Unearthed (2016–…): Season 2, Episode 10 - Sex, Lies, and the Taj Mahal - full transcript

The Taj Mahal,

a monument of unparalleled,
almost impossible beauty.

Today,
investigations are revealing

an astonishing new story to this
magnificent mausoleum...

Rajani: It's really strange.

Now that I know it,
I can never not see it.

A set of hidden clues
left by an emperor

obsessed with increasing
his own power.

Can cracking the Taj Mahal's
hidden symbolic code

reveal the truth
behind this marvel?

To solve these mysteries,



we will blow
the Taj Mahal apart.

We'll look within
its flawless marble walls

and beneath its
gravity-defying dome

to reveal the incredible secrets
of this iconic wonder.

Captions paid for by
Discovery Communications

Millions visit India?s
Taj Mahal every year,

drawn to its striking beauty

and touched by the tragic tale
at its heart.

Emperor Shah Jahan began
building the Taj in 1631,

a tomb for his wife,
Mumtaz Mahal,

lost giving birth
to their 14th child,

and it has been
a symbol of love ever since.

But hidden within these walls
lies another story,

an astonishing tale of power,
obsession, and betrayal.



The Taj Mahal
is a masterpiece.

The gigantic mausoleum sits on

a 100,000-square-foot
marble platform

surrounded by four
identical 140-foot towers.

The building's domes and arches

are a symphony
of symmetrical design.

And behind
12-foot-thick walls,

an eight-walled tomb
built for a tragic empress.

Said to be perfect
from every angle,

this majestic structure
is both a building

and a work of art.

The Taj Mahal has become
an icon of its home country.

Its stunning outline is familiar
from countless films

and photographs of India.

But how Indian is it,
really?

Adhitya Dhanapal
believes the Taj's shape

and structure help reveal
a very different origin.

The best place to uncover
the Taj's true story

is just outside the building,

In the bustling streets
of Agra.

The Taj building
seems to stand out

from those that surround it.

As in Shah Jahan's time,

the majority of
India?s population

follow the Hindu religion,

a belief reflected in
the style of buildings.

Hindu shrines and temples
are bright and colorful,

very different
to the sober mausoleum

just a few hundred yards away.

Hindus worship
a diverse array of gods.

As a tomb
built in honor of an empress,

the Taj represents
a deeply sacred structure,

but it has none of the imagery
of the Hindu religion.

Why?

The walls of the Taj reflect
emperor Shah Jahan's

very different religion.

The four tall towers
are minarets,

more commonly seen on mosques
in the middle east.

The pointed archways
on top of the windows

and gateways are
an ancient Iraqi design.

What looks like intricate
patterns around the walls

are entire passages
from the Quran.

And inside the mausoleum,
each of the eight walls

symbolizes one of
the eight gates to paradise.

The Taj is richly infused
with the imagery

and symbolism of Islam.

This mausoleum isn't just
a symbol of the Shah's love.

It's also a display of his
personal power and beliefs.

Shah Jahan was
an Islamic outsider

occupying a largely Hindu land.

His ancestors conquered
from the east,

creating a vast territory
known as the Mughal empire.

He had power over a quarter
of the world's population.

How did he manage to win over
so many different people?

Above the rooftops,
Adhitya spots a clue.

At the very top
of the Taj sits a shape

seen in Hindu
religious ceremonies.

The Shah realized
that imposing his culture

and religion
on the local population

might win him more enemies
than friends.

He had to be
a shrewd politician

to keep control
of a massive empire

made up of many
different faiths.

But thanks to the laws
of his religion,

he was still able to display
his true conviction

in a very discreet way.

Unlike the colorful
gods seen in Hindu buildings,

human and animal imagery
is largely forbidden in Islam.

So the Shah laid a set
of hidden clues in the Taj,

a secret symbolic code
that revealed his true faith

only to Islamic observers.

The mausoleum floor
bears an eight-pointed star

repeated in a potentially
infinite geometric pattern,

a reminder of the infinite
nature of Allah.

The perfectly proportioned
calligraphy on the gateways

is an art form in itself.

To an Islamic eye,

it symbolizes
god's love of beauty.

And the walls of the tomb

are covered in
ornate floral engravings,

evoking the rich abundance
of paradise.

The Taj was not built
just as a monument to lost love.

It's a billboard for the Shah
to spell out his beliefs.

And now researchers
are uncovering

a whole host
of different messages

encoded in the Taj's walls.

