-Is this alright? -Yes, let's go.
(Stel Pavlou) My new theory on Atlantis leads us
to southern Turkey...
(woman) Wow!
Look at that!
(Stel) ...where we're tracking
an ancient civilisation...
It is a wall, right there.
(Stel) ...that had the means
and motive to build Atlantis.
-(Jess Phoenix) And then the stairs...
-(Stel) Into the water.
This makes Atlantis become more
of a possibility to me.
(Stel) If we can follow their trail...
(Jess) See how there's a discoloration here.
There was water in here.
(Stel) ...from the city they abandoned...
This is spectacular.
(Stel) ...to the one they built next.
-Whoa! -A brick.
(Stel) We could find ourselves
standing on the lost city...
(Jess) This is pretty amazing.
(Stel) ...of Atlantis itself.
It's a structure right beneath our feet.
It's really there.
(Stel) The story of Atlantis
is the greatest historical mystery of all time
and nobody can find any evidence for it
because they're all looking in the wrong era.
I'm Stel Pavlou and I've been obsessed with Atlantis
my entire life.
For two decades, I've researched thousands of pages
of original text and studied clues
from across the ancient world in search of the elusive lost city.
Plato, one of the greatest thinkers of all time,
said it was the greatest superpower of its age.
It was at war with most of the Mediterranean
and overnight it disappeared,
wiped out by a catastrophe at around 9600 BC,
but I have a new theory that says that date
is completely wrong and it changes everything.
You see, ancient Egyptians measured time by using King lists
that kept track of the years
that each pharaoh ruled.
The problem is, often two people would rule at the same time.
Remove those double counted years and suddenly
the timeline shrinks to Atlantis disappearing
in the 5th Millennium BC -
not the Stone Age, but the Copper Age.
Here goes nothing.
--- hell!
(Stel) Armed with my new theory,
I'm teaming up with geologist and explorer Jess Phoenix.
Boo, yeah!
(Stel) Together, we're going to look for clues
at some of the most legendary places in the world.
This is the most comprehensive search
for Atlantis ever.
Wow! And we're going to find it.
(Stel) If Atlantis was one thing,
it was the first most advanced powerful civilisation
on earth
but the people who built Atlantis still had to come from somewhere.
So, if you want to find the origin
of the first incredibly advanced civilisation,
you come to Turkey.
It's home to Catalhoyuk, which dates to around 7000 BC.
It's the only city in the world we know of
that predates my theory of Atlantis.
They left behind some incredible artwork.
Look at these, this - this vulture
carrying off the souls of the dead.
There's bull worship.
Now remember Plato said that bull worship and bull sacrifice
was key to Atlantis civilisation.
If any civilisation was primed
to develop into Atlantis, it's this one.
The problem we've got, these people abandoned their city
around 6000 BC.
So, what happened to them?
We may have a lead.
Further west along the coast,
an incredible discovery has been made -
cave paintings that may be the missing link
between Catalhoyuk and Atlantis.
(Stel) So, these cave paintings are really interesting.
Are they going to give us the evidence we need to show
that the people of Catalhoyuk moved westward
and moved further toward the coast?
Exactly, I mean I don't know.
It's a little hard to have Atlantis with no water.
These cave paintings from my research
are nearly as old as Catalhoyuk.
(Jess) Wow!
(Stel) But they're going to be a real challenge to get to
because they're way up a mountain.
(Stel) Jess and I are in south-west Turkey
about 300 miles west of Catalhoyuk,
trekking up to a remote spot in the rugged Besparmak Mountains.
This is where the cave paintings were discovered
in the 1990s.
The precise location of the cave is a closely-guarded secret.
(Stel) So, this guy we're meeting
was one of the first people to find the paintings.
Oh, there he is.
Hello!
-How are you doing? -Good, good.
-Good to see you. -Good to see you too.
-Nice to meet you. -This is Jess.
-Hello! -Hello, Jess!
Is this our ride?
Oh, great, OK.
-OK. -OK.
-Alright. -Let's grab our stuff.
