Museum Secrets (2011–…): Season 3, Episode 16 - Inside the Israel Museum - full transcript
- [Narrator] Jerusalem,
a city of devotion and division,
and at its heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange.
Underground freedom fighters,
an elixir from a magical oasis,
and a rusted nail that
whispers of a crucifixion,
secrets hidden in plain sight
inside the Israel Museum.
(dramatic music)
The Israel Museum stands
in a city of vital importance
to three of the world's great religions,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
For believers, Jerusalem is where God spoke
to Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad.
Beneath many holy sites, there
are sacred ruins underground,
in layer upon layer
back to the dawn of time.
Religious relics found beneath Jerusalem
and in the holy lands beyond
fill the galleries of the Israel Museum.
Many, like the Dead Sea Scrolls,
are charged with spiritual meaning,
and some contain museum secrets.
- This bone box found in Jerusalem
has a Hebrew inscription
on it with just a name.
The name is Yehohanan Ben Hagakol.
This is the name of the deceased.
- [Narrator] When Yehohanan
died in the first century AD,
his body was laid in a cave to decompose.
And then his bones were
placed into a stone box.
They remained undisturbed for 20 centuries
until the cave was discovered
by archeologists in 1968.
- When the box was opened
and the bones were examined,
the ankle bone of the deceased
was found to be pierced
by a huge iron nail that
remained in the bone.
This is evidence for the fact
that Yehohanan found
his death by crucifixion.
This is the only find ever found
of a man that was crucified.
- [Narrator] And yet,
Yehohanan's last remains
may have the power to completely change
the traditional image
of Christ on the cross.
What was crucifixion really like?
That is our museum secret.
In old Jerusalem, traditional
images of crucifixion abound.
To probe the reality behind them,
archeologist Shimon
Gibson will follow a procession
by devout Christians as they retrace
Jesus's 12 stations of the cross.
- This is the Via Dolorosa,
the beginning of the Via Dolorosa.
The procession begins
here at the Antonia Fortress.
The procession then leads down
through the streets of
Jerusalem, passes under this arch.
(group sings in foreign language)
We're gonna follow them now.
- [Narrator] In Jesus's time,
Jerusalem was ruled by the Roman empire,
a situation that some did not accept.
- An extremely strained
relationship existed
between the Roman
occupiers and the Judeans,
particularly in Jerusalem
because this is where
the Jewish temple was located
and where their main Jewish
festivities would take place.
- [Narrator] Some Jews resorted to violence
against Roman oppression.
For those who were captured,
the standard punishment was crucifixion.
- The Romans would say,
"Look, if you defy us,
this will be your fate.
"You will be crucified,
"and your dignity will
be taken away from you."
(group sings in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The procession ends
at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Many Christians believe that this chapel
is at the precise location
where Jesus was nailed to the cross.
To the faithful, his death and
resurrection are a certainty.
And in well-known depictions,
his suffering is recorded in great detail.
A nail pierces each of Jesus's palms.
A single nail pins his
feet to a tall wooden cross.
But is this what crucifixion
really looked like?
- First of all, you can see
that Jesus is not naked.
He was supposed to be naked.
The second thing is that just
look at the size of the cross.
The cross is very tall.
In Israel, we don't have those huge trees.
We have no evidence
whatsoever that the cross
or the act of crucifixion
looked like this scene.
- [Narrator] Dr. Israel Hershkovitz
is an acclaimed anatomist
who specializes in biohistory.
He intends to follow the
evidence, wherever it leads.
- Sometimes it's very difficult
because you already
have some kind of a concept
how crucifixion looks like.
So you have actually to forget
everything you know about crucifixion.
[Narrator] Dr. Hershkovitz
has been entrusted
with Yehohanan's ankle bone.
A CAT scan of the ancient object
makes Hershkovitz question
the traditional assumption
that both of Jesus's feet
were pierced by one nail on the cross.
So he measures the nail
through Yehohanan's ankle
and then inserts a nail of the same length
through the feet of a cadaver.
- We need then to find out whether a nail
of 12 centimeters in length
can hold two feet together.
And you can see that
the nail is running through
both heel bones, but it
hardly comes out over here.
- [Narrator] As an anatomist,
Hershkovitz also questions
the traditional image of
Jesus's lacerated palms.
- Imagine to yourself, if
crucified this way, okay,
you can fall easily forward.
- [Narrator] So he believes the victim
must have been attached from behind.
- The nail didn't pass through
what we call through the ventral part
but actually passed through
what we call the dorsal part.
Each foot was nailed
separately to the wood.
- [Narrator] As for the cross itself,
because of the region's
short trees, Hershkovitz thinks
the pieces could not have
been more than two meters long.
- You easily elevate it and
you can do it very quickly.
- [Narrator] This is the crucifixion
that fits the physical
evidence and the history.
In 70 AD. Roman soldiers set fire
to the Jewish temple at
the center of Jerusalem.
The Jewish rebels who
rushed to save it were captured
and crucified outside
the walls of the city.
- If you use this type of method,
you can really suspend
hundreds of people a day.
This is the way I believe
people were executed
during the Roman period.
- [Narrator] But if so
many died on the cross,
why is there so little physical evidence?
- The reason was quite simple.
That is that when somebody
was taken down from the cross,
the nails were removed and reused.
The one instance we
have is a result of a mistake.
The nail had gone through the heel bone
and had struck a knot in
the cross or the actual tree.
And as a result, when they
were trying to take the nail out,
they couldn't because
the end had bent over.
- [Narrator] And so the nail and the bone
survived all this time together
to change the iconic image
of the crucifixion forever.
Next on Museum Secrets,
the original underground freedom fighters.
This story begins in
the most secure location
in the Israel Museum.
Here, a steel volt safeguards
a fortune in rare coins
from throughout the ancient world.
Curator Haim Gitler
wants to show us two coins
that were in circulation
in Judea in 132 AD.
The first displays the
face of a Roman emperor.
This makes sense
because Judea was a
province of the Roman empire.
But the second coin
displays a cluster of grapes,
the Jewish symbol for freedom,
along with markings that
are definitely not Jewish.
- [Haim] You can see the silhouette
of the face of the Roman emperor.
You see the nose, the chin.
And here are part of a legend, Augustus,
which is going around the edge.
- [Narrator] This strange
coin is linked to a moment
when history nearly took
a completely different path.
The reason why is a museum secret.
Our story begins at the
height of Rome's power
not long after its army had destroyed
the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
This disaster had so demoralized the Jews
that most accepted
Roman rule as inevitable.
But in the Judean hills, a
new freedom fighter arose.
There are no statues or images of the man.
Historians even disagree on his name,
but most call him Bar Kokhba.
He needed fighters
who believed that mighty
Rome could be defeated.
