Josh Gates Uncovers The Monumental King Nastasen’s Lost Toe Cap | Expedition Unknown | Discovery

Oh, my God. We got something here.

More gold leaf.

Oh, what is that?

Wait, what is this?

That is not gold leaf.

It’s like thimble-shaped.

Yeah. What is this?

I think I know exactly what this is.

This would have been one of the finger or toe caps of the king that they put on him when they buried him.

Wait. This is a finger or toe cap that was on the king?

Yeah, it’s pretty great.

This is insane.

This item may look small, but make no mistake, this appears to be a monumental find. We may have our first confirmation that the king has not left the building.

This has to have been on him, right?

There’s no question. There’s no other way this gets in there.

It’s a major clue.

These gold caps, also called stalls, were used only in royal burials to protect the king’s extremities in death. The feet of King Tut had them when his sarcophagus was opened. And apparently King Nastasen was sporting a set as well.

That is a true smoking gun.

It is a true smoking gun.

And even better, look at it.

Is there something in it?

There’s something in it.

Could there be bone in there?

There—there should be bone in there.

So we need to get this up. We need to clean it up. And then we need to see if we can’t just pry this open a little bit and see if there’s not some bone in there.

So the king is here.

The king is in the tomb.

Dude, this is incredible.

It’s pretty great.

Should we get out of the tent? Let’s go.

Okay. One mystery is definitely solved. Nastasen is in this tomb.

Now, the only question is, is it possible that we have a piece of him?

We get changed in record time and race to the sifting tent to find out what we found in the mesh bag.

Wow, that’s wonderful.

So finger cap, toe cap.

Something like that. Look how tall here.

Do you think any traces of bones remain inside?

I think so. Look at that.

It looks like it’s still in there.

It’s possible, right? It looks like you can see, like, the edge of the cuticle and the fingernail.

Amazing.

Amazing, right? It really does. Actually, it does almost seem like you can see the edge of the nail, like the actual cuticle.

Okay, here we go.

So that bone may be in there.

We got a good chance there’s something in here that’s heavier than the skull.

That’s amazing.

Stephanie, you want to hand me the right?

I have some water.

Oh. Oh.

It’s bone.

It’s bone.

That’s the tip of a toe.

Absolutely.

That’s the tip of a toe for sure.

No question. This is a human bone that came out of this cap, which was designed to go on the king when he was buried.

And nobody else.

And nobody else.

This is Nastasen himself.

There’s the king part of him.

I could burst into tears here.

This is unbelievable.

If you think tears are an overreaction, think again.

These are the first remains of a king of Kush confirmed to be found in his own tomb ever. This is a moment for the history books.

We rarely get those eureka aha moments.

Archaeology is a much slower process.

Yeah, but this tells us with absolute certainty Nastasen was here.

He’s buried there.

And this can give us a lot of potential future data.

Yeah, and if DNA could be found in there, you could start to build a family tree of sorts.

At least learn more genetically about where this person came from.

And about the environment in which they lived and all kinds of things.