Afghan Gold Full Documentary

Video Statistics and Information

Video

Captions Word Cloud

Captions

I am in the heart of Afghanistan on a personal quest searching for the greatest lost treasure in human history it's the treasure of Ahmed Shah Durrani and it's valued in today's currency and 500 billion dollars I'm following clues passed down to me through my own Afghan ancestry they point to an ancient cave complex lost somewhere in the mountains near Bamiyan travelling through Afghanistan is an arduous experience at the best of times these days with Taliban positions all around it's just about the most dangerous place on earth I've just tried to prolong report on Reuters what happened to the Germans but remember you guys got shot at last time and where was that is exactly that where did the Germans get killed exactly that when was that two days ago chance of locating the immense treasure helps me put up with the ever-present danger I mean what I'm feeling is we both made sure that our Oni hid the treasure in a place like this you can imagine you can imagine [Music] as the travel writer nothing gets the blood rushing through my veins like the prospect of a quest I have studied magic with the God men of India and scoured Ethiopia for the famous gold mines of King Solomon I have traveled through the upper Amazon on the trail of a head-shrinking tribe and after that I trekked through the cloud forest and Peru in search of paititi the great lost city of the Incas I was born in England though my ancestors originated from the mountain strongholds of Afghanistan where they have been warlords statesmen and princes since the 9th century searching for the horde Rothman Shah has been a thread running through my family for a century and a half the search farmer Charles treasure is really a preoccupation for the part of my family the branch which left Afghanistan in 1842 with John Frusciante owned when they went to India as a child my father told and retold a story that haunted my dreams and I tell it to my own children now a man in an iron mask forcing an army of slaves to load thousands of sacks of gold into a cave the man in the mosque was Ahmed Shah Durrani the first king of Afghanistan and his massive treasure was stolen from Mughal India the Afghan army Shah Durrani was a young general in the service of the Persian Emperor who sacked Delhi in 1739 the vast treasury of Mughal India was forced open and its contents loaded onto a colossal caravan of horses camels and elephants the famous Kohinoor diamond was one of many treasures the Persian Emperor and took away but he didn't live to appreciate it for long he fell victim to an assassination rocked Ahmed Shah Durrani took the diamond from the Emperor's still-warm chest and escaped with his men back to Afghanistan taking the treasure Caravan with him Durrani was crowned first king of Afghanistan in 1747 by the saintly Sabir Shah the Kohinoor diamond the only known relic originating from the initial Mughal treasure remained in Afghanistan until the early 19th century today it's in the Tower of London among her majesty's crown jewels the rest that the legendary treasure is still hidden in caves somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan I knew that the treasurer Bachmann Shah Durrani was very important in our family and certainly I know that my father searched for it but when I was only 13 the Afghan mujahideen started their struggle against invading Soviet Army when the US Army crushed the Taliban five years ago I found an invaluable aid in my mission to find the gold allotment Shah I was going through a lot of my grandfather's papers which I had inherited but only had time to read once he moved here then I found this notebook it was a compilation of notes from my grandfather's own journeys in Afghanistan searching for the treasure over 70 years ago it was full of cryptic clues and secret codes this accumulated information has been left in this notebook in this box file with all my father's papers for a particular reason for me to happen upon it and to start a search of my own in the last year I've been waiting for conditions to improve but every day Afghanistan slides a little further into Anarchy the Taliban are gaining ground slaughtering American and British soldiers every month I've decided to take the plunge and go in search of the treasure now however unstable the situation it may be the last window of opportunity in my lifetime my first daunting steps on Afghan soil take me straight back into the dream world of stories I heard again and again as a child the women in bocas and the traders of anything from sheep's heads to magic charms were conjured from a world that's straight out of the Arabian Nights despite the danger everyone seems to be getting on with life the guests they have no other choice the place I had to see was the notorious Stadium which the Taliban converted into an execution ground they put to death thousands of innocent Afghans here including dozens of women who they claimed have been adulterous and bring the person who was supposed to lay a criminal dragged out of the truck kneeled down the Taliban rule was so recent thank God some things have changed to my delight there's now a huge portrait of