Strangest Things (2021–2022): Season 2, Episode 3 - The Mask of Agamemnon - full transcript

NARRATOR: Could this really be
the man who destroys Troy

with the mythical wooden horse?

Schliemann's been quoted
with saying he'd gazed upon

the face of Agamemnon.

NARRATOR:
Is this corroded metal plate

a weapon of mass destruction?

It's the equivalent of
a nuclear bomb.

NARRATOR: And can these weird
chalk cylinders

unlock the mysteries
of Stonehenge?

It's a giant puzzle,

and we don't have
the picture on the box.



NARRATOR:
These are the most remarkable

and mysterious objects on Earth,

hidden away in museums,
laboratories, and storage rooms.

Now, new research
and technology

can get under their skin

like never before.

We can rebuild them,

pull them apart,

and zoom in

to reveal the unbelievable,

the ancient,

and the truly bizarre.

These are the world's
strangest things.

In the National Archaeological
Museum in Athens is



one of the most iconic finds
from ancient Greece.

Some claim it's proof
that one of

the greatest myths
in all of history is true.

Now, with
the latest technology,

we're bringing this mysterious
object out into the light.

This is
the Mask of Agamemnon.

Agamemnon
is said to have been

the Greek king who
led the siege against Troy.

He was seen
as a mythical king, really,

not someone who is real.

NARRATOR: But if this
is Agamemnon's mask,

then he is very real.

Roughly 10 inches tall
by 7 inches wide,

it is crafted from
a single sheet of gold.

Every detail is painstakingly
embossed into its surface.

PLUMMER SIRES: You get the sense
that you're really staring

into a person's face from
thousands of years ago.

NARRATOR:
But is that really true?

This don't look like
anything that

we see in Greece in
this period.

NARRATOR:
Or was it conjured up by

an archaeologist obsessed with
turning myth into reality?

Looks like the mask had been
redone or repurposed.

NARRATOR: So is this enigmatic
relic the real deal?

Who is the man
behind the gold mask?

And could finding him
really rewrite history?

1876.
Southern Greece.

German archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann is searching for

a legend in the astonishing
ruins of the Bronze Age

citadel, Mycenae.

Mycenae was clearly
an important town.

It had huge stone masonry
walls, which were these large

boulders or blocks, uh,

reportedly built
by the cyclops monsters,

basically because the walls
were so huge that only monsters

can build such a city.

So it was seen
as this grand, great place.

NARRATOR:
Inside the mighty walls,

Schliemann's dig unearths
a lost tomb complex.

ALTAWEEL: Schliemann discovers
remains of 19 individuals,

from children to adults,
men and women.

NARRATOR:
He uncovers a treasure trove.

ALTAWEEL: There were a number
of precious objects,

including gold and silver,
precious stones,

ornate kinds of jewelry,
even gold leaf covering

for at least
some of the bodies.

NARRATOR:
And he finds something unlike

any previous discovery
from ancient Greece.

Some of the bodies
that were buried in

these tombs had their faces
covered by gold masks.

NARRATOR: No one had seen Greek
death masks like these before,

each one crafted
from a single sheet of gold.

ALTAWEEL: Four of them are
relatively plain in decoration.

What stands out is one mask,

which was actually
quite decorative.

It has more detail.

It looks more like a face
we would recognize.

NARRATOR: It becomes known
as the Mask of Agamemnon.

Has Schliemann really uncovered
the tomb of a mythical king?

Schliemann's been quoted with
saying that he'd written

to the King of Greece,

saying that he'd gazed upon
the face of Agamemnon.

NARRATOR:
Who is Agamemnon,

and why is finding
him such a big deal?

According to myth,
Agamemnon was one of

the most powerful kings of
Greece at the time.

NARRATOR:
Agamemnon's story is told

in the Iliad
and the Odyssey,

the mythical poems of ancient
Greek writer, Homer.

According to Homer,
Agamemnon wages

a legendary 10-year war
against Troy.

It ends when his soldiers
breach the mighty citadel by

hiding inside
a giant wooden horse,

the famous Trojan horse.

