Ancient Islands: Ghost City of the Pacific (Full Episode) | Lost Cities with Albert Lin

[Music] I'm in the center of this massive body of water the Pacific Ocean something incredible happened here about 800 years ago in a seemingly unbelievable coincidence two archaeological wonders just appeared in the Pacific one Easter Island where seafires erected giant Stone heads and the other the even more enigmatic civilization that built a place called namad a legendary complex of man-made islands and stone structures built right into the coral reef that's where I'm headed my name is Albert Lynn and I look at the world in a unique way I use 21st century technology to look back into the past check that out I can actually fly through the secret ancient world with lasers and scann deserts strip away dense jungle canopy and scour the oceans to uncover the Hidden Worlds beneath we're waiting into uncharted waters now I had the military helping me find lost cities new discoveries in the most awe inspiring places on on Earth that's where pixels become reality that fill in the gaps in our story who we are where we came from and the Brilliance that we're capable of here we are in the 13th century this is carved out of the earth huh this is the new Golden Age of Exploration we know their secrets Pompei Island Micronesia one of the most isolated places on Earth almost 1,000 M from the nearest land mass it's taken four flights and over 28 8 hours of travel just to get here time to go my contact is local historian Gus ker welcome toi thanks brother how was the trip amazing yeah yeah amazing what is NAD nanad was once the residents of the ruling South Dynasty about 6 to 800 years ago this an ancient city you'd be amazed they know how that they had to build the city in the water I've heard it's an ancient wonder rivaling Easter Island or matchup Picchu but very little of it is still visible so I'm bringing technology that will strip away the mang Groves and reveal its scale it's an Explorer's dream we're superstitious people we believe uh that it's invested by Spirits so we will have to first of all go through the king or the N Marquee as they refer to and ask for his protection and permission to enter the site this is the custom that we do here there's been rumors of people dying when they don't follow protocol dying yes this really happened it did so what do I have to do to get permission we will have to do what we call a Saka ceremonium the Saka root is pounded on a special stone to create a powerful narcotic drink used for religious rituals I know that other Pacific Islanders use toow in a similar way I have to drink that the purpose of our presentation before our King is to ensure that the spirits of our ancestors welcome you when you visit nanad Albert I me my heart's pounding right now my whole mouth is num like when you go to the dentist I can barely feel my tongue right now all who wish to enter NAD must pay their respects the spirits we're hoping to appease are those of the saor the legendary rulers who arrived here 800 years ago and held a mysterious power over the Island's population those who built nadle we come here with a feeling of honor to be here in your land thank you ceremony complete the full power this a cow drink kicks in yeah I got you I got you I see like double it's intense it's intense but the most important thing is the king of this land said that he protects us which means we're a go so tomorrow it's on and I'm a [Music] do this is it Albert Welcome to the Jungle we are on secret grounds right now you're just beginning to see part of the structures I've never seen anything like this welcome to nanad only a tiny fragment of the legendary saor City can still be seen mangroves choke whatever else remains Now new technology can help unblock the secrets of this place how and why it was built and just how big it really is what is that it's incredible ain't it I was born here but every time I come up here I'm always amazed always this is the main ceremonial Center of [Music] nanad it's a temple to the Island's ancient rulers constructed from pillars of balt Rock 800 years ago this place would have been bustling with hundreds of priests attendants and the feared sador Kings must been some superpowered humans to build this huh well this area was meant only for the lead it was the only time in our history that we were ruled by one person almost like a dictator so he was able to command all the people on the island to come and assist in the building of NAD look is that more rocks over there is that more yes that's an other wall buildt all the way to the edge of the reef yeah you can see the reef breaking right there exactly it's massive to get to grips with this city in the sea we need to work out the full extent of it and that can only be done from above I think we have to scan this you know with the Drone and maybe we can start to really map out all these different features okay so this is where we're at right now there are 90 plus structures all manmade from here all the way down south yeah ex all the way to there yes so a huge area it is huge you can't see anything it's all Mangrove are the mangroves here 800 years ago no I doubt it it's been abandoned for a long time so mang just it would have been easier to map it then than it is now well that's why we have Li right then delete the mangroves take it off my drone begin the first of more than 40 planned flights we're scanning this whole area almost half a square mile twice the size of the Vatican City we want to strip back the jungle canopy and reveal the rest of this city I'm going back to explore the gigantic building that Gus showed me to find out more about the