Ahmed Shah the man whose treasure I'm searching for hanging over the stadium stand but we heard that I've made sure Durrani took from India a very big treasure yeah and then we thought it would be good to find the treasure with my feet on Afghan soil for no more than a day it strikes me that searching for the treasure is at least part a euphemism for finding Afghanistan the treasure has brought me home but it's not all a bed of roses cobbles bureaucracy is rotten to the core layer of cultural debris leftover from decades of war I'm told that my search is illegal and I'm threatened with arrest and even deportation but luckily I tracked down an old family friend an Afghan ambassador he calls the governor of the northern Bauwens and we're off [Music] following my grandfather's suggestion I covered the 12-hour Drive of water on roads and reached the governor's mansion in the middle of the night it was a good thing to get out of Kabul I think the adventures really beginning my apprehension of being surrounded by armed guards melted away when I was welcomed by the governor I asked him about the treasure but he didn't want to give anything away although he seemed to know that the Kohinoor diamond was in the British crown jewels he assigned a couple of soldiers to escort me I was going to need them as the next stop was very sensitive as I approached the great shrine of Ali in Mazar the Friday prayer began the pilgrims were chanting with great excitement in our family there's a saying that the secret of the treasure of our Mashhad irani is kept in a shrine and so for me coming to the shrine of Ali is a very very obvious first step there's a great belief in the Islamic world that geometric designs are numerical they signify numbers and the numbers signify letters my grandfather's notebook outlined the abjad system a code built on an alphanumeric sequence abjad can be used as a part of geometry and also associated with it the link are the magic squares by a simple process of multiplying the digits from 1 to 9 with each other the square is filled with numbers that's when the magic begins if you connect all the ones you get this form and if you connect all the eighths you get this the figure 1 equals a Aleph the figure 8 equals H the object simplicity is misleading it's a system of ciphers that can have innumerable levels learn to understand it and you can interpret a design in all sorts of ways it's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack my grandfather spent more than a week here through the hexagonal patterns he established the link between the Persian words for durrani and for buddha the numerical values of these words mirror each other symmetrically as a result of this my grandfather's next destination was a Buddhist stupa near a place called some angle it's a few hours drive south from here I'm on my way again two and a half thousand years ago Afghanistan was Buddhist the country was famed for its centers of Buddhist teaching the priests hollowed out entire mountains and used them as sanctuaries it's in one of the lost Buddhist monasteries that my grandfather thought the treasure still a salmon guns King daughter as took place in this site I liked near to the truth what is the truth what is this place no one has a clue if I can find caves then I might be on the right track these look like steps carved in the stone going down but we may be originally they had ladders so no Monica this guys down here okay he's going to show me [Music] when you find a buddhist center of worship like this you'd expect to find a labyrinth of caves where the monks lived it was weather I don't know the altar was where the high priest was maybe maybe that's sort of the village [Music] my heart was beating double its normal rate when I found surpassed my wildest imagination bitch our attorney in the treasure place like this you can imagine imagine [Music] tap tap tap I can turn you know breach unless the treasure was here in numbers and was found myself this is exactly huge messages carved out the monastic complex would have provided secure shelter for the Buddhist priesthood just as it did the Afghan resistance who fought the Russians twenty years ago and after them the Taliban now I've seen these vast cave systems do exist in the mountains of Afghanistan how am I ever going to find the one in which Achmed Shah hid his horde [Music] it's a month later and I'm back in Kabul as usual I can't resist prodding the taxi driver to see if he knows about the treasure Nielson where is the treasure it was as if the man had read my mind I was actually planning to head for our next sub with us we'll search for the treasure as I was walking around the Capitals ancient pulley Christi bazaar I strayed into the bird market to my delight I found a cage full of Hoopoe Birds King Solomon regarded it as the wisest of all birds taking a Hooper with me as a traveling companion seemed like an obvious thing to do and the local folklore says that only one will lead to wealth and good fortune maybe it could help wait wait I want to choose the one maybe the one that the girl he's tried to get out can I look at him [Music] every at stake the Hoopoe bird was so lucky that it got away like all like he would never fly away I