The story of the war of Troy
is one of the most important

narratives in the history of
myth and literature.

But is that all it is,
just a myth?

According to Homer,
the Trojan War happened

over 3,000 years ago,
in a mysterious age

we know little about.

Disentangling these stories
and trying to find out

what's truth
versus what's a story, uh,

is not an easy task.

The problem with these stories
is they were full of characters

who seemed potentially quite
real -- kings and warriors that

seemed possible.

But it also had all kinds of
mythological creatures.

We read about the cyclops,
the one-eyed giants.

We read about other sort of
great monsters

fighting these heroes.

NARRATOR: And hard evidence is
very thin on the ground.

Places like Troy,
where the conflict is centered

upon in the Iliad, um,
was not known.

It was for --
many scholars have

considered Troy to be
completely mythological.

NARRATOR: Gods, monsters,
mythical lands --

it's all a bit hard to swallow.

So what makes people think
that this really could

be Agamemnon?

By the time
he finds the mask,

Schliemann has already spent
years obsessed with proving

the Iliad is more than just
a tall tale.

Schliemann thinks that many of
the famous classical stories

like the Iliad were true,

that they were full of
real characters,

not just mythological
kinds of stories.

So he was obsessed
about proving this.

NARRATOR: And Schliemann's
first step is to

hunt for the legendary city
of Troy.

For millennia,

there have been whispers
that the ruins of Troy

are buried somewhere in
the northwest

of modern-day Turkey.

In 1870,
Schliemann begins to excavate

at a site called Hisarlik.

PLUMMER SIRES: Hisarlik was
a man-made mound -- in the past,

it would have been a lot
closer to the coastline,

which means it had a good sight
for incoming ships,

but it also meant that it was
a really good position within

the Mediterranean for trading.

So the location of it
makes sense.

NARRATOR:
After three years of digging,

Schliemann hits the jackpot.

He uncovers a lost city.

There's evidence of
destruction and fire,

which would match well
with the story

that Troy was sacked
by the Greeks.

He finds a group of
high-valued objects,

gold and other kinds of
objects, that he associates with

Priam, the king of the Trojans,
the key character in the Iliad.

NARRATOR:
It is one of the greatest

archaeological finds
of all time.

The discovery of Troy proved
that actually it was not

just some mythological place,
but a real city that existed.

NARRATOR: It's music to
Schliemann's ears.

If Troy is real, what other
myths could be true?

So now, having found a key
location of the Iliad,

his next mission was to find
one of the characters.

NARRATOR: Schliemann
zeroes in on Agamemnon.

According to Homer, after
victory in the siege of Troy,

Agamemnon heads home
to Mycenae,

where he is murdered
by his wife's lover

and buried by the city walls.

This is exactly
where Schliemann finds

the extraordinary gold mask
and seals his fame.

There was a media frenzy,
because it seemed that it was

definitive proof that
the mythological king

of the Greeks during
the Trojan War was real.

NARRATOR: Which is remarkable,
because for decades,

other archaeologists had tried
and failed to find proof of

the Trojan War.

But in the space of just three
years, Schliemann uncovers both

the central location
and the leading man.

ESCOLANO-POVEDA: Schliemann
seemed to be finding

everything that would
corroborate his story

of these mythical figures

being buried
exactly where he was digging.

NARRATOR: Schliemann is either
extraordinarily lucky,

or is it just
too good to be true?

NARRATOR: The mask of Agamemnon
is unlike anything discovered

before from ancient Greece,
and for some experts,

that was a problem.

At the time
of Schliemann,

this would have been a very
odd find, because we don't have

anything like this
from Ancient Greece.

You actually have to go
to Egypt to find

something similar,

this gold mask that would be

placed on the heads of
the deceased.

NARRATOR: And Schliemann
doesn't find just one

never-before-seen mask,
he finds five of them.

For some people,
that was too much.

They didn't believe
that this was authentic.

They thought that
maybe Schliemann

actually had them
forged somehow.

NARRATOR: Not only does
the mask seem out of place,

but Schliemann's reputation
was highly questionable.

