02x04 - Chasing the Temple Booty: Part One

[bunniefuu]

What does it all mean?

This is where the archeology has been found.

Hi, how are you?

Look at that.

I need a planter.

A shrine to a bellybutton.

Is this a rock of salt?

Look at that!

No one gets into this place?

Whoa! Don't take me too far.

Now that's naked archeology.

[theme music]

[SIMCHA] This is a story about stolen treasure.

When do we divide the gold?

[SIMCHA] And lots of golden booty.

And yes, this tale will take us

out on the high seas in sailing ships,

but it really begins in the mountains.

Or the Judean hills.

OK hold on guys!

[SIMCHA] because we're hunting for treasure

that came from the temple in Jerusalem.

We're in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives

across from one of the holiest places on earth.

The Muslims call it the Dome of the Rock.

According to Islam it's where Mohammed ascended to heaven

to learn the ways of prayer. For Jews it's the Temple Mount.

Why? Because if you went back in time years

on that exact spot you'd see the Temple of Solomon.

One of the wonders of the earth built by King Solomon

and it was there to house the symbols of ritual,

of communication between God and mankind.

[SIMCHA] The Temple treasures

were considered holy hotlines to God.

The golden Ark of the Covenant held the Ten Commandments,

the massive Menorah was designed by God himself

and it was made from one piece of gold.

The silver trumpets of truth were blown by the High Priests..

to mark the beginning and end of every workday,

and the gorgeous gold and bejeweled Table

of the Divine Presence held the fresh bread

blessed by God ensuring a successful annual grain harvest.

This was some serious booty.

Control these and you had access to God who controls heaven,

the seas and all between and below.

So what happened to the Temple treasure?

Where did it go?

And how come King Solomon's temple is not there anymore.

[SIMCHA] With a keen eye for clues in history

I can answer the temple questions.

And, as crazy as it may sound,

I think I can find the priceless Temple treasures.

In BCE Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king,

sacked Jerusalem and his massive army

b*rned and knocked Solomon's Temple down.

He captured all the Jewish people

and took them back to Babylon.

And, he claimed their temple treasure.

Ancient records show that Nebuchadnezzar took everything..

but the Ark of the Covenant.

Many legends claim the Ark was secretly hidden

before the Babylonians att*cked the Temple.

So before I go to Babylon I'm starting my hunt

Here, deep underneath the Temple Mount,

where archaeologist Dan Bahat has uncovered evidence

that points to an ancient secret vault.

This is one of the most exciting points in the western wall.

We are touching now a stone,

which is the largest building stone

ever found in this country.

It weighs metric tons which is enormous.

I believe, inside here there is a vault,

that's an underground storage place, or something of the like.

So could it be in theory a storage of the temple?

That's what I believe it is, precisely that, yes.

I'll tell you more than that.

So are you going to find the Lost Ark of the Covenant?

What do you mean, I'm an Indiana Jones.

Why aren't you blasting through the wall

and be an Indian Jones and find all sorts of treasures.

People are expecting me to find the Ark of the Covenant,

it will be never found because in the book of Macabees,

they describe how prophet Jeremiah

took the Ark of the Covenant to Mount Nebo.

[SIMCHA] The Book of Macabees says

that Jeremiah stashed The Ark in a cave

up here on Mount Nebo in Jordan.

But there has never been anything found up here.

Many academics are convinced that the Ark was destroyed

when King Nebuchadnezzar ransacked Solomon's temple

back in BCE.

Because after that moment,

ancient references to the Ark disappear.

However, the Babylonians did make off with the bigger booty.

All of the treasures except the Ark were taken to Babylon.

There they stayed for almost years until Cyrus,

king of the Persians, overthrew Babylon,

freed the Jews and allowed them to return to their land.

It was then that they brought back the sacred objects

of Solomon's temple.

So, I may not be able to find the ark,

but with the help of this exact model of ancient Jerusalem,

I can put myself back in time to uncover clues

to the other treasures whereabouts.

I just need to get things down to scale.

That's good!

And the Jewish people came back from Babylon

where they built the second temple

right over Solomon's temple, the first temple.

And this is what it looked like and well not exactly like that.

It was bigger.

It was magnificent and inside that holy of holies,

that's where the high priests had the temple treasure.

They had everything they had before in the first temple,

except the arc of the covenant that went missing.

But they had everything else, the menorah,

the trumpets, the golden table.