And so he recruited believers,
students from Jewish religious schools.
The Romans had weapons
and armor that Bar Kokhba
could not match, so he
gave his men something else,
(Yehoshua grunts)
a lethal ancient Hebrew fighting technique
called Abir.
- Abir is a combination
of every fighting system
and category of the system
used by all of our people
in every generation from
the beginning until now.
- [Narrator] For observant
Jews, the word is everything,
and this extends to Abir.
Every move is a letter
of the Hebrew alphabet.
- I'll give you a letter, for
example, alef, beit, beit,
gimel, gimel, don, don, reish, shin,
hei, vav, teit, teit.
Okay, and this is alef, which
incorporates the entire body.
- [Narrator] Bar Kokhba did not engage
in skirmishes or terrorist attacks
but patiently built his army
till it numbered in the thousands.
In populated areas,
Roman soldiers were always
on the lookout for enemies of the empire,
so Bar Kokhba ordered
his men into the hills.
- Okay, so we are now
in the Judean foothills
which are 30 kilometers
to the west from Jerusalem.
- [Narrator] Dr. Eitan
Klein is an antiquities
theft inspector who often
patrols this remote area.
- [Eitan] So we are
going to an ancient site
called (mumbles) cave.
- [Narrator] Recently, he found
one of Bar Kokhba's hidden bases.
- [Eitan] We know that
it was inhabited by Jews,
and we found an opening of the cave
of an underground hiding
complex from the Bar Kokhba period.
- [Narrator] This is the first time
these caves have been captured on film.
- So this is a refuge room,
part of a hiding complex
during the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
So these are storage jars.
People that were inside this cave,
they were using it
probably for oil for wheat.
- [Narrator] Historians
believe it took Bar Kokhba
several years to build up his forces
and the underground complex.
Storage rooms and cisterns were designed
to provide food and water for a long stay.
In case of Roman attack,
the maze provides
multiple avenues of escape
and many ways to become completely lost.
One could easily die down here
unless, like an ancient freedom fighter,
you know every twist and turn.
In this cavern, Klein has found something
that archeologists rarely see.
- This carved stone was used
as a door lock to this opening.
So if an enemy is coming,
the people here could
lock the door, and that's it.
- [Narrator] But the caves
were not simply defensive.
With entrances that
blend into the landscape,
the caves were designed
for surprise attack.
When Roman brigades trudged
down nearby desert roads,
they were set upon by
Bar Kokhba's hostile forces
who appeared out of nowhere.
Caught off guard,
the soldiers were forced
to fight hand to hand.
- My ancestors realized
that the Roman soldier
was not a very great
fighter on the individual level,
that their strength was in the brigade
and working as a unit.
They could not use their chariots,
they could not come in in the brigade style
because they would have
to keep going around trees.
That would separate them
and keep them in a situation
where they would have
to fight us as fighters
on a one-to-one level.
(Yehoshua grunts)
- [Narrator] Bar Kokhba's forces
defeated brigade after brigade,
one of the rare occasions
in history when the Roman
army was forced to retreat.
But rebellions cannot be
won on the battlefield alone,
and that brings us back to this.
To create a viable nation,
Bar Kokhba needed
currency as soon as possible.
To get it, he collected Roman coins
and put his metal smiths to work.
- They are taking the Roman coins,
and they are striking the image,
the Jewish image over the Roman coins.
And then you have two-folded meaning
because it says we are not only free,
but we're putting our
freedom over your empire.
- [Narrator] And if the story ended here,
Bar Kokhba's legacy
and the history of the world
might have been very different.
But Rome could not let
the Jewish victory stand.
The emperor assembled 60,000
soldiers for a massive surge.
The Romans retook
liberated towns one by one
then burnt them to the ground.
Bar Kokhba was killed
in a final desperate battle
as Rome unleashed collective punishment
on rebellious and peaceable Jews alike.
Survivors who fled from the holy land
blamed this disaster on Bar Kokhba,
and among modern Jews,
his name still evokes strong emotions.
- If you want one word,
I would say messianic.
If you want a few words,
I'd say charismatic, brutal,
and irresponsible.
- [Narrator] Whatever
one thinks of Bar Kokhba,
his dream is shared by many today.
That dream is inscribed on the reverse side
of many Bar Kokhba coins,
(speaks in foreign language),
for the freedom of Israel.
Up next, the secret of Herod's tomb.
Inside the Israel Museum,
curator Dudi Mevorah
oversees completion of a new exhibition.
It has personal significance for Dudi
because it will showcase a
discovery made by his colleague
and former teacher, the late Ehud Netzer.
Professor Netzer is celebrated
as one of Israel's greatest archeologists.
During his lifetime,
he made discoveries
throughout the holy land,
from the Fortress of
Masada to the City of Jericho.
But his lifelong obsession
involved a colossal ruin called Herodium.
Even before archeologists
began to excavate,
the ruins of a palace were
visible to any passerby,
and the Jewish king
who built it is also known.
His name is Herod.
- Take your men.
Go to this Bethlehem and kill
all the newborns, all of them.
- [Narrator] Though the
real Herod didn't kill babies,
he did order his Jewish
subjects to bow down to Rome.
- Hail, Octavian.
- [Narrator] He also decreed
that he should be buried at Herodium.
Unfortunately, he didn't say where,
and Herodium is a big place.
Archeologists agreed that Herod's tomb
must be here somewhere,
but no one could find it.
In 1972, Ehud Netzer
decided he was going to crack
the secret of where Herod was buried.
And today, Dudi Mevorah will retrace
his journey of discovery.
- Most scholars actually
gambled on the idea
that Herod is buried up
on top of the mountain.
Most of them believed
that he is buried in the eastern tower,
which is a massive
tower that we see behind.
Professor Netzer
believed from the beginning
that it's not reasonable to assume that
because the moment
you use a place for burial,
it becomes virtually impure in Judaism.
- [Narrator] So Netzer
began to hunt for Herod's tomb
at the foot of the mountain.
- Professor Ehud Netzer
excavating down here
finds this building already in the 1970s.
At first stroke of the hammer,
he thinks this might be the tomb.
It's a monumental room
with the pilasters decorating the walls.
You can see them protruding here.
It's a large space with very high ceiling,
probably either domed or
with a pyramid on the top,
but it's open to the east.
- [Narrator] The opening told Netzer
that the structure was
a formal dining room.
- [Dudi] It was not a closed room.
It couldn't be a tomb.
And then he thinks that
the tomb may be next door.
A ritual bath found next
to it gives another hint
to the possibility that this
is where the tomb might be
unfortunately, the tomb was not found.
- [Narrator] As he continued to search,
Netzer came to believe that Herod himself
had designed Herodium
according to a geometric plan.