People had doubts about him.

They know he was very
charismatic and very

resourceful and very passionate
about what he was doing,

but they didn't always
necessarily believe him.

ESCOLANO-POVEDA: Many of
the objects that he had found

in Troy seemed to belong to
different periods, and he

seemed to have been putting
them together in order to

create these groups of objects
that were very impressive.

They thought that he maybe
just made up stories sometimes.

NARRATOR: And he's done more
than just spinning a tall tale.

Schliemann was actually accused
of smuggling

part of the treasure of Priam

and actually had to pay a fine
because of this

to the Turkish government.

NARRATOR: So it's not exactly
surprising that some suspect

that Schliemann fakes
the discovery of this mask.

But there is a problem
with this accusation.

Schliemann was being observed
during excavations

at Mycenae by Greek officials.

Schliemann was a controversial
figure, so people didn't

completely trust him,

um, and he was being
watched all the time

he was excavating.

NARRATOR: Most scholars
now believe that Schliemann

simply never
had the opportunity

to slip in fake masks
to the dig site unobserved.

They are certain

the mask of Agamemnon is
genuinely ancient,

but some still thought that
something about it smelled off.

Examined in detail,

the crisp features,
the individual hairs of his

beard and handlebar mustache,
really make the mask of

Agamemnon stand out.

The look of the mask
was quite different

from the other masks
that were found.

NARRATOR: The level of detail
seems out of place in something

so ancient.

Some scholars have suggested
it looks more akin

to Classical period
kinds of looks or appearances.

So this is about 700 years
after the story of the Iliad,

around 500 BC.

NARRATOR: So the accusation
is that, ironically,

it looks a bit too Greek
for something so old.

ALTAWEEL:
The idea came that perhaps

Schliemann reworked the mask.

NARRATOR: Visible under
high magnification,

there's one detail that stands
out to scholars.

The mustache looks like
it's been flipped.

It was sort of
pointing upwards

but maybe at one point was
pointing downwards.

NARRATOR: The argument is that
Schliemann didn't have

the opportunity
to slip in a fake,

but maybe
he reworked the original.

ALTAWEEL: It was not very clear
what it looked like.

It initially was removed
from the grave.

It was only photographed some
weeks after its discovery.

So there was a period of time

where someone could have
potentially altered the mask.

NARRATOR: But there is
a flaw in the argument

that it looks
too detailed to be genuine.

It may be different to many
Mycenaean artifacts,

but its look is not unique.

ALTAWEEL: There was
a drinking vessel that was found

with a mane,

a kind of depiction on
the lion, and this mane

was quite similar
to the beard and mustache

of the Agamemnon mask
in terms of the style.

So this gave support,
potentially,

that Agamemnon's mask may
have come from a period

similar in time
to this drinking vessel.

NARRATOR:
Which has finally led to one

very obvious conclusion.

The consensus is that
the mask is real.

It does represent a mask that
was created in antiquity rather

than something that was forged
much later.

NARRATOR:
So is this really the face of

the mythical destroyer of Troy,
King Agamemnon?

The problem is,
with Schliemann,

little is ever quite
as it seems.

Take his undisputed
discovery of Troy.

Schliemann stopped digging
when he found evidence of

a settlement that had suffered

a great fire, and he believed
this to be evidence of

the Trojan War.

What he didn't perceive at
the time is settlements had been

built one on top of each other
almost like a layer cake.

So once a settlement was
abandoned, centuries later,

another one would be built
on top.

ALTAWEEL: What he found was
actually a much earlier city.

Um, and the real Troy from

the period of the Iliad was
actually dug through.

He went right through it
without noticing it.

NARRATOR:
And it seems that Schliemann

got his timings wrong
at Mycenae, too.

The tomb in which
the mask was found doesn't date

to the time in which Agamemnon

is supposed to have lived.

NARRATOR: The mask was found
in a shaft tomb.

And recent studies show that
the Mycenaeans stopped

building these around 300
years before the Trojan wars.