-Yeah. Be right there. -OK, OK.
(Stel) This is some seriously rugged terrain.
No wonder it took thousands of years for anyone to find it.
That whole landscape across there is just incredible.
(Jess) It's pretty epic.
OK, guys...
-OK.
Looking at this landscape,
how did they even find this cave, do you know?
-Wow. -Yeah, I love it.
Shepherds is how they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.
-Ah! -Yeah.
-Oh, a sacrificial site. Yes. -Oh, yeah.
So, that's the basin.
Oh, yeah.
-Oh, yeah, that's...
-Wow.
-Oh, yeah. -Oh, I got to see this.
No, you can-- you can totally see
-through there. -Oh, yeah, right there.
From this spot, you can see the mountain peak.
-Yes, yes, yes. -Oh, that's so cool.
Yeah.
-OK. -Alright.
So, this is exciting.
And then here it is.
(Jess) Great.
(Stel) Whoa!
(Stel Pavlou laughs)
-(Jess) Wow! -(Stel) Wow!
Look at that!
So, that's the weather god.
And look at that - look at the heads, look at this.
They look like...
I would say bull's horns.
What are the pictures at Catalhoyuk look like?
(Jess) OK.
(Stel) This is interesting because around the time
of five to six thousand BC,
that is when in the Taurus Mountains right here in Turkey...
The Taurus Mountains. ..cattle were domesticated.
(Stel) This is where it happened
and that's the time when it happened.
(Stel) Bull worship was part of Atlantis culture.
So, they're similar in as much as they're very elongated.
-Yeah. -Very thin-looking figures.
The length of the bodies that make me see
some kind of connection,
some kind of way at looking at the world.
(Jess) And look, I mean they have
like these patterns of the lines,
-the lines are so distinctive. -Yeah.
Timeframe wise, do these two things, do they align?
Is Catalhoyuk the same as this?
Catalhoyuk collapsed around 6000 BC. These have been dated to...
roughly 6000 BC.
These could be...
connected to Catalhoyuk.
There's certainly some similarities.
It's these arms that really get me.
The fact that we've got a weather god at the top of a mountain, OK.
Weather gods are always at the tops of mountains.
Atlas, who was the king of Atlantis,
who shares his name with Atlas, the god...
that god started off in the Arcadian Mountains,
but this isn't where they lived.
They just made a pilgrimage here like a shrine.
Are you sure?
Because there is a lot that makes this appealing
for at least small groups of people to live.
I agree with you.
I think this is more like-- think about refugees.
You've just left Catalhoyuk,
you're trying to find somewhere new to go to
so this has got lots of, like, little caves dotted around
from different family units,
but you're trying to find a place to set up a new...
central location and starting a new city
probably closer to the coast,
and we're close to one of the oldest coastal cities
-in all of Turkey. -OK.
So, I think we need to follow that trail
and see if we can find any evidence of settlements.
That sounds like a good plan.
(Stel) Those cave paintings were incredible.
They really, really were.
I mean, I've never seen anything like that in person.
What it really showed was this similarity
between the artwork at Catalhoyuk and here.
Yeah.
And so we can kind of put the two together.
I feel like we're on the trail of something now.
(Stel) We're heading south east to an area
where a series of barrier islands provide a natural protected harbour.
And where there is an ancient city called Myra
that goes back at least 3000 BC.
It's a logical place to start a seafaring society.
So, I really feel like we've got a connection now to Catalhoyuk,
coming from inland and then moving toward the coast
and if you're at the coast, you need to fish.
If you need to fish, you need to learn sailing
and to learn sailing, you have to build boats
and you end up with the beginning of maritime technology here
at the coast.
They've got, like, sort of a protected area
to develop their skills.
It's almost like they've got prehistoric training wheels.
So, so they're good, that's excellent.
Right. Yeah.
It's these I'm interested in.
(Jess) Wow! I've never seen anything like that.
That's impressive.
It's not masonry, it's carved right into the rock face.
(Stel) This town, Myra, was home to one of the oldest civilisations
in Turkey, the Lycians, going back to at least 3000 BC.
