raises more questions.
There's a group of tall circular towers
with high, stepped walls.
The overall look of these monuments
is somewhat reminiscent of the monumental-stepped tombs
found in ancient Egypt.
When the team entered the towers,
they discovered that they contained burial chambers,
just like the pyramids.
These stepped tombs have been deliberately built in groups
to form an impressive ancient necropolis,
a term that comes from the Greek "nekros,"
meaning "dead person," and "polis," meaning "city".
In both ancient Greece and later in ancient Rome,
necropolises would often line the roads leading in and out
of major cities, dividing the living
and the dead.
We can see the same trend in ancient Egypt,
where huge necropolises sit along the banks of the Nile,
directly across from the cities they were associated with.
The Al-Natah necropolis was built during
the third millennium BCE.
Most Greek and Egyptian necropolises built around
the same time are associated with large cities that were
home to thousands of permanent residents.
But things were totally different
on the Arabian Peninsula.
Unlike ancient Rome, Greece or Egypt, this region was
dominated by nomadic pastoralists who would travel
across the peninsula with herds of grazing animals.
Thousands of years ago, these groups developed
their own unique burial traditions,
constructing elaborate funerary avenues where their dead would
be laid to rest under mounds of stones called cairns.
But the monumental tombs at Al-Natah aren't anything
like these graves.
The enormous wall and elaborate necropolis
at Al-Natah aren't at all consistent
with nomadic traditions.
Instead, both of these features point to a sedentary population,
raising the possibility that a permanent settlement
once existed here.
Excavations in the eastern part of Al-Natah
turned up thousands of pottery shards.
Most of them were from simple bowls and jars,
some of which were once used to store food.
There were grinding stones, too, all of which would have
been crucial for cooking during the Bronze Age.
The pottery was associated with the remains
of ancient buildings.
Up to 70 of them once stood here, lining narrow streets
that would have measured only six feet across.
The amount of domestic kitchenware found tells us
that these buildings were likely homes that made up
a residential quarter.
[Dr. Leonard] The existence of this extraordinary walled settlement
tells us there were two competing ways of life
being established here,
a nomadic culture that traveled through the desert,
and a sedentary population
that decided to lay down permanent roots.
History is filled with examples of clashes
between sedentary and nomadic peoples,
like during the Ming Dynasty,
when the Great Wall of China was massively expanded
to keep northern Steppe nomads from moving south.
Based on the level of fortification at Al-Natah,
it could be that the town also came into conflict
with the surrounding nomads.
But what could have caused these tensions between
the nomadic and the settled way of life in the first place?
A look back at ancient climate patterns may shed light
on the origins of these extraordinary settlements.
Humans have inhabited the Arabian desert
for thousands of years.
For a long time, the climate was relatively mild,
and savanna-like grasslands spread over huge areas.
But roughly 6,000 years ago, things changed dramatically.
[Anthea] Around 4000 BCE,
a phenomenon known as "rapid climate change"
caused a massive decrease in precipitation
across the peninsula.
The environment transformed and left humans to figure out
how best to adapt.
Many continued to live nomadically, but over time,
others chose to settle.
During the Bronze Age, this region would have been
greener than other areas of the desert,
and would have seemed a natural place to build
a permanent town.
And it wasn't alone.
Across Northwestern Arabia, several other oases reveal
intriguing similarities to the settlement at Al-Natah.
[Anthea] Qurayyah is a huge archaeological site
stretching over 750 acres.
The area is marked by a massive brick wall
which once surrounded the entire oasis.
Over time, a residential area also grew here,
just like the one at Al-Natah.
During the Bronze and Iron Ages,
these settlements appeared around oases
across Northwestern Arabia.
Many of them were designed similarly,
with internal ramparts
dividing the various sections of the town,
which were big enough to accommodate hundreds
of permanent residents.
The people who lived inside these walled oases built wells
and intricate channels to collect surface water.
They used the water to grow crops, orchards,
and olive trees, as well as to support
local craft production.
These fortified towns flourished in large part
due to their strategic location.
Each town functioned as one node in an entire network,
right at the intersection of the major powers
of Egypt, the Levant, and Southern Arabia.
A comparison of the walled oasis
to other Bronze Age settlements shows an intriguing trend.
The oasis settlements are thought to have supported
a population of a few hundred people,
which makes them much smaller than some of the cities
growing around the same time, like the Egyptian capital,
Memphis, which would have been home to thousands of residents.
[Dr. Leonard] Despite being relatively small compared to major cities,
these settlements represent a huge shift in the history
the Arabian Peninsula, when slow urbanism
radically changed the desert landscape
over the course of hundreds of years.
The settlement at Al-Natah seems to have persisted
for roughly a millennium before the town was
more or less abandoned.
