Crusader Siege Unearthed - Medieval Dead - S03 EP01 - History Documentary

and look what you have we found at least 10 stocks and it was very difficult to tell which one is a horse or a donkey or a mule hadass motra worked out that there were two or three horses, it was difficult to be sure that the rest were mostly mules are utilitarian beasts of burden at a

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site, so if you look at the mules, the mules were probably used to transport this, the stones from their quarry to the castle and the horses were used for battle. Horses from

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battle sites are very rare. and here was an opportunity to uncover one of the mysteries about crossbred horses, perhaps even the Knights Templar, once we identified the horses and separated them from the mules, there were two questions we wanted to answer first: what breed, if it was a local breed. like Arabian horses or if it was a European breed like a Shire or a big horse that we know knights used to ride, once we knew the breed we wanted to know if they were born in Israel and raised in Israel or if they were brought from Europe to Israel, Gehler and Hadas attempted to extract ancient DNA from the bones as part of a larger study into the origin of crossbred horses, but were only partially successful, perhaps due to the burning of the bones during or after the battle. but when they combined the data they had with other techniques they were more successful, we did some isotope analysis and with the isotope analysis we were able to differentiate some of the heritage left on the site, we compared it to Icelandic horses that we knew are definitely from Europe. no one knew exactly how many horses or which horses the Crusades brought to Israel and whether they came to Israel and then conquered or bought some local horses and rode local horses.

We discovered that most of the horses we found were actually Arabians. or local horses and few were European draft horses. The pathology showed how the animals suffered both in battle and afterward. Some of the horses died a very bad death. You know that they were not killed at the place where they were wounded and taken to the castle. and it took a while until they died, you use animals, because for war today you have tanks or other machinery that you use, but that was the time, in addition to the animal bones, the collapsed Vault also contained human skeletons, all of them were male and they had all been burned like horses, meaning that the profile could not be conclusive, as they all shared characteristics present in the DNA of Europe and the Middle East,

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workers, soldiers or even knights, perhaps the Templars will never know. , but archaeologists were surprised to discover that one had a secret. that he kept hidden for more than eight centuries had a pile of coins under his armpit and the coins are actually dated to the exact date of the castle, so it also helps the day-to-day remains, somehow the troops of Saladin had missed a bonus, maybe the

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was already burning or covered in rubble all the skeletons showed signs of violence one in particular had serious facial wounds when you look at the skeleton you could see trauma, or it was someone who used an ax or a hammer or something to hit their head in and probably what caused their death they were very young um one of them we think around the end of 20 you know 27 Maybe and they were healthy and young and a lot was said to one of them really um Warrior or something like that I don't know the face to face battle is very brutal and it's very difficult isn't it a nice sin um to see, you know, you can feel the battle there, this corner of vladim Jacob kept the last of his secrets until the end of excavation. something about archaeology, it could be there for days, weeks and months, but you know what is going to happen according to Murphy's laws, the best fines come at the last moment, the last day of the excavation, when you are already doubling all the material and everyone. he's dying to get home and weeks later we found a skeleton and we slowly removed it removing the um the dirt that had accumulated around this skeleton and when we got to the skull and the vertebra so they were arrowheads stuck along the vertebra The one where he was cornered was in a place where he couldn't escape and they shot him, the feeling was that he knew it was very easy to kill him, you know, but I don't know why he just went to shoot again and again and again, so La image we saw was a person just lying down, a skill, a skeleton just lying like that in a corner and then a bunch of arrowheads.

I remember thinking wow, this is really cool and no adrenaline or excitement, and then I remember this chill running down. My spine thought, Oh wow, this guy was walking and he was breathing one and yeah, so it's that mix of feelings that goes through um and and and it was really like immersing yourself in the battlefield um and the full sense of the meaning. of those who don't." killed in the fighting, the lucky ones faced slavery probably only the skilled workers who would be useful to Saladin for the rest, especially the staff, there was no chance, in fact this turned out to be extremely bloody when the castle fell as far as we got.

It can be said that the people in it were annihilated, certainly members of the elite and especially the military orders and in this case the Templars could not expect mercy because they had dedicated their lives to fighting Islam and as such it would be unrealistic to expect to be accepted even if they tried to surrender, which was very rare over the course of about two decades. Ronnie Ellen Bloom's extraordinary project has perhaps added more to the archaeological record of the Crusades in Israel than any other. Vadim Yakov is an amazing site. The shape has changed. We see the Crusades not only psychologically but on a human level.

Medieval warfare is very, very bloody and very full of things. When you see what really happens, I mean, you know, you know and you think, but when you really see what they did to him. each other   uh, it puts modern wars also in different  I mean, but it was one against one, it wasn't a murderer who must kill millions, but I don't know all these types of violence, I don't like it. but my profession is to investigate ancient massacres, not modern ones, and that's all. The capture of Vladim Jakob was Saladin's first major victory in a few years, he defeated the Templars once and for all at the Battle of Hateen and recaptured Jerusalem for Islam.

The crusaders never again took the holy city and no one tried to build a castle again.