- [Dudi] He became so involved with Herod
that he could almost plan
the way Herod planned
and think the way Herod thought.
- [Narrator] He continued to search
for Herod's tomb for 30 years.
- [Dudi] He realized
that it's not down here.
He realized that there is
no monumental building
or cave that could be it.
- [Narrator] In 2004, shortly
after his 71st birthday,
Professor Netzer decides
he needs a new perspective.
- So from where we are standing,
we can see the pool down there
with the bathhouse right at the corner.
And the place where we are, the palace,
is right on top of the mountain here.
- [Narrator] Netzer notices
that structures on the plain
form a straight line that
connects to the east tower.
Sensing Herod's geometric plan,
he believes the tomb should be on the line.
- Professor Netzer takes a diagonal
from the center of the
pool to the eastern tower,
and he decides to cross section that slope.
- [Narrator] On the slope,
the ruins of a tomb are not visible,
but Netzer knows there
might be a good reason for that.
Historians believe
that after Herod's death,
Jewish insurgents hid from the Roman army
in caves on the mountainside.
Hating Herod as a Roman collaborator,
the rebels might have
reduced his tomb to rubble.
Halfway up the slope,
Netzer's team discovers
shards of pink stone,
puzzle pieces that
fit together beautifully.
- We're looking at a sarcophagus
made out of pinkish chalk stone,
decorated with a very fine rosette.
- [Narrator] At the spot
where the shards were found,
Professor Netzer uncovers this.
- This is actually the tomb garden
with the podium of the
tomb at the center of it.
This is the exterior wall.
This is the base of the building,
then it goes to 25 meters high up,
three stories of 25 meters,
which would be eight stories of today.
- [Narrator] By entering
the mind of King Herod,
Ehud Netzer had found his tomb.
- It was clear this must be Herod.
What we found here, architectural fragments
that enabled us to restore a monument
which fits Herod's taste and status.
- This is big time archeology
because finding direct contact
to known historical figures,
notorious historical figures,
is not an everyday thing.
- [Narrator] Before Ehud
Netzer died at the age of 76,
he helped plan the museum exhibition
that will reveal Herod's tomb to the world.
And sadly, the reason for
Professor Netzer's death
is part of our story.
- Right here at the top of the theater
and outside the royal box of
King Herod, we were at the end
of a very active morning
with Professor Netzer.
We had a very enthusiastic morning,
all looking forward to
what we were going to do.
And we sat here for a
moment to rest in the shade.
And Ehud sat where he
sat dozens of times before.
And one of the beams gave
up and he collapsed backwards
into the theater and fell all
the way down to the stage
and was wounded very
severely and eventually died.
- [Narrator] Ehud
Netzer's death was tragic,
but he died where he
accomplished his life's greatest work.
Herodium is King Herod's monument,
but it's also a monument to Ehud Netzer.
Up next, a secret about the Virgin Mary.
In the Israel Museum, as in every museum,
some artifacts are incomplete.
And sometimes, what is
missing is the most important part.
- This is the lower part of wall painting
that was discovered in 1997.
And we see here pairs of feet.
We assume that this is
Jesus is sitting on the center,
in throne, and on the right
side is Maria approaching Jesus.
- [Narrator] The fresco that once showed
Jesus and the Virgin Mary was discovered
not far from what many
believe is Mary's tomb.
Here, 47 steps beneath the ground,
archeologist Jon Seligman will
help reveal a museum secret.
- The tomb of the Virgin Mary
doesn't look like an ancient tomb
because the tomb is being cut away
from the bedrock around it,
and all you see is just the shelf
where the body of Mary
was traditionally laid.
- [Narrator] Her tomb is
empty, but that is not the secret.
By Christian tradition,
Mary left her tomb when
she ascended to heaven.
The secret involves an
arched niche cut into the wall.
It has the same basic shape as this,
or this, or this.
Today, 1.5 billion people on
Earth know exactly what it is,
but in case you don't know...
- Right behind me is the mihrab,
which is a niche in the mosque,
and basically, it signifies
the direction of prayer.
And this is usually in
the direction of the Kaaba,
which is the holy structure
in Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
And whenever we pray,
we pray in congregation,
in unison towards this one direction.
- [Narrator] Why is there a Muslim mihrab
in the tomb of the Virgin Mary.
That is our museum secret.
Our story begins in
Jerusalem in the 11th century.
Muslims fought to retake the
city that had been conquered
by Christian crusaders
several decades before.
And when the Muslims reached this place,
they began to tear down walls and churches.
- You've got to remember,
Western Christianity was
seen very unfavorably.
A place like this which had
been involved very deeply
with the Crusader order in
Jerusalem was dismantled.
- [Narrator] But instead of
dismantling Mary's tomb,
the Muslims carved a mihrab in the wall.
To understand why the mihrab is here,
we must visit the plateau
in the center of Jerusalem.
This is a holy place for
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Beneath this shining dome
is the rock where God spoke to Abraham,
and where Jesus preached to his disciples.
And for Muslims, the plateau
is sacred for another reason.
- This place is regarded
as the third holiest site for Muslims.
The prophet of Islam, Muhammad,
is believed to have traveled
from Mecca to Jerusalem,
and then from there,
taken by the angel to the
heavens to meet God himself.
And as he traveled to
Jerusalem, it is believed
through our traditions that
he met every prophet of God,
every messenger of God,
including the great prophets
Abraham, Moses, and also Jesus.
- [Narrator] So although Muslims
do not consider Jesus
their savior, they revere him.
- It's very clear in the holy Quran,
whenever Jesus is mentioned,
in majority of the verses,
God mentions (speaks in foreign language),
Jesus, the son of Mary.
So Mary is revered and respected.
- [Narrator] And that's why
Muslims carved a mihrab
within the Virgin Mary's tomb.
- The church belonged to a Christian order,
and for that reason, has to be removed,
has to be taken away.
But the tomb of the Virgin Mary survives.
Because this is also a
shrine which is holy to Islam,
there is no reason to destroy the tomb.
- [Narrator] In the streets of Jerusalem,
religious differences and
political conflicts are obvious.
But as with the fresco in the museum,
we might not be seeing the whole picture.
The most important part is sometimes
the part we don't see, the part we share.
This idea is alive in Mary's tomb,
a holy place that has been shared
by Christians and Muslims
for almost a thousand years.
Up next, the secret of the oasis.
The Israel Museum manages the collection
of an older museum in East Jerusalem.
It is known as the Rockefeller
because it was endowed
by the American philanthropist,
John D. Rockefeller.
Here, a strange inscription
is written in mosaic tiles
from a Jewish town called Ein Gedi.
- And in the synagogues,
there is a mosaic pavement.
And the pavement holds a long inscription
in several sections.