-What are you saying? -I'm just looking.
(Stel) I want to know if they're connected to Catalhoyuk
and maybe to Atlantis.
We're meeting Lycian expert Dilek Iskar to dig for connections.
Hi.
-I'm Jess. -I'm Dilek.
-Nice to meet you! -Nice to meet you!
Oh, nice to meet you! I have so many questions.
So, who were the Lycians and where did they come from?
We don't know where they come from because no-one knows it.
-OK. -Wow.
It's something like a mystery.
So, were the Lycians an advanced people?
Yes, of course.
They had their own alphabets, they had their own language
and also they form a federational government system.
-Wow. -Yeah.
(Stel) What is this place?
(Dilek) This is an ancient necropolis.
It really looks like a city.
It's just the tombs.
And is there a connection with Catalhoyuk?
Yeah, there might be.
-OK. -Wow.
And did they also worship bulls?
-Wow! -Wow!
If these are connected to Catalhoyuk
then there is a continuation of ritual,
there's a continuation of myth, OK, and therefore religion.
The Lycians arrived in this area 3000 BC.
OK.
Nobody knows where they came from.
Catalhoyuk was abandoned around 6000 BC
and nobody knows where they went.
So, did they come here?
Are these the descendants thousands of years later?
And which is why there's a similarity in the religion,
and that gap happens to include 5000 BC
and Atlantis.
Then, you know what that means is,
we've got to try to fill in that gap in the record.
In geology, when we're missing a layer in the rock,
we know that geology was still going on
but for some reason that record has been obliterated.
And I think we can say the same here for history.
So, maybe we should check this area since it is pretty attractive.
We're right near the water, like you said.
I think we should look around and see what else we can find. Alright.
(Stel) Just down the hill from the tombs
are ruins of a sunken Lycian city called Simena
abandoned around 200 AD.
The big question, was it built on top of an older city,
a city old enough to be Atlantis?
-Can you take us to Simena? -Yes, come on!
-Oh, great. -Awesome.
What? Look at this.
Have you ever seen anything like that?
I mean, from a distance they look like treasure chests.
They do, but I don't want what's inside. I'm good.
I mean, that's really a unique way of, of burying people,
from what I know. I mean, I could be wrong, but...
Yeah, and why are they all, like, perched close to shore?
Yeah.
It just doesn't...
This would have been much lower
but they weren't dug into the hillside, like at Myra.
This is different.
But, like, anyone visiting from the main ocean
and comes here, the first thing they're gonna see are these things.
That's true.
'Cause they're not gonna see the settlement that's shielded.
So, I'm wondering what the message is they're trying to send.
Maybe their dead mattered and they needed a prime position.
I mean, they have, like, handles on the, the thin sides as well.
This is really cool.
Is that writing on one of them?
At the back?
I don't know if that's weathering or writing.
You can't tell from this distance but it's--
Otherwise they're, like, kind of unmarked.
There's, like, a few geometric shapes,
sort of rectangles.
They're very deliberate and some of them are shorter than others.
You see that?
-The one on the right there? -Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And then... It's just weird.
It is. It's really curious.
I don't know and I wish that we knew more.
Yeah.
Wow. But this is, this is super specific.
This is advanced. This isn't burning people on a pyre.
-That's fairly simple. -No, no, no.
This, this isn't just digging a hole and putting them in.
This is a whole elaborate construction.
Yeah, highly symbolic and, and tied to specific rituals.
What a place to make your home.
(Stel) This is an actual city here.
This is --- incredible.
This is pretty amazing.
I mean look at it. There's-- look at the walls.
There's built walls, there's carved walls in the bedrock.
-And then the stairs. -Stairs going into the water.
(Jess) So, clearly they probably didn't want a swimming pool.
-No. -Because this was on land.
-Yeah, yeah. -This was land.
Yeah, this was much higher at some point.
(Jess) It's so visible because the water's really clear.
This is just-- it's an actual sunken city
you don't even need to dive on and it's right here.