What does the obsessive hunt
for one very particular stone

reveal about the Shah's lust
for supreme power?

Legend states
India's Taj Mahal

was built out of undying love,

driven by emperor Shah Jahan's
grief after his wife's death.

But the building also holds
clues to different motives.

The Shah's unusual choice of
stone reveals his megalomania.

He never missed an opportunity
to promote his own power.

Previous Mughal emperors
had monumental mausoleums

and forts built largely
from the local red sandstone.

The Shah broke with tradition

and used rare and expensive
pure white marble.

So why choose
this particular stone

just for a tomb
for his late wife?

This massive tomb
contains several thousand

half-ton blocks
of pure white marble.

And to support this mass
of heavy rock,

a 12-foot-thick
supporting skeleton,

millions of locally sourced
red sandstone bricks,

form a hidden backbone.

There is around
20 times more sandstone

in the building than marble.

Iron dowels anchor the marble
firmly in place

so the Taj's precious
facade never slips.

Why did the Shah
go through all this trouble

just for a skin
of white marble?

The answer lies in the hidden
propaganda message

this stone could carry.

Today, there is a rare chance
to find out just how far he went

for the pure white marble
he so desperately desired.

Munazzar Ali oversees
an urgent project

to restore the Taj's
main gateway.

Here, 300 yards from the main tomb,

the Shah used white marble
mostly as a decorative inlay.

As rain and sun
wears sandstone away,

the decoration disappears.

Replicating
the Shah's building plan

is no simple task for Munazzar.

White marble
was key to a message

the Shah wanted to proclaim
with his mausoleum,

but to begin to decipher
this message

means first finding
the Shah's stone.

The nearest source
lies over 200 miles away,

the Makrana marble mines.

Abhinandan Bansal runs
one of the quarries here.

Extracting
the right color of marble

is a real challenge.

First, miners pry off
a three-ton chunk of stone.

Then cranes carefully raise
the block to the surface.

Even using today's
heavy lifting equipment,

the process is difficult
and dangerous.

In the Shah's time,
it was even tougher.

First, quarry workers descended
into 200-foot-deep trenches

to reach the pure marble seam.

Using simple hammers
and chisels,

they broke away
six-ton blocks.

Rope-and-pulley cranes
operated by elephants

raised the marble
from the trench.

Each block had to be hauled
200 miles to the Taj.

On site, specialist stone masons
split the blocks

and worked them
into perfect tiles.

Ropes and pulleys allowed
the builders to once again

harness the power
of the elephant

to raise the tiles
into place.

Creating pure white marble tiles
is a daunting task even today.

Even within a few inches,
colors can change dramatically.

Workers carefully
align each block

so the white marble vein
runs the right way.

Then they use five-foot-long
saws to slice up the block,

dividing it into sections
by color.

After a day of hard work,

Abhinandan has marble tiles
to match the Taj.

The effort required
to obtain pure white marble

is immense,
so why did the Shah choose it?

The answer lies in
the types of buildings

that usually order marble
from Makrana.

White stone buildings are often
the houses of Hindu priests,

the highest social class,

so perhaps the Shah's
white walls

were a piece of propaganda

aimed directly at
the local population,

a way to declare almost
god-like power over his people.

Once complete, this facade
will dazzle today's tourists,

but it once would have
made locals

think of the Shah's
supreme authority.

And there's even more to
the Shah's symbolic code.

The Taj's gravity-defying dome

is key to the sacred status
of the building,

but how it was built
is a complete mystery.

Will modern-day engineers
crack its secret?

And does the building's
extreme symmetry

conceal an even deeper code,

a symbolic master plan?

Rajani: It's really strange.

Now that I know it,
I can never not see it.

India's Taj Mahal
is more than a mausoleum

built for a lost love.

The building's structure

contains a set
of hidden messages

that reveal
the very different motivations

behind emperor Shah Jahan's
masterpiece.

The Taj's dome is
its most spectacular feature,

almost half the height
of the entire mausoleum

and spanning 60 feet.

It forms a crucial element
of the Shah's symbolic code.

But it's also the source
of this building's

most enduring
construction mystery.

Because no accurate accounts
were made

at the time it was built,

no one knows exactly how
the dome was put together.

How they did building
at that time

and exactly what
the structure consists of,

we're not really sure.

