Secrets in the Ice (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Curse of The Ice Princess - full transcript
After a 2,500-year-old mummy is discovered in Siberia, locals report strange, cataclysmic events that point to an ancient curse; using cutting-edge archaeology, experts reveal who this person was and if they've unleashed something...
♪♪
Narrator:
A mind-boggling wreck
at the bottom of a frozen lake
in the rocky mountains.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
It's part building,
part machine.
It defies explanation.
Sounds like science fiction,
but it's 100% true.
An ancient mummy
with strange tattoos
is unearthed from the
siberian permafrost.
They warned that disturbing
the mummy's frozen tomb
would trigger an ancient curse,
causing bad luck,
illness, even death.
♪♪
The discovery of the frozen body
of a 5,300-year-old
stone age man
launches the oldest murder
investigation in history.
Rose: And this
wasn't just a murder.
This was a brutal killing.
It's clear that something
pretty dramatic went down.
♪♪
These are
the strangest mysteries,
trapped in the coldest places.
Lost relics,
forgotten treasures,
dark secrets,
locked in their icy tombs
for ages.
But now as ice melts
around the world,
their stories
will finally be exposed.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
High in the altai mountains
of siberia,
on the borders of russia,
mongolia, and china,
lies the ukok plateau.
♪♪
You get the sense that no one
has set foot here
for thousands of years.
There's just nothing here.
But if you look carefully,
you see these large mounds
rising up out of the grassland.
♪♪
What are they?
♪♪
When you look closer,
you realize
they're actually made of rocks
piled on top of one another.
♪♪
It makes you wonder,
"what's underneath?"
narrator:
Beneath one of these mounds,
a team of russian archeologists
will make a discovery so unique
that it will capture the world's
imagination for decades to come.
♪♪
It was a near perfectly
preserved corpse of a woman,
buried by herself in a tomb,
along with all manner
of fine clothing and riches.
♪♪
It turns out they'd
stumbled across one
of the only tombs left intact
after centuries
of being plundered.
The gold, jewelry,
and secret artifacts
are all in perfect condition.
♪♪
But who on earth was this woman
and was there
a mysterious reason
this tomb was spared
from looting?
♪♪
Narrator: It's immediately
apparent to archeologists
that this woman held
a significant place
in her society.
And it's not just the treasure
that tells them so.
It's the fact
that she's buried alone.
♪♪
Until they know more,
archeologists call her
the ice maiden.
♪♪
The ice maiden was a member
of the scythian pazyryk culture,
iron age nomads
who roamed these lands
between the 6th
and 2nd centuries bce.
The pazyryk were horse people
who traveled to the
ukok plateau in the winter
to graze their cattle,
which they raised
for food and clothes.
They traded goods with the
merchants of china,
india, and persia,
and knew how
to defend themselves.
O'keefe: You didn't want
to mess with these folks.
Think the dothraki
from "game of thrones."
horses, beards, tattoos,
muscles... same deal.
♪♪
Billson: The pazyryk were truly
nomadic, living and dying on the move.
They buried their dead in groups
by constructing burial sites
called kurgans.
♪♪
They had to wait until summer
to bury their dead,
when the permafrost
warmed up just enough
to dig 10 feet down
into the earth.
♪♪
Narrator:
Women were always buried
with their husbands,
never alone.
So why does this ice maiden have
a whole kurgan all to herself?
What makes her so special?
♪♪
Narrator: Archeologists
examine the tomb,
looking for clues
to her identity.
Behind the northern wall of the
ice maiden's burial vault,
they discover the skeletons
of six horses,
fully bridled and saddled,
laden with ornate wooden
ornaments pressed in gold foil.
Whoever owned these horses
cared for them greatly
and treated them
with the utmost reverence.
Narrator: But it's not
only the gold and riches
that capture
the researchers' attention.
There's something odd about the
way the horses are arranged.
It appears that the horses were
bound before they were buried.
♪♪
And, if you look
at their skulls,
they all have these
similar-shaped holes in them.
Just about the size
of the sharp end of a pickax,
narrator: All of it indicates that
these horses were sacrificed,
perhaps to accompany the
ice maiden into the afterlife.
O'keefe:
Were these her horses?
Could she have been a warrior?
Narrator:
Exploring this theory,
researchers turn
to the mummy itself,
peeking out from beneath one
of her shirtsleeves is a tattoo.
When they pulled the clothing
back to reveal it fully,
these are just
the most beautiful,
elaborate tattoos
of fantastical beasts,
running up the length
of each arm.
♪♪
The pazyryk are known
for having some
of the most sophisticated
and intricate tattoo art
in history.
It's amazing how modern
these tattoos look,
both in terms of design
and execution.
They could've been
inked last week
and you wouldn't know
any different.
Narrator: But these
weren't just beautiful.
They had a purpose.
Billson: Tattoos, for
the pazyryk people,
were like an I.D.,
or a passport to the afterlife.
They believed it was the only
way that family members
would recognize them
in the spiritual realm.
Narrator: Could the ice maiden's
tattoos be a code to her identity?
The animal imagery is
out of this world.
Real animals, mythical animals,
upside-down animals,
inside-out animals.
Narrator: On the ice
maiden's left shoulder
is a deer with a griffin's beak
and capricorn's antlers,
both symbols
of courage and boldness.
The mouth of a spotted panther
with a long tail
is seen at the legs of a sheep.
Now, this is
the interesting part.
These annual patterns
mirror the tattoos found
on the body
of a pazyryk warrior chief
dug from the ice
earlier this century.
♪♪
Even more interesting is that
the warrior chief himself
was also buried with horses,
just like the ice maiden.
That's most likely
not a coincidence.
She's wearing thigh-high,
felt riding boots
and a wooden breastplate
that looks suspiciously
like it could be armor.
Narrator: All of it seems to
support the warrior theory,
all except one glaring omission.
O'keefe: She wasn't
found with a single weapon.
No ax, no sword.
The pazyryk warriors lived
and died by their weapons.
Surely, if she was a warrior,
she would've been
buried with one.
Narrator:
So, if she wasn't a warrior,
who was she?
Bellinger: Beside her head
is a dish of coriander seeds,
herbs, and roots.
And cannabis.
♪♪
Narrator: Historically, herbs
and roots have been associated,
throughout many traditions,
with healing practices.
Was the ice maiden some kind
of spiritual healer?
♪♪
What better way to communicate
with the spiritual world
than with the assistance
of a pinch
of medical-grade cannabis?
♪♪
Bellinger:
My guess?
She was a shaman,
a high priestess whose visions
provided a direct channel
to the gods and ancestral
spirits of the pazyryk people.
Narrator: It's a valid theory,
but they can't be sure.
Archeologists decide
to transport her body
to the lab, to find out more.
But when the local
altai mountain people hear
about their plan, they protest.
They believe she
shouldn't be moved at all.
They warned that disturbing
the mummy's frozen tomb
would trigger an ancient curse,
causing bad luck,
illness, even death.
Narrator: Researchers
dismiss the warnings
as harmless superstition.
But, before the helicopter
carrying her body tries
to take off the mountain,
something goes terribly wrong.
Did they unwittingly awaken
the curse of the ice maiden?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The helicopter carrying
a 2,500-year-old frozen mummy
known as the ice maiden
nearly crashes during the
excavation process
and has to make
an emergency landing.
The accident confirms
the altai mountain people's
worst fears.
The locals cautioned
the archeologists
that disturbing her body
would unleash the fury
of her ancient spirit.
♪♪
In a case of real life
imitating myth,
bad things did start to happen.
Shortly after she was removed,
there was a series
of 300 earth tremors,
which is highly unusual
for this region.
♪♪
Narrator:
That was just the beginning.
They had hailstorms raining down
balls of ice
the size of goose eggs.
♪♪
There were forest fires
and an inexplicable rash
of suicides.
The timing of all of this
was eerily coincidental.
Narrator: Archeologists
were undeterred.
They believed the mummy's
body held secrets
that only science could reveal.
They performed a series of tests
to try to uncover
her true identity.
Radiocarbon dating
showed that she was
between 25 and 28 years old
when she died,
but that, in itself,
isn't significant
because the lifespan of a woman
from the iron age
would've been
around 30 years old, anyway.