people who built this place why is there so little known about people that built this incredible Monument the reason there are so little known is because there's not a a written system to express ideas it's through oral tradition which are the stories exactly those are stories handed down generation to generation and no person can tell the entire story because there's the belief that if they tell the whole story that they will die they're no longer useful how was this place built I can't imagine how human effort could actually carry these Stones all the way up to the top of this building it's really not clear to us how it was done the physics part of it one Legend talks about magic being used to lift the rocks and bring them over here so they would fly magic flew these rocks here that's right this whole Expedition is something else I'm a scientist a technologist I deal in facts finding out how they actually built this it's going to be a challenge but deeper into the ritual complex we spot something familiar here we have a sakao pounding Stone remember from the sakao ceremony with the N Marquee you can tell because of the circular wear pattern so you're telling me that people used to sit around this Stone and pounds a cow right at the entrance to this complex this is like a Gateway sort of ceremony it's a like a r of Passage and how you get to know people and this is the same thing that's been going on for centuries yeah at least centuries if not a thousand years at the very center the true purpose of this stone monument is revealed wow this tomb housed the bones of the selor the leader at the time for the whole island where were they found do you know um some of them were inside of the walls between the rocks it wasn't a single body found here but the partial remains of many people perhaps spanning Generations what do you know about the sador the stories tell us that the selors had a b bit of a bad reputation and they didn't exactly treat everyone so well and this is literally the heart of the whole complex that's right it sits within a huge tomb District at this end of Nadol a Valley of the Kings on water you know it's very different than a Stone heads of Easter Island but just like there this place right here is built honor the spirits of the Dead spirits that the locals believe still reside here the tombs we can see are only a fragment of Nadol our lar scans should reveal a whole lot more hidden somewhere under half a square mile of tropical jungle lies the ancient city of nador we're laser scanning the area with light on to create a blueprint of the city to uncover its structures and help us understand why the sador Kings built it hacking Through the Jungle taking this massive drone and launching from every point they could in a methodical grid pattern it's going to take some time for the processing to finish so that we can remove the trees but we've got the first scans in let's pull them in oh wow you that's pretty awesome right amazing even before we remove the trees you get a sense of this network of geometric shapes that Define the human structures right you can already see faintly here here here and then here's a main it that you took me to earlier so you can already start to piece together this whole city or what was once there it's a glimpse into an ancient city of tombs and temples see what is this look how straight those lines are you see that look at that they're perfectly uniform such a regular shape that that can't be natural that's incredible I want to check them out the mang is really tense so I mean there's no way for us to walk in there you know it's impossible unless you go by a boat we're headed back to Nadol now this time by SE this is how they would have approached here hundreds of years ago I followed my GPS to the spot that we identified on the liar scans look at those can we get in right [Music] [Music] there wow these are unreal these are huge rocks it's bigger than anything else I've seen here I just can't wrap my head around how they would have got them here and then lifted them one upon another it's just insane you know each one of these Boulders must weigh the amount of a couple of buses at least this is something Beyond imagination so [Music] weird the line of rocks takes me deeper into the mangroves it's enormous and it goes on forever the man-made structure captured by the Light Art is a seaw wall built on Coral Reef it stretches for a mile and a quarter it's almost like a giant Fortress more than a city we can now Define the boundaries of the city on three [Music] sides entering through a break in the wall there are hints of more ancient Basalt buildings lining the main Channel It's like a Master Mason designed the whole thing but they didn't use mortar they just placed everything in a perfect balance still intact 800 years or so after a construction it's getting very narrow here we're looking for our passageway but the mangr have just grown [Music] everywhere is it okay to enter this area it's too risky for you to get off why is that risky in the afternoon time there are spirits around these islands guarding these places you don't want to get sick you know in respect for local Traditions I think we're going to keep going this is where old school exploration ends and tomorrow my technology takes over by stripping these trees away with our lar we'll see what this wall is [Music] protecting we've discovered hints of what amadol looks like but the full extent of this mysterious city has been shrouded for centuries in Island Legend and mangrove forest technology can change that the lar scans are complete the Hope here is that you're going to see namad as it was originally before all these