The Big Picture

Expedition Unknown
‘s Josh Gates was part of the team that uncovered an untouched tomb beneath Petra’s iconic Treasury building.
He spoke about the groundbreaking discovery of at least a dozen skeletons and ceramics in the tomb beneath Petra, and how it sheds new light on the Nabataeans.
Gates also discussed how long it takes for an episode of
Expedition Unknown
to be made, and how they get involved with investigations like the Treasury building.

For over fifteen years, Josh Gates has been taking audiences along with him on his unbelievable adventures around the world. He has had a number of series over the years, from Destination Truth, which saw him chasing after paranormal mysteries and urban legends on SyFy (much like his Discovery Channel series Expedition X), and his long-running series Expedition Unknown, which delves into some of history’s greatest mysteries.

Gates has always been something like a real-life Indiana Jones, and with Season 14 of Expedition Unknown, he has fully lived up to that comparison. The two-part premiere sees Gates traveling across the world to Petra, Jordan, to the iconic Treasury building which was the site of filming for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. While he didn’t discover the Holy Grail in Petra, Gates was part of the excavation that discovered an untouched tomb beneath the Treasury, which sheds new light on the Nabataeans who once called the region home.

As a historian and anthropologist who has long looked up to Gates as a professional hero, I was eager to catch up with him ahead of the premiere to discuss this incredible discovery, and to learn more about how Expedition Unknown is made. In addition to discussing the Season 14 premiere, we also discussed his short-lived Josh Gates Tonight series, and his plans to pen a second memoir and, perhaps, a cocktail book. You can read the full transcript of our conversation below, and be sure to tune in to the brand-new season of Expedition Unknown on the Discovery Channel tonight.

COLLIDER: I always like looking behind the veil of how television is made, especially a series like Expedition Unknown , because I know archaeology is not a quick-paced discipline—

JOSH GATES: To put it mildly.

Ha! Yes, to put it mildly. How long did all of this really take to film for this episode?

GATES: This one, I have to say, came together a little bit faster than most. Many of these shows, especially when we’re trying to film in really well-known heritage sites, can often take many months or even years. I remember when we were trying to do a Dead Sea Scrolls show, it took over two years to do the pre-production just to get ourselves all the permissions and get in the right place at the right time.

In the case of our season premiere at Petra, we had worked with the lead archaeologist there, Pearce Paul Creasman, a year before. He was doing an excavation in Sudan, and we joined him there to help excavate a flooded pyramid. But his main job is as the executive director of ACOR, the American Center of Research in Jordan. And he told us, “Look, we have this really exciting season coming up at Petra, and we really want to do some work in front of the Treasury to help understand it better.” And of course, as soon as we heard that we were there in a shot. So, we were really lucky in this case that we had the cooperation of the Jordanians and of ACOR, and that is critical. Obviously, you can’t make a show like this without those partnerships.

Absolutely. And that leads me to my next question, which is, I’ve always wondered how much of the planning for the episodes that you do comes from your own personal interest and chasing after concepts that you want to really dig into, or how many of those are, like in this case, previous partnerships lead to new investigations.

GATES: A lot of them come from just areas of interest. There are certainly stories and parts of the world that I’m really fascinated in, fascinated by. And so, obviously, there are things that I would love to move forward with, but you really do have to have some sort of active investigation happening at these sites. You can’t just show up to Petra or show up to an Egyptian tomb and start digging holes in the ground. It is that nexus between the story that you want to tell and the real work that’s being done out in the field.

And it has to be a good story. It has to be something where there’s meat on the bone, there is a mystery and a legend, or some puzzle that we don’t understand that we can hopefully move the needle on that through the episode. And so, that’s difficult. To do that over and over throughout the year to get ourselves in the right place at the right time to create a whole sequence of these shows is the hardest part of Expedition Unknown. That’s the big challenge; it’s the whiteboard back at the home office, because we’re constantly trying to figure out where to slot these different adventures.

I’m curious. I got to watch the locked version of this which was still awaiting some ADR. I was curious how hands-on are you with the editing process of how you want the episodes to look. How much of it is, like you said, the whiteboard and the office piecing together how the episodes will look?

GATES: I play a big role in all that. I’m a glutton for punishment, so I see the show from pre-production all the way through post, which is uncommon for a host. I also executive produce and showrun the show. Part of that is because I find it really helpful. To be there for all of the pre-production means that I’m going to get the education that I’m going to need as a host when the filming begins, so I really want to dig in as much as possible to get the foundation that I need before we start filming.

And then, in terms of Petra, that took us about three weeks of solid filming to make the two-parter. And so, you come back with this huge trove of footage from all sorts of different cameras, everything from drones to GoPros to ground cameras, and it’s really helpful to have somebody who knows where the bodies are buried, no pun intended. So, to be able to work with the editors and help assemble all of those sequences, I think is really helpful. And so, I try to touch every part of the show as much as I can.

I think that’s what makes the show so compelling for audiences, you’re so involved with every aspect of it.

GATES: Well, I appreciate that. Thanks.