One section is particularly intriguing,
and the reason is that it has a curse.
Whoever shall reveal the
secret of the town to the Gentiles,
a terrible curse will come upon him.
- [Narrator] What did
the Jewish townspeople
not want outsiders to know?
That is our museum secret.
The road to Ein Gedi passes by the Dead Sea
whose waters and mud
are reputed to be therapeutic
and are the basis for a lucrative
health and beauty industry known worldwide.
The land around the sea is bone dry
except for this oasis
where the ancient town
of Ein Gedi once stood.
Recent archeology has
revealed that the town was small
but its synagogue was big.
- A synagogue is the most
important building in the village.
It is built also with luxury if you compare
the living rooms over there
and the mosaic floor here.
- [Narrator] One mysterious
inscription reveals
what will happen to anyone
who reveals the town's secret.
The literal translation is complex,
filled with allusions to anger,
punishment and an all-seeing eye.
But the intention is clear.
Anyone who reveals the secret
is as good as dead.
But in a small oasis town,
what secret could be so important?
- From biblical sources,
we know of various plants
that were growing in this land.
We know of one plant, the balsam plant.
It was highly regarded.
Apparently, the fragrance was so special
that they wanted it
from all over the world.
It was really something unique.
- [Narrator] The balsam plant was the basis
for a perfume called balsama,
which was made exclusively
in the town of Ein Gedi.
Marc Antony was so taken with the perfume
that he gave balsama
to his lover, Cleopatra.
It would have cost him
more than its weight in gold.
Ein Gedi's prosperity came from balsama,
so there was a lot riding
on keeping its monopoly.
- Maybe the clue is the enigma
of the perfume production.
For something to special, it
was a special group of experts,
a professional guild, that
was preparing and doing this.
They didn't want the
secret of doing it to leak out.
- [Narrator] We would leak the
secret of how to make balsama
but we can't
because on an unknown date,
Ein Gedi was attacked
and burned to the ground.
- There was a layer of
ash about half a meter thick.
All the village was ruined.
Who did it?
I have no idea.
- [Narrator] After Ein Gedi was destroyed,
no more balsama was ever produced.
And over the centuries,
the specific variety of balsam
plant used to make balsama
disappeared from the
region around the Dead Sea.
So the secret of making
balsama was lost forever,
or maybe not.
Today, in the Ein Gedi oasis,
a kibbutz maintains a botanical garden.
Botanist Annot Hast has
cultivated balsam seedlings
of an ancient variety discovered in Africa.
(Anna speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] But are these balsam plants
the right balsam plants?
Do they contain the essence
of a balsama perfume?
(Annot speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Annot has yet to learn
how her ancestors made balsama
but she hopes to exploit
the old plants in a new way.
- One of our dreams is to
make the perfume from this plant
because we are looking for stores
that connect to the environment
and to our history and to our heritage.
- [Narrator] But will modern Ein Gedians
heed the ancient warning
to keep their production
methods to themselves?
Or will they brave the curse
and reveal it to the world.
- It's very, very difficult to
hold a secret nowadays.
It's not like ancient times.
So I think if it's very
difficult to hold it,
why not to share it with everyone.
- [Narrator] And then perhaps
modern women can share
in the glamor of Cleopatra.
Next on Museum Secrets,
the amulet and the alien.
Our final museum secret
may be the strangest one ever.
It's the answer to this question.
What does a tiny archeological
treasure have in common
with a science fiction
character known as Mr. Spock?
The story begins just one
kilometer from the museum,
in an ancient tomb below this church.
A young archeologist
discovered a tiny corroded object
about the size of a cigarette butt.
The year was 1979.
Fans may recall that
the first Star Trek movie
premiered in 1979.
But that's not the connection
between the artifact and Mr. Spock.
- It really looked like nothing,
but it was very curious.
It was pretty clear that this was metal.
So it turned to be a metal
sheet tightly wound up.
And of course, there was
the challenge to unroll it.
- [Narrator] Curators
became excited because, well,
finding scrolls in the holy
land often makes history.
- [Announcer] Scholars at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem
undertake the painstaking
work of piecing together
bits of ancient biblical scrolls
found at a mountain cave near the Dead Sea.
- [Narrator] Showcased
in their own building
within the museum grounds
are the world's most famous scrolls.
Discovered in the mid-1900s, these scrolls
were the most significant
and earliest biblical texts
in existence, dating back 2,200 years.
The tomb where the metal scroll was found
predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by 400 years,
so curators were anxious to find out
what might be inside the tiny amulet.
- It was sent to several centers in Europe.
They didn't dare touch it.
- [Narrator] Acrimony had ensued
when some Dead Sea Scrolls
had fallen apart as they were unrolled,
so it's not surprising that
European conservators
were nervous about
damaging this fragile scroll.
- It came to the labs of the Israel Museum
where we had decided we'll take the risk
because it was by far too curious
to let this go and not know what it is.
- [Narrator] Head of
Conservation David (mumbles)
would boldly go where no
conservator had gone before.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Using a similar roll of metal,
David reenacts the process.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] David
unfurled the metal bit by bit
until it was completely flat.
The surface was blank
except for a few scratches.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] He could make
out the letters of just one word,
(speaks in foreign language).
Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God.
After further examination,
other words were deciphered.
- The lower part holds
the earliest biblical phrases
ever to be found, so
it's of great significance.
And these phrases, known
also as the priestly benediction,
are still recited at synagogue to this day.
- [Narrator] And this is
where the ancient artifact
begins to connect with Mr. Spock.
- When I was about maybe
eight or nine years old,
High Holiday services with my family,
there comes a point in the
service where the kohanim,
who are the members of the priestly tribe
of the Hebrew people, get
up to bless the congregation.
(man sings in foreign language)
My father said to me, "Don't look."
But I was, you know, I'm eight years old
and there's something really
strange going on, so I peeked.
And I saw them doing that with their hands
as they were blessing the congregation,
as they were shouting this prayer.
It was kind of chilling.
I had no idea.
It seemed magical.
- [Narrator] Years later, Leonard Nimoy
would recall his experience
on the set of Star Trek.
- And I said to the director,
I said we should have something special
that Vulcans do when they greet each other.
He said, "Well, what do you want?
"What should Vulcans do?"
and I said, "How about that?"
- [Narrator] When Spock makes this sign,
he says a benediction.
- Live long and prosper.
- [Narrator] This is an
echo of the benediction
on the ancient metal scroll,
the Lord bestow his favor
upon you and grant you peace.
And that's what an ancient
archeological treasure
has in common with Mr. Spock.
Mr. Spock may be an alien,
but he is also quintessentially Jewish.
In a museum where
religion and history meet,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
The secrets of monarchs and messiahs
hidden in plain sight
inside the Israel Museum.