X-rays show
that she had suffered
some broken bones prior
to her death,
the kind that, say, would happen
by falling off a horse.
But it wasn't anything
too serious.
♪♪
Bellinger:
It was curious.
Her skull was intact
and there were no marks
on her body
to indicate that she suffered
any sort of fatal injury,
but the state of her
soft tissue suggested
that she had been
severely emaciated.
Had she been ill?
♪♪
It wasn't until scientists
gave the ice maiden an mri
that the answer started
to take shape.
Narrator: Magnetic
resonance imaging results
revealed a shocking piece
of the puzzle.
They found a tumor
in her right breast.
♪♪
Rose: It appears she
had breast cancer.
♪♪
And it very likely killed her,
after spreading
to multiple organs
over a number
of excruciating months.
Given her obvious
high rank in society,
there's no other reason she
would've been so emaciated.
Only cancer
would've had that impact.
♪♪
Cannabis use was widespread
throughout pazyryk culture,
so, rather than signifying
her role as a shaman,
perhaps this woman was simply
using the cannabis
as a painkiller.
♪♪
Rose: In the museum, they
were able to take a closer look
at what she was wearing.
They discovered that
her long-sleeved golden shirt
was made of silk,
which, back then,
was more prized than gold.
♪♪
She was definitely
a woman of means.
She had gold earrings,
as well as a pouch
that contained a small mirror,
meticulously decorated
with blue beads.
Narrator:
Laying beside her in the tomb
were two wooden tables,
decked out
with meat and drink...
A feast fit for royalty.
Only the most powerful women
in this society
could afford items like these,
like the wives
or daughters of chiefs.
In other words,
she was probably a princess.
♪♪
The locals have been calling
the mummy the altai ice princess
from the moment
she was discovered.
It's possible they've known
exactly who this mummy was,
right from the very beginning.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: At the bottom of
an icy lake in jasper, alberta,
lies a mystery that may unlock
a top secret world war ii plan.
This is the last thing
you'd expect to see
at the bottom of a lake.
♪♪
Somara: I've never seen
anything like this before.
It's part building,
part machine.
It defies explanation.
♪♪
Narrator: Sitting on
the bottom of the lake,
under 130 feet of icy water,
lies a strange series
of tangled, rusting pipes
and wooden boards.
It's not a boat or a plane,
or any vehicle I've seen.
Maybe it's some kind
of a machine.
Could the pipes be part
of a steam engine?
♪♪
There's no furnace
to generate steam,
no gears to run, no wheels.
It's definitely
not a steam engine.
♪♪
If it was a water
pumping station,
it should be on the shore,
not in the water,
and there's no place
to pump water to.
♪♪
Narrator:
What is this wreckage
and how did it get
to the bottom of a lake
in the middle
of the rocky mountains?
♪♪
And why are so many history
buffs exposing themselves
to freezing waters,
just to get a glimpse of it?
♪♪
If you add up
all the components,
it appears that, originally,
this structure was
about 60 feet in length
and about 30 feet wide,
which is about the size
of an average houseboat.
♪♪
Somara:
The pipes, they're unique.
If we could figure out
what was being transported
through the pipes
and where it was going,
it might help us
figure this out.
♪♪
Narrator: Judging from
the design of the pipes,
it looks like it could be part
of an elaborate
refrigeration system
that runs through the heart
of the structure.
♪♪
Somara:
That's interesting.
It looks like the pipes
are there to carry
some sort of fluid or air
around the building,
which would've removed
the heat and kept it cool.
♪♪
Irving: You have the same
kind of thing in your fridge,
but this is
on a much larger scale.
It's more like the kinda
thing you'd expect to see
in a giant commercial
cooling facility.
♪♪
O'keefe: There are no shelves,
no racks, no place to put anything.
You wouldn't just
pile things on the floor
in the middle of a giant wooden
frame to keep them cold.
Narrator: What is an intricate
refrigeration system doing
inside a 60-foot
wooden structure
in the middle of a frozen lake?
Some believe the answer lies
in one of the strangest,
and most ambitious,
ideas of world war ii.
♪♪
Narrator: A mind-boggling
wreckage at the bottom of a lake
deep in the rocky mountains
defies explanation.
♪♪
The entire building
was one big refrigerator.
Now, that,
in itself, is strange,
but why is it
at the bottom of a lake?
And, even before it got there,
what was it trying
to keep frozen?
♪♪
Narrator: The answer may
lie thousands of miles away,
in winston churchill's
top secret documents
from world war ii.
♪♪
Britain's ability to win
the war against the germans
depended on tons of supplies
sent across the atlantic
in ships manned by civilians,
but there weren't enough
warships to protect them all
and allied ships
were being sunk faster
than they could be replaced.
The aircraft, at the time,
didn't have sufficient range
to provide air cover
for the allied ships,
leaving them at the mercy
of the germans.
Narrator: More than 650,000
tons of supplies were sunk
in June of 1942, alone.
[ explosion ]
the allies were desperate
for a solution, any solution.
♪♪
Enter geoffrey nathaniel pyke.
♪♪
Irving: Pyke was this
wonderfully eccentric inventor.
He was working
with the british war office
when he came up
with this wild idea.
Basically, what he wanted
to do was drag
a giant piece of ice
from the arctic
to the middle
of the atlantic ocean
and use it to land planes on.
♪♪
Narrator: Pyke called
the project habakkuk,
a hebrew name,
meaning "he that embraces."
that is an outlandish plan,
but the british were willing
to try anything.
So, on December 4, 1942,
winston churchill signed
the most secret memo,
approving project habakkuk,
to make secret aircraft carriers
out of icebergs.
♪♪
Sounds like science fiction,
but it's 100% true.
Narrator: As crazy as it sounds,
the project had many benefits.
Building materials, like steel,
were in short supply
during the war.
Ice was cheap and plentiful
and, at the time,
icebergs were thought
to be indestructible.
After the titanic sunk in 1912,
the international ice patrol
was formed,
to remove the threat to ships.
But the patrol quickly found
that they couldn't actually
destroy any icebergs.
They tried guns, bombs,
even torpedoes.
So what better ship
to take on new boats
than an immense iceberg,
immune to torpedoes?
♪♪
Somara: They even came
up with a new substance
to make the icebergs
even stronger...
A mix of wood chips and ice,
which they called pykrete,
after geoffrey pyke.
They thought it
would be so durable
that it might absorb
a torpedo blast,
making the ice warship
utterly invincible.
♪♪
Narrator: But ice does have one
weakness they knew they had to overcome.
While it might be invincible,
when it comes to bombs
or torpedoes,
it was completely vulnerable
to warm weather.
♪♪
So how do you keep
an iceberg from melting
in the warm southern waters?
A giant refrigeration system.
♪♪
Narrator: To test the
design, and whether or not
it was possible
to keep ice constantly cold,
scientists and engineers
began constructing
a scaled-down prototype
on the frozen surface
of lake patricia, in jasper.
The lake in alberta
was close to a railway,
where they could move
supplies to the project.
♪♪
It was also near a large camp
of mennonite and doukhobors,
who were sitting out the war
as conscientious objectors.
These men supplied the labor
for the construction.
♪♪
Irving: The lake was also remote
enough to keep the project top secret.
'cause if you're gonna build
a giant, secret ice warship,
you wanna keep it away
from the eyes of the germans.
♪♪
Narrator: The full design
was 2,000 feet long.
It had multiple buildings
on the surface of the ice,
crew quarters and hangars
dug out in the center
of the iceberg.
♪♪
Somara: 2,000 feet is more
than twice as long as the titanic,
and the vessel would've
weighed over two million tons.
It would've had space
for over 300 planes
and the vessel could withstand
waves of over 50 feet high.
♪♪
Their design is completely nuts
and it's also
completely amazing.
So, why didn't they use
these ice ships in the war?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The prototype
of a world war ii
aircraft carrier
made entirely of ice
never made it
out of development.
The hms habakkuk
stayed afloat and frozen
through the summer of 1943,
but was abandoned in the fall,
when churchill called
an end to the project.
♪♪
The allies began using
iceland, and portugal,
as bases to refuel their planes,
which negated the need
for floating aerodromes.
♪♪
Somara: Newer planes, that could
patrol for longer, were introduced,
and more accurate radar
helped track u-boats.
