America Unearthed Season 2 Episodes 3-5 Recaps: Walls, Vikings & Egyptian Treasure

Below are a few episodes of "America Unearthed" from season 2 that I had not previously covered. The overviews are from the H2 website and TVGuide.com: Anything in italics are my notes.

Episode 3: Great Wall Of Texas
Since the 1800s, the City of Rockwall, Texas has had a mystery it's been trying to solve. Allegedly, the town was built on a massive rock wall that was constructed by some ancient civilization…or even giants. Could it be true? Scott Wolter conducts a massive excavation of the wall to figure out who–or what–created this wall and the controversy surrounding it.

I had never heard of this so I found it very interesting. The wall was discovered in 1852 and is believed to be 20 miles long and 7 stories tall, It was believed to have been built by an ancient civilization and has been buried over time. Scott hypothesizes that ancestors of the Caddo Indians or even the Chinese could have built the wall (since they were believed to have visited America long before Columbus). Paleomagnetism is used to determine if the rocks had been moved and how old they are. It is determined to be a very ancient (85 million years old) natural rock formation (so no giants or Chinese).

Episode 4: Vikings In America

In 1000 AD, the Vikings made it to North America, establishing a base camp in Newfoundland at a site called L'Anse aux Meadows. But could they have made it further South to what is now the United States to build a permanent settlement called Vinland, which has been documented in legend, but has never been found? Forensic Geologist Scott Wolter thinks so. Now, he's hot on the trail of never before seen evidence and geologic clues that could prove it–including a message discovered off the coast of a forbidden island in Massachusetts that may have been left by famous Viking Voyager Leif Ericson himself.

I have heard about this topic several times on other shows so it wasnt one of my favorites.

Episode 5: Grand Canyon Treasure
Legend has it that Egyptian treasure was discovered in a Grand Canyon cave in 1909. Against the beautiful backdrop of America's most grandiose natural spectacle, Scott Wolter embarks on a search to find out whether the legend is true. Along the way, he investigates legends of more caves found throughout the U.S. where similar rumors of buried Egyptian treasure persist. Examining artifacts, climbing into caves and separating fact from fiction and fake artifacts from the real deal, Scott Wolter comes out of this adventure with a clear opinion on whether Egyptians really did bury treasure in America long ago.

Egyptian artifacts buried in caves around the United States? While I had not heard of this before, it seems a bit far fetched for my taste. Folklore says someone from the Smithsonian (G.E. Kincaid) found such a cave back in 1909. The Smithsonian currently denies this as a hoax. Yep they lost me at the "government has stealth helicopters trying to scare us off". If the cave is so hard to get to, how did the Egyptians access it? To the Zuni people the Grand Canyon is a sacred place and is the origin of their existence.

Scott also investigates Burrows Cave in Illinois. There were supposedly 13 crypts made of gold. He sees replicas of a number of artifacts that have Egyptians symbols on them. The originals were melted down and sold as raw gold. Most of these stories originate from Russell Burrows who said he found the caves in the 1980s with several thousand artifacts inside. Lots of people are very skeptical of what he said. One belief is that Alexander Helios (who is Cleopatra and Mark Antony's son) came to America and hid treasures in several places.

Grade: 3/12 Monsters (out of 5). "Great Wall of Texas" was my favorite of these three episodes. The other two were kinda blah to me.