12 Most Amazing Ancient Arfifacts Finds

an artifact is a history lesson in physical form it's something that's been left behind either accidentally or deliberately by our ancestors and it offers us the chance to get to know them better if viewed in the right way with the right knowledge applied to it an artifact can be a message from history we've received many fabulous examples of these messages over the years so allow us to share them with you in this video we're all aware by now that christopher columbus didn't discover america and wasn't the first european to land in the americas either he was still an accomplished explorer though and he was still sailing almost blind when he made his epic voyage in 1492 one of the few tools he had to assist him on his journey was this 500 year old map also known as the martellus map it was drawn up in 1491 and has faded badly over the centuries but in 2018 researchers were able to use modern technology to reveal many of its lost details we can now see clearly that cartographer henriquez martellus got the shape of europe mostly right and did an admiral job with the mediterranean sea but things go awry from there asia is badly distorted and the bottom of africa is shaped like a boot impossibly martellus places a large island in the south pacific right where australia ought to be the existence of australia wasn't officially known until 100 years after this map was drawn was the placement of the island a lucky guess or did someone find australia long before the official narrative of history tells us they did [Music] the so-called rattlesnake disc is one of the most unusual artifacts that's ever been recovered from the moundville site in hale county alabama usa also known as the serpent disc it's thought to be a relic of the region's prehistoric mississippian age moundville culture probably made somewhere between the 13th and 14th centuries the elaborately decorated disc was found by a farmer as he attended his land in the late 19th century who handed it in to eugene allen smith who was the state geologist at the time these days you'll find it at the jones archaeological museum which belongs to the university of alabama the disc was in such good condition when it was found that it was long suspected to be a hoax but it's since been accepted as a genuine artifact on its face we see two horned rattlesnakes wrapped around each other forming a circle around a human hand with a human eye set into its palm traces of paint pigment have been detected on its surface suggesting that it might once have been brightly colored while we can appreciate it for its beauty and intricacy we'll probably never know what the symbology means how much can you tell about a person from their excrement well it turns out you can find out quite a lot even if the person in question has been dead for two centuries a march 2021 study of ancient fecal samples taken from a privy on the campus of dartmouth college in new england usa has proven that the ruling elites who lived in the area during the 19th century suffered badly from parasitic intestinal infections this can probably be attributed to poor sanitation and frankly the disgusting conditions in the preview itself you might think this finding was to be expected but it was previously thought that parasitic infections only existed in urban areas at the time this privy would have belonged to an affluent rural household choate house which once stood on this land was home to the alcots who would have been among the best educated people in the new england of the time all that money and knowledge apparently didn't protect them from the same ailments that afflicted the poor the alcotts lived comfortably but these tapeworm and whipworm infections meant they wouldn't necessarily have felt all that comfortable all the time [Music] archaeologists aren't quite sure what to make of this unusual oil lamp it takes the shape of a human face but the face has been cut in half top to bottom giving it a somewhat grotesque appearance the unusual object was found in the city of david national park in israel in early may 2021 experts believe that the bronze artifact was deliberately buried in the foundations of a new building somewhere around the year 70 probably as a votive offering this dates it to the region's roman period the lamp's handle is shaped like an ancathus plant while at the other end the tip looks like a crescent moon both symbols are common roman artistic motifs the building isn't far from the siloam pool which was jerusalem's most important source of water at the time perhaps that's why it was felt necessary to bless the building with offerings of this kind the use of half a face rather than a full one is something historians have never seen before though and they don't know what it means there might be a simple explanation though it might once have been affixed to a wall [Music] discovering the bones of an ancient viking prince would be a pretty big deal for any archaeologist so you'd expect them to take good care of their discovery after they're done digging it up that doesn't always happen though the bones of this particular viking prince were found in jutland in 1868 dug up and then put in a box that was mislabeled because of that they went unnoticed on a shelf in the national museum of denmark for well over a century they'd been wrongfully identified as textiles and assigned to an archive belonging to a different viking burial now the mistake has been belatedly corrected we've been able to find out more about him he was male around 30 years old at the time he passed away and was buried in the winter of either 970 or 971. that was during the reign of king harold bluetooth the first ever christian king of denmark the fragments of purple woolen garments that still cling to some of his bones identify him as royal and so he might have been distantly related to the famous king he was obviously someone who was held in high esteem but sadly this is as close as we'll ever get to knowing him if metal wasn't available to you what kind of material would you use to make a helmet suitable for going into battle with would perhaps how about bronze although that would be a little heavy the ancient mycenean greeks wouldn't agree with you they'd make something like this instead it's a warrior's helmet fashioned from boar's tusk helmets like this one remained in use for several centuries during ancient times the oldest example of a boar's tusk helmet comes from the shaft graves of my cine and is around 3 700 years old whereas the most recent is around 3 000 years old and comes from a latia in central greece the helmets were made comfortable to wear by attaching the hard slivers of tusk to a leather base within which was felt padding they look like unusual and unlikely pieces of headgear to our modern eyes but they were once such common sights that they're described in homer's iliad however homer records that one such helmet was passed down to odysseus by mariones as an heirloom which suggests that their use might have changed from practical to ceremonial by this time there are many reasons that the cross of kong is deemed to be a valuable artifact even at face