Mystery Files

We reveal an ambitious archaeological project in Southern Jordan, which is providing startling new evidence. The Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP) is one of the only archaeological investigations of a battlefield on this scale anywhere in the world. While the archaeological trace of Lawrence and the Bedouin guerrilla fighters is by its very nature incredibly scarce, the military structures of their opponents, the Ottoman Turks, are all too evident. The structures and scars from this battle are visible across the desert, in particular around the city of Ma’an, a key Hejaz station. On-the-ground analysis of surviving defences begins to reveal the style of warfare played out in this military arena.

Did Dudley and Elizabeth conspire to murder his wife so that they could be together? By piecing together the staircase in question using old evidence, modern crime scene investigation sheds new light on the age old mystery and suggests that Amy did not die accidentally.

In Rome today is the street known as Vicus Papissa, ‘the street of the woman pope’. In that avenue is an alcove in which it is said an image of Joan once stood, in memory of the spot where she gave birth. The street runs between St Peter’s and the Lateran to the Coliseum and was part of the processional route of all popes in Rome until the 13th Century, when it was suddenly redirected away from the location of Joan’s legendary procession. Some scholars believe that the official route was changed so that the new pope wouldn’t have to pass the notorious site. No contemporary 9th century accounts of a female pope exist, but with no conclusive proof to the contrary, the possibility remains that a talented woman could have risen to become Bishop of Rome? The words of the first writer to account for Joan, Jean de Mailly, resound even more loudly today than they did centuries ago; next to his story of Joan, he wrote the words, ‘to be verified’.

Through the accounts and diaries of Saladin’s closest advisers, the mysteries of the period are uncovered. Saladin’s fear at the imminent arrival of Richard and the opening of the Third Crusade, his indecision at the Siege of Acre and his failure to ensure the safe release of 3000 Muslim prisoners all paint a picture of a more complex man. Debunking many of the myths of the Crusades, and showing how the war changed both Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, leading them both to question the massive death toll of the conflict. In Saladin’s last days in Damascus, his spirit sapped by war, and of his last words, a denunciation of blood-shed.

Throughout the seventeenth Century several European travelers visit the Taj Mahal. Many of these explorers later publish lengthy volumes of their adventures. Only 10 years after the emperor’s death, the French traveller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, publishes a travelogue of his adventures in India, mentioning an uncompleted mausoleum across the river from the Taj Mahal. The story spreads and other writers across the centuries state it as fact. In the mid-1990s, excavators’ uncover the remnants of a garden are found with the exact dimensions to that of the garden of the Taj Mahal. Black stones are also found. Are these the remains of the Taj Mahal’s fabled sister building?

We reveal that despite the book suggesting he spent 20 years in the court of the Chinese emperor, there is no mention of Marco in Chinese records. Marco Polo’s last will and testament remains unsigned and even the inventory of his possessions made on his death has question marks hanging over it. Our experts examine all the best evidence. Did Marco Polo, or any European, travel so far into China so long ago? Are the famous tales really based on Marco Polo’s travels? And did a man named Marco Polo even exist?

In fact only two of the four accounts of the life of Christ in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, tell of his birth. These Infancy Gospels, as they are known, both agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and today pilgrims and tourists mill in their thousands around the Church of the Nativity built upon the supposed site of Christ’s entry into the world, just as they have for centuries. But only Luke mentions the Census and the journey from Nazareth. Neither mentions the ox or the ass. The visitors from the east are nowhere referred to as Kings and nor is it mentioned that there are three of them. Both Gospels mention King Herod, but his dates do not correspond with the dates of a possible Roman census under the Governor Quirinus mentioned in Luke, which came ten years after Herod the Great’s death. And what census, then or now, would take you away from your main residence to be counted in a town which you or your ancestors have long since left? We reveal that even though we assume that Joseph is present at the birth of Christ, this is not mentioned in any of the gospels. In fact according to purification laws outlined in the Temple Scroll and in the book of Leviticus, under Jewish law the only people that may have been present at the birth would in fact have been women. With help from leading academics, archaeologists and Jewish and Christian theologians, we visit many of the locations mentioned in the Gospels to place the birth of Christ in its historical, cultural and Jewish and early Christian contexts and piece together the real story of The Nativity.