This episode centers on the frantic and most significant search for the grave of Suleiman the Magnificent – an ancient Sultan who ruled for up to fifty years and was well known for his powerful reign as he succeeded in conquering most of Europe. He was also an established poet and under his reign, law, and culture, thrived.
In 1566, while he was undertaking a battle in Hungary, he intended to win and conquer the Venice since he had more men, but the opposition with sheer determination held back the ottoman army for over a month, and soon, due to old age, the great Suleiman passed away. His body was embalmed and preserved. A ritual was performed and his heart was taken out and encased in a gold plated container – legend has it that it is still beating today in hopes that it would one day be reunited with its host.
While Suleiman’s body was taken back to his home, his heart was buried somewhere in the battle ground, beneath his command tent. In time, a city was built around the heart’s burial site and the city was considered holy, as it was all around the buried, still beating heart. The city was called Tuberc and it was a holy city until it was decimated, destroyed, and overridden in another war, and the location of the heart was lost forever.
To get more information, Josh heads to Suleiman’s burial place and home, Istanbul, Turkey, where he meets with expert Gunhan Borecki, who reveals to Josh exactly how important Suleiman was and the significance of just finding where his heart was buried would be truly revolutionary. Later on, Josh heads to Budapest – to the national archives to learn more details about Suleiman, the Magnificent. There he learns the exact place where the sultan dies and is more curious to find his grave.
To satisfy this curiosity, Josh heads to Szigetva, where the battle occurred; there he finds compelling evidence that the area was really where the battle took place. The archeologist there showed him a cannon ball they had dug up. This may have been fired by the Sultan’s army themselves. Josh helps in the digging and unearths something astonishing – the steel of a battle axe. This must have been used by a soldier in the battle and is indeed an astonishing find. However, the main find would be the grave of the Sultan. Is it true? Will it ever be found? Josh is directed to the site where the Sultans command tent would have been all those years ago and is pleasantly surprised to see it is now a beautiful vineyard.
He meets with the archeologists there, and with state of the art technology, they sweep the earth to find clues. They believe that underneath the vineyard may be the remains of the town of Turbec. Their detector picks something underneath the ground and it seems like it may be worth digging up, but unfortunately, due to lack of paperwork, they cannot dig up the site.
Eventually, they decide to go through the tunnel of a private wine cellar, with permission from the owner, and what they find is pulsating – they find a stone, perfectly carved and may have been on a precious building, most likely the Sultan’s grave. As astonishing as this is, they cannot dig until the proper paperwork is in hand.
Several years later, Josh revisits Hungary after getting word that they had found something. He is surprised to see a whole town uncovered from underground – the city of Turbec. Several archeologists are on-site digging up the floors of this formerly lost city in a bid to find something that may confirm the stories that the Sultan and his Soldiers were camped there. Josh joins in the search and uncovers an object later identified as a belt buckle – that would have been the buckle of one of the soldiers! They also find other object that ties up to the fact that this was indeed the base camp of the Sultan and his soldiers. However, there is still the question of the Sultan’s grave. Had they found it? Had they found the heart?
Josh is taken to a site that is believed to be the grave, demarcated by sticks. Josh is shown various large stones extracted from the grave. The stones match the ones in the great Suleiman’s mosque and this bears evidence that it indeed was the grace site. However, the heart was nowhere to be found!
So where is the heart? Had it become deteriorated with the soil? If so, where is the gold casing that the heart was in? These questions reveal that although there were many remarkable finds, the mystery of Suleiman the Magnificent still exists.
