L’Eldorado de l’Orient a Finalement été Découvert... par des Pêcheurs
L'El Dorado de l'Est n'était pas qu'un mythe - il a été découvert, et devinez par qui, par un groupe de pêcheurs ! Oui, vous avez bien entendu. Ces pêcheurs intrépides ont trébuché sur un trésor dans les profondeurs de l'océan, rempli de richesses au-delà de leurs rêves les plus fous. Des artefacts anciens aux trésors engloutis, la mer recelait des secrets qui avaient été perdus dans le temps. C'est comme quelque chose tout droit sorti d'un conte de pirates, sauf que cette fois, c'est la vie réelle ! Alors, si vous avez envie d'une aventure en haute mer, gardez les yeux ouverts - on ne sait jamais ce que l'on peut trouver qui se cache sous les vagues.
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FunTranscript
00:00 Do you remember 2011? Well, open your ears wide.
00:04 A diver is about to dive deeply into the waters of the Musi River, located in the heart of an Indonesian island.
00:10 He is one of the many lucky ones to have found incredible artifacts at the bottom of it.
00:15 Divers and fishermen are slowly discovering a Sumatra civilization that has disappeared for a long time.
00:20 Known under the name of the "Blazing City", Sriwijaya's state city was probably the closest to a real El Dorado to ever have existed.
00:29 It, however, disappeared at the end of the 13th century, and until recently, researchers did not even know the exact location of it.
00:38 Imagine a civilization built on a river, a real aquatic world, according to archaeologists who studied Sriwijaya.
00:45 Houses, markets and places of worship were erected on piles of wood above the water level.
00:52 Its inhabitants moved, like modern Venetians, in simple boats.
00:56 Sriwijaya was known as a prosperous and respected maritime empire. It existed from the 7th to the 11th century.
01:04 It was part of the Silk Road, and anyone traveling from east to west had to cross the city.
01:10 Its rulers were wise and managed to take control of the Malacca District,
01:15 thus allowing the city to gain total control over the region's commercial routes.
01:21 The least we can say is that its name had something honorable.
01:26 Sriwijaya translates from Sanskrit as "Blazing Victory" or simply "Glorious".
01:32 The city was an important commercial hub of the time.
01:36 It was strategically located on the most influential commercial routes in the ancient world,
01:41 which means that its inhabitants became extremely rich.
01:45 The most prosperous societies were used to openly display their gold and wealth.
01:52 They often used these precious metals as offerings to their deities,
01:57 or they used them to create large statues and to make the appearance of their king and queen,
02:03 as well as the decorations of their palace.
02:06 Sriwijaya was not without rules.
02:08 Indonesian divers who explored half of the Musi River near the city of Palembang found some traces of it.
02:15 Until now, they have discovered a large Buddha statue,
02:19 jewelry embedded in precious stones, temple bells, mirrors, golden crutches, and many other objects.
02:27 No official archaeological excavation has been carried out in the region,
02:31 so these artifacts are the first elements of Sriwijaya's empire ever found.
02:36 John Kingsley, a British marine archaeologist who reported these discoveries, does not hide his surprise.
02:42 For a long time, people have speculated about the true richness of Sriwijaya,
02:47 and it seems that the rumors have been confirmed.
02:49 "We start from scratch", he says.
02:51 We do not know what clothes the inhabitants of Sriwijaya wore,
02:55 what their tastes were, or what kind of pottery they used to feed themselves.
03:00 But if this discovery has aroused some enthusiasm in the scientific community, there is a twist to this medal.
03:07 Divers and fishermen sell the artifacts recovered on the international market of antiquities,
03:12 even before archaeologists have been able to examine them.
03:16 Researchers could try to acquire some articles, but they are sold for millions of dollars around the world.
03:23 Most of the information we have about this Eldorado of the Orient comes from merchant stories.
03:29 These descriptions relate that Sriwijaya was a kingdom of snakes,
03:33 eaters of men and multilingual parrots.
03:36 This is not common.
03:37 Some say that these active volcanoes gave the city an unreal and disturbing appearance.
03:42 And all these stories emphasize the amount of gold it was worth.
03:46 Travel stories were a common way of describing cities in ancient times.
03:50 In case you didn't know, this is how the legend of Eldorado began.
03:55 When European explorers began their excavation of South American lands in the 16th century,
04:01 they decided that an Amazonian civilization had become accustomed to painting its chiefs in gold
04:05 in order to satisfy the offerings of the gods.