The consensus does seem to be

that the mask
is a genuine artifact,

it just isn't King Agamemnon.

NARRATOR:
If not Agamemnon,

who is the man
behind the gold mask?

NARRATOR:
This fabulous golden object

is known as
the Mask of Agamemnon.

Unfortunately, it turns out
to be hundreds of

years too old for the mythical
destroyer of Troy.

ALTAWEEL: It may
have not been Agamemnon,

but it certainly was
an important individual,

perhaps even a king, who was
buried in this death mask.

NARRATOR:
Recent research suggests

he was a powerful figure.

The Mycenaeans during
the Bronze Age dominated most of

the Mediterranean when it came
to trade and culture

and warfare.

NARRATOR: His influence
would have reached

across the entire region.

ESCOLANO-POVEDA: In the
excavations in Mycenaean cities,

we have found a tomb of
a warrior with lots of elements

that are connected with other
civilizations of the area.

NARRATOR: It seems this king
could have had contact

with a very powerful
and very famous civilization.

We have been able to find
a little head

of the goddess Hathor,
which is an Egyptian goddess.

NARRATOR:
And that could explain where

the Mycenaeans get the idea

for this stunning gold death
mask in the first place.

ALTAWEEL: So it's quite
possible, for instance,

that the Mycenaeans had seen
similar masks on deceased kings

and pharaohs in Egypt and
thought this was a great idea.

NARRATOR: The fact that
this mask isn't the face of

Agamemnon doesn't make it any
less remarkable

or less important.

And the real Agamemnon
might even be

a descendant of this man.

Troy turned out to be real.

So why not Agamemnon?

Behind glass in
the International Spy Museum

in Washington, D.C.,
is a corroded copper plate.

This is an object worth
more than its weight in gold.

NARRATOR: Now, using
the latest technology,

we're bringing it
into the light.

By expanding the object
and zooming in,

faint markings become visible
etched across its surface.

And by digitally removing
the corrosion,

we can finally
see them clearly.

AUERBACH: This object is covered
in tiny symbols and writing.

It's a really highly skilled
piece of engraving.

NARRATOR:
It's hard to read,

because everything
is back to front,

but flip the image,

and the words
"Bank of England" appear.

AUERBACH: As you look
more closely at it,

you see a sign for 10 pounds
and a date, 1937.

This is a printing plate for
making British 10-pound notes.

NARRATOR: Something this
valuable should have been

locked away
in the British Treasury.

But this plate isn't
discovered in a London vault.

It was found in 1959
in the most unexpected

of places -- at the bottom
of an Austrian lake.

NARRATOR: How does it end up
at the bottom of the lake?

Where does it come from?

Is it even real?

By the 1930s, the 10-pound
note design is over

150 years old,
and it shows.

They were printed
just on white paper.

There was no use of color.

They were printed on one side,
there was no embossing,

there was no metal stripe.

NARRATOR:
The note is produced using

a printing plate
exactly like this.

SELLA: That's going to be
an incredibly carefully

engraved object,
onto which you place the ink,

and then you press it
onto the paper

to produce the final product.

NARRATOR: But close examination
of this plate reveals

a flaw --
next to the abbreviated word

for company is an extra sliver
of metal that

would leave a dot of ink
on the note.

Does this error mean
it's a fake?

Quite the opposite.

The Bank of England
thinks they've got some neat

little tricks
to fool the forgers.

BALL: Britannia has only
one earring instead of two.

And there were a few little
dots that were meant to

look like printing errors
but were actually put there

on purpose.

And the idea was
that these little flaws

were extremely hard to
identify and to replicate.

This was to
deter counterfeiters.

NARRATOR:
By the 1930s,

the notes have up to 150 marks
hidden on them.

The tiny dot on this plate
is definitely one of them.

Others may have been
eaten away

from this plate
after years underwater.

They were made from very,
very fine bits of metal.

Those fine details are exactly
the ones that will corrode

first of all.

NARRATOR: Britannia,
for example,

has been almost
completely erased.

But based on what remains
of this plate,

there seems to be
nothing about it

that indicates
that it would be

anything other than
a genuine printing plate.