They had everything worth millions even in those days,

priceless really but in today's terms in hard cash billions.

And guess what?

The Second Temple wasn't just the holiest place to worship

and store expensive holy things. It was a bank!

A massive bank for all of Israel.

Kind of like an ancient Fort Knox!

It housed gold and silver reserves

and it was where all of the temple's tax collection

was deposited.

Inside the temple, at any given time,

was what today would be billions and billions of dollars

worth of gold and silver,

in the form of coins and big bricks called "Talents".

So what happened to the Second Temple?

Why is it not there?

And what happened to the temple treasure

and to the gold and silver talents?

[SIMCHA] Well in CE,

years after the death of Jesus,

Rome sacked Jerusalem. Destroyed it.

The emperor Vespasian sent his son and best general, Titus,

to knock down the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

And all the clues we need to figure out

what the Romans did with the treasure

are in an ancient history book

written by a man named Josephus.

The greatest written authority

that we have is Flavius Josephus.

He's an eyewitness to the events that happened to Jerusalem

and to the Temple treasure.

What does he have to say about the Temple treasure?

[SIMCHA] Josephus writes

that the Romans grabbed all the temple booty,

including the great menorah.

And they made off like toga wearing bandits back to Rome.

And that's where this treasure hunt takes us. Rome.

[SIMCHA] It's the year CE.

The Roman legions have sacked Jerusalem,

stolen its holy temple treasures

and we've chased them back to Rome

to witness a triumph celebration unlike any seen before.

Here is where it all started. At the pantheon.

Not this Pantheon which was built in ,

but the earlier Pantheon destroyed by a fire.

Imagine this scene.

The emperor Vespasian and his son Titus were right here.

They were dedicated to their gods and started marching.

And this is where the temple treasure was made ready

to be paraded along the what I call the 'via de la menorah.'

They took it all the way through Rome.

Throngs of cheering people as the holiest objects in Judaism

were suddenly paraded as trophies of victorious Rome.

[SIMCHA] But where did the treasure end up?

If we read Josephus,

we can actually draw a treasure map

tracing the path of the menorah

and the other temple riches as they were paraded through Rome.

Vespasian and Titus made their way from the Pantheon

to the circus Flaminus.

Here they were heralded by tens of thousands.

Historian Alan Epstein shows me that the Circus Flaminus,

the first station in this Triumphal parade,

is today covered by a very interesting building.

We're standing in front of the major synagogue of Rome.

This synagogue built when?

In .

But this is where they brought the temple treasure

after conquering Jerusalem in , starting it here,

parading it all around the city so that everyone can see,

and so there's a synagogue right on the spot

where this temple treasure began it's triumphant march

through the city.

That's real irony.

Well that's history.

History is irony and it's the iy of unintended consequences.

[SIMCHA] The irony is intriguing

but I'm not interested in iron. I'm interested in gold.

Epstein tells me that almost years ago

they paraded the treasures from here

into the Theatre De Marcello, which held , spectators.

This is all part of the theater of Marcellus.

This was the prototype of the Coliseum

and of course it extends into the ancient part,

which is around, we're now at the front part

where the stage was.

[SIMCHA] But the gold wasn't left on this stage.

According to Josephus,

the treasure parade left this amphitheatre,

marched down the Vicus Jugarius

and through the Circus Maximus. Just a park now,

but back then it held an estimated

, screaming Romans.

The holiest items of Judea

were then taken into the famous Roman Forum,

where the Senate was housed and their most sacred temples stood.

And it's here where we find the best clue yet.

Actual archaeological evidence of the menorah

and the rest of the temple treasures

carved into Roman stone.

This is the Arch of Titus! This is it!

[SIMCHA] The Arch of Titus is the commemoration

of the triumph of Emperor Vespasian and his son, Titus,

built directly on the path that they marched into Rome

after the destruction of Jerusalem.

I met with historian, Lea Cline,

who explained to me the significance of this structure.

So this is literally a kind of a still frame

of one of the most incredible moments in history.

It was a big deal.

On this panel, on the south side

is the beginning of the triumphal procession

into the city of Rome.

And you can see them proceeding with all of their booty

to show the people and senate of Rome

what they were able to accomplish

and what they were to bring back.

This booty obviously is the most important booty.

You see the menorah, and you have soldiers holding it

on their shoulders as it is brought to Rome.

It represents Rome's dominance of the known universe

at that time.