The war was starting to turn
in favor of the allies.
♪♪
O'keefe: They just didn't
need the ice warships.
Too bad.
Would've been epic.
Narrator: The fantastical
aircraft carrier made of ice
never became a reality.
But the fact that
it was developed at all
is a testament to the power
of a great idea,
no matter how impractical
it may seem at the time.
The wreckage continues to draw
divers from across the planet,
eager to explore one
of the most bizarre
secret military projects ever.
♪♪
10,000 feet above sea level,
in the iconic italian alps,
an ancient murder mystery
lies waiting to be discovered.
You're thousands of feet up
from a picturesque valley
with a stunning view
of the mountains
and there, in the ice,
is something that's
totally out of place.
♪♪
It's pretty shocking to come
across something like that
because it's entirely not
what you're expecting to see.
♪♪
Narrator: When two alpine hikers
stumble across a body in the ice,
they assume it's
an unfortunate mountaineer.
♪♪
But a closer look reveals
that what they found
was far stranger,
and far older.
♪♪
The body turns out to be
a 5,300-year-old mummy
lying face-down over a rock
and preserved perfectly
for all that time.
♪♪
They call the body
otzi the iceman,
after the otztal alps,
where the body was found.
His hair, organs, and skin
are almost entirely intact.
♪♪
Incredibly,
through the examination,
it was discovered
that otzi had been shot
in the back by an arrow,
which means, surprisingly,
otzi was murdered.
♪♪
Rose: And this
wasn't just a murder.
This was a brutal killing.
It's clear that something
pretty dramatic went down here.
♪♪
Narrator: This
archeological find just turned
into the oldest murder
investigation in the world.
♪♪
Otzi lived at the end
of the stone age,
a time before countries,
before kings,
where most people survived
by hunting and gathering.
But this was a turning point
in human civilization.
People were just
starting to farm.
But, as populations grew,
so did competition
for this land
and the resources on it.
Some were willing
to kill for it.
Who, then, may have wanted
this man dead?
When scientists examine
the arrow wound,
they find the flint arrowhead
still lodged deep
in his left shoulder.
♪♪
Irving: The arrow injury
was the cause of death.
It punctured an artery,
caused massive bleeding,
and ultimately proved fatal,
narrator: Given how deep
the flint arrowhead was lodged,
they determined that he
was attacked from a distance.
He was shot
from over 100 feet away.
The archer would've been
highly proficient
with a bow, to make that shot.
Narrator: Now, they
know how he died,
but not who killed him,
and why.
♪♪
They turn to the ancient
crime scene, looking for clues.
Otzi is still wearing one
of his shoes,
made of grass and skin.
He's carrying a bow
with a quill full
of broken arrows,
and he has a backpack
full of tools.
♪♪
Irving: His clothes were
leather, and extremely well-made.
Plus, his shoes were designed
for walking on the snow.
♪♪
Clarke: For his era, this was
top-of-the-line survival gear.
These would've been
desirable items
essential for mountain survival.
♪♪
Rose: He also carried flint
weapons and a copper ax.
Otzi would've been one of the
best-equipped for his time.
A tool kit like that means
he had prestige and status.
♪♪
O'keefe: Copper tools
were extremely rare.
Most people of this era
were still using stone tools,
so a copper ax would've been
considered priceless.
Bellinger: Looking at the
evidence, you have to wonder
if robbery was a motive
for this murder.
Were this guy's possessions
worth enough to somebody
to kill him?
♪♪
Irving: There's one big
problem with robbery
as a motive for otzi's murder.
If they wanted his stuff,
they could've just taken it.
♪♪
Bellinger: Who would kill
someone for their possessions,
but then leave them all behind?
Particularly that copper ax,
which would've been
incredibly valuable at the time.
Narrator:
So, if it wasn't theft,
what was the motive
for this murder?
♪♪
Perhaps his killer came
from a rival tribe,
or, maybe, he had an enemy
within his own tribe.
♪♪
As researchers examine
the body further,
they discover the arrow wound
is not his only injury.
Rose: Otzi also had a very
grievous wound on his right hand,
a cut between a thumb
and the forefinger.
Billson: The injuries appear
to be defensive wounds,
so maybe he
fought off his attacker
before fleeing and getting
shot in the back.
♪♪
When scientists investigated
the wounds to otzi's right hand,
they discovered
that the injuries showed
signs of healing.
This would imply that the
injury was somewhere
around 24 to 48 hours old.
Narrator: When they
analyze the broken arrows,
they find the blood
of two other people on them.
This leads them to think that he
must've killed those people,
otherwise, he wouldn't have been
able to retrieve his arrows.
♪♪
All told, it's clear
that otzi was involved
in multiple attacks or fights.
This wasn't a one-off ambush.
♪♪
Clarke: Considering
the nature of his injuries,
one has to wonder
what was going on here.
Was this an ongoing battle?
Was this a singular conflict?
Like what kind of trouble
was otzi in?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The discovery
of a 5,300-year-old mummy
high up in the italian alps,
with an arrowhead
lodged in his back,
launches an ancient
murder investigation.
Who killed otzi, and why?
♪♪
After finding additional
defensive wounds on his hand,
which appear to be
from an entirely
different incident,
researchers wonder if otzi was
simply having a very bad day
or if there was something
more sinister going on.
The key question here is,
was this a series of unrelated
violent encounters
and pure coincidence,
or was it a two-day-long
sequence of violence
that led to his murder?
♪♪
If we can piece together his
movements over his final days,
it might shed light
on what led to his death.
Narrator:
How do you figure out
where someone was
over 5,000 years ago?
Irving:
Otzi is a wet mummy,
that means all the
internal organs and body fat
were well-preserved.
Wet mummies are
much more rare to find
and can offer scientists
much more information
than dry mummies.
Narrator: Scientists
autopsy otzi's body
and make
an intriguing discovery.
Otzi is so well-preserved
that he still has food
in his system.
It's a very rare thing to see
in anything this old.
The speed of human digestion
hasn't changed much
in 5,000 years,
so, if we look at how far along
the food was in his system,
from stomach to colon,
we can tell approximately
when he ate it.
♪♪
The oldest food in his system
was 33 hours old,
so we're able to see everything
he consumed since then.
♪♪
Not only can we determine
when otzi ate,
but pollen analysis tells us
where he ate as well.
♪♪
Irving:
When otzi ate his meals,
he consumed pollen
at the same time as his food.
We find different kinds
of pollen
at different altitudes
within the mountains.
So, by analyzing the pollen,
we can estimate approximately
how high up he was
when he ate those meals.
♪♪
Narrator: Trees in this
area release their pollen
at various elevations,
the hornbeam releases it
at lower elevations.
Conifers?
Much higher up the mountain.
The background pollen, mixed in
with the food that otzi ate
about 33 hours before his death
came from pine and spruce,
which only grow in the alpine
and subalpine regions.
This suggests that otzi was near
8,000 feet in elevation
when he had that first meal.
♪♪
O'keefe: From this, we can learn
that he was at a high elevation
when he consumed that meal
33 three hours before his death.
We can tell that otzi's
first violent encounter
occurred around this time,
based on the extent of healing
on his hand wound.
Narrator: The next layer of
pollen they find is hornbeam,
which tells them that,
shortly after he ate this meal,
otzi rapidly descended
from the mountain peak
to the valley.
But was he running from the
fight where he was injured
or was he chasing someone
to finish them off?
♪♪
Irving: The valley floor
would've had very rough terrain
and lots of good places to hide,
so a great place
for a game of cat and mouse.
Was he the cat
or was he the mouse?
♪♪
O'keefe: So he's down
at the bottom of the valley,
nine to 12 hours
prior to his death,
but his body was found back up
to 10,000 feet nine hours later.
To climb 10,000 feet
over the course of a full day
is a huge undertaking.
And to think that he did that
after already having
come down 8,000 feet.
He must've been
an incredible athlete.
And, not only that,
but very, very motivated.
♪♪
Narrator:
But without any witnesses,
researchers still can't
answer these questions.
All they can do is speculate.
We can tell a lot
about his last 33 hours,
but we still don't know if he
was the hunter or the hunted
and we don't know if he
was killed by an enemy
or by somebody
from his own tribe.