NARRATOR: So what is a British
bank plate doing almost

700 miles from London at
the bottom of

Lake Toplitz in Austria?

The key clue to the plate's
origin is that the divers

who find it are searching for
an infamous hoard of treasure.

AUERBACH:
Towards the end of the war,

people see German soldiers
bringing wagons with chests in

them and dropping them
into the lake.

Now, nobody knows
what's in those chests,

but of course, everybody wants
to believe it's Nazi gold.

NARRATOR: But when they dive to
the bottom of the lake in 1959,

it's not gold they find.

AUERBACH: They discover
this copper plate.

NARRATOR: Which raises one
very obvious question.

Why did the Germans have

a printing plate for British
10-pound notes?

NARRATOR: Historians searching
for answers have

zeroed in on secret
Nazi files,

a plan code-named
Operation Andreas,

a deadly scheme to bomb
Britain with money.

The plan is to airdrop
30 billion pounds

in forged notes
over Britain.

BALL: The British people
would find this money and would

start to use it,
and that by, you know,

feeding that into the economic
system, it would undermine

the whole basis of currency
and really

collapse the economic system.

NARRATOR: Britain would end up
in such huge financial distress,

it would be unable
to wage war at all.

Germany would win
without firing a shot.

It's the economic equivalent
of a nuclear bomb.

NARRATOR:
All they have to do is produce

a perfect counterfeit plate.

How are they going to do that?

NARRATOR: A top secret
Nazi plan is going

to destroy Britain
without firing a shot.

Operation Andreas
sets up shop in

a stone mansion
west of downtown Berlin.

The building that they use
is an SS training center

that had already been used
to produce false documents

and forgeries.

NARRATOR: The Nazis
recruit mathematician

and code breaker
Albert Langer to run it.

AUERBACH: He's a highly
skilled scientist,

but he also believes
that King Arthur was real.

He believes that the British

flag contains astral
magical symbols.

Langer comes up
with a fiendish plan --

use a light-sensitive
and acid-resistant dye

to create a perfect copy of
a real plate.

Langer's plan was, to begin
with, to take as perfect as

possible a photograph of
a genuine 10-pound note,

and then to transfer that image
onto a plate using

this acid-resistant dye
that would enable

the rest of the plate
to be etched away.

And so you'd have
a perfect printing plate

for a 10-pound note.

NARRATOR: But even with the best
cameras, Langer struggles.

BALL: None of them
looked convincing

close up, and in fact,
Langer himself said that

the reproduction
of Britannia herself

just looked like an old hag.

NARRATOR: Langer's genius plan
is a flop.

He is forced to abandon

science for old
fashioned craftsmanship.

He hires expert engraver,
Walter Ziedrich.

Even for him,
this is a challenging job.

The engraver has to capture
all those little marks,

those little intentional flaws

that characterize
the genuine thing.

NARRATOR: Britannia
is particularly tricky

for the Nazi forgers.

Getting the eyes right
was incredibly difficult.

NARRATOR: It takes Ziedrich
six attempts to make

a perfect-looking plate.

AUERBACH: Now,
we don't know for sure

if this is one of
Ziedrich's plates.

It's not like a forger
can sign his own work.

All we know is that it was

important enough
for them to hide it.

So this was really one of
the better versions.

NARRATOR: But a perfect plate
alone isn't enough.

The Nazis
also need the right paper.

It's actually gotta
feel right.

Is it smooth?
Is it slippery?

Does it fold correctly?
Does it sound right?

Langer was so obsessed
with this

that he actually got some
blind people to test this out.

They wouldn't be distracted by
the look of it and really be

able to listen to the crackle
of the note as it folded.

NARRATOR:
Langer thinks he's cracked it.

All he has to do is
prove it to his paymasters.

AUERBACH: The story goes that
the Germans sent an officer

across to the Swiss border with
a forged passport and a whole

bunch of these forged pound
notes, and then they tipped off

the Swiss authorities that
someone's going to try to cross

the border with fake documents.