This is certainly a good place for a harbour or something,
especially if the sea level was a little lower,
it's protected, so it's hard to attack.
OK, this makes Atlantis become more of a possibility to me, right?
-Yeah, yeah.
This is very much a city that was on land and is now drowned.
From what I understand around 200 AD,
there was an earthquake and it sank.
Oh, look, look, look, in the water.
You can see like how the slope continues
to where the old shoreline would have been.
-(Stel) Oh, it's right here. -(Jess) Yeah.
It's like a big colour change.
So, you've got settlement, old shoreline,
and then it's really deep.
For a city of this size to actually drop down,
you need a detachment fault.
And that's kind of like what it sounds.
You got your earth just nice and flat
and then suddenly, boom, bottom drops out.
Oh, it's that simple.
Yeah, and this whole area is known for detachment faults.
So, it can't just be one-off.
Oh, yeah, most definitely.
This is a process that's been going on again and again and again.
It could span hundreds or thousands of years between events.
(Stel) I'm wondering whether this is built on something older.
Look at all the little carvings in the walls.
Some of them are just square and it's like a little nook.
(Stel) I think what they are, are for beams...
(Jess) Yeah, to make a second floor.
(Stel) ..so you can... second floor.
There's two different looking phases, alright?
You've got a phase where it's literally carved out of the stone
that's already here that looks like it's megalithic
which is about 5000 BC
but the rest of it with the walls and everything
look more Bronze Age.
Oh, my god, we're going right over a giant wall.
-(Stel) It is a wall. -(Jess) Yes.
(Stel) There's a wall down there.
Oh, my goodness!
It's a massive wall and it's in a straight line that way.
Is that a harbour?
It is. I think that's a harbour.
-Look, it's like a breakwater. -It is.
They have a breakwater.
(Stel) I mean look at it. It's right there!
And then they got a slipway
so they're bringing boats in and out of the water.
(Jess) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
(Stel) And this is a dock,
so, you've got larger boats coming up here
and then we have the harbour.
I want to see if there's evidence of an older harbour underneath this.
Is there any way we can get closer look at this one?
I've got a camera and I've got a little extender pull
and at least, it'll give us sort of an eye under water.
Cool!
OK. So, I rigged this up.
-I think it's going to work. -OK.
OK.
So, if you can go across this outside of the wall there,
we've got a good profile on it.
Can you get a sense of how tall it is?
I mean, it's a couple of metres high.
What do the blocks look like? Are they shaped?
They are. They've tried to make them rectangular.
-OK. -That's what it looks like.
(Stel) How big are they?
If they're from 5000 BC, they'll be bigger.
(Jess) Hmm. These are all smaller blocks.
Now, there's nothing that looks older here.
This is all like frustratingly new.
This is a sophisticated maritime culture.
These people, their entire existence centred around water.
And parts of that really do mirror Plato's story but it's all too new.
So, what we really need to do to try and understand
where these people may have originated from
is we need to go somewhere else
to see whether or not this type of society existed
in an earlier period.
I'm on board.
Forward!
(Stel) So, we're heading west
where there's evidence of older coastal settlements
including the remains of the ancient Greek city of Miletos.
So, was Miletos, was that like a major city
because it's not one I've encountered.
It was a really important city.
It was actually a major trading hub and it was a maritime trading hub.
-It's not on the coast, right? -No!
So, I want to know how a town
in the middle of nowhere is a maritime trading hub.
OK. This must be it.
This site is massive.
-Is this... -Wait, this is all it?
-This-- everything? -...everything.
(Stel) Holy smokes.
This is really, really incredible.
This is spectacular.
Those are definitely Greek columns.
This was a substantial city and then what I'm seeing over here,
you've got a ring of mountains, OK?
Yeah.
And then you've got like a plane and then you've got a city, right?
It's kind of Atlantis-like except there's no water.
Do you see how there's a discoloration here,
how it goes from like a lighter grey and then it gets dark?
The same thing is present on almost all of these blocks,
the big columns, everything that's laying down,
which to me suggests that there was water in here after the site.
