Digging for the Truth

- Season 2

(2006)

Join Josh Bernstein as he braves the Peruvian Amazon in search of the ancient civilization of Chavin de Huantar. There, he'll explore the secrets of a real 3,000-year old temple of doom. Complete with sacred idols and bizarre rituals, the temple was at the heart of an ancient cult that controlled society - not by war or force - but through mind control and hallucinogenic plants like the San Pedro cactus. To investigate this civilization, Josh goes croc hunting in the Amazon; crawls through the deep, dark tunnels of the mysterious temple; and finds out just how potent ...

By the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors had conquered the Incas of South America and the Aztecs of Mexico. Seemingly invincible, they looked to North America next. They left a trail of destruction from Florida to the Mississippi River, but then - among a sophisticated community of pyramid-building Native Americans - the conquistadors met their match. Who were these people and how did they fight off - and defeat - what was then the most powerful army in the world? The secret is in the pyramids. Josh Bernstein will scale these great earthen mounds, build his own ...

Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments on earth. But, who built it, how did they build it and why? As Josh Bernstein investigates, he'll discover the truth behind the stories of druids, cults and human sacrifice. He will take to the air to get a rare birds-eye view of the massive structure; scale down ancient mine shafts; test the tools that would have moved the giant stones, and meet a man whose journey from a foreign land changed the Stonehenge world forever. This is Stonehenge like you've never seen it before!

Josh Bernstein hits the high seas and takes on the history books, challenging the age-old assumption that Columbus was the first to cross the Atlantic and the first to discover America. According to the Viking sagas, Eric the Red's son Leif Erikson was the first European on the continent. Using the sagas as his guide, Josh makes a grueling 4,000 mile journey from Scandinavia to Iceland to Greenland and then onto the edge of the New World. He's on the hunt for archaeological evidence of the sagas' claims and to prove the Vikings got to America before Columbus.

Josh Bernstein investigates America's oldest missing person's case-- the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. In 1587, over 100 settlers landed in the New World to build England's first permanent colony in North America. But, three years later, they had vanished. Did they starve to death? Were they killed by natives? Were there any survivors? Josh travels across two continents to examine the archaeological evidence. He flies high above Roanoke Island in a powered paraglide to scan the terrain; climbs and cores a cypress tree to find out what the climate was like when the ...

Cleopatra has been heralded as Egypt's great beauty, a queen so irresistible that she seduced the likes of Caesar and Marc Anthony and nearly brought Rome to its knees. But, as Josh Bernstein finds out, it wasn't her beauty that captivated. Cleopatra was perhaps the most intelligent and cunning of Egypt's rulers. Unlike her predecessors, she took pains to learn the different languages of the region she controlled and she knew the value of good PR. So, how did she become the last of the pharaohs? Josh goes beyond the legend to uncover the real Cleopatra. He digs deep ...

The City of the Gods (Teotihuacan) is home to the third-largest pyramid in the world; is many times larger than the largest Mayan and Aztec cities ever built; and today it's the world's biggest ghost town. At its height, more people lived in the City of the Gods than in any European city for centuries to come. But it now lies in silent ruins with no inhabitants left to explain what happened here -- or why. That's about to change. Josh Bernstein soars above the great city; crawls down dangerous mining shafts below it; and even plays one of the world's oldest sports......

Traveling back through time along the ancient incense trails of the Near and Middle East, Josh Bernstein seeks to unearth the real story behind the legends of the mysterious Queen of Sheba. He explores underground churches and ruined temples in northern Ethiopia, and journeys into the volatile tribal deserts of Yemen, where he must first earn the trust of machine gun-toting Bedouin tribesmen before he can explore a forgotten city named for the Bible's most famous queen.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey describe an epic story of the legendary Trojan war fought over the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen of Troy. It is said her face launched a thousand ships. But, did this ten year war actually take place? Was Achilles a true warrior? Did Greek soldiers really hide in a giant wooden horse and overrun the Trojans to finally declare victory? Setting out across the Aegean Sea with Homer's works as his guide, Josh Bernstein follows a trail of clues - up mountains, under the sea and aboard a chariot - to find the real story behind the Trojan...

The line between fact and fiction is elusive and nowhere more so than in the pages of Dan Brown's bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. Now Josh takes on the most controversial of the book's many claims: that the bloodline of Jesus Christ came to Europe and lived on in a line of French kings. In a world exclusive, The History Channel has been given permission to extract DNA from the founding queen of the Merovingian monarchy and to compare it with the living members of a genetic group to which Jesus Christ is thought to have belonged.

Patagonia or 'The Land of the Big Feet' is, perhaps more than any other place on Earth, home to stories and legends about giants. Since the 16th century, explorers like Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake have told of seeing giants along the Patagonian coast. Could such stories be true? According to the Argentine newspaper, El Tribuno, gauchos in the region have filed over twenty sightings in the area since 2000. Josh Bernstein investigates an intriguing connection between centuries of historical accounts and an amazing ancient creature known to science as the ...

According to the Bible, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God to punish their citizens for their wicked ways. Was this just a biblical parable, or is there evidence that such a thing actually happened? Josh Bernstein travels to the Near East to follow clues laid out in the Bible. His search takes him to modern-day Jordan, where, nestled near the Dead Sea, two sister cities reveal archaeological evidence of a great destruction. What happened here, and when? Josh will climb Mount Sodom to inspect a strange "Pillar of Salt" - just like the one the Bible ...

Ever since the first Spanish explorers told tales of cities in the middle of the jungle-choked Amazon, explorers, archaeologists and treasure-hunters alike have been searching for them, and many have died trying...including the most famous Amazon explorer Col. Percy Fawcett. Now, Digging for the Truth is mounting its own expedition, and a striking new discovery will be revealed. Josh Bernstein accompanies University of Florida's Michael Heckenberger deep into Brazil's Mato Grosso region. Following Fawcett's trail to the point of his last known location, they then take...