(dramatic music)
a city of devotion and division,
and at its heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange.
Underground freedom fighters,
an elixir from a magical oasis,
and a rusted nail that
whispers of a crucifixion,
secrets hidden in plain sight
inside the Israel Museum.
(dramatic music)
The Israel Museum stands
in a city of vital importance
to three of the world's great religions,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
For believers, Jerusalem is where God spoke
to Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad.
Beneath many holy sites, there
are sacred ruins underground,
in layer upon layer
back to the dawn of time.
Religious relics found beneath Jerusalem
and in the holy lands beyond
fill the galleries of the Israel Museum.
Many, like the Dead Sea Scrolls,
are charged with spiritual meaning,
and some contain museum secrets.
- This bone box found in Jerusalem
has a Hebrew inscription
on it with just a name.
The name is Yehohanan Ben Hagakol.
This is the name of the deceased.
- [Narrator] When Yehohanan
died in the first century AD,
his body was laid in a cave to decompose.
And then his bones were
placed into a stone box.
They remained undisturbed for 20 centuries
until the cave was discovered
by archeologists in 1968.
- When the box was opened
and the bones were examined,
the ankle bone of the deceased
was found to be pierced
by a huge iron nail that
remained in the bone.
This is evidence for the fact
that Yehohanan found
his death by crucifixion.
This is the only find ever found
of a man that was crucified.
- [Narrator] And yet,
Yehohanan's last remains
may have the power to completely change
the traditional image
of Christ on the cross.
What was crucifixion really like?
That is our museum secret.
In old Jerusalem, traditional
images of crucifixion abound.
To probe the reality behind them,
archeologist Shimon
Gibson will follow a procession
by devout Christians as they retrace
Jesus's 12 stations of the cross.
- This is the Via Dolorosa,
the beginning of the Via Dolorosa.
The procession begins
here at the Antonia Fortress.
The procession then leads down
through the streets of
Jerusalem, passes under this arch.
(group sings in foreign language)
We're gonna follow them now.
- [Narrator] In Jesus's time,
Jerusalem was ruled by the Roman empire,
a situation that some did not accept.
- An extremely strained
relationship existed
between the Roman
occupiers and the Judeans,
particularly in Jerusalem
because this is where
the Jewish temple was located
and where their main Jewish
festivities would take place.
- [Narrator] Some Jews resorted to violence
against Roman oppression.
For those who were captured,
the standard punishment was crucifixion.
- The Romans would say,
"Look, if you defy us,
this will be your fate.
"You will be crucified,
"and your dignity will
be taken away from you."
(group sings in foreign language)
- [Narrator] The procession ends
at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Many Christians believe that this chapel
is at the precise location
where Jesus was nailed to the cross.
To the faithful, his death and
resurrection are a certainty.
And in well-known depictions,
his suffering is recorded in great detail.
A nail pierces each of Jesus's palms.
A single nail pins his
feet to a tall wooden cross.
But is this what crucifixion
really looked like?
- First of all, you can see
that Jesus is not naked.
He was supposed to be naked.
The second thing is that just
look at the size of the cross.
The cross is very tall.
In Israel, we don't have those huge trees.
We have no evidence
whatsoever that the cross
or the act of crucifixion
looked like this scene.
- [Narrator] Dr. Israel Hershkovitz
is an acclaimed anatomist
who specializes in biohistory.
He intends to follow the
evidence, wherever it leads.
- Sometimes it's very difficult
because you already
have some kind of a concept
how crucifixion looks like.
So you have actually to forget
everything you know about crucifixion.
[Narrator] Dr. Hershkovitz
has been entrusted
with Yehohanan's ankle bone.
A CAT scan of the ancient object
makes Hershkovitz question
the traditional assumption
that both of Jesus's feet
were pierced by one nail on the cross.
So he measures the nail
through Yehohanan's ankle
and then inserts a nail of the same length
through the feet of a cadaver.
- We need then to find out whether a nail
of 12 centimeters in length
can hold two feet together.
And you can see that
the nail is running through
both heel bones, but it
hardly comes out over here.
- [Narrator] As an anatomist,
Hershkovitz also questions
the traditional image of
Jesus's lacerated palms.
- Imagine to yourself, if
crucified this way, okay,
you can fall easily forward.
- [Narrator] So he believes the victim
must have been attached from behind.
- The nail didn't pass through
what we call through the ventral part
but actually passed through
what we call the dorsal part.
Each foot was nailed
separately to the wood.
- [Narrator] As for the cross itself,
because of the region's
short trees, Hershkovitz thinks
the pieces could not have
been more than two meters long.
- You easily elevate it and
you can do it very quickly.
- [Narrator] This is the crucifixion
that fits the physical
evidence and the history.
In 70 AD. Roman soldiers set fire
to the Jewish temple at
the center of Jerusalem.
The Jewish rebels who
rushed to save it were captured
and crucified outside
the walls of the city.
- If you use this type of method,
you can really suspend
hundreds of people a day.
This is the way I believe
people were executed
during the Roman period.
- [Narrator] But if so
many died on the cross,
why is there so little physical evidence?
- The reason was quite simple.
That is that when somebody
was taken down from the cross,
the nails were removed and reused.
The one instance we
have is a result of a mistake.
The nail had gone through the heel bone
and had struck a knot in
the cross or the actual tree.
And as a result, when they
were trying to take the nail out,
they couldn't because
the end had bent over.
- [Narrator] And so the nail and the bone
survived all this time together
to change the iconic image
of the crucifixion forever.
Next on Museum Secrets,
the original underground freedom fighters.
This story begins in
the most secure location
in the Israel Museum.
Here, a steel volt safeguards
a fortune in rare coins
from throughout the ancient world.
Curator Haim Gitler
wants to show us two coins
that were in circulation
in Judea in 132 AD.
The first displays the
face of a Roman emperor.
This makes sense
because Judea was a
province of the Roman empire.
But the second coin
displays a cluster of grapes,
the Jewish symbol for freedom,
along with markings that
are definitely not Jewish.
- [Haim] You can see the silhouette
of the face of the Roman emperor.
You see the nose, the chin.
And here are part of a legend, Augustus,
which is going around the edge.
- [Narrator] This strange
coin is linked to a moment
when history nearly took
a completely different path.
The reason why is a museum secret.
Our story begins at the
height of Rome's power
not long after its army had destroyed
the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
This disaster had so demoralized the Jews
that most accepted
Roman rule as inevitable.
But in the Judean hills, a
new freedom fighter arose.
There are no statues or images of the man.
Historians even disagree on his name,
but most call him Bar Kokhba.
He needed fighters
who believed that mighty
Rome could be defeated.
And so he recruited believers,
students from Jewish religious schools.