They assumed, and they were
right, that the Swiss would

check both the passport
and the money.

Well, they spot
the forged passport.

They know it's a forgery,

but as far as they're concerned,
the money is legitimate.

NARRATOR:
Langer has pulled it off.

They're ready to destroy
the entire British economy.

But on the brink of victory...

[record scratches]

...Operation Andreas
unexpectedly grinds to a halt.

BALL: The problem with
this plan to bomb Britain

with money is that
you have to be able

to get the airplanes
over Britain to do that.

And after the Battle of
Britain, that just

wasn't going to be possible
for the Luftwaffe.

NARRATOR: It's all gone
wrong for Andreas.

Is this the end of

the greatest counterfeiting
operation in history?

In July 1942, Hitler's
spymaster, Heinrich Himmler,

is struggling to pay
his network of foreign agents.

He needs cash
and lots of it,

but Germany doesn't have
any spare...

unless they print it themselves,
of course.

He doesn't care whether or not
the money they have is forged.

NARRATOR: Himmler's code name
for the new plan is

Operation Bernhard,

named after the man put
in charge,

SS Major Bernhard Krueger.

He's a much better choice than
Langer, because this is a guy

experienced in
the art of forgery.

He himself has produced
fake documents.

NARRATOR: The 10-pound plate
and all of the other

equipment have been gathering
dust in a Berlin basement.

Krueger takes it all
to his new forgery HQ,

Sachsenhausen,

a concentration camp
north of Berlin.

One of the main problems
with Andreas

was they had all kinds of
intelligence leaks.

This explains why they set up

the new operation in
the concentration camps.

They could keep it under wraps
if they did it there.

NARRATOR: There is no risk of
workers leaking information out

of the new base.

AUERBACH: Sachsenhausen
is a labor camp,

a vicious, brutal concentration
camp where its occupants can be

executed at any time
and without reason.

NARRATOR:
But Krueger's operation treats

the largely Jewish prisoners
very differently.

He goes to great lengths to
try to make the workers

on his project happy
and comfortable --

distributes extra
rations, cigarettes,

even sets up ping pong tables
for them to amuse themselves.

NARRATOR: By 1943, Operation
Bernhard is in full swing.

The counterfeiting plates turn
out high-quality fake money on

an industrial scale.

Lines of prisoners pass
the notes between them

to make them look used.

The very best,

the ones that were
almost flawless,

were good enough to give to
German spies for

their activities.

NARRATOR: Himmler's spies
are never told

they were receiving
counterfeit money.

The second grade were used
to launder money

throughout Europe.

NARRATOR: And the less
convincing bills

are not circulated.

The lowest quality
of notes were kept

in a room labeled
Abwurf, meaning airdrop.

BALL: That idea
that perhaps one day they

would be air dropped hadn't
been completely abandoned.

NARRATOR:
But it never happens, again.

Germany loses the war.

The work of this plate is
a bust...

...or is it?

The scale of what
Bernhard and Andreas

had actually achieved was
a real shock to the Allies.

NARRATOR: The airdrop plan
may have failed,

but this plate and others like
it still do enormous damage.

It seems that the scheme
was actually

surprisingly effective.

There were over 130 million
pounds of fake notes produced,

around 10 percent
of all sterling on the market.

With just
a little more effort,

this scheme could actually
have been extremely,

disturbingly effective in
disrupting the British economy.

NARRATOR: This remains the only
known surviving plate from

the greatest counterfeiting
operation ever mounted.

Had this plate
and the others like it,

had they done their job,

this could have been one of

the most devastating weapons
of the Second World War.

NARRATOR: In the British
Museum's archives

are three mysterious
chalk artifacts.

They are
a 5,000-year-old puzzle.

Ever since these objects were
discovered in the 19th century,

archaeologists have been
uncertain as to

what they were made for.

NARRATOR: Now, using
the latest technology,

we're bringing these incredible
artifacts into the light.

They are known as
the Folkton Drums.

Although these are
called drums,

they most definitely were
not drums.

It's merely
because of their form

that we have
called them this.

