Ancient Impossible - First Season

How did the ancients create the ultimate

weapons of mass destruction more

than 2,000 years ago?

Could the energy of the sun be

used to torch invading ships?

Did a cannon powered by steam

crush an enemy fleet?

Holy crap, look at that!

And did the ancients build a warship so

mighty it could rival today's

most advanced aircraft carriers?

The forty is a monstrous

vessel, but it's truly an

impossible feat of engineering.

Monuments more

colossal than our own, ancient

super weapons as mighty as

today's, technology so precise

it defies reinvention.

The ancient world was not primitive.

Their marvels were so advanced,

we still use them.

Travel to a world closer than

we imagine, an ancient age

where nothing was impossible.

Ancient impossible ultimate weapons

weapons and warfare, the backbone of world

superpowers.

But when we think of ancient

civilizations, we imagine simpler arsenals.

But is that really how it was?

Was it possible that the

ancients could harness the laws

of science to create the

ultimate super weapons?

Today when you think of super

weapons, you think of modern

militaries armed with supersonic

fighters and nukes.

But did you know that the

ancients also had their very own

super weapons?

A series of brutal

battles reveals the remarkable

power of ancient technology.

More than 2,000 years ago, the

city state of Syracuse on the

island of Sicily held out against Rome.

Sicily is a great prize for

its natural resources, for its grain.

This doesn't escape

the attention of Rome and its

ever expanding empire.

General Marcellus is sent to

Syracuse with the mighty Roman navy.

His mission is to capture the city.

Syracuse has a big problem.

It's now being attacked by a

major superpower, and the Romans

arrive and lay siege to this

important kingdom.

It's going to defend itself,

it's going to use tactics and engineering.

The Syracusians had a secret weapon.

His name was Archimedes.

Archimedes was a brilliant

inventor and a mathematician.

He was born around 2,300 years

ago on the island of Sicily,

slap bang in the middle of

three continents of Europe,

Asia and Africa.

Archimedes was

feared throughout the ancient

world as a mastermind of warfare.

We know that the Romans were

petrified of Archimedes'

inventions.

We're told that the general and

his soldiers fell to despair

when they knew that his

inventions were going to be employed.

and so we find that Archimedes

is actually inventing weapons of

mass destruction.

The first lethal

invention in his arsenal was

known simply as the Archimedes Claw.

Sicilians did not have a huge

amount of manpower, so

Archimedes had to use his brain

power to win out against the Romans.

The Archimedes Claw

is a very simple but highly

advanced weapon for its day.

With fulcrums and pulleys

controlling large metal hooks, a

group of men could grab and tip

enemy ships, making them capsize.

But that's not all.

We're also told that it could

then physically pull the ships

out of the water, which must

have been petrifying.

but the claw was

just the first of Archimedes'

many game changing ultimate weapons.

In Florence, Italy, on the wall

of the Uffizi gallery is an

intriguing painting.

This 14th century depiction is a

vital clue to what could be

Archimedes' most sinister weapon...

a death ray.

The existence of this weapon and

its viability have long been the

subject of debate among

scientists and historians.

Could Archimedes have created a

lethal weapon using only the

power of the sun?

We do know that Archimedes

used reflective technology and

in Sicily there were lots of

these highly polished bronze or

copper shields, and Archimedes

could possibly have harnessed

the power of the sun reflecting

those rays back out onto wooden ships.

The Archimedes death ray is

essentially the first directional weapon.

You could harness the power of

the sun, focus it into a tight

beam like a laser, creating the death ray.

If the death ray could channel enough solar

energy, it would set the enemy

fleet on fire.

Ever since war at sea began,

fire has been a devastating weapon.

It has destroyed even the most

advanced modern warships.

It's a fear that former navy

pilot hunter Ellis knows well.

Fire is definitely one of the

worst things you can have on

board a ship, and history's proven that.

Even on these modern day,

aircraft carriers that are made

of steel and titanium, I mean,

we've experienced horrible fires

in our past with the forrestal

and the ranger.

Fire at sea is nothing any

captain ever wants to deal with.

So imagine if Archimedes was

able to harness the power of the

sun and turn it into a death ray.

There are other

examples of how the sun's rays

were utilized in the ancient world.

One of these was at the harbor

of Alexandria in Egypt, where a

huge mirror in the Pharos

lighthouse guided ships into the harbor.

We know the ancients clearly

understood the potential of

reflective light.

But the question remains, could

Archimedes harness enough solar

power to pose a threat to enemy warships?

Perhaps the answer lies hidden

in the new Mexico desert.

One scientist believes that the

Archimedes death ray is not the

stuff of science fiction.

We're here at the National

Solar Thermal test facility at

Sandia national laboratories in

Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I'm a mechanical engineer here

and I do research on

concentrating solar power.

What you see here is a field of heliostats.

Heliostats are mirrors that

track the sun to concentrate and

focus the sunlight onto a

receiver to generate steam,

which spins a turbine to create electricity.

If solar power can

generate electricity, can it

also be used as a lethal weapon?

Dr. Cliff Ho believes it is the

shape of the shields acting as

mirrors that holds the secret

to whether this super weapon

could have worked or not.

It may have been that

Archimedes employed curved

mirrors, not necessarily just

flat, but maybe a little bit of