♪♪
What we do know
is that he fought
and injured several people
before he died,
he was moving fast
and erratically,
with his weapons
in need of repair
and his hand seriously injured.
♪♪
Rose: He was shot in
the back from a distance.
Either someone didn't
wanna get too close
to this heavily armed killer,
or he was running for his life
from a deadly enemy.
♪♪
Bellinger: It's possible that
otzi came out on the wrong end
of a tussle
with a neighboring tribe.
Equally, he could've had
a deadly confrontation
with members of his own tribe.
Narrator: The coldest case in
the world will have to remain on ice,
at least, for the time being.
♪♪
Otzi's body and equipment
continues to be studied
and, perhaps, with time,
may reveal further clues.
♪♪
♪♪
On the banks of an icy stream
running through the heart
of the siberian permafrost
lies a secret never
before seen on the planet.
This is a little stream
feeding a small river
in the middle of the wilderness.
Irving: The only way to reach
this site would be by boat or on foot.
It's hundreds of miles
from any town.
It's not just remote.
It's nearly inaccessible.
♪♪
Narrator: While on a hunting
trip in search of reindeer,
two russian businessmen
spot something on the bank
that they think might be
a telltale sign of their prey.
These hunters spot
a small patch of fur
sticking out of the ice and mud.
They think it might
lead them to game,
but what they find
is astonishing.
♪♪
Narrator: The fur is
attached to the frozen remains
of a baby wooly rhino.
Scientists nickname
the rhino sasha,
after one of the hunters
who made the discovery.
A find like this
has never been seen before,
anywhere on the planet.
This is the first
and, so far, the only one.
♪♪
Scientists and archeologists
spend their entire careers
actively searching for a find
of this magnitude.
Irving: Wooly rhinos were actually
common in the plasticine era.
Many adult wooly rhino remains
have been unearthed
at other sites,
but baby rhino remains,
like this,
have never been found before.
♪♪
Rose: The truth is
young rhino remains
are almost completely absent
from the historical record.
It's one of these things
that really makes you
scratch your head and wonder.
Narrator: We have the remains of
other infant mammals from the era.
So why are wooly rhino
infants so rare?
The wooly rhino first
appeared on the planet
around 350,000 years ago.
Like their modern-day
counterparts,
wooly rhinos were herbivores
and lived alone or in very
small family groups.
Little else is known about them,
mainly because very few fossils
like this have ever been found.
Maybe sasha's cause of death
can help us understand
why the remains
of only one baby rhino
have ever been found
on the planet.
Narrator: Scientists
excavate sasha from the ice
and relocate the body
to the lab,
to find out what might've caused
the baby rhino's untimely death.
They clean and examine the body
and that's when they make
a surprising discovery.
What they thought was
gray fur covering sasha
turns out to be
strawberry-blond hair.
The hair color's
a really extraordinary detail
that we could've never taken
from fossil evidence, alone,
and what sasha is telling us
is that the wooly rhino
appeared very different
from the rhinos of today.
♪♪
Rose: And there's
more than just hair.
Sasha's skin, and several
other organs, are also intact.
This provides us
with lots of evidence
as to what happened to sasha
and gives us a lot
of information about an animal
that is at least
10,000 years old.
♪♪
Narrator: Sasha's lungs
and airways are also intact,
allowing scientists to make
an interesting revelation.
Irving: There's sediment
in both of sasha's airways.
The left nasal airway
is completely blocked.
That suggests that the rhino
could've become trapped
in a mud hole.
Narrator: This makes scientists
wonder if sasha drowned.
Rose: Sasha was found
frozen on a riverbank.
Perhaps there was
some kind of an accident
that caused sasha to end up
in the water and mud and drown.
♪♪
Narrator: But some parts
of the story just don't add up.
♪♪
If drowning is the cause
of death,
we'd expect to see some serious
injury or damage to the lungs.
That finding would help
confirm the cause of death.
Narrator: Scientists
continue their examination,
in search of more evidence that
could confirm sasha's drowning.
But what they find
takes the investigation
in an entirely new direction.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The remains
of an infant wooly rhino
found in the siberian permafrost
raises questions
about how it died.
Scientists hope the answer
will reveal more
about why so few
baby rhino fossils exist.
Sasha's remains show signs
of serious injuries.
We can see strange markings
in the lower half
of sasha's body,
indicating that it was ripped up
or damaged in some way.
♪♪
These aren't the sort of
injuries you get from drowning,
so, what else
might've caused them?
♪♪
Billson: Could these injuries
have occurred in a natural disaster?
Maybe sasha was crushed
in a rockslide or avalanche.
♪♪
Irving: There are no
wounds to be found
on the head and shoulders
of the remains.
It would be extremely unlikely
for one part of the body
to be affected in a rockslide
or an avalanche,
but not the rest.
You'd expect to see injuries
all over the body,
including the head
and shoulders,
so this doesn't appear to have
been a natural disaster.
Narrator: Archeologists take a
closer look at the strange markings
on the lower part
of sasha's body.
Rose: Some of the wounds
look like puncture wounds
that were made
by a sharp object.
So could humans have hunted
and killed sasha?
Narrator: Evidence shows
that humans moved into the area
about 40,000 years ago.
The wooly rhino remains
are between 10,000
and 34,000 years old.
Narrator:
So, sasha would've been living
side-by-side
with ancient humans.
Rhinos are big animals
that travel in family groups.
Would humans of that time period
have been able to overpower
and bring down
even a small rhino?
♪♪
Irving: Remains from
elsewhere in siberia suggest
that humans were hunting
and killing
adult wooly mammoths.
Now, mammoths are much
larger than rhinos,
so, in theory, these rhinos
shouldn't have been too big
for the prehistoric hunters.
Narrator: But closer
examination of the injuries
doesn't support this theory.
♪♪
Irving: The injuries on sasha's
body appear to be too uniform,
too even, to be
from multiple spear strikes.
There appears to be tearing
around the wound
that wouldn't be characteristic
of a spear attack,
which you'd expect to make
a much cleaner puncture wound.
It's unlikely these were
caused by spear points.
Narrator: If sasha
wasn't killed by humans,
who killed her?
♪♪
The wounds on the body
have a distinctive pattern,
that repeats itself.
From the way they're arranged,
they look a lot
like teeth marks.
From the size and the shape
of the puncture wounds
and the way they're arranged,
it suggests sasha was attacked
and partially consumed
by a large predator.
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists determine
that the injuries on the body
are bite marks,
consistent with a large cat.
One of the large predator cats
that would've hunted
the wooly rhinos
during the pleistocene era
was the cave lion.
We haven't seen the remains
of other baby rhinos
killed this way.
If cave lions were
slaughtering baby rhinos,
why aren't we finding
more remains like sasha?
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists still have
lots of unanswered questions.
From the x-rays, we can see
that sasha had bursitis,
which would've
seriously inflamed
the rhino's knee joints.
This would've slowed it down,
maybe prevented it from running,
and that could've made sasha
more vulnerable to the lions.
So it's possible that sasha ran
from a cave lion attack,
but the bursitis
might have meant
that the little rhino
wasn't fast enough to escape.
♪♪
Bellinger:
One thing is strange.
Lions usually consume most
of the flesh of their prey,
but sasha was only
partially consumed.
Why didn't the lions
finish their meal this time?
♪♪
Billson: It's possible
that, after the attack,
sasha's mother fended off
the cave lions.
A full-size angry rhino
would've been
an intimidating sight.
♪♪
That might be why
we have so much
of sasha's remains preserved,
but it still doesn't answer
why we don't see more remains
of baby wooly rhinos elsewhere.
One theory as to why we don't
see so many baby wooly rhinos
is that the number of rhinos
was so much smaller,
in comparison
to other megafauna,
such as the wooly mammoth.
♪♪
Irving: Scientists believe that
wooly rhinos bred incredibly slowly.
Low birth rates meant
that mother rhinos needed
to be fiercely protective
of their young,
from predators
and other dangers,
in order for the species
to survive.
The bursitis might explain why
sasha succumbed to the lions,
but it doesn't really explain
why we haven't found
any other baby wooly rhino.