NARRATOR: Each one is
intricately carved.

They're beautiful objects
with geometric

and curvilinear designs,

some that even suggest
a stylized human face.

NARRATOR: But that's not
the strangest thing about them.

These three objects were
incrementally different sizes.

NARRATOR: Each one is .84 times
the diameter of the next

biggest drum.

Small, medium, and large.

They had a mathematical
relationship with one another.

NARRATOR: This is unknown
for Stone Age artifacts,

but new research suggests
an explanation,

one that connects them to

the greatest monument of
the entire Stone Age.

These objects could be related
somehow to Stonehenge.

NARRATOR: What is the meaning
behind this precise

geometric sequence?

What are
these bizarre markings,

and can these
extraordinary objects

unravel the secrets
of Stonehenge?

NARRATOR: 1889, Folkton,
Northern England.

An amateur archaeologist,
excavating a burial mound

finds something unexpected.

The Canon William Greenwell
discovers a grave of

a child, probably around
five years in age.

NARRATOR: The tomb is Neolithic,
a period in

the British Isles that spans
around 4000 to 2500 BCE.

And next to the body

are these three
strange artifacts.

They were placed very
deliberately within it,

behind the head and hips.

NARRATOR:
But what were they for?

Archaeologists have offered
some intriguing ideas.

One holds that
they were a mnemonic device,

an object that would
prompt memory and assist

an individual, for example,

telling a story
to a group of people.

That was a function
of the tactility

of it,
of the lines, incised,

and the shapes, that as
the finger would follow,

They would prompt the next
part of the story.

NARRATOR: Another theory is
that they are talismans.

MacDONALD: They feature
carefully engraved decoration,

showing what could be
interpreted as human eyes.

Might seem to suggest
that they were watchers,

that they are somehow
overseeing the sleep of this

child in death
within the tomb.

That they are, in a sense,
protective objects.

NARRATOR: That fits with
the drums' resting place,

but it doesn't explain
the most puzzling thing

about them.

Their sizes form a precise
geometric sequence.

It's not clear
why this should be the case.

NARRATOR:
Now, new research suggests

that the answer
could lie in one

of the greatest and most
mysterious monuments of

the Neolithic world --
Stonehenge.

The drums are dated
to around 3000 to 2500 BCE,

the same time that
Stonehenge is being built.

The scale and precision of
Stonehenge suggests

that it must have
an important function --

a pagan temple,
a ceremonial burial ground,

and astronomer's
solar calendar.

We're still looking
for answers.

In the early 2000s,
archaeologists

Andrew Chamberlain
and Mike Parker Pearson

investigate the layout
of the site in detail.

BELLINGER: They went to measure
the concentric circles of

Stonehenge and discovered

something quite extraordinary,
that each of them was

a multiple of a measurement of
1.056 modern feet,

which they called
"the long foot."

NARRATOR:
And the long foot doesn't just

appear at Stonehenge.

Two miles away is a site
known as Durrington Walls.

Durrington Walls
itself may have been

a settlement for people
who are creating Stonehenge.

It also features
a now-disappeared henge

monument, which was probably
made in wood.

The Durrington Wall
site happened to have

circular structures,
which also have

this ratio to
the long foot.

NARRATOR: The further afield
researchers look,

the more structures they find
that seem to be built using

this same measurement.

The Ring of Brodgar in
Orkney, 500 miles away,

and the Great Circle in
Newgrange, over 300 miles away

across the Irish sea, they all
seem to use the long foot.

What's so intriguing is
the possibility that it

represents a standardized
measurement system that was in

use not just in the immediate
vicinity of Stonehenge,

but potentially throughout
Neolithic Britain.

NARRATOR: It's as if someone
sent a memo to everyone

across Stone Age Britain
to agree the same system,

and yet this was
5,000 years ago,

almost 3,000 years before
writing even appears in Britain.

Formerly, when we looked
at Neolithic Europe,

we imagined
small farming communities

living in relative isolation.

BELLINGER: if there was
a standard measurement system

in use at the time,

well, the next question becomes,
how are they sharing it

with one another?