Structural engineer
Steve McKechnie

heads a team who specialize
in designing

large and unconventional
buildings,

including
the Singapore Sports Hub,

the biggest dome
in the world today.

Now this team is going to use
their modern-day expertise

to investigate a nearly
400-year-old legend

surrounding the Taj's dome.

The challenge with
building a dome is that

as it arches inwards,
the roof can become unstable.

Worried about a collapse,
legend has it

the Shah's engineers
built a huge tower of bricks

for his unfinished dome
to rest on,

and once the dome
was finished and stable,

the Shah simply opened
the gates to the Taj,

and locals,
desperate for bricks,

stripped the tower overnight.

It's a great story,
but Steve's not sure

the colorful legend of the
Shah's brick tower stands up.

McKechnie: Building a solid
support and then taking it away,

it would be a huge
number of bricks

that you would need
to fill that space,

and it would be just
a little bit daft, I think.

We've had a bit of a discussion
here in the office

about how the builders
would have made this dome,

so we're going to have a go
at building our mini-Taj

at 1 to 160 scale.

The dome is built

by stacking bricks
one on top of the other.

McKechnie: The purists
would tell you

that a dome needs to have
its bricks arranged

with their bed joints
perpendicular

to the thrust in the arch,

so the bricks go like this
and like this

and the next one
goes like that.

Tilting the stone
to form a curve

is the conventional way
to build a brick dome.

When complete,

it creates an incredibly strong
inner shell.

But building a dome this way,
the bricks would probably need

substantial support
during construction,

making the solid brick tower
a more likely possibility.

Steve has a different theory.

McKechnie: My theory is
they corbelled bricks.

That means that you lay
one brick sticking out

a little bit beyond
the brick below,

and you make a space
underneath by doing that.

So I can build up to here
so long as I?m careful,

and I?m leaving
space underneath,

and then you build up brick
behind to keep it stable.

This stepped curve
needs thick walls

to stop the overhanging bricks
from falling in,

but the advantage is this dome
could potentially be built up

with no solid support
underneath.

And once the team adds mortar to
lock the bricks firmly in place,

the structure holds firm
all the way to the top.

McKechnie: We've built
this model here,

and I think that my theory
has been proven.

My feeling is that
that's a more practical

and buildable way
of having built this dome,

so I think that's the most
probable method that was used.

Perhaps using
this clever technique,

the Shah's engineers
could have raised

the Taj's massive dome without
a solid brick support.

And the dome's
gravity-defying shape

was a key part
of the Shah's symbolic code.

The Taj's base is a square,
representing earth.

The dome has an almost
circular outline,

the perfect shape
to remind the viewer

of the perfection
and eternity of heaven.

So the building is a model
of the entire universe,

with the tomb in between
a portal to paradise,

and as with everything else
with the Taj,

the Shah pushed this symbolism
to the limit.

The Taj's massive,
almost circular dome

sent out a strong
symbolic message,

reminding onlookers
of the perfection of heaven.

But from the inside,
because it's so tall,

it could have looked like
a cavernous black hole,

making observers
feel uncomfortable,

so the Shah's
engineers cheated.

They built a false marble
ceiling

nearly a hundred feet
below the apex.

This dome within a dome
brings heaven closer to earth,

allowing the Shah to make
a symbolic statement

both outside and in.

And right at the heart
of the building

lies one of its
greatest mysteries.

In this tomb built for
an empress lie two bodies,

not one.

The second is
the emperor himself.

Was this part of his grand plan
or something darker?

There's more
to India's Taj Mahal

than its famous legend
of lost love.

At its very heart
lurks a massive mystery.

Whereas every previous
Mughal ruler

has an entire mausoleum
built for themselves,

there's something very different
about the Shah.

But looking inside
the Taj Mahal

reveals things
didn't work out that way.

Right at the heart
of the Taj,

dead center below
the apex of the dome,

is the sarcophagus
of empress Mumtaz Mahal.

But squashed in awkwardly beside
her is that of her husband,

Shah Jahan.

Both caskets are empty.

They're only decoys.

The real bodies are hidden
in a crypt just below,

in identical positions
to the ones above.

And they raise a question,

if the Taj Mahal is meant
to be a tomb for an empress,

what is the all-powerful Shah
doing squeezed right beside her?

Archaeologist Pratap Sengar
has spent decades

unearthing Mughal ruins

along the same river banks
as the Taj.

Like many,
he's eager to understand

why the Shah's sarcophagus
ended up in its awkward spot.

