Spies are not just buzzing above us in balloons, satellites, and spy planes, they’re digging up underground secrets. The worlds of archeology and espionage are more similar than you may think. Both involve uncovering hidden intelligence, analysis, and interpretation. Both also lead to significant discoveries that shape our understanding of the past and the world around us. Today - on the 100th anniversary of archeologist Howard Carter unsealing King Tut’s tomb - we explore the world of buried secrets.
The spymaster
Long before CIA officer Christopher Turner taught advanced tradecraft to undercover operatives and dodged bombs and enemy spies in South Asia, he was an archeologist digging up secrets. He still is, only now Turner gathers cloak-and-dagger intel as the author of spy novels and books.
Across Syria’s war-torn and earthquake-ravaged towns, looters have been trafficking the country's priceless antiquities for more than a decade. At the same time, two unlikely spymasters have tried to hold the criminals to account. Syrian archeologist Amr Al-Azm and his colleague Katie A. Paul have taken on ISIS militants, a hostile regime, and even Facebook hoping to save Syria’s cultural heritage.
Egyptologist Howard Carter is known for discovering King Tut’s tomb and treasures in the Valley of the Kings but Carter’s mysterious past also includes working for British intelligence in WW1. There is speculation Carter helped destroy a German fort at Luxor as well. So was Egypt's self-taught archaeologist also a spy? SPYSCAPE uncovers Carter’s many secrets.
The mysterious Phaistos Disc discovered by archeologist Luigi Pernier dates back to around 1700-1600 BC and is one of the most controversial inscriptions in the world of codes and ciphers. We dig into history’s lost languages, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone, Sumerian cuneiform tablets, and Mayan codices that have puzzled the world’s brightest minds for centuries.
Archeology is no stranger to suspected hoaxes from crystal skulls to the universe’s ‘oldest’ star map. Japan was rocked by scandal when revered archeologist Shinichi ‘Divine Hands’ Fujimura was outed as a fraud in 2000. Here’s our pick of the most audacious and amusing archeological and scientific finds from Hercules Sarcophagus to America's Stonehenge. Are they too good to be true? You decide.
Known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence was an archeologist, spy, and writer of his famous memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the basis of Peter O’Toole’s classic movie Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The circumstances surrounding the publication of Seven Pillars of Wisdom are equally compelling and dramatic. SPYSCAPE uncovers Seven Secrets of the Seven Pillars.