So are you saying that the Temple treasure

literally was paraded where we're standing now?

It would have been paraded on this route.

It would have come up from what is now the Coliseum,

uphill and then proceed down into the Roman Forum.

[SIMCHA] As Lea takes me down the via Sacra,

the oldest and most important road in Rome,

we follow the treasures' path, and she paints a vivid scene.

Any of the areas in the Forum

that were not covered with buildings would have been

clambering with people.

At the front of the procession would have been

Vespasian and Titus.

Together riding on what's called a quadriga,

which is a four-horse chariot, with his four white horses.

Behind them would have been a series of guards,

lictors holding the standards of the emperor.

And then behind them would have been the marching troops,

in which they were carrying the booty.

[SIMCHA] Following the booty was Shimon bar Giora,

the leader of the Jewish revolt

walking his last steps before execution.

Behind him were thousands of his Jewish people,

now slaves to Rome.

Quite a show.

It was quite a show, absolutely.

Rome was all about the spectacle

and this was the utmost of spectacles.

And bringing these spoils back

meant that Rome had pacified part of the world.

[SIMCHA] I can't help but shoulder my menorah

in a symbolic gesture.

How many people know of this triumphant and tragic tale

of stolen holy treasures?

Did you she tell you about the menorah?

The temple treasure of Jerusalem was taken right through here!

Did you know that?

It went all the way up there.

And that's the Arch of Titus! It's right over there.

Did you see it?

No I didn't see it when I was there. I'll have to get back.

Did you see it? -No I didn't.

Did you see it? -No I didn't realize.

Do you want to schlep my menorah?

You want me to schlep your menorah? Absolutely!

Oh, your menorah is very heavy!

Do you want to come see it? Did you see it?

We're starting a new custom, "The Via Del Menorah".

See that's the Arch of Titus.

And there's the silver trumpets, and there's the menorah.

And they paraded it at various stations along this exact route.

And they buried it where?

[SIMCHA] Now that's a good question.

[SIMCHA] Jerusalem's treasure.

Stolen and paraded around Rome.

Did the Latin looters bury it or melt it down?

Is it so crazy to think that I can find it?

Lea Cline takes me to the edge of the Forum

to see the Temple of Peace. Or what's left of it.

This shows you a map of what was there, the colour blocks.

[SIMCHA] She tells me that after the Triumphal procession

a new Roman temple was built here

to display the booty from Roman conquests.

Okay I'm excited.

Because I feel that we're standing

where the Temple treasure was for centuries.

Well it was certainly a tourist attraction

even in the Roman period.

The Temple of Peace was more of an art museum than a temple.

And what we understand is that the menorah,

the golden table and the silver trumpets,

were brought to the Temple of Peace and put on display

and what you're seeing

in these outlines of wall foundation

and marble tile is a garden structure,

that would have been in front of the temple itself.

The excavations are going on right now?

They have been going on in the last several years

by an Italian university.

The problem with this particular area

is the modern road behind us.

It was put up by Mussolini

and it had completely destroyed the archeology beneath it.

So this is as much as we probably will find,

at least in this lifetime.

And we very well may be standing over

where the menorah had been housed?

That or the buses behind us directly,

however mundane that might be.

[SIMCHA] Could the holiest icons of Judea

really be buried underneath a Roman bus stop?

Did the Romans permanently imprison

the treasures' divine energy unr the so-called Temple of Peace?

Josephus gives us more clues.

And this is what he has to say:

The emperor Vespasian, like any savvy pirate,

split up the booty.

And like any savvy money holder,

he invested a lot of it in real estate.

We're circling the Coliseum, stuck in a Roman traffic jam.

The Coliseum is an amazing structure.

The biggest amphitheatre on the planet.

An engineering marvel.

In today's terms it would have cost

hundreds of millions of dollars,

more expensive than a D Hollywood Imax film.

Where did they get the money?

[SIMCHA] To answer that question

I needed to get inside for a little clapping and a lesson

from Coliseum-expert, Mino Carbone.

Where are we?

Oh we are in the symbol of Rome, Coliseum.

It is the largest amphitheatre in the Roman Empire.

It was built to accommodate some people.

And they took only eight years just to complete it.

Two thousand years ago this was built, the place would be full.

Like seventy to a hundred thousand people

and the Roman emperor was here, everybody was here.

What were they doing here?

They were feeding Christians to the lions?