The reason why is still a mystery.
Today, Al-Natah provides us with an invaluable glimpse
into the past, where these extraordinary walled oases
formed a bridge between the region's nomadic past
and its increasingly urban future.
Nestled in a remote corner of northwestern New Mexico,
the Chaco Canyon carves its way through 10 miles
of ancient sandstone.
With an elevation of 6,200 feet, during the summer,
Chaco Canyon is a sun-scorched desert with temperatures
frequently reaching the mid-90s Fahrenheit.
The winters are long and can get bitterly cold.
And on top of that, the canyon only gets about
two to five inches of rain per month.
Despite the harsh conditions, there's evidence
of human activity in the area going back as early as 2900 BCE.
These groups were largely nomadic until around 200 AD,
when the first farmers settled and built
small pit houses.
Then, around 850 CE, the Pueblo peoples began
to build permanent homes and ceremonial structures
in the area, and that changed the entire landscape.
The Pueblo, who were the native ancestors
of the Hopi and Acoma of today, among others,
constructed massive stone and mortar buildings
called greathouses, which soared to four or five stories
and contained hundreds of rooms.
Construction on the greathouses continued for 300 years,
until about 1150, when the area was abruptly abandoned.
Today, the Chaco Canyon is one of the most researched sites
of the ancient Americas.
The whole area is rich with cultural artifacts
from early Pueblo settlers,
and the walls of the canyon itself are embedded with fossils
going back thousands of years before that.
50 miles south of the canyon, a New Mexico gas company
is collecting data for a future pipeline, working in tandem
with a team of archaeologists, when they make
an unusual discovery.
50 miles south of the Chaco canyon, a New Mexico gas company
is collecting data for a future pipeline, working in tandem
with a team of archaeologists, when they make
an unusual discovery.
They identified a long segment of road extending
from southeast to northwest in a perfectly straight line.
The road was excavated directly into the sandstone bedrock
for roughly 250 feet,
at which point it entered the valley flats below,
where all visible traces of it disappeared.
But this was no modern road.
Its origins went back roughly 1,000 years.
[Teddy] Based on a nearby archaeological site featuring
several Pueblo communities to the southeast.
It was assumed the road was somehow connected
to the Pueblo settlements.
But its exact purpose and function was a mystery.
[Dr. Leonard] Given that the greathouses
required large amounts of heavy raw materials to build them,
is it possible the ancient road was a former transport route
for the construction of Pueblo settlements?
The design principle behind the greathouses
was a unique blend of form and function.
They were geometric constructions
made with careful craftsmanship,
with walls of stone and adobe plaster
covered with timber roofs.
Now, those wooden roofs are long gone now, but the walls
have done surprisingly well through the passage of time.
The houses were feats of brilliant engineering,
often including water collection systems,
storage units, and sight lines that allowed
for rapid communication.
Entrances were generally south or southeast-facing,
which provided shade from the summer sun and warmth
from the winter sun.
At the center of most complexes, there was an open plaza,
which was believed to serve as a gathering space
for communal and religious purposes.
One of the best known greathouses
was also the largest,
located at the Pueblo Bonito site,
also within the Chaco Canyon.
It was built in stages between 850 and 1150 CE,
with stone wall materials that had to be transported
from off-site,
and timber that came from a wooded area
of ponderosa pines surrounding the settlement.
[Dr. Leonard] In addition to the building foundations,
archaeologists at Pueblo Bonito found traces of Mexican cacao
and pottery shards imported from Central America,
over 1200 miles away,
likely intended as offerings for rituals and ceremonies.
So it's possible the newly discovered road
was used both as a pathway for building materials
and as a trade route.
But further examination of the ancient road presents
a bigger puzzle.
It was lined on the north side by a raised strip of land
called a berm, created from fist-sized clumps
of sandstone and earth.
It was determined that the digging of the road
into the sandstone, along with the creation
of the elevated berms, would have required
over 6,600 cubic feet of bedrock to be removed.
This would have demanded a massive amount of labor,
which indicated the road's importance.
But the most baffling aspect of the road was its width.
At over 20 feet across, it exceeded
all practical necessity for a society
with no wheeled vehicles and no pack animals.
Put simply, this road was much bigger
than it needed to be, especially if its only purpose
was the transportation of goods.
So is it possible it served another purpose?
A deeper dive into the spiritual traditions
of the Pueblo peoples reveals a compelling explanation.
[Dr. Leonard] Pueblo Native Americans practiced the Kachina religion,
a belief system that featured hundreds of divine beings
acting as intermediaries between the human world,
the gods, and the celestial world of astronomy.
The religion was also at the center of civic life,
as Pueblo villages were governed by Kachina religious councils.