The Romans had weapons
and armor that Bar Kokhba
could not match, so he
gave his men something else,
(Yehoshua grunts)
a lethal ancient Hebrew fighting technique
called Abir.
- Abir is a combination
of every fighting system
and category of the system
used by all of our people
in every generation from
the beginning until now.
- [Narrator] For observant
Jews, the word is everything,
and this extends to Abir.
Every move is a letter
of the Hebrew alphabet.
- I'll give you a letter, for
example, alef, beit, beit,
gimel, gimel, don, don, reish, shin,
hei, vav, teit, teit.
Okay, and this is alef, which
incorporates the entire body.
- [Narrator] Bar Kokhba did not engage
in skirmishes or terrorist attacks
but patiently built his army
till it numbered in the thousands.
In populated areas,
Roman soldiers were always
on the lookout for enemies of the empire,
so Bar Kokhba ordered
his men into the hills.
- Okay, so we are now
in the Judean foothills
which are 30 kilometers
to the west from Jerusalem.
- [Narrator] Dr. Eitan
Klein is an antiquities
theft inspector who often
patrols this remote area.
- [Eitan] So we are
going to an ancient site
called (mumbles) cave.
- [Narrator] Recently, he found
one of Bar Kokhba's hidden bases.
- [Eitan] We know that
it was inhabited by Jews,
and we found an opening of the cave
of an underground hiding
complex from the Bar Kokhba period.
- [Narrator] This is the first time
these caves have been captured on film.
- So this is a refuge room,
part of a hiding complex
during the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
So these are storage jars.
People that were inside this cave,
they were using it
probably for oil for wheat.
- [Narrator] Historians
believe it took Bar Kokhba
several years to build up his forces
and the underground complex.
Storage rooms and cisterns were designed
to provide food and water for a long stay.
In case of Roman attack,
the maze provides
multiple avenues of escape
and many ways to become completely lost.
One could easily die down here
unless, like an ancient freedom fighter,
you know every twist and turn.
In this cavern, Klein has found something
that archeologists rarely see.
- This carved stone was used
as a door lock to this opening.
So if an enemy is coming,
the people here could
lock the door, and that's it.
- [Narrator] But the caves
were not simply defensive.
With entrances that
blend into the landscape,
the caves were designed
for surprise attack.
When Roman brigades trudged
down nearby desert roads,
they were set upon by
Bar Kokhba's hostile forces
who appeared out of nowhere.
Caught off guard,
the soldiers were forced
to fight hand to hand.
- My ancestors realized
that the Roman soldier
was not a very great
fighter on the individual level,
that their strength was in the brigade
and working as a unit.
They could not use their chariots,
they could not come in in the brigade style
because they would have
to keep going around trees.
That would separate them
and keep them in a situation
where they would have
to fight us as fighters
on a one-to-one level.
(Yehoshua grunts)
- [Narrator] Bar Kokhba's forces
defeated brigade after brigade,
one of the rare occasions
in history when the Roman
army was forced to retreat.
But rebellions cannot be
won on the battlefield alone,
and that brings us back to this.
To create a viable nation,
Bar Kokhba needed
currency as soon as possible.
To get it, he collected Roman coins
and put his metal smiths to work.
- They are taking the Roman coins,
and they are striking the image,
the Jewish image over the Roman coins.
And then you have two-folded meaning
because it says we are not only free,
but we're putting our
freedom over your empire.
- [Narrator] And if the story ended here,
Bar Kokhba's legacy
and the history of the world
might have been very different.
But Rome could not let
the Jewish victory stand.
The emperor assembled 60,000
soldiers for a massive surge.
The Romans retook
liberated towns one by one
then burnt them to the ground.
Bar Kokhba was killed
in a final desperate battle
as Rome unleashed collective punishment
on rebellious and peaceable Jews alike.
Survivors who fled from the holy land
blamed this disaster on Bar Kokhba,
and among modern Jews,
his name still evokes strong emotions.
- If you want one word,
I would say messianic.
If you want a few words,
I'd say charismatic, brutal,
and irresponsible.
- [Narrator] Whatever
one thinks of Bar Kokhba,
his dream is shared by many today.
That dream is inscribed on the reverse side
of many Bar Kokhba coins,
(speaks in foreign language),
for the freedom of Israel.
Up next, the secret of Herod's tomb.
Inside the Israel Museum,
curator Dudi Mevorah
oversees completion of a new exhibition.
It has personal significance for Dudi
because it will showcase a
discovery made by his colleague
and former teacher, the late Ehud Netzer.
Professor Netzer is celebrated
as one of Israel's greatest archeologists.
During his lifetime,
he made discoveries
throughout the holy land,
from the Fortress of
Masada to the City of Jericho.
But his lifelong obsession
involved a colossal ruin called Herodium.
Even before archeologists
began to excavate,
the ruins of a palace were
visible to any passerby,
and the Jewish king
who built it is also known.
His name is Herod.
- Take your men.
Go to this Bethlehem and kill
all the newborns, all of them.
- [Narrator] Though the
real Herod didn't kill babies,
he did order his Jewish
subjects to bow down to Rome.
- Hail, Octavian.
- [Narrator] He also decreed
that he should be buried at Herodium.
Unfortunately, he didn't say where,
and Herodium is a big place.
Archeologists agreed that Herod's tomb
must be here somewhere,
but no one could find it.
In 1972, Ehud Netzer
decided he was going to crack
the secret of where Herod was buried.
And today, Dudi Mevorah will retrace
his journey of discovery.
- Most scholars actually
gambled on the idea
that Herod is buried up
on top of the mountain.
Most of them believed
that he is buried in the eastern tower,
which is a massive
tower that we see behind.
Professor Netzer
believed from the beginning
that it's not reasonable to assume that
because the moment
you use a place for burial,
it becomes virtually impure in Judaism.
- [Narrator] So Netzer
began to hunt for Herod's tomb
at the foot of the mountain.
- Professor Ehud Netzer
excavating down here
finds this building already in the 1970s.
At first stroke of the hammer,
he thinks this might be the tomb.
It's a monumental room
with the pilasters decorating the walls.
You can see them protruding here.
It's a large space with very high ceiling,
probably either domed or
with a pyramid on the top,
but it's open to the east.
- [Narrator] The opening told Netzer
that the structure was
a formal dining room.
- [Dudi] It was not a closed room.
It couldn't be a tomb.
And then he thinks that
the tomb may be next door.
A ritual bath found next
to it gives another hint
to the possibility that this
is where the tomb might be
unfortunately, the tomb was not found.
- [Narrator] As he continued to search,
Netzer came to believe that Herod himself
had designed Herodium
according to a geometric plan.
- [Dudi] He became so involved with Herod
that he could almost plan
the way Herod planned
and think the way Herod thought.