trees took over we're getting a view of the entire site because you can't see it unless you do something like this this is the lar before the trees have been removed you ready for this yes look at that you see oh wow look at that it's crazy right that's another structure for sure you think there structures that you've never seen before yes definitely just from this picture about 10 because you know it's really inaccessible so with this we're able to go where you can't go yes this is incredible do you know are there stories of this place of course each structure has a function this one is the residental area for the out so this this is where they lived you can realize that the entire area is protected by the seaw wall what were they defending themselves against not only I guess natural elements but probably people up to 2,000 people lior but these were the rulers you can imagine how impressive this would have been just the scale it's amazing this was happening some 800 years ago exactly exactly on this island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean we can now digitally rebuild what Nadol may have looked like in all of its Glory a colossal seaw wall protects over 90 man-made Islands organized into a burial district and a residential Zone with temple and monuments signifying the power of the oppressive selur rulers who lived [Music] here so we have a 3D digital model of the height of all of these different features from that we can get a precise measurement based off this actual data of how much volume of material this place took to build we begin with the single largest ruin in the city the ceremonial tomb site I visited we've just looked at the main exterior wall as an initial calculation what I've done here is just take a simple section and from this we're looking at over 14,000 tons of bass that's just the outside was not even the whole structure and the tombs and stuff inside 14,000 tons it's crazy I know right based on the lar data the amount of rock used used to build the entire city is nearly 700,000 tons its ancient construction on an unimaginable scale but where did those thousands of Rocks come from for centuries it's been explained by [Music] Magic on the The Far Side of the island is a BT deposit that may hold the answer is that it that's it that's the baby it's a Cory like no other it just poked straight out of the trees this is a COR in the sky I think we could fly the Drone right out of here and do a big pass arounded ready I want to get a close look at this extraordinary volcanic mine incredibly it looks as if it's been mined from the top there must be a way that these ancient Islanders climbed up and got the stones down I don't think we can make it all the way to the top but there's a spot right in the middle of the mountain that we made be able to access this way maybe this way you okay yeah I'm good it's a 400t scramble that starts Steep and quickly becomes almost vertical be careful har some rocks here [Music] slippery this is where they got the rocks from yep pretty intense Cory this is the real deal bro we're almost there all right 50 ft from the summit we reach what appears to be the main quy site these are unreal they look exactly like the ones in amodel the same hexagonal shape Yep this is like the stone Log Cabin hardware store for the island they didn't have d Dynamite or anything like that back then how would they actually break these off one of the theories is that you burn wood and you bore water in it will crack or it expands so they were like uh almost like material scientists back then yes Engineers how much does one of these weigh the typical ones they use an NAD between 5 to 10 tons but there are bers that can weigh up to 50 tons how far is NAD from here uh 10 miles across the land straight 10 Mi that way yes just doesn't make any sense let's go a little further I'm going to try to see if I can get up there and and get a view okay good luck you're not coming I'm not coming I'll be right back be careful [Music] now people came all the way over here to the north side of the island somehow climbed this mountain broke off these massive Stone pillars and then transported them across the island just like on Easter Island over 6,000 M away people here moved mountains of volcanic rock to build extraordinary monuments that they believed could connect them to the [Music] spirits this is perfect you can see everything the whole are area maybe I can start to see exactly what route they might have taken with these rocks no I'm going to look on the satellite images here okay so I'm I think right here on top of this mountain they had to get the Rocks all the way over to here to namad I couldn't imagine carrying a 5 or 10 ton Boulder over that mountain behind me doesn't seem possible at all okay My View From The Summit suggests an alternative route a trail of mangroves leads straight into the ocean and we know where there's mangroves there's water the way that would be most logical is they might have broken these Boulders Off thrown them down to the bottom of this Quarry and then somehow use the mangroves and the chanels to get them out if they could float them out to sea maybe they would move them across the inside of that re Reef where the waves aren't so bad and then it's a decision do you go north all the way around the island that way or do you go south I guess depends on the winds the tides and the distance and actually you know honestly like super sophisticated in terms of whatever engineering they had to come up with to make that [Music] possible at the moment it's a theory but there are intriguing legends that tell of a stone City of the Dead beneath the waves it's in route from