Narrator: There's still
a lot we don't know
about why sasha
is such a rare find,
but, perhaps, with time,
the ice may reveal
more secrets
about the wooly rhino.
Narrator:
A mind-boggling wreck
at the bottom of a frozen lake
in the rocky mountains.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
It's part building,
part machine.
It defies explanation.
Sounds like science fiction,
but it's 100% true.
An ancient mummy
with strange tattoos
is unearthed from the
siberian permafrost.
They warned that disturbing
the mummy's frozen tomb
would trigger an ancient curse,
causing bad luck,
illness, even death.
♪♪
The discovery of the frozen body
of a 5,300-year-old
stone age man
launches the oldest murder
investigation in history.
Rose: And this
wasn't just a murder.
This was a brutal killing.
It's clear that something
pretty dramatic went down.
♪♪
These are
the strangest mysteries,
trapped in the coldest places.
Lost relics,
forgotten treasures,
dark secrets,
locked in their icy tombs
for ages.
But now as ice melts
around the world,
their stories
will finally be exposed.
[ wind whistling ]
♪♪
High in the altai mountains
of siberia,
on the borders of russia,
mongolia, and china,
lies the ukok plateau.
♪♪
You get the sense that no one
has set foot here
for thousands of years.
There's just nothing here.
But if you look carefully,
you see these large mounds
rising up out of the grassland.
♪♪
What are they?
♪♪
When you look closer,
you realize
they're actually made of rocks
piled on top of one another.
♪♪
It makes you wonder,
"what's underneath?"
narrator:
Beneath one of these mounds,
a team of russian archeologists
will make a discovery so unique
that it will capture the world's
imagination for decades to come.
♪♪
It was a near perfectly
preserved corpse of a woman,
buried by herself in a tomb,
along with all manner
of fine clothing and riches.
♪♪
It turns out they'd
stumbled across one
of the only tombs left intact
after centuries
of being plundered.
The gold, jewelry,
and secret artifacts
are all in perfect condition.
♪♪
But who on earth was this woman
and was there
a mysterious reason
this tomb was spared
from looting?
♪♪
Narrator: It's immediately
apparent to archeologists
that this woman held
a significant place
in her society.
And it's not just the treasure
that tells them so.
It's the fact
that she's buried alone.
♪♪
Until they know more,
archeologists call her
the ice maiden.
♪♪
The ice maiden was a member
of the scythian pazyryk culture,
iron age nomads
who roamed these lands
between the 6th
and 2nd centuries bce.
The pazyryk were horse people
who traveled to the
ukok plateau in the winter
to graze their cattle,
which they raised
for food and clothes.
They traded goods with the
merchants of china,
india, and persia,
and knew how
to defend themselves.
O'keefe: You didn't want
to mess with these folks.
Think the dothraki
from "game of thrones."
horses, beards, tattoos,
muscles... same deal.
♪♪
Billson: The pazyryk were truly
nomadic, living and dying on the move.
They buried their dead in groups
by constructing burial sites
called kurgans.
♪♪
They had to wait until summer
to bury their dead,
when the permafrost
warmed up just enough
to dig 10 feet down
into the earth.
♪♪
Narrator:
Women were always buried
with their husbands,
never alone.
So why does this ice maiden have
a whole kurgan all to herself?
What makes her so special?
♪♪
Narrator: Archeologists
examine the tomb,
looking for clues
to her identity.
Behind the northern wall of the
ice maiden's burial vault,
they discover the skeletons
of six horses,
fully bridled and saddled,
laden with ornate wooden
ornaments pressed in gold foil.
Whoever owned these horses
cared for them greatly
and treated them
with the utmost reverence.
Narrator: But it's not
only the gold and riches
that capture
the researchers' attention.
There's something odd about the
way the horses are arranged.
It appears that the horses were
bound before they were buried.
♪♪
And, if you look
at their skulls,
they all have these
similar-shaped holes in them.
Just about the size
of the sharp end of a pickax,
narrator: All of it indicates that
these horses were sacrificed,
perhaps to accompany the
ice maiden into the afterlife.
O'keefe:
Were these her horses?
Could she have been a warrior?
Narrator:
Exploring this theory,
researchers turn
to the mummy itself,
peeking out from beneath one
of her shirtsleeves is a tattoo.
When they pulled the clothing
back to reveal it fully,
these are just
the most beautiful,
elaborate tattoos
of fantastical beasts,
running up the length
of each arm.
♪♪
The pazyryk are known
for having some
of the most sophisticated
and intricate tattoo art
in history.
It's amazing how modern
these tattoos look,
both in terms of design
and execution.
They could've been
inked last week
and you wouldn't know
any different.
Narrator: But these
weren't just beautiful.
They had a purpose.
Billson: Tattoos, for
the pazyryk people,
were like an I.D.,
or a passport to the afterlife.
They believed it was the only
way that family members
would recognize them
in the spiritual realm.
Narrator: Could the ice maiden's
tattoos be a code to her identity?
The animal imagery is
out of this world.
Real animals, mythical animals,
upside-down animals,
inside-out animals.
Narrator: On the ice
maiden's left shoulder
is a deer with a griffin's beak
and capricorn's antlers,
both symbols
of courage and boldness.
The mouth of a spotted panther
with a long tail
is seen at the legs of a sheep.
Now, this is
the interesting part.
These annual patterns
mirror the tattoos found
on the body
of a pazyryk warrior chief
dug from the ice
earlier this century.
♪♪
Even more interesting is that
the warrior chief himself
was also buried with horses,
just like the ice maiden.
That's most likely
not a coincidence.
She's wearing thigh-high,
felt riding boots
and a wooden breastplate
that looks suspiciously
like it could be armor.
Narrator: All of it seems to
support the warrior theory,
all except one glaring omission.
O'keefe: She wasn't
found with a single weapon.
No ax, no sword.
The pazyryk warriors lived
and died by their weapons.
Surely, if she was a warrior,
she would've been
buried with one.
Narrator:
So, if she wasn't a warrior,
who was she?
Bellinger: Beside her head
is a dish of coriander seeds,
herbs, and roots.
And cannabis.
♪♪
Narrator: Historically, herbs
and roots have been associated,
throughout many traditions,
with healing practices.
Was the ice maiden some kind
of spiritual healer?
♪♪
What better way to communicate
with the spiritual world
than with the assistance
of a pinch
of medical-grade cannabis?
♪♪
Bellinger:
My guess?
She was a shaman,
a high priestess whose visions
provided a direct channel
to the gods and ancestral
spirits of the pazyryk people.
Narrator: It's a valid theory,
but they can't be sure.
Archeologists decide
to transport her body
to the lab, to find out more.
But when the local
altai mountain people hear
about their plan, they protest.
They believe she
shouldn't be moved at all.
They warned that disturbing
the mummy's frozen tomb
would trigger an ancient curse,
causing bad luck,
illness, even death.
Narrator: Researchers
dismiss the warnings
as harmless superstition.
But, before the helicopter
carrying her body tries
to take off the mountain,
something goes terribly wrong.
Did they unwittingly awaken
the curse of the ice maiden?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The helicopter carrying
a 2,500-year-old frozen mummy
known as the ice maiden
nearly crashes during the
excavation process
and has to make
an emergency landing.
The accident confirms
the altai mountain people's
worst fears.
The locals cautioned
the archeologists
that disturbing her body
would unleash the fury
of her ancient spirit.
♪♪
In a case of real life
imitating myth,
bad things did start to happen.
Shortly after she was removed,
there was a series
of 300 earth tremors,
which is highly unusual
for this region.
♪♪
Narrator:
That was just the beginning.
They had hailstorms raining down
balls of ice
the size of goose eggs.
♪♪
There were forest fires
and an inexplicable rash
of suicides.
The timing of all of this
was eerily coincidental.
Narrator: Archeologists
were undeterred.
They believed the mummy's
body held secrets
that only science could reveal.
They performed a series of tests
to try to uncover
her true identity.
Radiocarbon dating
showed that she was
between 25 and 28 years old
when she died,
but that, in itself,
isn't significant
because the lifespan of a woman
from the iron age
would've been
around 30 years old, anyway.
X-rays show
that she had suffered
some broken bones prior
to her death,
the kind that, say, would happen
by falling off a horse.
But it wasn't anything
too serious.