- [Narrator] He continued to search
for Herod's tomb for 30 years.
- [Dudi] He realized
that it's not down here.
He realized that there is
no monumental building
or cave that could be it.
- [Narrator] In 2004, shortly
after his 71st birthday,
Professor Netzer decides
he needs a new perspective.
- So from where we are standing,
we can see the pool down there
with the bathhouse right at the corner.
And the place where we are, the palace,
is right on top of the mountain here.
- [Narrator] Netzer notices
that structures on the plain
form a straight line that
connects to the east tower.
Sensing Herod's geometric plan,
he believes the tomb should be on the line.
- Professor Netzer takes a diagonal
from the center of the
pool to the eastern tower,
and he decides to cross section that slope.
- [Narrator] On the slope,
the ruins of a tomb are not visible,
but Netzer knows there
might be a good reason for that.
Historians believe
that after Herod's death,
Jewish insurgents hid from the Roman army
in caves on the mountainside.
Hating Herod as a Roman collaborator,
the rebels might have
reduced his tomb to rubble.
Halfway up the slope,
Netzer's team discovers
shards of pink stone,
puzzle pieces that
fit together beautifully.
- We're looking at a sarcophagus
made out of pinkish chalk stone,
decorated with a very fine rosette.
- [Narrator] At the spot
where the shards were found,
Professor Netzer uncovers this.
- This is actually the tomb garden
with the podium of the
tomb at the center of it.
This is the exterior wall.
This is the base of the building,
then it goes to 25 meters high up,
three stories of 25 meters,
which would be eight stories of today.
- [Narrator] By entering
the mind of King Herod,
Ehud Netzer had found his tomb.
- It was clear this must be Herod.
What we found here, architectural fragments
that enabled us to restore a monument
which fits Herod's taste and status.
- This is big time archeology
because finding direct contact
to known historical figures,
notorious historical figures,
is not an everyday thing.
- [Narrator] Before Ehud
Netzer died at the age of 76,
he helped plan the museum exhibition
that will reveal Herod's tomb to the world.
And sadly, the reason for
Professor Netzer's death
is part of our story.
- Right here at the top of the theater
and outside the royal box of
King Herod, we were at the end
of a very active morning
with Professor Netzer.
We had a very enthusiastic morning,
all looking forward to
what we were going to do.
And we sat here for a
moment to rest in the shade.
And Ehud sat where he
sat dozens of times before.
And one of the beams gave
up and he collapsed backwards
into the theater and fell all
the way down to the stage
and was wounded very
severely and eventually died.
- [Narrator] Ehud
Netzer's death was tragic,
but he died where he
accomplished his life's greatest work.
Herodium is King Herod's monument,
but it's also a monument to Ehud Netzer.
Up next, a secret about the Virgin Mary.
In the Israel Museum, as in every museum,
some artifacts are incomplete.
And sometimes, what is
missing is the most important part.
- This is the lower part of wall painting
that was discovered in 1997.
And we see here pairs of feet.
We assume that this is
Jesus is sitting on the center,
in throne, and on the right
side is Maria approaching Jesus.
- [Narrator] The fresco that once showed
Jesus and the Virgin Mary was discovered
not far from what many
believe is Mary's tomb.
Here, 47 steps beneath the ground,
archeologist Jon Seligman will
help reveal a museum secret.
- The tomb of the Virgin Mary
doesn't look like an ancient tomb
because the tomb is being cut away
from the bedrock around it,
and all you see is just the shelf
where the body of Mary
was traditionally laid.
- [Narrator] Her tomb is
empty, but that is not the secret.
By Christian tradition,
Mary left her tomb when
she ascended to heaven.
The secret involves an
arched niche cut into the wall.
It has the same basic shape as this,
or this, or this.
Today, 1.5 billion people on
Earth know exactly what it is,
but in case you don't know...
- Right behind me is the mihrab,
which is a niche in the mosque,
and basically, it signifies
the direction of prayer.
And this is usually in
the direction of the Kaaba,
which is the holy structure
in Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
And whenever we pray,
we pray in congregation,
in unison towards this one direction.
- [Narrator] Why is there a Muslim mihrab
in the tomb of the Virgin Mary.
That is our museum secret.
Our story begins in
Jerusalem in the 11th century.
Muslims fought to retake the
city that had been conquered
by Christian crusaders
several decades before.
And when the Muslims reached this place,
they began to tear down walls and churches.
- You've got to remember,
Western Christianity was
seen very unfavorably.
A place like this which had
been involved very deeply
with the Crusader order in
Jerusalem was dismantled.
- [Narrator] But instead of
dismantling Mary's tomb,
the Muslims carved a mihrab in the wall.
To understand why the mihrab is here,
we must visit the plateau
in the center of Jerusalem.
This is a holy place for
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Beneath this shining dome
is the rock where God spoke to Abraham,
and where Jesus preached to his disciples.
And for Muslims, the plateau
is sacred for another reason.
- This place is regarded
as the third holiest site for Muslims.
The prophet of Islam, Muhammad,
is believed to have traveled
from Mecca to Jerusalem,
and then from there,
taken by the angel to the
heavens to meet God himself.
And as he traveled to
Jerusalem, it is believed
through our traditions that
he met every prophet of God,
every messenger of God,
including the great prophets
Abraham, Moses, and also Jesus.
- [Narrator] So although Muslims
do not consider Jesus
their savior, they revere him.
- It's very clear in the holy Quran,
whenever Jesus is mentioned,
in majority of the verses,
God mentions (speaks in foreign language),
Jesus, the son of Mary.
So Mary is revered and respected.
- [Narrator] And that's why
Muslims carved a mihrab
within the Virgin Mary's tomb.
- The church belonged to a Christian order,
and for that reason, has to be removed,
has to be taken away.
But the tomb of the Virgin Mary survives.
Because this is also a
shrine which is holy to Islam,
there is no reason to destroy the tomb.
- [Narrator] In the streets of Jerusalem,
religious differences and
political conflicts are obvious.
But as with the fresco in the museum,
we might not be seeing the whole picture.
The most important part is sometimes
the part we don't see, the part we share.
This idea is alive in Mary's tomb,
a holy place that has been shared
by Christians and Muslims
for almost a thousand years.
Up next, the secret of the oasis.
The Israel Museum manages the collection
of an older museum in East Jerusalem.
It is known as the Rockefeller
because it was endowed
by the American philanthropist,
John D. Rockefeller.
Here, a strange inscription
is written in mosaic tiles
from a Jewish town called Ein Gedi.
- And in the synagogues,
there is a mosaic pavement.
And the pavement holds a long inscription
in several sections.
One section is particularly intriguing,
and the reason is that it has a curse.
Whoever shall reveal the
secret of the town to the Gentiles,
a terrible curse will come upon him.