(Stel) Oh, it's a water level mark.
See, these are-- these right here are desiccation cracks.
So that's when the area has been flooded and then dried out.
(Stel) That's interesting.
(Jess) This is silt.
Silt can really mess up your day
if you're trying to live near an area
that's getting like inundated by silt
because it can bury your crops and it can choke your river.
This place has had a really complicated history with water.
So you feel that.
You feel how it's like super fine.
-You can't even feel the grains. -Oh, yeah.
It's true silt.
I've never been this excited about dirt before.
-Welcome to my world. -(Stel Pavlou laughs)
(Stel) Let's see if we can find Dr Arikan.
This is so cool.
(Stel) Dr Bulent Arikan is an archaeologist
who's dug deep into this site's history.
Thanks for meeting us here.
-Thank you for having me. -Good to see you.
So, this theatre is spectacular. Can you tell me much about it?
I just see a bit of a jumble going on.
You are right.
The theatre at Miletos, this is a Roman structure
but by its technique
and the earliest phase of its construction, it is actually Greek
because as you see, this is pushed up against a hill right behind you
and this is also a metaphor for all the complex intertwined layers
of thousands of years of occupation, of settlement, human habitation.
If you just look back, that construction there
at the centre of the theatre
is a Byzantine castle, also reused by the Ottomans.
Wow.
We saw things that looked like they were from different,
different time periods.
Exactly. The settlement must have started around 3,000 BC
which is early bronze age.
There is some evidence however that there was earlier settlement,
probably of local Anatolian origin.
Ooh. Interesting.
This place has had a really long history
with just lots of different influences over the years.
You're exactly right.
(Jess) So, there's something I'm wondering.
There's a lot of farmland here,
but I just see evidence that this site has been underwater,
is that right?
That's very good question.
I can actually show you something just on the back of the theatre
if you're interested.
-Yeah. -Oh, definitely!
Wow!
-Oh, this should be on a postcard. -This is gorgeous.
At the time of its first settlement around 3000 BC
when the first settlers arrived at this location,
what they saw was actually a series of islands.
This was the entrance to the Gulf of Latmos.
Oh, so, this was all underwater.
This was all underwater.
So, I'm now baffled
because everything that I know about Copper Age
is a massive sea level rise.
-Exactly. -So, why is this now land?
This topography has been changed constantly
by the great Meander River
and started to bring in a lot of alluvium.
(Jess) Ah, alluvium, right. That's the silt we just saw.
The population increased and they started farming and herding,
and that actually destabilised
a lot of soil and sediment from surrounding hills.
It's a combo, then.
It's natural forces and human activity.
(Dr Bulent Arikan) Exactly.
(Stel) After 5000 BC, the Aegean Sea rose by around 15 or 20 feet,
flooding cities that were once on the coast,
but in the Meander River valley,
billions of tonnes of silt pushed back the rising sea,
moving the port city of Miletos two miles inland
and perhaps burying other more ancient cities.
I'm still stuck on this silt business.
The fact that it was just washing down
is a complete flip in my head
of how a civilisation can basically disappear.
So, with everything covered up,
what are the chances of finding even older sites under this silt?
Chances are certainly high.
(Jess) Turkey's a huge hot spot for earthquakes.
Were there any large seismic events here around 5000 BC?
Actually tectonics was very important
in the shaping of this whole plain.
In fact, just on the other side, there is a twin city Priene.
And in Priene actually,
there are geologists who have been doing research
on ancient earthquakes
and how they impacted ancient societies.
Wow. That's incredible.
-(Jess) Thank you for this. -Thank you.
It's amazing.
This has been awesome, thank you.
My pleasure.
(Stel) If there were city destroying earthquakes in my timeline,
we'll be hunting for Atlantis in a place I never expected,
not under the sea,
but buried under billions of tonnes of silt.
Now, we're driving across a valley where ancient ships once sailed.
You can totally visualise how it would have been the ocean
at one point.
I think that's the key part is how has the landscape evolved
since the people were there.