NARRATOR: Recently,
an archaeologist

has found
an extraordinary possibility,

a link between the long foot
and the mysterious drums.

Could they hold the answer to

these strange connections
right across the country?

The Folkton Drums have

a precise mathematical
relationship to one another.

NARRATOR: The largest drum is
5.575 inches in diameter.

The next 4.88,
and the next 4.1.

Each one is .84 times the size
of the next biggest drum.

Could this simply
be coincidence?

In 2016,
a researcher at

Manchester University
discovers something amazing.

Dr. Anne Teather
examines the smallest drum

and discovers that its
circumference is 1.056 feet.

NARRATOR:
The long foot.

Dr. Teather takes a cord
measuring exactly 10 long feet.

She wrapped it around
the smallest of these

chalk drums, and it went around
10 times precisely.

NARRATOR: She repeats the test
on the other two drums.

She did the same
with the larger drums,

and it went around eight
or seven.

NARRATOR: This suggests
an astonishing possibility.

One theory is that these drums
could have been used as

portable devices for
the wrapping around of cords,

for the creating of standard
measurements, for laying out

buildings or monuments.

NARRATOR: The suggestion is
that these are like

5000-year-old
measuring tapes,

but with only one
isolated find,

it could all
be coincidence,

except...

it's no longer
just one find.

In 1993 in West Sussex,
50 miles from Stonehenge,

archaeologists discover
another drum.

But this time
with no carved decorations,

almost as if
it were unfinished.

NARRATOR: When Dr. Teather
tests the new drum with

the 10 long feet cord,

it wraps around
exactly nine times.

The idea that
these strange drums are

tools for the architects of
Stonehenge is attractive,

but there's one very
big problem.

The drums are made out
of chalk.

There is a problem with chalk,

particularly if you're using
it for some kind of

measuring standard.

It is soft,
and it erodes easily.

If these objects were
part of some Neolithic toolkit,

then you'd expect to see marks
of wear upon them.

NARRATOR: But up close,
there are no cord marks

or signs of damage from
regular use as tools.

But weirdly,
in Neolithic Britain,

not all tools
are made to be used.

We call these sorts
of objects skeuomorphs,

objects which were
functionally in one material,

but for which replicas can be
made in another material,

which is not
functionally suitable.

A good example of this would
be a chalk ax,

which, while looking
like an ax,

would shatter if you actually
used it like an ax.

And we've actually found such

a chalk ax from near Arundel
in Britain.

NARRATOR: The working theory
is that the real drums would

have been made of something
more durable, like wood.

So why make copies
out of chalk?

MacDONALD: Their use appears
to have been largely ritual.

It would appear that
the long foot measurement had

an important symbolic as well
as functional use in

this society.

We may view
these two realms,

the functional
and the spiritual,

as different
phenomena today,

but for the people of
the past, this was not the case.

NARRATOR: That fits with
the long foot being used

at a ritual site
like Stonehenge

and why the drums
might be buried in

a tomb.

But if the drums really are
connected to the monuments,

how is it they were found

hundreds of miles
away from any of them?

New evidence that Durrington
Walls may hold an answer.

BELLINGER: Researchers analyzed
38,000 teeth and bones

from animals that had been
butchered and consumed

at the Durrington Walls site,
and they were quite astonished

to find that many of them
had come from

as far away as
the northern tip of Scotland,

500 miles.

NARRATOR: Archaeologists have
had to rethink

ideas of Neolithic
communities being isolated.

There was a huge amount of
contact, and not just with

neighboring communities,

but communities that spanned
the British Isles and could

have even included
the continent.

NARRATOR: The idea that
knowledge of measuring drums

could have
traveled hundreds of miles

no longer seemed so strange.

People were
traveling long distances,

and when people come together,
they share ideas.

They talk,
they talk about religion,

they talk about
what they've experienced.

It's what humans always do.

NARRATOR: These beautiful
and strange chalk objects

are fundamentally
challenging our views

on both the skills
and the beliefs of

the Stone Age people who
crafted them 5,000 years ago.