♪♪
Bellinger:
It was curious.
Her skull was intact
and there were no marks
on her body
to indicate that she suffered
any sort of fatal injury,
but the state of her
soft tissue suggested
that she had been
severely emaciated.
Had she been ill?
♪♪
It wasn't until scientists
gave the ice maiden an mri
that the answer started
to take shape.
Narrator: Magnetic
resonance imaging results
revealed a shocking piece
of the puzzle.
They found a tumor
in her right breast.
♪♪
Rose: It appears she
had breast cancer.
♪♪
And it very likely killed her,
after spreading
to multiple organs
over a number
of excruciating months.
Given her obvious
high rank in society,
there's no other reason she
would've been so emaciated.
Only cancer
would've had that impact.
♪♪
Cannabis use was widespread
throughout pazyryk culture,
so, rather than signifying
her role as a shaman,
perhaps this woman was simply
using the cannabis
as a painkiller.
♪♪
Rose: In the museum, they
were able to take a closer look
at what she was wearing.
They discovered that
her long-sleeved golden shirt
was made of silk,
which, back then,
was more prized than gold.
♪♪
She was definitely
a woman of means.
She had gold earrings,
as well as a pouch
that contained a small mirror,
meticulously decorated
with blue beads.
Narrator:
Laying beside her in the tomb
were two wooden tables,
decked out
with meat and drink...
A feast fit for royalty.
Only the most powerful women
in this society
could afford items like these,
like the wives
or daughters of chiefs.
In other words,
she was probably a princess.
♪♪
The locals have been calling
the mummy the altai ice princess
from the moment
she was discovered.
It's possible they've known
exactly who this mummy was,
right from the very beginning.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: At the bottom of
an icy lake in jasper, alberta,
lies a mystery that may unlock
a top secret world war ii plan.
This is the last thing
you'd expect to see
at the bottom of a lake.
♪♪
Somara: I've never seen
anything like this before.
It's part building,
part machine.
It defies explanation.
♪♪
Narrator: Sitting on
the bottom of the lake,
under 130 feet of icy water,
lies a strange series
of tangled, rusting pipes
and wooden boards.
It's not a boat or a plane,
or any vehicle I've seen.
Maybe it's some kind
of a machine.
Could the pipes be part
of a steam engine?
♪♪
There's no furnace
to generate steam,
no gears to run, no wheels.
It's definitely
not a steam engine.
♪♪
If it was a water
pumping station,
it should be on the shore,
not in the water,
and there's no place
to pump water to.
♪♪
Narrator:
What is this wreckage
and how did it get
to the bottom of a lake
in the middle
of the rocky mountains?
♪♪
And why are so many history
buffs exposing themselves
to freezing waters,
just to get a glimpse of it?
♪♪
If you add up
all the components,
it appears that, originally,
this structure was
about 60 feet in length
and about 30 feet wide,
which is about the size
of an average houseboat.
♪♪
Somara:
The pipes, they're unique.
If we could figure out
what was being transported
through the pipes
and where it was going,
it might help us
figure this out.
♪♪
Narrator: Judging from
the design of the pipes,
it looks like it could be part
of an elaborate
refrigeration system
that runs through the heart
of the structure.
♪♪
Somara:
That's interesting.
It looks like the pipes
are there to carry
some sort of fluid or air
around the building,
which would've removed
the heat and kept it cool.
♪♪
Irving: You have the same
kind of thing in your fridge,
but this is
on a much larger scale.
It's more like the kinda
thing you'd expect to see
in a giant commercial
cooling facility.
♪♪
O'keefe: There are no shelves,
no racks, no place to put anything.
You wouldn't just
pile things on the floor
in the middle of a giant wooden
frame to keep them cold.
Narrator: What is an intricate
refrigeration system doing
inside a 60-foot
wooden structure
in the middle of a frozen lake?
Some believe the answer lies
in one of the strangest,
and most ambitious,
ideas of world war ii.
♪♪
Narrator: A mind-boggling
wreckage at the bottom of a lake
deep in the rocky mountains
defies explanation.
♪♪
The entire building
was one big refrigerator.
Now, that,
in itself, is strange,
but why is it
at the bottom of a lake?
And, even before it got there,
what was it trying
to keep frozen?
♪♪
Narrator: The answer may
lie thousands of miles away,
in winston churchill's
top secret documents
from world war ii.
♪♪
Britain's ability to win
the war against the germans
depended on tons of supplies
sent across the atlantic
in ships manned by civilians,
but there weren't enough
warships to protect them all
and allied ships
were being sunk faster
than they could be replaced.
The aircraft, at the time,
didn't have sufficient range
to provide air cover
for the allied ships,
leaving them at the mercy
of the germans.
Narrator: More than 650,000
tons of supplies were sunk
in June of 1942, alone.
[ explosion ]
the allies were desperate
for a solution, any solution.
♪♪
Enter geoffrey nathaniel pyke.
♪♪
Irving: Pyke was this
wonderfully eccentric inventor.
He was working
with the british war office
when he came up
with this wild idea.
Basically, what he wanted
to do was drag
a giant piece of ice
from the arctic
to the middle
of the atlantic ocean
and use it to land planes on.
♪♪
Narrator: Pyke called
the project habakkuk,
a hebrew name,
meaning "he that embraces."
that is an outlandish plan,
but the british were willing
to try anything.
So, on December 4, 1942,
winston churchill signed
the most secret memo,
approving project habakkuk,
to make secret aircraft carriers
out of icebergs.
♪♪
Sounds like science fiction,
but it's 100% true.
Narrator: As crazy as it sounds,
the project had many benefits.
Building materials, like steel,
were in short supply
during the war.
Ice was cheap and plentiful
and, at the time,
icebergs were thought
to be indestructible.
After the titanic sunk in 1912,
the international ice patrol
was formed,
to remove the threat to ships.
But the patrol quickly found
that they couldn't actually
destroy any icebergs.
They tried guns, bombs,
even torpedoes.
So what better ship
to take on new boats
than an immense iceberg,
immune to torpedoes?
♪♪
Somara: They even came
up with a new substance
to make the icebergs
even stronger...
A mix of wood chips and ice,
which they called pykrete,
after geoffrey pyke.
They thought it
would be so durable
that it might absorb
a torpedo blast,
making the ice warship
utterly invincible.
♪♪
Narrator: But ice does have one
weakness they knew they had to overcome.
While it might be invincible,
when it comes to bombs
or torpedoes,
it was completely vulnerable
to warm weather.
♪♪
So how do you keep
an iceberg from melting
in the warm southern waters?
A giant refrigeration system.
♪♪
Narrator: To test the
design, and whether or not
it was possible
to keep ice constantly cold,
scientists and engineers
began constructing
a scaled-down prototype
on the frozen surface
of lake patricia, in jasper.
The lake in alberta
was close to a railway,
where they could move
supplies to the project.
♪♪
It was also near a large camp
of mennonite and doukhobors,
who were sitting out the war
as conscientious objectors.
These men supplied the labor
for the construction.
♪♪
Irving: The lake was also remote
enough to keep the project top secret.
'cause if you're gonna build
a giant, secret ice warship,
you wanna keep it away
from the eyes of the germans.
♪♪
Narrator: The full design
was 2,000 feet long.
It had multiple buildings
on the surface of the ice,
crew quarters and hangars
dug out in the center
of the iceberg.
♪♪
Somara: 2,000 feet is more
than twice as long as the titanic,
and the vessel would've
weighed over two million tons.
It would've had space
for over 300 planes
and the vessel could withstand
waves of over 50 feet high.
♪♪
Their design is completely nuts
and it's also
completely amazing.
So, why didn't they use
these ice ships in the war?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The prototype
of a world war ii
aircraft carrier
made entirely of ice
never made it
out of development.
The hms habakkuk
stayed afloat and frozen
through the summer of 1943,
but was abandoned in the fall,
when churchill called
an end to the project.
♪♪
The allies began using
iceland, and portugal,
as bases to refuel their planes,
which negated the need
for floating aerodromes.
♪♪
Somara: Newer planes, that could
patrol for longer, were introduced,
and more accurate radar
helped track u-boats.
The war was starting to turn
in favor of the allies.
♪♪
O'keefe: They just didn't
need the ice warships.