(Stel) In 5000 BC, the Meander Valley was the Gulf of Latmos.
Two ancient cities guarded its mouth,
Miletos to the south and Priene on the hill to the north.
We're headed there now to meet a geological team
studying ancient earthquakes.
OK, this must be it, Priene.
It's like substantial. I mean, it's just like Miletos.
(Jess) It's huge. Definitely another full city.
(Stel) Yeah.
Look how big this column is, it's like up to here.
Oh, writing!
Ah, cool!
Well, you can actually read this part.
(Jess) "Deimos."
(Stel) "Athena."
Deimos, Athena.
(Jess) Athena's.
(Stel) Athena's Temple.
Yeah, which is cool to me
because the other place, Miletos, had Temple of Apollo.
Apollo, Athena, I mean, these are favourite kids of Zeus himself.
So, we're in Priene, Miletos is literally right across there.
And they're both comparable in so many ways, right?
I mean, they're big, they're really well put together.
(Stel) I'm looking at these columns
and it's reminding me of when Plato talks about the Pillars of Hercules
and Atlantis was beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
Well, today that is the strait of Gibraltar.
So, Spain and Morocco at the entrance to the Mediterranean,
but in antiquity, there were a bunch of Pillars of Hercules.
The other thing to remember also is that Plato specifically says
that he changed the foreign names in the story to Greek names.
Oh!
So, that his audience could understand
what he was talking about.
And Hercules just means strength, power.
So, I'm wondering are these two cities the guardians of this bay?
That sounds like a possibility to me
because it's really strategic.
Both spots are such a good view of what's out there,
and you wouldn't miss anything up here.
Yeah. You've got the ocean coming right up here,
Atlantis would be protected at the back,
and these would be a type of Pillars of Hercules,
but without a catastrophe, we've got nothing.
We need an earthquake in the right time for a city
to just go down into the ground.
Do you see those cliffs?
They're basically vertical and there's steps in there.
What does that mean?
-A fault. -Uh-huh.
One side goes up, suddenly,
violently, and destructively for anything in the area.
(Jess) Yeah.
(Stel) I mean, that's a neon sign that says earthquakes.
OK. We just have to find if there's an earthquake around 5000 BC.
Let's go meet with a geologist.
(Stel) Just down the hill from Priene,
Dr Naki Akcar is studying exactly when large earthquakes hit
this region.
(Stel) So, what are you doing out here?
And what are we looking at here?
In this case, one side of the ground basically stayed where it was
and the other side was pushed up.
OK, so every time there's an earthquake, it's going to go up.
So, the older evidence will be at the top.
So, you're literally taking a sample of the fault itself?
(Dr Naki Akcar) Yes, we do.
-(Stel) Oh, OK. -(Jess) Ooh!
It's a bad day when you've got anything above a six.
Especially, if you had older buildings
that weren't engineered to withstand quakes,
so ancient cities were in a lot of trouble
for a quake of six and above.
So, if we wanted to look at about 5000 BC,
where would we need to look?
So, what I need to know is every four or five feet up,
I'm going back 2,000 years in time.
So, I need to go up about, what? 12 to 15 feet.
-Exactly. -Well done.
-Yes. -Yes.
I can math.
So, how do I get a date out of this?
Power tools?
-Yes. -This is you.
OK, so I need a ladder, ropes, harness, helmet,
and then you guys are going to tell me
exactly where to start sawing.
Exactly. Let's get the gear.
(Stel) The science is clever but simple.
The moment an earthquake punches this rock face upward,
a new layer of rock is exposed
and it begins absorbing cosmic radiation.
If I can collect a piece of rock that's been exposed
since around 5000 BC
that means a major earthquake took place near my timeline for Atlantis.
The 15 is going to be there, I'm just marking the corners.
-That looks like a prime spot. -Yeah.
(machine whirring)
How's it going?
Good, I think I'm nearly there.
-(Jess) Oh, ho.
-(Dr Naki Akcar) Oh, congratulations!
Yeah! Very nice.