One popular theory
is the emperor's body

was forced into the Taj
against his wishes.

The Shah spent
the last eight years

of his life
in nearby Agra Fort,

imprisoned by his
power-hungry son, Aurangzeb.

Aurangzeb,
according to the popular theory,

placed his father
in the Taj out of spite,

deliberately destroying
the symmetrical layout

of the mausoleum
as a snub to the Shah.

But two miles upriver,
a building provides clues

to a very different explanation.

This is the baby Taj.

Completed just three years
before the Taj began,

it's a tomb for
a distant relative of the Shah.

After years of neglect,

Pratap's team is returning
this once-magnificent tomb

to its original splendor.

This rebuilding work
reveals that the mausoleum

was a key influence
on the Shah's plans for the Taj.

The similarities
to the Taj Mahal are striking.

Like the Taj,

the building's four sides
are identical.

Four waterways once flowed
through a garden

divided into four squares.

And there's one final similarity
at the heart of the building,

The baby Taj has an unusual
arrangement of coffins.

The tomb's main sarcophagus
sits dead center in the building

right at the heart of the site,

but sitting beside it
lies another coffin.

Like the Taj,
this second coffin

is the only asymmetrical aspect

of the mausoleum's
entire floor plan,

and it suggests that
this is perhaps

where Shah Jahan
found inspiration

for his own unconventional
resting place inside the Taj.

Nobody knows for sure,
but perhaps after the effort

of creating
the magnificent Taj Mahal

and cramming it with symbols
of his own power and status,

the Shah couldn't resist
lying for eternity

beside his beloved wife.

The influence of the Shah's
symbolic master plan

stretches even further.

It dictated the location
of the entire Taj complex.

Putting this massive building
right next to a raging river

was a very risky decision,

but could this precarious
position pay off

as another part of
the Shah's symbolic code?

The Taj Mahal is more
than just a symbol of lost love.

Its founder,
emperor Shah Jahan,

wanted the building
to state his own religious

and political beliefs.

The Taj's waterways
had to spell out

a very specific
religious message.

To Islamic eyes,

they needed to look
like rivers of paradise

that flow through
the garden of Eden.

But to realize
this vision of Eden,

the Taj's builders had to site
the mausoleum perilously close

to the city's main water source,
the mighty river Yamuna.

How did they stop the Taj
from washing away?

The Taj might look ornate
and delicate,

but all the stone adds up
to nearly 40,000 tons.

To bear this colossal weight,

the builders needed
stable support.

They built huge
foundation pillars

that extend 40 feet
beneath the floor,

reaching through soft sand
to solid ground below.

There are over two dozen
of these giants

sitting right under
the Taj Mahal.

They anchor the marble monument
to the ground

and stop the Taj sinking into
the muddy riverbank.

So what part of the Shah's
secret code

made this extreme effort
worthwhile?

Lining the Taj's canals
are nearly 100 fountains.

They create an impression
of sacred springs

erupting with
the waters of life.

Today, electric pumps power
these elegant waterworks,

but in the 17th century,
visitors to the Taj

would've been astonished
at the spectacle

of so many jets
spurting into the air.

So how did the Shah's
engineers do it?

Rajendra Pandey studies
ancient water systems.

He's determined to found out
what could have driven

the Taj's 96 fountains.

Rajendra searches for
signs of 17th century plumbing,

any clues as to how engineers
could generate

the massive water pressure
needed to create

the Shah's symbolic
garden of Eden.

High on the bank,
he spots the remains

of the original waterworks.

Rajendra believes
this 17th century wall

could be the remains
of an ancient system

of raising water known as purs.

Designed to create
water pressure,

a purs starts with a line
of pulleys along a wall.

Workers rig up a line
of animal-hide buckets

which they lower into
the river below.

Once the water reaches
the top of the wall,

it pours into
a stone channel.

Then further sets of purs
lift the water

high above the Taj's garden.

But is this gravity-fed
system alone

enough to transform the garden

into the Shah's
vision of paradise?

Rajendra and his assistant
are going to test the theory.

Just like at the Taj,
this rooftop water tank

generates pressure
through gravity,

powering taps and showers
in rooms below.

First, the team attach
a rubber hose to the tank.

Then they carefully join
three identical nozzles

to act as the fountains.

But when the water
starts to flow,

there's a problem.

The jets from
the three nozzle don't match.