was encouraged to see that the bird caught everyone's attention everyone gets all excited and they say Shura Shura Shura Sirocco hood hood the Hoopoe the king of birds and that's a great icebreaker and if it's anything to go by thinking it'll he'll prove to be a very very great traveling companion indeed I would have preferred to go by Road but the highway going west from Kabul to Herat went straight through the Taliban homeland my only option was to buy a ticket for the looper and go by air as soon as we land in Herat a mate for the hill on the north side of the city it's a vantage point from where you get a view over the five timber in towers standing at Messala my grandfather believes very strongly that the huge minarets here at Messala in Herat with some kind of pointing device some kind of primitive compass that showed the way to the treasure the gardener showed me the base of another tower he says it collapsed about 20 years ago when I pressured him he let slip that there was a secret code connected with the towers but he didn't know if the secret concerned the mosaic pattern on them or their arrangement I spent hours trying to work out the meaning of the pattern but it beats me I'm going to ask the tile workers at the mosque if they have any answers he writes friday mosque boasts the oldest tile workshop in the world I want to speak to its craftsmen to see if they can shed light on the meaning hidden in the patterns but it was prayer day and the workshop was closed so I asked anyone I could find in the hope of picking up a fresh trail does he think that in Afghanistan there is a treasure to be found in the mouth I was told that the treasures location was a national secret and then it was forbidden to divulge national secrets to a foreigner then in the mosque central courtyard a hidden a vein of hostility I was surrounded by armed guards and accused of trying to steal Afghan treasures we were in a way kind of stealing Afghan secrets we had to leave immediately so we didn't want to upset him more so we to come back tomorrow in his youth Ahmed Shah have been imprisoned here in Iraq in the great 13th century fortress before being liberated by nadya Shah the Persian Emperor also it's very likely the treasure Caravan would have passed through here on its way towards Persia in a teahouse nearby I asked about the treasure seeing the Hoopoe a man remembered a story of a fool who was led to a treasure by such a bird the moral was that the fool was too stupid to realize the value of the hoard and he left it where it was asked him again does anyone want to come now to look for out my shelter around these gold they're just gonna sit here and play cards all afternoon tell them thank you very much and for their stories and we'll leave that leave them to play cards the Hoopoe bird had a healthy appetite in start consisted strictly of raw meat but the bird had paid for its supper he was my calling card away into asking people about the treasure I took advantage of the great hospitality of her artis visiting tea houses been traipsing from one village to the next where farmers told me they had found Antiquities who are plowing their fields I sought out nomads as well have my fortune read and even paid a visit to known caves and I spotted the ruins of another of the towers as I had expressed the strong ambition to find armoured showers gold my interpreter suggested we go to the rolling shrine what happens is you think of your wish and you lie down on this place and you cover your face with your hands and you really wish and you wish and you wish and you wish and you wish and then suddenly you start rolling uncontrollably along in this yard the belief is that you will achieve your goal by the power of the saint buried there we're gonna press it down despite the risk of being arrested again something spurred me to return to the tire workshop he paid off one of the old masters told me that he had heard of the treasure of Ahmed Shah he took me on to the roof and said the tiled calligraphy was a key I decided to ask him directly if he knew when the treasure lay and how the towers on the city's outskirts could help me in my search to my surprise he said the towers pointed to the valley of Bamiyan and that just before dusk when the Sun was in the West the shadows cast by the towers pointed to the valley once famous for the giant statues of Buddha before the Taliban blew them up a few years ago Bamiyan was only three hundred miles away but this is Afghanistan and the safe route between two points was seldom a straight line I'm back in Kabul the suicide bomber blew himself up the morning I arrived just across the street from where I'm staying it's now Ramadan and the Taliban have turned up the heat leader made a video recently he had a mask of his face and he said we're going to destroy this entire road the caravan surround the scent Amazon did you hear the bomb this morning yeah are you afraid Bhutto in the direct the mamooli still have a jacket like a Kabul in vagina - Natasha for London mission Yama is my new fixer he introduced himself as a film producer Mujahid guerilla fighter booze cashier ida and a cook he says his father is a warlord in the north when you start talking about ammunition and