-It's a perfect one. -A brick.
(sighs) A very old stone. Who wants it?
-There you go. -(Jess) Let's have a look.
Wow! It's a beautiful piece of brick.
(Jess) Nice job! Alright.
You got us a really nice looking sample.
You can analyse this for us, right?
Yes, I will do it.
(Jess) Let's hope that this thing is from 5000 BC.
If it is,
then we've got evidence there was an earthquake around that time.
(Stel) Now, we just need to find a city it destroyed.
So, we started at Catalhoyuk with the clues left by the people there.
It's the oldest city ever discovered by archaeologists.
We worked on the premise
that the people of Catalhoyuk didn't just vanish into thin air,
they migrated.
And so, we worked our way west
and we ended up finding those incredible cave paintings
that date from around 6,000 BC
that appear to link the people of Catalhoyuk
to a civilisation here on the coast.
We also looked at a couple of really large cities
around this bay that opens out into the Aegean
that could possibly be candidates
for the legendary Pillars of Hercules,
but we haven't found Atlantis.
I think the sweet spot is the Meander River valley.
Thousands of years ago, this used to be a gulf,
but because the Meander River has a tendency to deposit silt
by the tonne,
any civilisation that sat on that coastline isn't under water,
it's under feet and feet of dirt.
And to examine that, we're going to need a new strategy
and Jess has exactly the right tool for the job.
(Jess) OK, we're trying to get near the ancient shoreline.
I've got a map here and what we have is, sort of, a now and then.
So, it compares shorelines in antiquity with what we've got today.
Here, you've got the current shoreline
but back in 5,000 BC,
we can see that there was a shoreline
that was much further in.
That is a heck of a long way.
We're talking about close to 20 miles.
Yeah, that's pretty far.
Sort of, Miletos and Priene
at the mouth of this bay as it would have been
and that's a really smart, strategic position.
And that would be where you'd put your really big important city.
Hmm. That is really, really interesting.
OK, where do we go here
and how do we narrow down where on this ancient shoreline?
I think Plato can help.
This is really making the cogs in my brain turn
because I have in my little Atlantis book here,
some descriptions by Plato for the landscape of Atlantis, OK?
So, one of the things he says is,
"Surrounding the city was a level plane,
itself surrounded by mountains,
which descended towards the sea,
and Atlantis was in the dead middle of that plane."
So, I think we need to look in the centre of that ancient shoreline.
I think it's time that we bring in the big guns
and pull out the ground penetrating radar.
It's going to give us the best picture
of what's going on underneath this lovely flat farmland.
(Stel) OK, that's a really good idea.
(Jess) And I've got a GPR team headed out to meet us right now.
This is the closest landscape we've encountered yet
that matches what Plato's talking about,
but we're just missing the city.
(Stel) Jess and I are in the Meander River valley in Turkey.
Today, it's farmland,
but in 5000 BC, this was a large gulf on the Aegean Sea.
Following clues from geology and from Plato,
we zero in on a spot
right in the centre
of the ancient shore.
So, this spot right here was the ancient shoreline.
(Jess) We're pretty much right on it.
(Stel) Now, we're meeting with a ground penetrating radar expert
to search for a buried city.
-Hello! -Hello.
-Hey! How are you? -Hey.
(Jess) So, you're familiar with this, yeah?
I know the... the basics.
So, it fires radar into the ground,
scatters the return signal,
and then you can see if there's a disturbance in the soil somewhere,
-is that about right? -Yeah.
So, we're going to actually try to do this in 3D
so that we get a more realistic picture of what's underground.
Awesome.
So, I've never actually used one, though.
Alright. Well, basically all you're going to have to do is push it.
-OK, I can do that. -It's like a very slow lawnmower.
(Stel) OK.
I'm going to mark anything that we find with a flag.
(Stel) Alright.
It's not exactly going to send up a firework or anything
-if you get a hit, but... -Right.
...just have to keep an eye on it.
(Stel) OK.
Hey, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, look, you see that?
-OK, a hit, OK. -Anomaly, yes!