So how did the Shah's engineers
make nearly a hundred fountains

erupt to an equal height?

Underground investigations
may give the answer.

Beneath each fountain,

the water flows into
mysterious metal spheres.

Could these be a clue
to creating equal pressure?

Rajendra tries a new tactic.

He adds a matching set
of metal chambers.

In theory,

all the reservoirs
should fill first,

and only then will water
flow to the nozzles.

This way, each jet should erupt
with equal pressure.

Thanks to this
ingenious engineering,

the three jets rise
to the same height,

forming ever-erupting
springs of life

perfect for the Shah's
symbolic garden of Eden.

And beyond this
ingenious engineering,

there's more to the Shah's
symbolic puzzle.

The layout of the entire
Taj complex

has a hidden meaning
all of its own.

The Taj Mahal
is richly infused

with hidden symbolic messages.

They suggest more than
a simple story of lost love

lies behind the construction
of this majestic monument.

One aspect that strikes

many of the millions
of visitors each year

is the almost excessive amount
of symmetry built into the Taj.

Could this symmetry itself

be a part of
the Shah's symbolic code?

Landscape archaeologist
M. B. Rajani has found a position

directly opposite the monument
to measure the Taj's symmetry.

Rajani: Look at the monument.

You will see the left side is
almost same as the right side.

The decorations,
the structure,

the size,
the number of domes,

all are absolutely same.

It's very difficult
to really make out

any difference
from one side to the other.

Symmetry begins
at the heart of the Taj.

The Shah's central mausoleum
is an octagon,

surrounded by four square
and four octagonal chambers,

creating four planes
of symmetry.

On each of the four corners,
an identical minaret.

To match a mosque to the west,

the Shah built
an identical guest house.

The garden consists
of 16 squares,

4 small squares
inside 4 larger squares.

And across the river,

a mirror image of
the Shah's entire garden,

so the building sits
at the center

of a symmetrical floor plan.

And all this symmetry
forms a key part

of the Shah's
symbolic master plan.

Rajani: We do see
a lot of symmetry

and an attempt to achieve
perfection in Islamic art

and architecture,

trying to get close
to the almighty.

This is the reason
the Shah used symmetry

on such a vast scale.

Symmetry was a way
to show the perfection

and infinite nature
of his Islamic god

without directly representing
Allah?s image.

And like elsewhere in the Taj,

the Shah took this
symbolic idea to its extreme.

But Rajani's latest research

is finding something
very unexpected.

Rajani: So here is a photograph
which serves my purpose,

and I draw a line
making the left curve

and then I draw a line
marking the right curve.

After I have identified
the center of the drum

and used the software
to measure pixels

from the center line

to the right edge
and to the left edge.

The computer
counts pixels

on either side of the dome,

revealing an asymmetry
the naked eye struggles to spot.

Rajani: It is amazing
that there are angles

in which one side is larger than
the other by almost a meter.

The three-foot bulge
in the dome

may not be visible
at first glance,

but it represents a more than
five percent difference

between the sides.

How did this happen?

Rajani believes that

despite the Shah's
obsession with symmetry,

there was a limit
to how closely his builders

could match the need
for perfection.

Rajani: It's easier
to get symmetry in 2D layouts,

like in the gardens
of Taj Mahal.

For us, it would be very difficult

to get that symmetry in a 3D,
complex shape like the dome.

Any small discrepancy
in their measurements

would be amplified

when building something
as complex as the massive dome.

But even though
the millions of visitors

to the Taj may never notice,
this man-made flaw

may be an unconscious source
of the Taj's timeless beauty.

Rajani: The general perception
is beauty is in symmetry,

that beautiful people
have symmetry in their faces

and that's why
they are beautiful.

But actually, if you have
a closer look at any face,

it's not symmetrical at all.

True symmetry
is rare in the real world.

A little asymmetry
may be more familiar

to most people's
everyday experience.

Like the most beautiful faces,
the dome's tiny asymmetry

could be a significant part

of the Taj's
almost universal appeal.

Taj is not symmetric,

but it is still very,
very beautiful.

The Taj Mahal is
a true wonder of the world,

perhaps the most beautiful
building ever created.

But its legend of lost love
is far from the only tale

told by these majestic walls.

The building's hidden political
and religious messages

are perhaps just as powerful
and as potent

as its famous love story,
but in the end,

the story of love shines through
in a couple

destined to spend
eternity together.