It’s no surprise that Josh Gates is often described as Indiana Jones-like, given his degree in archeology from Tufts University and his hosting of television shows like Legendary Locations and Expedition Unknown. It can now be said that Gates has literally followed in the footsteps of the famous film archaeologist hero.

In the two-part season premiere of “Expedition Unknown,” airing October 9 at 9 p.m. on Discovery Channel, Gates travels to the ancient city of Petra. The location will be familiar to fans of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as Jones (Harrison Ford) and his father (Sean Connery) set off to Petra to find the Holy Grail.

Gates isn’t specifically looking for a drinking vessel, but the special will focus on his efforts to figure out how a mysterious desert civilization created one of the seven wonders of the world. With unprecedented permission to dig in front of the iconic financial building, he searches for clues about the enigmatic Nabataean Kingdom and helps rewrite history books with the discovery of an ancient tomb.

“Whether people think they know Petra or not, they do, because it will forever be remembered as the home of the Holy Grail,” Gates says.

This is the 12th season of the series, which has taken Gates around the globe. In the first episode of “Expedition Unknown,” Gates traveled to Papua New Guinea to search for evidence about Amelia Earhart’s fate. Since then he has been to Romania, South Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Bermuda Triangle, to name just a few stops.

Each sojourn across the globe was fueled by his keen curiosity to investigate the world’s most iconic unsolved events, search for lost cities, and search for buried treasures and sacred artifacts. Gates isn’t worried that with nearly 200 episodes to his credit, there will be a lack of expeditions to search for the unknown.

“When I started doing television we said the same thing. “‘Hey, how many secrets are there to explore?’ What I’ve learned now is that it’s an endless process,” Gates says.

“There’s so much work being done around the world and there’s so much about our collective human past that we still don’t know that there’s kind of an endless amount of secrets out there. “It was good to realize that.”

The fact that he has been exploring the world for so many years coincides with major leaps in technology available today that did not exist when he began his career. During his visit to Petra, ground-penetrating radar will be used to search for hidden treasures, while digital readers will scan wall carvings to make them easier to read than ever before.

Gates wastes no time pondering how an earlier story with more advanced technology might have been different. That’s because he and other archaeologists are a very meticulous bunch and tend to do a thorough job before moving on to the next mystery.

“Fundamentally, there are some really amazing technologies that have changed archeology, no matter how many gimmicks you throw at them,” Gates says. “No matter what technology you use to do it, you have to do what archaeologists call “Ground Truth It.”

“You have to go there and do the hard, painstaking work of excavating these sites, and to some extent, no matter what we come up with, you will always need those dedicated explorers to go there and do the hard work.”

This hard work means Gates faces a variety of challenges, such as his visit to Petra where he has to push himself off a cliff. He jokes that while his knees aren’t as forgiving as they were in the past, the physicality of the program will never change. He knows that these moments represent an exciting adventure.

Gates adds a new corner of the world to explore when he performs at the Bakersfield Fox Theater on October 23 at 8 p.m. He says that going to a new jungle is still scarier than facing a crowded theater because of the poisonous snakes and spiders.

“It’s a great evening to hear about real-world adventures, but also, as Halloween approaches, there will be conversations about ghosts and legends,” says Gates. “Even though I’ve hosted live events and TV shows for 15 years, I still get extremely nervous off stage just before I leave the stage.

“Standing in front of a live group is scary.”

Tickets are available on the Fox Theater website and joshgates.com

If you miss an episode of Expedition Unknown on Discovery, the episodes will be available to stream the next day on the Max and Discovery+ streaming services.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports and streaming videos, visit KGET 17.