guns they get all excited even had a favorite catchphrase yama said he had a friend who had all the answers but getting to Yama's friend yet another 12 hour trek up to the north all the way out of Kabul we hit an ocean of gridlock traffic [Music] it turns out that the traffic jam is caused by a demonstration of X Mujahideen the government is two years now and the government hasn't paid anybody and for that reason his father has about 10,000 armed people was that on a sting guard or in cutter tone color inclusion already Madeline Harris be hosting and I doubt that okay no one's moving so if there's a big explosion right now yeah this is it's probably not very good being pretty pretty high stress situation we're between a demonstration the Iranian embassy and another embassy this is a couple of days before Eid before the Islamic holiday of Eid and there are suicide bombers going off all the time right now in Cabo it's a really very dangerous time to be here Yama is my new fixer he has a friend who he claims will certainly know about the treasure currently valued at 500 billion dollars we have to go back to mazar-e-sharif to meet him was it a wild goose chase or was yama actually going to deliver Yama's friend Razer exceeded all expectations in 24 he was a respected archaeologist working with the Afghan Ministry of Culture to prove it he took me to the ruins of the oldest mosque ever constructed in Afghanistan it dated from the early days of Islam in Central Asia and because of this point but this is an Islamic mosque so why are there Buddhist symbols all over this will show us that the between the first architecture Islamic architecture came from the Buddhists and continued in the during of the time as a Hazara he had a special interest in the Buddhist history of Afghanistan Raisa even claimed that the octagonal design which is so common in mosques all over the world actually traveled from northern Afghanistan to other Muslim countries plummet card there was no question how valuable razor could be for my quest but my concern was whether I'd be able to get him on board there's a key member of my team luckily raised and needed no persuasion to join me he said he wanted to show me something that could help us I think in my idea is a horse in here that show you that you must go from by you by horse so it show us that the road is very hard to going off and and you will find you will find some steps in here in the mountain maybe right but this is the decided I'll show you you must go and indeed in right not left the flower victory care from the Buddha do you think this Buddhist speaking because this is yeah this is the crucial sign like show us maybe it's a in the room something in a room you raise the belief that the rooms represented key chambers within a cave system like the rock-hewn buddhist monastery i was hoping to find that the hotel raised a shared his information he said the area to concentrate on was in central Afghanistan and not without risk it is very it is dangerous for going but for me know can you bring us I can go by myself yeah this is the very big case in this I think he's great more than anything is the first person we've met in this country who actually knows the history yeah I mean and he boy does he know the history really knows the history knows every period and every name and every it's very I think I'm not shocked but it is I think yeah yeah by me I must say Bamiyan is taker and the Bamiyan postal volley on ease there is a stroll amongst mountain you know as I was to learn the route was known locally as the bloodbath alley we were going to the Bamiyan Valley to get there we would have to pass down a road where bandit attacks were the norm especially in the hours of darkness we loaded our convoy of vehicles at 4:00 in the morning to make sure we weren't caught in bloodbath alley at night from now on I'm taking security very very seriously ok whatever but I'm taking very seriously if anyone wants to undermine the security I'm I'm gonna suggest I'm gonna step back okay go ahead these security measures are in place and that's gonna include people with guns it's going to include going slowly not camping out in the open but staying there villagers sure we can have tents but we're gonna stay near villagers okay I've just read a real own reporter Reuters what happened to the Germans they were German people exactly like us they were not working in television but they were radio there were three of them they were all shot dead and their security people were over a shot there as well it's exactly between Buckland and bam young okay it's an incredibly dangerous area you type you type Bamiyan parkland Bambi on Oakland Road and bummy on and between Bamiyan abandon Mia on on Reuters and it turns out stuff it's very very dangerous we had to cover an 18-hour drive in 12 or risk getting the bullet in the head there the German radio team got the day before [Music] the road was astonishingly rough we had no option but to push on [Music] suddenly in the afternoon we ran into a roadblock the truck had broken down and there was a queue half a mile long who were sitting ducks easy targets for bandits of the Taliban but then to my great relief the drivers began to squeeze through crawling