There’s More to the Nabataeans Than ‘Expedition Unknown’ Could Cover
Image via Discovery Channel

Something I was really interested in while watching this first part of the Petra mystery was the navigational petroglyphs. They were so far up. Was that something akin to a road sign where they were designed to be so far up? Or is this a case of erosion of the desert over the years?

GATES: That’s a great question. I think in that case it is about erosion. I suspect they weren’t that high up initially. Although because there is a rock right at their base, maybe somebody climbed up on top of that in antiquity as well. But those petroglyphs are really remarkable. The Nabataeans became this incredibly powerful trade empire because of their mastery of the desert.

Everybody’s heard of the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks, but the Nabataeans are the unsung heroes of this part of the world, and it’s because they did what nobody else could. They sat at the center of these really important trade routes, and they were the only ones badass enough to move all of these goods through those areas. And so, the fact that they left behind all of these markers in the desert gives us just a small clue to how they did it.

Part of that scene, unfortunately, isn’t in the final cut, but along with the navigational beacons of which way Petra is located and things like that, there’s also indications on those petroglyphs of grass and animals, meaning that this is a place where there’s water. And even today, as dry as it is out there, there are a few shrubs and things growing right around those petroglyphs. And so, this was probably an ancient natural well, and so it’s a way station, but it’s also a gas station. It’s a place to bring your camels. It’s a place to trade out camels, to restock, to refuel.

And so, the Nabataeans, if you or I were passing by those rocks dying of thirst, we probably wouldn’t know even what to look for, but they really encoded the landscape so that they could become masters of the desert.

I love that. I was so curious if there was other stuff that wasn’t in the final cut. I was thinking about the coin that’s talked about at the top of the episode. Were there other signs of the way that they were trading? Were they truly manufacturers, or were they the middlemen for getting products to other parts of that area?

GATES: That’s also a great question, and there are questions about that too. There are some mineral mines and things in the Nabataean world, so it may be that they were doing some manufacturing, but it does seem that they really were the center point, as we called them in the show, the long haul truckers of the ancient world when it came to Arabia. And so, there’s no question that that’s what brought them their remarkable wealth.

Again, you could make a 10-hour show in the Nabataeans with your eyes closed. One of the things we don’t cover as much in the show is they were also a formidable force. The Romans tried to take them a few times before they ultimately annexed them unsuccessfully. They also had all of these diplomatic partnerships with some very, very powerful empires and held their own. They’re mentioned in the Bible a few times. They were a very formidable force, so it’s not just that they were traitors, they really were a powerful kingdom in their own right.

You mentioned the Romans. I know a lot about the Romans, but the Nabataeans are a group that I’ve never really had much exposure to. Watching the part of the episode where you talk about their cisterns and their pipes, it’s very reminiscent of the Roman aqueducts. I’m curious. Was Rome influenced by the Nabataeans, and in their conquest to erase them they took some of their discoveries and abilities?

GATES: I think it’s the other way around. I think the Nabataeans, once they came into their own and started moving all this wealth and started not just moving goods but actually spending time in the heart of these other empires, started to see that they could leverage technology but also culture from these other empires. And so, along with legitimate ceramic pipes, there are aqueducts running all through the canyons of Petra. Technology, I’m sure they inherited from the Greeks and Romans, but they also really seemed to borrow so much art and architecture from these cultures as well.

You just see it everywhere at Petra, and you can just imagine that it’s their way of saying, “Look at us. We’re just as sophisticated as you are, and we’ve arrived. And even though we live out here in this desert that seems totally inhospitable, we have a Roman amphitheater, we have running water.” To anyone living in the deserts around Petra, to visit that place and see water flowing through the city must have seemed magical.

‘Expedition Unknown’s Discovery at Petra Is Hugely Informative

It was magical just to see how it looked in the episode. I’ve only seen the first half of this two-part adventure, and the press release is what really caught my attention, because it talks about this skeleton that was found clutching the ceramic vessel and that it’s likely from, I believe, first century BC. Has there been carbon dating done on these artifacts? Were there other grave goods that we’ll get to learn more about when we get to that episode?

GATES: For sure. This is a really important discovery. When we set out to make this episode, I never imagined that we would actually find something this significant beneath the Treasury. For a building as famous as the Treasury is, what’s really jaw-dropping about it is how little we know about it.

Everybody knows that building. They know it from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but they probably also just know it because it appears everywhere. It is a truly iconic facade. It is one of the new seven wonders of the world. And so, everyone knows this building, and yet archeologists don’t really know much about it. They don’t know when it was constructed. They don’t really know what it was for. They guess that it was a tomb. There are these niches carved in the inside of it, so when you walk into it, it does feel like it could be a tomb. But there were no inscriptions found on it, no bodies found inside of it. And so, I don’t think there’s a more famous building in the world that we know less about.

And so, to do this remote scanning in front of the Treasury and discover this cavity beneath it, and then to dig down and find that it’s not only a tomb, but a tomb filled with skeletons. There are at least a dozen skeletons in this tomb. That is a huge deal. First of all, because almost none of the tombs in Petra have human remains in them. Because Petra was never really abandoned, it was always used by desert dwellers and later by the Bedouins, all those tombs were cleared out in antiquity. People were living in them. People were stabling their animals in them. So, when Western archaeologists discovered Petra, which, by the way, was only a couple of hundred years ago, this Swiss explorer was led into Petra in the 1800s, so we’ve only known in the West about this place for a very short amount of time. By that time, all those tombs were empty.