No, we have no evidence

that they gave Christian to feed animals in the arena.

The arena had two different functions.

In the morning the venationes,

which is the fighting with the gladiators and animals.

Then at noon we had the public execution

of regular criminals in the arena.

The matinee was gladiators against animals,

lunchtime public executions.

In the afternoon they had the munera,

gladiators against the gladiators.

Gladiator against gladiator. Mano a mano.

This was just the use of the Coliseum.

They loved the fighting but also particular performances

especially when they want to reproduce mythology

or the very important Greek dramas.

For this reason they changed the stage.

The stage is the huge platform down there.

This was filled in, right?

We're seeing a big hole here.

We're actually seeing underneath the stage.

Yes.

So what's the connection between the Coliseum,

which was built by Vespasian and the wars in Jerusalem,

and the destruction of Jerusalem?

It's very interesting question.

We know for sure that a big number of prisoners

came to Rome, all of them were Jewish

and all them built the Coliseum.

They built this place?

Yes. So imagine how many thousands people had to work,

how much money they needed.

So we're talking in today's mony over a billion dollars,

thousands of slaves.

I don't think we can give a value.

In a way you could say that the Coliseum is built

on the ashes of Jerusalem's temple, on Jerusalem.

We can say that since they defeated,

they destroyed the second temple,

the money for the Coliseum came from the booty of Jerusalem

of course, because they need a lot of money.

[SIMCHA] It's a strong statement to make.

The greatest symbol of Rome

built on conquered Jewish backs,

with the blood and gold of Judea.

But Mino tells me the proof is written in stone.

[SIMCHA] Historian Mino Carbone

says he has the most solid of proof

that the emperors Vespasian and Titus

built the most iconic symbol of Ancient Rome with

stolen Jewish temple talents.

He shows me a massive altar-like stone

that he believes used to sit above the emperors entrance

to the Coliseum.

This is a block of marble, actually,

and there is a beautiful inscription,

a fourth century inscription.

That's late.

It's late.

It's not an inscription that belonged to the first century.

Actually, no.

[SIMCHA] Mino tells me that the chiseled Latin in this stone

describes how Lampadius, a prefect of Rome,

had the Coliseum restored in CE.

There's nothing that mentions the Jewish temple treasure

or the emperors that we're interested in.

But this inscription doesn't really say Vespasian or Titus.

No of course. It's been deleted.

We can see some holes.

Normally very original inscriptn was chiseled marble,

then fill in with bronze letters that were clasped

against the marble with pins.

You can see the holes everywhere.

So let me see if I understand.

You're telling me that the inscription I see with my eyes,

this inscription is not the original inscription.

This was added, and the way we know

what the original inscription is from the pin marks

because they were holding bronze letters.

The bronze was normally added

just to give a shining to the inscription on the marble

So can we retrieve the original inscription?

Can we tell by the pins?

Yes, you can reconstruct, piece by piece,

just following the holes

that were used for the bronze letters.

We can connect the dots.

Yes you can.

[SIMCHA] And that's exactly what archaeologists did in .

They deciphered the puzzle that showed that this inscription

was added in the th century.

Stone masons chipped away the evidence

of the earlier first century inscription.

But the older pin holes still visible in the surface today

clearly corresponded to different lettering.

So, so what does the inscription actually say

when you connect the dots?

They say that the amphitheater was built

by the emperor Vespasian with a share of the booty

coming from the Jewish wars.

To show the world that Vespasian,

in building the Coliseum, wanted to share the booty with them,

building just a public amphitheater.

So, basically this is a real pie of archeological detective work

that, taken together with the Arch of Titus,

shows proof positive that the Temple treasure

came here, but also that the Temple treasure

was used to build the greatest building in the world

at that time.

Yes, I agree.

[SIMCHA] So it's true.

The emperor-pirate Vespasian had split the booty.

He spent the most liquid assets on the Coliseum

and most likely many other Roman structures of the time.

When we look at this marvelous feat of Roman engineering

we know now that it was built with Temple treasure.

But not all the treasure!

I've found ancient writings

that tell us the Romans kept the holiest temple icons intact.

Safe, solid, and unspent inside their Temple of Peace.

These writings describe yet another looting of the booty

and they tell us where the treasures went

and where they still may be.

But to find Jerusalem's gold we'll just have to wait

until next time on the Naked Archaeologist.

(upbeat theme music)