along the precipitous shoulder [Music] [Music] we lost valuable time how would we ever make it to Bamiyan before nightfall [Music] [Music] Wow you made it to bum young 12-hour try now we just have to find the treasure caves that's all so we're gonna sleep here tonight and then start looking for caves in the morning see what we can find the grazer [Music] [Music] in the morning I had to get my bearings so we went up to the wall where the giant buddhas used to stand [Music] that's from yard okay so this is the giant Buddha up there okay okay okay so the the treasure of ahmed shah durrani and Nadia Shah when they they came all the way to Delhi this sack Delhi and then they started here with the huge treasure yeah and they moved so you're saying that you're saying that the treasure of of Michoud irani would have passed on its way to Iran from India it would have passed right here you're saying the treasure Caravan with millions and millions of gold coins and rubies and emeralds and the Peacock Throne and the Kohinoor diamond it all came right past here I mean can you imagine the site can you imagine what it looked like if you came from Kandahar why would you not hide your treasure they can have other capital and every every everything that know that that the capital is safe but for sometimes not safe you know you know there happens after they're mature right but after okay okay so you're saying if you are the king of Afghanistan the very worst place to hide your treasure is in your capital city right because you same because another army will come and kill everyone and take the treasure yeah so excellent okay into unsecret to unknown and okay this is excellent no this is this is exactly the kind of way I'm talking I'm thinking the same frequency as me [Music] no we decided to take a closer look inside the catacombs behind the niches where the giant Buddha stood before the Taliban destroys the whole labyrinth I mean this was the kind of thing I'm looking for but but obviously the treasure of aht Machop wasn't handed hidden at the Bamiyan Buddhas their rock carved structures with the sort of systems I was hoping to find how far over the gonna sound is a very dangerous country but the last thing I want to do is fall through the hole of where the bodies would be if the giant Buddhas had been part of an extensive center of Buddhist worship then it stood to reason that somewhere in the valley not far from the Buddhist was a lost monastic cave complex this is the valley which runs parallel to the Bamiyan Valley and in in the time of the Buddhist monks the time of the Buddhas there was a huge culture here and it makes absolute sense that the monastery would have been in the next Valley razor I think would come back because there are houses there this is a village this isn't we're not gonna find any treasure case right next to a village hard because there's not any way through Ponyboy I was growing impatient while he knew the history razor wouldn't ask the local people about the treasure but ultimately we heard of a huge cave hidden in the mountain above the village [Music] it's a very sudden change in temperature it's freezing here it's yet another red herring doesn't lead anywhere at all raiser said that searching for treasure was illegal in modern Afghanistan his concern about being reported for being treasure hunters was compounded by his worry that the locals would lose any sight he did find here after one day you can see all the people of Bamiyan or other provinces of Afghanistan will come to thee to hear and Wilton diggin and will then they might actually find the treasure yeah right but it's very big problem as he kept reminding me there's a thriving east-west trade in illicit Afghan antiquities races showed me smaller and smaller caves and however hard I begged him he refused to question local people about the treasure I began to feel he was deliberately keeping something from me as if he knew much more than he was letting on was he only humoring me or did I really have razor on my side [Music] after long discussion with Razer I persuaded him to accompany me in search of the cave he had mentioned at the hotel in Mazar when we first met he said the journey would take us beyond the Bamiyan Valley and would be dangerous in the extreme despite the ever-increasing danger the team spirits were high most Afghans have never lived without danger leaving the relative safety of the central Bamiyan Valley which is patrolled by New Zealand soldiers we moved into the high plateau of central Afghanistan as if it were possible the road far worse than it have been on route to bomb Yong after a day of travel we were less than halfway to the destination but to my relief we reached a small village just before sunset we were welcomed with customary Afghan hospitality and taken to stay in the village hall with the threat of bandit attacks I had hired a handful of soldiers for security after feasting on pulao the guards told me they had heard of caves nearby I was eager to hear what they knew but razor forbid me to mention the treasure directly he heard the story that it makes this treasure I told them just a bill or just a liar or just the treasure [Music] over the next day the terrain became increasingly