- [Narrator] What did
the Jewish townspeople
not want outsiders to know?
That is our museum secret.
The road to Ein Gedi passes by the Dead Sea
whose waters and mud
are reputed to be therapeutic
and are the basis for a lucrative
health and beauty industry known worldwide.
The land around the sea is bone dry
except for this oasis
where the ancient town
of Ein Gedi once stood.
Recent archeology has
revealed that the town was small
but its synagogue was big.
- A synagogue is the most
important building in the village.
It is built also with luxury if you compare
the living rooms over there
and the mosaic floor here.
- [Narrator] One mysterious
inscription reveals
what will happen to anyone
who reveals the town's secret.
The literal translation is complex,
filled with allusions to anger,
punishment and an all-seeing eye.
But the intention is clear.
Anyone who reveals the secret
is as good as dead.
But in a small oasis town,
what secret could be so important?
- From biblical sources,
we know of various plants
that were growing in this land.
We know of one plant, the balsam plant.
It was highly regarded.
Apparently, the fragrance was so special
that they wanted it
from all over the world.
It was really something unique.
- [Narrator] The balsam plant was the basis
for a perfume called balsama,
which was made exclusively
in the town of Ein Gedi.
Marc Antony was so taken with the perfume
that he gave balsama
to his lover, Cleopatra.
It would have cost him
more than its weight in gold.
Ein Gedi's prosperity came from balsama,
so there was a lot riding
on keeping its monopoly.
- Maybe the clue is the enigma
of the perfume production.
For something to special, it
was a special group of experts,
a professional guild, that
was preparing and doing this.
They didn't want the
secret of doing it to leak out.
- [Narrator] We would leak the
secret of how to make balsama
but we can't
because on an unknown date,
Ein Gedi was attacked
and burned to the ground.
- There was a layer of
ash about half a meter thick.
All the village was ruined.
Who did it?
I have no idea.
- [Narrator] After Ein Gedi was destroyed,
no more balsama was ever produced.
And over the centuries,
the specific variety of balsam
plant used to make balsama
disappeared from the
region around the Dead Sea.
So the secret of making
balsama was lost forever,
or maybe not.
Today, in the Ein Gedi oasis,
a kibbutz maintains a botanical garden.
Botanist Annot Hast has
cultivated balsam seedlings
of an ancient variety discovered in Africa.
(Anna speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] But are these balsam plants
the right balsam plants?
Do they contain the essence
of a balsama perfume?
(Annot speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Annot has yet to learn
how her ancestors made balsama
but she hopes to exploit
the old plants in a new way.
- One of our dreams is to
make the perfume from this plant
because we are looking for stores
that connect to the environment
and to our history and to our heritage.
- [Narrator] But will modern Ein Gedians
heed the ancient warning
to keep their production
methods to themselves?
Or will they brave the curse
and reveal it to the world.
- It's very, very difficult to
hold a secret nowadays.
It's not like ancient times.
So I think if it's very
difficult to hold it,
why not to share it with everyone.
- [Narrator] And then perhaps
modern women can share
in the glamor of Cleopatra.
Next on Museum Secrets,
the amulet and the alien.
Our final museum secret
may be the strangest one ever.
It's the answer to this question.
What does a tiny archeological
treasure have in common
with a science fiction
character known as Mr. Spock?
The story begins just one
kilometer from the museum,
in an ancient tomb below this church.
A young archeologist
discovered a tiny corroded object
about the size of a cigarette butt.
The year was 1979.
Fans may recall that
the first Star Trek movie
premiered in 1979.
But that's not the connection
between the artifact and Mr. Spock.
- It really looked like nothing,
but it was very curious.
It was pretty clear that this was metal.
So it turned to be a metal
sheet tightly wound up.
And of course, there was
the challenge to unroll it.
- [Narrator] Curators
became excited because, well,
finding scrolls in the holy
land often makes history.
- [Announcer] Scholars at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem
undertake the painstaking
work of piecing together
bits of ancient biblical scrolls
found at a mountain cave near the Dead Sea.
- [Narrator] Showcased
in their own building
within the museum grounds
are the world's most famous scrolls.
Discovered in the mid-1900s, these scrolls
were the most significant
and earliest biblical texts
in existence, dating back 2,200 years.
The tomb where the metal scroll was found
predates the Dead Sea Scrolls by 400 years,
so curators were anxious to find out
what might be inside the tiny amulet.
- It was sent to several centers in Europe.
They didn't dare touch it.
- [Narrator] Acrimony had ensued
when some Dead Sea Scrolls
had fallen apart as they were unrolled,
so it's not surprising that
European conservators
were nervous about
damaging this fragile scroll.
- It came to the labs of the Israel Museum
where we had decided we'll take the risk
because it was by far too curious
to let this go and not know what it is.
- [Narrator] Head of
Conservation David (mumbles)
would boldly go where no
conservator had gone before.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Using a similar roll of metal,
David reenacts the process.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] David
unfurled the metal bit by bit
until it was completely flat.
The surface was blank
except for a few scratches.
(David speaks in foreign language)
- [Narrator] He could make
out the letters of just one word,
(speaks in foreign language).
Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God.
After further examination,
other words were deciphered.
- The lower part holds
the earliest biblical phrases
ever to be found, so
it's of great significance.
And these phrases, known
also as the priestly benediction,
are still recited at synagogue to this day.
- [Narrator] And this is
where the ancient artifact
begins to connect with Mr. Spock.
- When I was about maybe
eight or nine years old,
High Holiday services with my family,
there comes a point in the
service where the kohanim,
who are the members of the priestly tribe
of the Hebrew people, get
up to bless the congregation.
(man sings in foreign language)
My father said to me, "Don't look."
But I was, you know, I'm eight years old
and there's something really
strange going on, so I peeked.
And I saw them doing that with their hands
as they were blessing the congregation,
as they were shouting this prayer.
It was kind of chilling.
I had no idea.
It seemed magical.
- [Narrator] Years later, Leonard Nimoy
would recall his experience
on the set of Star Trek.
- And I said to the director,
I said we should have something special
that Vulcans do when they greet each other.
He said, "Well, what do you want?
"What should Vulcans do?"
and I said, "How about that?"
- [Narrator] When Spock makes this sign,
he says a benediction.
- Live long and prosper.
- [Narrator] This is an
echo of the benediction
on the ancient metal scroll,
the Lord bestow his favor
upon you and grant you peace.
And that's what an ancient
archeological treasure
has in common with Mr. Spock.
Mr. Spock may be an alien,
but he is also quintessentially Jewish.
In a museum where
religion and history meet,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
The secrets of monarchs and messiahs
hidden in plain sight
inside the Israel Museum.
(dramatic music)