here to Nadol and it could provide evidence of how the city was really [Music] [Music] built we're headed to a site that has been described as a underwater city of the dead or of the Gods still inhabited today with Spirits you know most locals they won't even come here to fish because is taboo you know we're waiting into uncharted waters in some ways we're searching an area just east of namol where the shallow Reef drops away into the deep water you can start to see the outer walls in front of us off the starboard a little bit 1:00 our ladder can't penetrate water so we're using downscan Sonar which can detect what's on the sea floor to a depth of up to 300 ft here as we're motoring along making a grid pattern around the entrance of Nadol the sonar is setting a ping straight down it'll hit something and it'll return back like a reflection basically these little blocks it's just a school of fish right here I'm just looking for anything that might look man-made something that's maybe geometric in nature after about 30 minutes of scanning look at that look at that that's beautiful a big spike we're right on top of it now you got C Flor C Flor C floor and then all a sudden boom this spike in elevation right here right underneath us whether it's manmade or not that's why we're diving on it let's mark this point right here straight on okay we'll drop in close to the entrance to Nadal and then swim out looking for the structure dive fo is that thing M eyes should be right that's the next one that's the upgrade yeah three years ago I was sitting in a hospital bed wondering if I'd ever walk again now I'm about to Dawn a scuba diving kit and Dro into an ocean we're going to look for a lost city it's just Barren down here there's not a lot of fish oh it's murky so if they see Basel rock down there I mean that's evidence that this place was man-made or manb built Basel rocks are volcanic rocks they're not coral reefs it's out of place if we find it de somebody brought a de we start our search grid close to the outer wall of Nadol that's D all right there you can see the seaw wall further from the wall I spot something familiar look the same hexagonal Stones right here incredible these Basalt columns don't look like they're part of the construction they're random like they might have ended up here accidentally we move away from The Reef shelf to the deeper water our key search area check this out this must be what we saw in the sodar oh man it's got to be about 20 ft tall they're kind of one after the other here just pumping up out of the sea4 In This Very vertical Direction I really can't be sure this is natural or something manmade either way it's spooky [Music] looking you know it's pretty incredible down there I did see piles of assault Rock closer to nador and along the side of the wall are these huge pillars that just rise out of the out of the depths like Shadows of giants through this murky water but it's to me inconclusive you know it could be natural forming Reef or Coral heads or it could be Bal incrusted with floral it's hard to say the whatever it is it's weird very very strange down there very strange that's a huge column there that's got to be at least 30 ft tall have you seen other Coral pillars like this before this is the only place that I've seen pillars like that I've never seen Coral grow in a vertical column like that unless there's something for it to grow onto the strange vertical pillars remain a mystery but are the likely source of the underwater city myth the hexagonal columns lying on the sea Flor May support the theory that the building blocks of Nadol were brought here by sea if the architects of Nadol could sail giant rocks around the island just how far could their Kingdom have [Music] reached we think that the giant assault blocks of namol were transported by sea I'm hunting for evidence that the Islanders may have sailed further a field 20 M from here is a string of tiny islands called Ant atle I found only one report of this whole place it was written from before the time I was born and it describes something that I've got to check out that's just beyond the reef this report claims that somewhere on these islands are traces of an ancient civilization the head of the family who now protects ant antle is Willie Holly he has a traditional title of Rosa welcome to ant thank you your family has been on this island for a long time over 100 years that's what our clan is to these are awesome I need a tattoo this area of the island has been abandoned for decades but as a boy Rosa remembers seeing unusual Stones here I don't know how you can find anything with all this undergrowth you're starting to see the balt rocks here yeah that is not common for an up like this these are the same basalt rocks that I saw at neodo there's no quy of Basalt sitting out here somewhere in this atle is there there is not this isn't the only intriguing Remnant here of an ancient civilization all right we're at it you found it yeah if you look they're Flat Rocks overgrown with trees and stuff but if you thrush it off and you'll take a look at it it's sakow Stone oh I saw one just like this right at the entrance of namad and the first thing I did was sit with the N Marquee to a CA ceremony where Stones were pounding just like this to make the ca you can see this is so deep this must have been hundreds of Cal ceremonies oh yeah thousands maybe where did these stones come from I would say pumy so somehow the technology that they had in understanding of the sea allowed them to bring huge Boulders across waves and reefs and miles of ocean just to to get here is it possible that these were the same people that built namad has to