inhospitable the road got worse and worse until you could hardly call it a road at all I just knew it was my duty to keep the team going [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] as we began to pitch camp on the banks of the mysterious Lake bandy aamir the storm was brewing the freezing wind tore down the tents as if warning us that the expedition didn't belong there the team finally discovered a way of preventing the wind from tearing down the tents the guys have asked if we can have some kind of ritual so I'm going along with it and we bought the machine it's kind of a ritual so that we get good luck and we find the gold rock mushara yama slaughtered the animal swiftly according to Afghan tradition I lost my appetite the guys couldn't understand why I didn't want to eat the meat yama and the others kept going until they had devoured the entire animal they even cracked the bones and sucked out the marrow the hostile environment didn't bother them at all I went to sit by the fire dreading the cold night ahead sleeping under canvas the next day was going to be my last chance to search for the treasure however tuff raised a yama and the others were I knew I wouldn't be able to keep them with me for much longer we broke camp early and started the last push towards the mountains in the cave to be able to negotiate the mountain passes we had to abandon the vehicles and continue on horseback [Music] there was no way of stopping Yama showing off his busca she tricks he's been doing the booze caching movement he thinks I'm a buzz cut rider and he's got it all [Music] the incline grew steeper and steeper so much so we were forced to abandon the horses too and continue on foot we're up herd 3,200 20 meters the near vertical scramble was hard and the midday Sun made the climb all the harder the altitude and thin air just added to the difficulties but the climb was worth it as we reached the top of the mountain ridge we caught a glimpse of the cave opening it was like a giant mouth I stumbled inside mesmerised it was just like the cave I'd heard about as a child in the stories my father told again and again it's pre-islamic but that's very old personick here this is a very big cave yeah it really goes very far back just into the mountain it's exactly what I'm looking for the grounding in dust like flour okay it's getting narrower and narrower now but it just goes back just miles into the mountain wow this is incredible here just falls away into nothingness big sponsoring here though yeah sure mr. slow its buddhic yeah yeah it's like this the passage has a bigger room after the Norway after dinner Oh My yes we can but it's very thoughtful to call her I'm willing to go on I mean we found another passageway don't which way have you gone yeah this is as good as it gets I mean there's passages leading everyone here Foley only you gotta get any bandits I'm on my way there's a human together for ya two skeleton here they keep where's the skirts girl here just ran you late on one one two one two and three all three four four five six seven oh wow my god here's the graveyard they're tired but yeah graveyard I think many soldiers were people were killed in here get adjusted head of them yeah with already maybe out Matilda Ronnie's thought I was very moved to be in a place where so many people had obviously lost their lives people I could only assume had been ahmed shah's gods here who think the monthly who killed him it seems very possible that this system is part of a much bigger cave system then it goes back way way into the mountains but with the passage this passageway has been blocked by a rock oh yes mmm were deep in the mountain now and the way back if we've got no climbing equipment with pretty badly prepared people no and crash helmets I felt certainly they had at last discovered the location of the treasure everything pointed to it the skulls the Buddha's pottery the location and its sheer inaccessibility but going deeper into the labyrinth would be suicide without professional caving equipment we needed oxygen too and an emergency backup even if I could muster a better equipped expedition I knew that the Afghan authorities were brought me not to mention the deteriorating security situation that was severely stacked against me I sense that my window of opportunity was slamming shut he was now time for me to add my information to the notebook until leave the clues I'd come up with for the coming generation so that my own children could find Afghanistan for themselves and continue the search by the time they're ready to set out I can only hope that our ancestral homeland is more peaceful I can't be certain if someone's already beaten me to the treasure of Ahmed Shah but after 39 years I felt as if I'd seen part of the treasure with my own eyes my Afghan homeland [Music] the integral of Patricia in Afghanistan when you get older [Music]

Info

Channel: Tahir Shah

Views: 36,026

Rating: 4.4909091 out of 5

Keywords: Tahir Shah, Sufis, Sufism, idries shah, afghanistan, gold, ahmad shah, treasure hunting, kara kush

Id: pIK6kwjW1jI

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 46min 10sec (2770 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2018

Reddit Comments