04:08 The legend of Eldorado, alias the Golden Man, began to spread rapidly throughout Europe.
04:15 It turned out that this was only the ceremonial practice of a pre-Columbian civilization.
04:20 It did not indicate any unlimited gold resources.
04:23 No one knows what caused the decline of the Sriwijaya Empire.
04:27 Some say that these active volcanoes could have swallowed it,
04:31 or maybe that the wooden houses built above the river ended up sinking.
04:36 Maybe if divers continue to recover lost objects at the bottom of the water,
04:41 archaeologists will be able to determine what really happened to the city.
04:45 It seems that this is quite common in the history of the world.
04:48 Some ancient civilizations have disappeared without a trace.
04:52 This is how it happened with the Maya civilization, for example.
04:56 The Mayas managed to build one of the largest empires in pre-Columbian America.
05:01 It was thought to have housed more than 2 million people, and it flourished for more than 6 centuries.
05:06 Its sudden disappearance is something that intrigues archaeologists and scientists.
05:11 The Mayas began to settle in South America as early as 1500 BC.
05:16 Their civilization extended from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to Guatemala via Belize.
05:22 It is thought that they built about 40 cities at the height of their empire.
05:26 They also developed a complex hieroglyphic system, which has been studied since its discovery by modern scientists.
05:34 The Mayas were fervent engineers, astronomers and farmers.
05:39 It was a post-nomadic people who settled in vast areas of agricultural land,
05:44 where they could grow corn and other types of vegetables.
05:47 Archaeologists still learn a lot about the Maya civilization by inspecting its ruins.
05:52 The city of Chichen Itza, located in the Yucatan Peninsula, is one of the most important Maya sites discovered to date.
05:59 The site has a total of 26 ruins and houses a world-famous pyramid, known as El Castillo.
06:07 It consists of a series of square terraces with stairs on each of the four sides of the temple.
06:13 It was built in tribute to the serpent god Apum.
06:16 The Mayas were so prodigious in architecture that they managed to build a pyramid that projected a particular shadow.
06:24 More precisely, in the late afternoon, during the equinox of the Printemps and the autumn,
06:29 the pyramid projects a plushy shadow of a triangular shape that creates the Yuchindon Serpent.
06:34 Apum is rampant along the building, and they have created it without knowing the technologies we have today.
06:41 The city is still incredibly incredible, and since 2007 it has been considered one of the 7 wonders of the New World.
06:49 The Maya civilization has prospered for more than 6 centuries thanks to a system of managed resources
06:55 and strong astronomical knowledge.
06:58 The Mayas were able to predict the eclipses with precision,
07:02 and with the only means of their rudimentary technology, they could even locate Venus and Mars.
07:08 They had put everything they needed to prosper for much longer than they had actually done.
07:13 This is why the fall of the Mayas intrigues modern scientists so much.
07:18 No one has been able to fully understand what led to their decline.
07:23 At least, until a recent discovery.
07:26 A study carried out by NASA claims to be able to explain what could have happened.
07:30 Archaeologists have discovered a sample of pollen trapped for more than 1200 years
07:35 in old layers of lacustrine sediments dating back to the previous era for the collapse of this civilization.
07:41 The analysis revealed something completely new about the Mayas.
07:46 Instead of the hypotheses that suspected that the Mayas had disappeared due to a terrible epidemic
07:51 or a prolonged conflict in the region, this could be due to deforestation.
07:56 It is possible that to build their entire kingdom, they had to cut down a lot of trees.
08:02 Without trees, their soil could have eroded and all their fertile land could have slowly but surely become sterile.
08:10 According to NASA researchers, the temperatures in the region could have increased by about 6 degrees.
08:16 And from that moment on, the soil would have become even drier and the crops would have been more difficult to maintain.
08:22 Basically, NASA says that the Mayas have become unable to do the only thing that made them prosper,
08:28 namely agriculture, and their kingdom began to decline.
08:32 Oh yes, and this theory was stunned by another discovery.
08:36 Archaeologists have found skeletons dating from the time of their former kingdoms.
08:41 These presented obvious signs of malnutrition.
08:44 This theory could really bring a new light on the history of the Mayas.
08:49 It could explain what led to the fall of such a powerful civilization.
08:53 What do you think? What theory seems true?
08:56 Have we really managed to discover the reason for the fall of the Mayan civilization?