be I can't see any any other reason why this would actually be here unless there was a link between here and there here here's another one right here bigger one I think there probably would have been some type of a settlement here wow how big do you think this is that's the mystery clearing this site by hand could take [Music] weeks our liar scanner will digitally strip away some of the vegetation just like our scan at amadol if there's anything lurking beneath the undergrowth this will find [Music] it the guys have processed all the data that I got from the scan out on Ant atle and here it is so I zoom in here and this is the track that I walked but I can actually kind of move down through the layers and clear away the trees a little bit then you can actually see this really incredible blueprint of this sight that darker area right there these are Cal Stones those are the pounding Stones 1 2 3 4 5 6 in a circle all around this one area you can imagine how big of a ceremonial place this must have been because I've only seen one or two Cal Stones next to each other this is six right here 20 M away from amadol Ant ATL was home to a huge ritual site perhaps built by the very same people it's evidence that Nadol had influence that stretched across the waves what's really incredible about this is that it's on a tiny spe of sand beyond the Barrier Reef which means that what happened here happened elsewhere as well there are 25,000 other Islands across the Pacific trade and culture traveled from Island to Island but just how far did this ocean Network reach nad's architects were highly skilled seafarers capable of moving rocks miles across the ocean but could they have been part of a much bigger trans-pacific [Music] movement Anthropologist Ashley Meredith has uncovered some evidence that might help answer this question ready yeah oh my goodness it's quite a large field eh it's amazing the outcrop that we're exploring is actually a gallery filled with ancient rock [Music] art it's creepy looks almost like a ghost look at that there's a sword down there how long ago were these carved this could be uh 1 to 2,000 years ago okay 2,000 years ago that's the time when story of Christ was happening that's the time when the first emperor of China was building the Terracotta Army and here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean somebody actually carved this into this Stone and contemplated their reality this rock art shows that pom hey was an important cultural site even before the Satur [Music] arrived ready this is my favorite waa wow how did you find this through oral history there are stories here that talk about foreigners making these foreigners mhm where these people came from we can't be sure you see these to anywhere else similar new calonia wait wait how far away is New calonia New calonia is about 2,000 miles from here 2,000 mies yep that's like uh that's almost the distance between New York and La yes if I take images from a bunch of different angles then I can use photogrametry where you can add up the overlapping images and it creates a 3D model of the entire that's really cool using the Digital model I can make the faint eroded carving far more visible check this out is that awesome my gosh I'm actually moving the virtual light across the features and make them pop out a little more see yeah that was a good one right there slowly slow there right there yes that's really cool you can see more of the detail let me just screen grab this all right right so now I can pull the same thing up over here okay this is the image from UK calonia that's right okay so this is from here they have a lot in common let see maybe I can actually do something even crazier I can change the opacity I can move it on top of the other image H look at that whoa they're like they're really similar that's awesome right yeah it's almost a perfect print one of the other I'm staring at these two images and to me it's just too similar to be a coincidence how could something a nearly identical pop up 2,000 mil away but in a time when sailing across those distances must have been incredibly difficult there's no GPS it's just old school navigation whether or not these two symbols were created by the same Pacific people it's clear evidence that the ocean didn't isolate these cities and these cultures it connected them the sadders ruled for 400 years until they were overthrown and within those centuries their seaf fairing skills took them across the Pacific who knows maybe even as far as that other great civilization on Easter is Island over 6,000 M away both left their Mark set in stone this Lost City built on water is more Grand and complex than I ever imagined a seat of power for the ruling Elite part of a great network of people who traveled north south east and west across the vast Pacific [Music] Ocean this place it came from a meeting of peoples who sailed across the seas with skill and bravery Beyond Comprehension and with them They Carried ideas creating an ocean continent in a way leaving traces of the human spirit in these massive mysterious Stone monuments the the lost city of nador it's more than an archaeological Wonder it's a monument to human [Music] [Music] possibility

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 4,739,970

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, Ancient Islands, Ghost City of the Pacific, Lost Cities with Albert Lin, National Geographic Explorer, Albert Lin travels to Micronesia, heart of the Pacific Ocean, the ancient island city, Nan Madol, LostCitiesWithAlbertLin, NationalGeographic, FullEpisode, Full Episode

Id: tzBmrpFNcH4

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023