[Dr. Riskin] Spiritual practices didn't just impact daily life.
Many Pueblo buildings and structures are believed
to have been built with archaeo-astronomy in mind,
which means they were built specifically to align
with solar and lunar cycles.
Entire villages were specifically planned
with consideration of celestial alignments,
like the sun's path during a solstice,
or during an equinox.
One of the most famous examples is the Sun Dagger,
a Chaco Canyon discovery that was originally created
to focus the sunlight onto an elaborate rock carving.
Three large stone slabs were set against the cliff
to channel the sun's rays onto two spiral petroglyphs,
marking the solstices, equinoxes,
and the lunar standstills of the 18.6-year cycle
of the moon.
It's believed these events formed the basis
of important Pueblo rituals and ceremonies.
Is it possible the ancient road was created
for a similar celestial purpose?
A survey of the surrounding area leads to a critical clue
into the spiritual traditions of the Pueblo peoples.
A large crescent-shaped wall of stacked stone was discovered
on a flat section of earth adjacent to the road.
Measuring 35 feet east to west
and 46 feet across south to north,
the round structure was created
from fist-sized chunks of sandstone,
connecting directly to the ancient road.
The structure was identified as an "Herradura."
That means horseshoe, and we've seen those before.
They're essentially roadside shrines for the Pueblo,
typically identified as such by their shape and by the shards
of pottery and ceramics that are found in the vicinity.
These are artifacts widely interpreted as offerings
to the gods.
The discovery of the Herradura roadside shrine definitely
suggested the road was connected to some kind
of ritual and that the landscape itself played an integral role
in that ritual.
However, up to that point, all the research was based
on data collected at ground level,
so any available evidence was limited
to the road's physical properties and dimensions,
what could only be seen by the naked eye.
But the use of cutting-edge technology leads
to a breakthrough.
When the size and scale of the investigation increased
to include entire landscapes,
a decision was made to use an imaging process called
"LiDAR," which stands for "light detection and ranging."
It's a remote-sensing tech that creates digital 3D models
of environments by measuring the relative distance
of objects to the earth with pulsing laser light.
[Dr. Riskin] For the road south of Chaco Canyon,
a filter was applied to the images
that made it look like light was coming
from different angles and altitudes.
And what emerges from that is this 3D picture of the landscape
that exaggerates anomalies, making things visible
to the human eye that normally would not be.
The LiDAR images deliver not one,
but two surprising revelations.
First, the data showed that the ancient road
extended for at least another three and a half miles.
It continued in a straight line,
regardless of where the road led,
over earthen ramps,
descending into valleys, even incorporating
man-made staircases cut right into the rock.
Even more shocking, the LiDAR revealed the presence
of a second straight road, parallel to the first one
and about 115 feet directly southwest.
The second road also displayed evidence
of an Herradura roadside shrine,
and it too was uncharacteristically wide,
measuring almost 20 feet across.
Initially, the two roads appeared to run
perfectly parallel to each other.
However, a closer look revealed they slowly came together
to a point in the distance.
At the near end, the widest space between
the two roads was roughly 120 feet.
From that point, the roads seemed to converge,
measuring just 50 feet across at its most narrow.
An enormous amount of effort went into the planning
and building of both roads.
So given the Pueblo emphasis on sacred topography,
plus the significance of celestial events
in their calendar,
is it possible that these two roads
were pointing towards an important spiritual landmark
on the horizon?
A survey of the surrounding area provides the answer.
From the perspective of the first Herradura Shrine,
as well as various points along the second road,
both roads form a clear visual trajectory
towards a single landmass
directly southeast -- Mount Taylor.
And Mount Taylor is an eminently sacred mountain
among contemporary Pueblo and Diné
living in northwestern New Mexico.
The survey also indicated that both roads ran at an azimuth
of approximately 120 degrees and that the second road
corresponded with the position of the winter solstice
at the original Gasco site.
[Dr. Riskin] As the shortest day of the year and the longest night,
winter solstice marks the point at which the sun reaches
the most southerly position in the sky over the course
of its entire annual cycle.
Suspecting the sun would rise over Mount Taylor in alignment
with both roads during the winter solstice,
researchers returned to the site on the morning
of December 21st.
As anticipated and as if on cue,
the sun rose dramatically over the mountain
in perfect alignment with the two road corridors
when is viewed from the center of the roadbed.
For the Pueblo peoples, the awe-inspiring view
of the sun rising over Mount Taylor
likely symbolized the powerful relationship
between the natural
and spiritual worlds and exemplifies the role
the celestial calendar played in guiding religious life.
The ancient roads
of the Chaco Canyon reveal the Pueblo
to have been masters at imbuing urban planning
with a deep connection to the sacred
and a keen understanding of cosmology.