value it's one of the finest examples of 12th century metal work in western europe for those who share the christian faith though it's far more significant than that the cross is also a reliquary believed by many to hold a piece of the true cross upon which jesus christ was crucified many artifacts all over the world claim to either be or contain pieces of the cross none of those claims can be proven but someone thought enough of this fragment of wood to build this beautiful artifact around it the inscription on the body of the cross tells us it was made specifically for tar del bach hua concobire who was the king of kanak and the high king of ireland until his death in the year 1156 after that it was donated to the cathedral church of tuam county galway these days it's on public display at the national museum of ireland in dublin it was probably designed to be placed on top of a staff but if it ever was the staff has long since been lost when it's been snowing outside and the ground under your feet is treacherous it makes sense to wear snowshoes that's a common piece of wisdom that's been with us for thousands of years although the type of snowshoe people wore back then doesn't look much like the snowshoes of today this strange-looking artifact discovered on the gurgler elsjoc glacier close to the italian austrian border in 2016 is thought to be the oldest snowshoe in the world carbon dating tests carried out on the birch and twine that it's made from dates it to the late neolithic era of 5800 years ago it's only survived for this long because it's been hidden away 10 000 feet above sea level in conditions that preserved it almost perfectly the frozen remains of the mummified neolithic hunter known as otsi were found nearby 25 years earlier although it can't be proven that this was his shoe the discovery is proof that the people of the era lived in the snowy alps despite the harsh conditions and understood how to dress themselves for survival in the harsh terrain in december 2012 an amateur archaeologist made a remarkable discovery in the cold ground of harvey in denmark it might not look particularly beautiful and it's little more than the size of a thumb but it's the only known three-dimensional viking-era depiction of a valkyrie ever to be found the tiny figurine is around 1 220 years old viking mythology depicts valkyries as companions of odin who descend onto battlefields to determine which warriors would die and which would live these days their most commonly associated with the musical piece right of the valkyries from the operas of wagner the delicate little statue is made from gilded silver with even smaller pieces of black and yellow inlay decoration the valkyrie's hair is tied in a long side ponytail which forms a loop at the end which has led some historians to theorize that this artifact might once have been worn as a pendant she carries a viking sword and shield at her side numerous two-dimensional representations of valkyries have been found at viking sites and etched into viking artifacts but nothing like this has been found before or since some historians wonder whether making a 3d representation of a valkyrie might have been believed to bring bad luck which is why this piece is so unique [Music] the game of chess has roots in numerous older board games most notably the viking gang nephitefel so tracing it back to its precise point of origin is probably impossible as far as we're aware though the oldest chess set in the world is currently in the metropolitan museum of art in new york city usa it dates back to the 12th century and although the pieces don't look exactly like the pieces you use to play the game today they perform the same functions and serve the same roles the king for example is represented as a throne the queen is a smaller throne and the bishops are replaced by elephants the rooks are the most strikingly different pieces of all taking the shape of wedged rectangles rather than their familiar castle forms the chess set isn't quite complete and the board upon which they were used is missing but it was clearly once a beautiful ornamental set it must surely have belonged to someone of great wealth but we sadly have no idea who that person was we suspect that they probably won a lot of games though as most of the people of the time would never have come across a chessboard before we're examining the collection of the met museum let's stay a moment longer and examine this arm reliquary which is surely the most controversial artifact in the whole museum we'll start with what we know the reliquary was made during the 13th century probably around the year 12 30 and has survived the passing of time in pristine condition the quality of the craftsmanship is outstanding with stunning rock crystal and glass gem decorations adorning the silver base the golden hand at the top of the arm is raised in the symbol of a religious blessing which offers a clue about its alleged contents that's where the controversy comes in according to the inscription etched into the wrist of the piece the arm of saint schweiker is contained inside the object that alone can't be proven but even if it could we don't know which saint fiker the inscription refers to history has recorded three such saints any of whom could be contenders perhaps the most likely candidate is the 7th century irish hermit who is said by the people of his time to be a powerful faith healer if that's the case we can't help but wonder where his arm was between the 7th century and the 13th when this elaborate container was created the novolara stele was made in italy around 2600 years ago and if you can translate the inscriptions on its surface you'll have done a better job than any archaeologist historian or academic who's ever looked at it the inscriptions are written in a language called north piscine which is itself a variant of ancient etruscan we've never been able to fully translate the ancient etruscan language hence the difficulty with understanding the meaning of this delay even the pictures on the reverse of this delay don't help they appear to show a traditional hunting scene but there's no way of knowing whether they're connected to the text on the other side it's been more than 130 years since the novolares delay was found and it's as big a mystery today as it was to the people who found it it would be a little bit embarrassing if after all this time we found the message was something akin to a diary entry saying i went hunting today and had a good time here are all the animals we caught but at least we'd finally have a solution to the puzzle subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and you will be the first to know when a new video comes out thank you for watching and see you 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Channel: Amazing Stock

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Keywords: 12 Most Amazing Ancient Arfifacts Finds, ancient artifacts, ancient archaeology, archaeological artifacts, mystery, mysterious finds, artefact found, amazing artifacts, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: ZGfCOc0Px5w

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021