Myth Hunters

- Season 1

(2012)

The armies of Nazi Germany crossed the border with Austria, but when Hitler arrived in Vienna just 2 days later, the very first thing he did was to go to the Hofburg museum to lay claim to what appeared to be a simple Roman spear head. This spear head was something that Hitler had apparently coveted ever since he had first nurtured ambitions to become the ruler of a new German Reich.

This 50 minute documentary tells the story of three of these Christians and their expeditions which were full of danger and despair as they looked for Noah's Ark.

In 1941 the Germans looted one of the Soviet Union's most important art works, called the Amber Room. An extraordinary series of C18 amber screens worth millions of pounds and considered, by many, the 8th wonder of the world. It was taken to the Baltic city of Konigsberg. 4 years later at the end of the war, it had vanished. So began one of the greatest treasure hunts of the twentieth century.

The effort of actor Richard Knight to find the lost treasure of privateer William Kidd.

A rich and exotic Queen of Sheba brought King Solomon gifts of gold from the mystical land of Ophir. But where was Ophir? Where had all that gold come from? For 1000 of years, ancient Greeks, Renaissance adventurers, Victorian explorers, and modern day scientists have searched for the source of Solomon's gold. A mysterious place that would famously become known as King Solomon's Mines.

The Honjo Masamune is perhaps the greatest Japanese sword ever made. Forged in the 13th century by the great sword smith Masamune it became the ceremonial sword of the ruling Tokugawa shoguns for 250 years. After their fall from power in 1868 the great sword continued to be passed down the generations into the 20th century, but in the aftermath of the Second World War it disappeared.

The Holy Grail, the most prized relic of Christianity has been shrouded in mystery for centuries. Said to be the cup used by Christ at the last supper it is believed by many to hold miraculous powers. For centuries Kings, knights and treasure hunters have sought it, but it has always remained elusive and out of reach of human hands.

It's one of the most influential books ever written. It's said to have inspired early Freemasons, to provide the wisdom behind the Tarot and to have underpinned a string of 20th century esoteric cults. Yet after years of looking for it nobody has ever found the original text.

Legend tells that somewhere in South America there is a great city of gold, El Dorado, a fabulously rich and sophisticated kingdom that was once home to thousands of people living deep in the Amazon jungle. To most people it was just a legend. But for British explorer, Colonel Percy Fawcett, it was real. Convinced he knew the location of this lost world, he spent years searching for it.

Heinrich Himmler sent his SS solders to locate a treasure so valuable to Nazi ideology that it must be recovered at all costs. The item they are searching for is an ancient manuscript, a perfect copy of a book written nearly two thousand years before in Rome which the Nazis call the birth certificate for the German race. The book is known as the Germania; for the Nazis it is the "Book of Power".

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In 1924, a young girl found an extraordinary object in the jungles of Central America. It was a beautiful skull from a single block of pure quartz crystal. All her life Anna Mitchell-Hedges claimed that her skull had telepathic powers.

Fifteen years ago Michael Hesemann, a German historian, set out to establish the authenticity of one of the most important Christian relics ever found. It's called the Titulus Crucis, or Title of the Cross, a small piece of wood that, it's claimed, hung on the cross of Christ announcing his name and crime. It's displayed in a church in Rome. But is it real or a mediaeval fake?