Too bad.
Would've been epic.
Narrator: The fantastical
aircraft carrier made of ice
never became a reality.
But the fact that
it was developed at all
is a testament to the power
of a great idea,
no matter how impractical
it may seem at the time.
The wreckage continues to draw
divers from across the planet,
eager to explore one
of the most bizarre
secret military projects ever.
♪♪
10,000 feet above sea level,
in the iconic italian alps,
an ancient murder mystery
lies waiting to be discovered.
You're thousands of feet up
from a picturesque valley
with a stunning view
of the mountains
and there, in the ice,
is something that's
totally out of place.
♪♪
It's pretty shocking to come
across something like that
because it's entirely not
what you're expecting to see.
♪♪
Narrator: When two alpine hikers
stumble across a body in the ice,
they assume it's
an unfortunate mountaineer.
♪♪
But a closer look reveals
that what they found
was far stranger,
and far older.
♪♪
The body turns out to be
a 5,300-year-old mummy
lying face-down over a rock
and preserved perfectly
for all that time.
♪♪
They call the body
otzi the iceman,
after the otztal alps,
where the body was found.
His hair, organs, and skin
are almost entirely intact.
♪♪
Incredibly,
through the examination,
it was discovered
that otzi had been shot
in the back by an arrow,
which means, surprisingly,
otzi was murdered.
♪♪
Rose: And this
wasn't just a murder.
This was a brutal killing.
It's clear that something
pretty dramatic went down here.
♪♪
Narrator: This
archeological find just turned
into the oldest murder
investigation in the world.
♪♪
Otzi lived at the end
of the stone age,
a time before countries,
before kings,
where most people survived
by hunting and gathering.
But this was a turning point
in human civilization.
People were just
starting to farm.
But, as populations grew,
so did competition
for this land
and the resources on it.
Some were willing
to kill for it.
Who, then, may have wanted
this man dead?
When scientists examine
the arrow wound,
they find the flint arrowhead
still lodged deep
in his left shoulder.
♪♪
Irving: The arrow injury
was the cause of death.
It punctured an artery,
caused massive bleeding,
and ultimately proved fatal,
narrator: Given how deep
the flint arrowhead was lodged,
they determined that he
was attacked from a distance.
He was shot
from over 100 feet away.
The archer would've been
highly proficient
with a bow, to make that shot.
Narrator: Now, they
know how he died,
but not who killed him,
and why.
♪♪
They turn to the ancient
crime scene, looking for clues.
Otzi is still wearing one
of his shoes,
made of grass and skin.
He's carrying a bow
with a quill full
of broken arrows,
and he has a backpack
full of tools.
♪♪
Irving: His clothes were
leather, and extremely well-made.
Plus, his shoes were designed
for walking on the snow.
♪♪
Clarke: For his era, this was
top-of-the-line survival gear.
These would've been
desirable items
essential for mountain survival.
♪♪
Rose: He also carried flint
weapons and a copper ax.
Otzi would've been one of the
best-equipped for his time.
A tool kit like that means
he had prestige and status.
♪♪
O'keefe: Copper tools
were extremely rare.
Most people of this era
were still using stone tools,
so a copper ax would've been
considered priceless.
Bellinger: Looking at the
evidence, you have to wonder
if robbery was a motive
for this murder.
Were this guy's possessions
worth enough to somebody
to kill him?
♪♪
Irving: There's one big
problem with robbery
as a motive for otzi's murder.
If they wanted his stuff,
they could've just taken it.
♪♪
Bellinger: Who would kill
someone for their possessions,
but then leave them all behind?
Particularly that copper ax,
which would've been
incredibly valuable at the time.
Narrator:
So, if it wasn't theft,
what was the motive
for this murder?
♪♪
Perhaps his killer came
from a rival tribe,
or, maybe, he had an enemy
within his own tribe.
♪♪
As researchers examine
the body further,
they discover the arrow wound
is not his only injury.
Rose: Otzi also had a very
grievous wound on his right hand,
a cut between a thumb
and the forefinger.
Billson: The injuries appear
to be defensive wounds,
so maybe he
fought off his attacker
before fleeing and getting
shot in the back.
♪♪
When scientists investigated
the wounds to otzi's right hand,
they discovered
that the injuries showed
signs of healing.
This would imply that the
injury was somewhere
around 24 to 48 hours old.
Narrator: When they
analyze the broken arrows,
they find the blood
of two other people on them.
This leads them to think that he
must've killed those people,
otherwise, he wouldn't have been
able to retrieve his arrows.
♪♪
All told, it's clear
that otzi was involved
in multiple attacks or fights.
This wasn't a one-off ambush.
♪♪
Clarke: Considering
the nature of his injuries,
one has to wonder
what was going on here.
Was this an ongoing battle?
Was this a singular conflict?
Like what kind of trouble
was otzi in?
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The discovery
of a 5,300-year-old mummy
high up in the italian alps,
with an arrowhead
lodged in his back,
launches an ancient
murder investigation.
Who killed otzi, and why?
♪♪
After finding additional
defensive wounds on his hand,
which appear to be
from an entirely
different incident,
researchers wonder if otzi was
simply having a very bad day
or if there was something
more sinister going on.
The key question here is,
was this a series of unrelated
violent encounters
and pure coincidence,
or was it a two-day-long
sequence of violence
that led to his murder?
♪♪
If we can piece together his
movements over his final days,
it might shed light
on what led to his death.
Narrator:
How do you figure out
where someone was
over 5,000 years ago?
Irving:
Otzi is a wet mummy,
that means all the
internal organs and body fat
were well-preserved.
Wet mummies are
much more rare to find
and can offer scientists
much more information
than dry mummies.
Narrator: Scientists
autopsy otzi's body
and make
an intriguing discovery.
Otzi is so well-preserved
that he still has food
in his system.
It's a very rare thing to see
in anything this old.
The speed of human digestion
hasn't changed much
in 5,000 years,
so, if we look at how far along
the food was in his system,
from stomach to colon,
we can tell approximately
when he ate it.
♪♪
The oldest food in his system
was 33 hours old,
so we're able to see everything
he consumed since then.
♪♪
Not only can we determine
when otzi ate,
but pollen analysis tells us
where he ate as well.
♪♪
Irving:
When otzi ate his meals,
he consumed pollen
at the same time as his food.
We find different kinds
of pollen
at different altitudes
within the mountains.
So, by analyzing the pollen,
we can estimate approximately
how high up he was
when he ate those meals.
♪♪
Narrator: Trees in this
area release their pollen
at various elevations,
the hornbeam releases it
at lower elevations.
Conifers?
Much higher up the mountain.
The background pollen, mixed in
with the food that otzi ate
about 33 hours before his death
came from pine and spruce,
which only grow in the alpine
and subalpine regions.
This suggests that otzi was near
8,000 feet in elevation
when he had that first meal.
♪♪
O'keefe: From this, we can learn
that he was at a high elevation
when he consumed that meal
33 three hours before his death.
We can tell that otzi's
first violent encounter
occurred around this time,
based on the extent of healing
on his hand wound.
Narrator: The next layer of
pollen they find is hornbeam,
which tells them that,
shortly after he ate this meal,
otzi rapidly descended
from the mountain peak
to the valley.
But was he running from the
fight where he was injured
or was he chasing someone
to finish them off?
♪♪
Irving: The valley floor
would've had very rough terrain
and lots of good places to hide,
so a great place
for a game of cat and mouse.
Was he the cat
or was he the mouse?
♪♪
O'keefe: So he's down
at the bottom of the valley,
nine to 12 hours
prior to his death,
but his body was found back up
to 10,000 feet nine hours later.
To climb 10,000 feet
over the course of a full day
is a huge undertaking.
And to think that he did that
after already having
come down 8,000 feet.
He must've been
an incredible athlete.
And, not only that,
but very, very motivated.
♪♪
Narrator:
But without any witnesses,
researchers still can't
answer these questions.
All they can do is speculate.
We can tell a lot
about his last 33 hours,
but we still don't know if he
was the hunter or the hunted
and we don't know if he
was killed by an enemy
or by somebody
from his own tribe.
♪♪
What we do know
is that he fought
and injured several people
before he died,
he was moving fast
and erratically,
with his weapons
in need of repair
and his hand seriously injured.