Mark it!
-(Jess) Good. -(Stel) OK.
-See, see? -This is exciting.
-Alright. -Alright. Yeah.
It's still there. It's still - we've still got a signal.
-(Jess) Alright, stop. Again. -(Stel) Alright.
(Jess) Going to make another mark
and then - I mean, at the end,
this will let us get an appreciation for how long it really is.
(Stel) Hit! Alright, mark it. We're onto something.
Hit!
(Jess) This is actually really exciting.
Dang!
That has to be 50-60 feet, right?
-Yeah. -Yes.
-Can you tell how deep it is here?
Yeah, that's the right depth for something
that would have been covered over by silt
and also potentially subject to liquefaction dropping it down.
-(Stel) We've got something. -So, that's the end.
(Stel) Get it out of the way.
(Stel) Soft ground here.
-OK. -(Jess) Really, soft ground.
Well, if you want to try going back down towards those flags,
I think we need to make another 90 degree turn.
And if we have enough right angles here, we have a structure.
Yeah. If - I said, if.
-Let's take the chance. -Alright, moment of truth.
-(Jess) alright. -And it's still there.
Slow, real slow, real slow, hold on, you see it, yeah?
-Yes, yes. -This has to be a structure now.
-Oh, my god, Stel. -Still going.
-Oh, my god! -Still going.
(Jess) What have we found?
(Stel) It's a structure, right beneath our feet!
-Oh, my god! -It's really there.
-This is huge. -I mean...
(Jess Phoenix chuckles)
...this is the middle of the building.
How deep is it? How old is it?
Yeah, the depth.
-So, is it still about... -It's all the same, right?
-Yes, yes, it's same. -Same depth.
So, how long will it take to get the 3D scan?
We need a couple minutes.
-Just a couple of minutes? -Yeah!
-Well... -OK, OK. Let him do his work.
Right there. Look at that.
(Stel) There's a building there.
-(man) Yeah, it's a building. -(Jess) Wow!
So, there's a six metre high wall right there.
Yeah, so, we're talking about like, you know,
18-20 feet high walls underground, six, seven feet deep.
-Holy cow, but that's... -It's huge.
That's a huge building.
Everything lines up, I mean, we figured out the landscape, right?
And we came up with a really good theory
that if there was going to be any buildings,
they'd be here, and look, lo and behold, there's a building.
Really, really impressive.
We just have to make sure the local archaeologists know.
Yeah. Excavating this site takes a lot of people.
-Yeah. -And a long time to do it properly.
-It's right there. -Well done!
The only thing missing is a date of an earthquake.
(Jess) We need to go back to Priene
since Dr Naki should have the results of the rock sample.
Naki said he was going to meet us here.
When he gets here, I think that's going to clear up
a little bit of about whether or not this is plausible
and - you're right on time!
-How are you doing? -Good! Long time, no see!
Yeah, I have your results.
OK, so what have we got?
-4,000 to 5,000 BC! -Yes.
-It's right on the money. -Yeah, what else?
That is definitely enough to have caused, you know, massive shaking
and potentially liquefaction
all throughout this area because the water table's so high.
(Stel) And we have readings of something in the ground
that we need permission to excavate.
-Thank you very much. -Thank you.
-This has been great. -Wow.
Turkey has surprised me in a number of ways.
Same.
Think about it, this is just about everything we've looked at.
We have a temple to a weather god at Mount Latmos, right there,
a powerful city that side,
you've got a powerful city this side,
two strong cities that protect the harbour.
You come from this way and you have to get past these two
to get to Atlantis which is really protected.
(Jess) You've got this civilisation that's advancing over time.
(Stel) We have the ocean over there. We have an alluvial plane.
(Jess) River back there.
(Stel) We have the mountains filling it in
and we have the earthquake at the right time.
(Jess) What we've seen here
has completely reshaped my thinking
about this being
a potential location
for an advanced ancient civilisation.
(Stel) We're going to need
a bigger backhoe
and about 500 permits.
Captions edited by Ai-Media ai-media.tv