To find any human remains in Petra is hugely informative for archaeologists. In this tomb, there is ceramics, there are skeletons, and that’s a huge puzzle piece, because we know the treasury was built right on top of this tomb, why? What was it about this tomb that made it the place to build the most significant building in the city? And so, that’s what makes it so exciting.

What are ACOR’s plans with the remains and the findings once they’re done researching them and trying to get as much information as possible?

GATES: I know that ACOR is really enthusiastic about continuing the excavation inside the tomb and about preserving what’s there. They may well keep that area open and put a grate over it so that visitors can look down and see into it, but I think that’s all to be determined. And there is an indication through the remote sensing that there may be even more beneath the Treasury. And so, I think this is just the beginning of a series of excavations that will hopefully teach us a lot more about the Treasury and about the Nabataeans.

That’s so incredible. I think everyone in this industry grew up wanting to be like Indiana Jones, and you got to film in front of this location that’s so iconic in Indiana Jones, while being part of such an incredible discovery. What was that like for you?

GATES: I have to say, this episode for me was the dream of a lifetime. Every single day that we were there, I was standing in that trench covered in dirt moving buckets, moving rocks, and I would just look up at that building and pinch myself and just think, “I cannot believe that I’m here excavating beneath the Treasury.”

And then, in the tomb finding a vessel that at first glance looks exactly like the Holy Grail from Last Crusade, everybody in the tomb just froze. We found this vessel clutched in the hand of the skeleton, and everybody just went silent, because nobody wanted to say it out loud. But everybody was thinking the same thing: That looks like the Holy Grail. It was this moment of history imitating art that directly below this building where one of the most famous scenes in movie history was filmed, there is an actual vessel there in a story that’s real, in a mystery that is not just cinematic. This is a real part of our history, and that’s what makes it so exciting, that it’s not the stuff of fiction. This is a real story.

What’s Next For Josh Gates?

As we wind down on this, I wanted to ask you, is Josh Gates Tonight ever coming back?

GATES: I loved making that show. During the pandemic when we couldn’t travel, the network was generous enough, or crazy enough, to let me host a talk show for a couple of years.

First of all, it was such a thrill because it was just the opportunity to do something that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have had the chance to do, but it also was really amazing because so many of the celebrities that came on the show didn’t really have anything to promote. A lot of them, because it was the pandemic, they weren’t there to hawk a movie. And so, we ended up having these really great conversations and taking these deeper dives into their careers, and it felt really refreshing to me to be able to have some of these conversations that didn’t feel totally promotional. It was like the inmates were running the asylum. We could just do whatever we wanted, so we made cocktails every week, and we did all sorts of very silly things and fun field segments around the city and around the country. And so, I loved making that show. The problem is, it’s impossible to make Josh Gates Tonight and Expedition Unknown at the same time.

And if given the choice, the network would much rather have me waist deep in a pit of snakes somewhere in the world. But I dream of a day when we can get back to the desk and make JGT. I loved doing that show.

It could be like a special segment within Expedition Unknown .

GATES: From your lips to God’s ears.

I was also curious, are you going to ever write another memoir? You’ve obviously done so much since your last one. I actually have Destination Truth sitting on my desk right next to me. I loved reading it when it first came out, but you’ve done so much more since then.

GATES: I know. I have to do it. I really want to write a companion piece for Expedition Unknown. And to go back to the talk show, every time I do a live talk, somebody raises their hand in the audience and says, “Why haven’t you done a cocktail recipe book of all these cocktails that you’ve done both on the talk show and things that you’ve had around the world?”

Oh, that’s genius.

GATES: So, I have a plan. I’m going to write another book, and I’m going to write a cocktail book, and I just need to somehow find the time to do it. But hopefully, there will be a long airport layover somewhere where I could start cracking away at it.

Well, thank you so much, Josh. This is great. I wish I could spend a whole hour talking with you about all of the different expeditions you’ve been on, and I’m really excited to see the episode on Black Sam Bellamy’s treasure. I wrote a paper in my undergrad called “The Robin Hoods of the Sea,” so that’s very much right up my alley.

GATES: Amazing. That’s another story. I grew up in Massachusetts. I had heard the story, but this idea that a real honest-to-God English pirate was operating in the waters off Cape Cod, and that this wreck, which is just loaded with not just treasure but incredible artifacts, is just right at our doorstep there on Cape Cod, that’s a really, really cool show because it really is one of the only authenticated pirate wrecks in the world. And so, to be able to get a snapshot of life in the golden age of piracy is such a thrill.

Expedition Unknown premieres tonight, Wednesday, October 9, at 9 PM ET/PT on Discovery Channel and will be available to stream the next day on Discovery+ and Max.

Release Date January 8, 2015 Cast Josh Gates , Orson Mochizuki Main Genre Reality Seasons 15 Character(s) Host , Honjo Shigenaga

Stream on Max