♪♪
Rose: He was shot in
the back from a distance.
Either someone didn't
wanna get too close
to this heavily armed killer,
or he was running for his life
from a deadly enemy.
♪♪
Bellinger: It's possible that
otzi came out on the wrong end
of a tussle
with a neighboring tribe.
Equally, he could've had
a deadly confrontation
with members of his own tribe.
Narrator: The coldest case in
the world will have to remain on ice,
at least, for the time being.
♪♪
Otzi's body and equipment
continues to be studied
and, perhaps, with time,
may reveal further clues.
♪♪
♪♪
On the banks of an icy stream
running through the heart
of the siberian permafrost
lies a secret never
before seen on the planet.
This is a little stream
feeding a small river
in the middle of the wilderness.
Irving: The only way to reach
this site would be by boat or on foot.
It's hundreds of miles
from any town.
It's not just remote.
It's nearly inaccessible.
♪♪
Narrator: While on a hunting
trip in search of reindeer,
two russian businessmen
spot something on the bank
that they think might be
a telltale sign of their prey.
These hunters spot
a small patch of fur
sticking out of the ice and mud.
They think it might
lead them to game,
but what they find
is astonishing.
♪♪
Narrator: The fur is
attached to the frozen remains
of a baby wooly rhino.
Scientists nickname
the rhino sasha,
after one of the hunters
who made the discovery.
A find like this
has never been seen before,
anywhere on the planet.
This is the first
and, so far, the only one.
♪♪
Scientists and archeologists
spend their entire careers
actively searching for a find
of this magnitude.
Irving: Wooly rhinos were actually
common in the plasticine era.
Many adult wooly rhino remains
have been unearthed
at other sites,
but baby rhino remains,
like this,
have never been found before.
♪♪
Rose: The truth is
young rhino remains
are almost completely absent
from the historical record.
It's one of these things
that really makes you
scratch your head and wonder.
Narrator: We have the remains of
other infant mammals from the era.
So why are wooly rhino
infants so rare?
The wooly rhino first
appeared on the planet
around 350,000 years ago.
Like their modern-day
counterparts,
wooly rhinos were herbivores
and lived alone or in very
small family groups.
Little else is known about them,
mainly because very few fossils
like this have ever been found.
Maybe sasha's cause of death
can help us understand
why the remains
of only one baby rhino
have ever been found
on the planet.
Narrator: Scientists
excavate sasha from the ice
and relocate the body
to the lab,
to find out what might've caused
the baby rhino's untimely death.
They clean and examine the body
and that's when they make
a surprising discovery.
What they thought was
gray fur covering sasha
turns out to be
strawberry-blond hair.
The hair color's
a really extraordinary detail
that we could've never taken
from fossil evidence, alone,
and what sasha is telling us
is that the wooly rhino
appeared very different
from the rhinos of today.
♪♪
Rose: And there's
more than just hair.
Sasha's skin, and several
other organs, are also intact.
This provides us
with lots of evidence
as to what happened to sasha
and gives us a lot
of information about an animal
that is at least
10,000 years old.
♪♪
Narrator: Sasha's lungs
and airways are also intact,
allowing scientists to make
an interesting revelation.
Irving: There's sediment
in both of sasha's airways.
The left nasal airway
is completely blocked.
That suggests that the rhino
could've become trapped
in a mud hole.
Narrator: This makes scientists
wonder if sasha drowned.
Rose: Sasha was found
frozen on a riverbank.
Perhaps there was
some kind of an accident
that caused sasha to end up
in the water and mud and drown.
♪♪
Narrator: But some parts
of the story just don't add up.
♪♪
If drowning is the cause
of death,
we'd expect to see some serious
injury or damage to the lungs.
That finding would help
confirm the cause of death.
Narrator: Scientists
continue their examination,
in search of more evidence that
could confirm sasha's drowning.
But what they find
takes the investigation
in an entirely new direction.
♪♪
♪♪
Narrator: The remains
of an infant wooly rhino
found in the siberian permafrost
raises questions
about how it died.
Scientists hope the answer
will reveal more
about why so few
baby rhino fossils exist.
Sasha's remains show signs
of serious injuries.
We can see strange markings
in the lower half
of sasha's body,
indicating that it was ripped up
or damaged in some way.
♪♪
These aren't the sort of
injuries you get from drowning,
so, what else
might've caused them?
♪♪
Billson: Could these injuries
have occurred in a natural disaster?
Maybe sasha was crushed
in a rockslide or avalanche.
♪♪
Irving: There are no
wounds to be found
on the head and shoulders
of the remains.
It would be extremely unlikely
for one part of the body
to be affected in a rockslide
or an avalanche,
but not the rest.
You'd expect to see injuries
all over the body,
including the head
and shoulders,
so this doesn't appear to have
been a natural disaster.
Narrator: Archeologists take a
closer look at the strange markings
on the lower part
of sasha's body.
Rose: Some of the wounds
look like puncture wounds
that were made
by a sharp object.
So could humans have hunted
and killed sasha?
Narrator: Evidence shows
that humans moved into the area
about 40,000 years ago.
The wooly rhino remains
are between 10,000
and 34,000 years old.
Narrator:
So, sasha would've been living
side-by-side
with ancient humans.
Rhinos are big animals
that travel in family groups.
Would humans of that time period
have been able to overpower
and bring down
even a small rhino?
♪♪
Irving: Remains from
elsewhere in siberia suggest
that humans were hunting
and killing
adult wooly mammoths.
Now, mammoths are much
larger than rhinos,
so, in theory, these rhinos
shouldn't have been too big
for the prehistoric hunters.
Narrator: But closer
examination of the injuries
doesn't support this theory.
♪♪
Irving: The injuries on sasha's
body appear to be too uniform,
too even, to be
from multiple spear strikes.
There appears to be tearing
around the wound
that wouldn't be characteristic
of a spear attack,
which you'd expect to make
a much cleaner puncture wound.
It's unlikely these were
caused by spear points.
Narrator: If sasha
wasn't killed by humans,
who killed her?
♪♪
The wounds on the body
have a distinctive pattern,
that repeats itself.
From the way they're arranged,
they look a lot
like teeth marks.
From the size and the shape
of the puncture wounds
and the way they're arranged,
it suggests sasha was attacked
and partially consumed
by a large predator.
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists determine
that the injuries on the body
are bite marks,
consistent with a large cat.
One of the large predator cats
that would've hunted
the wooly rhinos
during the pleistocene era
was the cave lion.
We haven't seen the remains
of other baby rhinos
killed this way.
If cave lions were
slaughtering baby rhinos,
why aren't we finding
more remains like sasha?
♪♪
Narrator: Scientists still have
lots of unanswered questions.
From the x-rays, we can see
that sasha had bursitis,
which would've
seriously inflamed
the rhino's knee joints.
This would've slowed it down,
maybe prevented it from running,
and that could've made sasha
more vulnerable to the lions.
So it's possible that sasha ran
from a cave lion attack,
but the bursitis
might have meant
that the little rhino
wasn't fast enough to escape.
♪♪
Bellinger:
One thing is strange.
Lions usually consume most
of the flesh of their prey,
but sasha was only
partially consumed.
Why didn't the lions
finish their meal this time?
♪♪
Billson: It's possible
that, after the attack,
sasha's mother fended off
the cave lions.
A full-size angry rhino
would've been
an intimidating sight.
♪♪
That might be why
we have so much
of sasha's remains preserved,
but it still doesn't answer
why we don't see more remains
of baby wooly rhinos elsewhere.
One theory as to why we don't
see so many baby wooly rhinos
is that the number of rhinos
was so much smaller,
in comparison
to other megafauna,
such as the wooly mammoth.
♪♪
Irving: Scientists believe that
wooly rhinos bred incredibly slowly.
Low birth rates meant
that mother rhinos needed
to be fiercely protective
of their young,
from predators
and other dangers,
in order for the species
to survive.
The bursitis might explain why
sasha succumbed to the lions,
but it doesn't really explain
why we haven't found
any other baby wooly rhino.
Narrator: There's still
a lot we don't know
about why sasha
is such a rare find,
but, perhaps, with time,
the ice may reveal
more secrets
about the wooly rhino.