12 Most Amazing Archaeological Finds

not all archaeological discoveries are equal there are some that you can take or leave and some that make you stand back and say wow this video is all about discoveries that have the wow factor they amazed the people who found them and they still amaze everybody who sees them today in some cases we don't even truly understand what they are but the mystery is all part of what makes them so fascinating [Music] let's start by opening a window into the distant past by looking at the azika inscription which was discovered by nadav na aman in 1974. na aman found the artifact in pieces and had the unbelievable task of putting it all back together and making sense out of it prior to him paying attention to the fragments of the tablet the inscription is carved onto it had gone unnoticed among a collection of artifacts taken from the library of ashurbanipal close to what's now mosul in iraq during the mid-19th century when nadav finished his work he found that the inscription told the tale of the conquest of asaka by assyrians under the rule of sennacherib who reigned between 705 and 681 bce asaka was taken as part of a broader assault on territories claimed by hezekiah the king of judah as such it's the only documentary evidence of that event the text of the inscription is fairly typical of any work praising a godlike king full of devotions to seneca rib and descriptions of the totality of the assyrian victory and is now the centerpiece of a dedicated exhibition at the british museum the pyramids of giza are the most famous in egypt but they're far from the only interesting pyramids to be found in the country they're not even the only pyramids in the cairo region there's also the pyramid of sahurei to look at and it's an incredible monument sohuray is thought to be the first ruler to have his funerary pyramid built in abbasir and experts believe that it might also have housed a funerary cult it's a comparatively small pyramid with a base of only 250 feet and a height of around 150 back when it was built 4500 years ago the egyptians were still working out the optimal design for pyramids so it's a little rough around the edges inside though it's a different story the hunting scene carved into the walls of the mortuary temple is considered to be among the finest ancient works of egyptian art unusually for an ancient non-christian structure the pyramid became a coptic shrine during the 7th and 8th centuries as is evidenced by the discovery of pottery and graffiti from that time at the site but after that it appears to have been abandoned until it was excavated by ludwig borchard in 1907. everybody loves a good treasure discovery story so let's get to know the oxis treasure so named because it was found close to the banks of the access river in tact ulcuad tajikistan in the late 19th century it's one of the oldest surviving collections of a cheminide persian metalwork in the world and by far the most impressive the oxis treasure is made up of over 180 individual pieces made from gold and silver around 2500 years ago given the fact that it was found in a riverbank it may have been deliberately buried as a votive offering to a temple that used to stand in the area back at the time these pieces were created persia was ruled by cyrus the great who founded the achaemenid empire which holds the distinction of being the largest empire in world history despite being one of the least well known aside from coins the collection also contains rings armlets figurines plaques seals and a curious gold vessel shaped like a fish the most ornate of them are the two elaborately carved golden chariots which are in such good condition that they could have been made yesterday it's impossible to put a value on a treasure collection like this it's truly priceless [Music] we're moving on from a little-known treasure collection to a famous one the golden treasures of mont albin most historians agree that this is the largest most significant and most valuable treasure collection ever found in mexico and there are few others elsewhere in the world that could rival it either although the civilization that created this incredible treasure is long gone they founded mont albin in the southeast of mexico at some point close to 2500 years ago they chose a site at the top of a mountain range for their settlement and turned it into the most important economic and political settlement on the continent just 250 years later it was abandoned and then forgotten until archaeologist alfonso queso rediscovered it in 1932. he found that the people who lived here were incredibly advanced for their time not only could they process rock crystal but they also mined gold and used it to make religious items and jewelry the jewelry found in the many tombs of the old city is astonishingly ornate displaying craftsmanship that we'd struggle to replicate today the golden masks are a little scary to look at but we are sure they were considered beautiful in their day 2500 years ago must have been a golden period for ancient artisans and artists because it's also around the time that the pizza panels were created in greece they're believed to be the oldest surviving examples of greek panel painting which makes it all the more remarkable that they're still in such good condition the panels were found in a cave in corinthia during the 1930s and come from greek arts late archaic period to make the panels their unknown creator would have had to create thin wooden boards cover them with stucco and paint over them with pigments made from minerals only eight colors were used but the material that they were made from means that they haven't faded over time they're as bright today as they were when they were new the scenes depicted on the panels are religious in nature and show a sacrifice being made to the cult of the nymphs this identifies them as votive offerings probably made by a comparatively poor member of society as richer individuals tended to create or leave offerings made from stone or other non-perishable materials our next incredible ancient artifact is called the divination by astrological and meteorological phenomena if that's a bit of a mouthful for you you can simply call it by its nickname instead the book of silk the nickname is a literal one it's a manuscript made from silk and was made by the astronomers of the western han dynasty which lasted from 202 bce until 9 ce despite being made of such a delicate material it survived for centuries at the maawang gui archaeological site in changsha hunan until it was discovered there during exploratory work in 1973 the silk book appears to be a complete record of astronomical observations from its era detailing the presence and movement of stars in the sky and the visitation of no fewer than 29 comets over a three century period the information contained in the book is so thorough that it's still used as a source material by modern astronomers and is considered to be the first complete atlas of comets in world history it's an illustrated work with each illustration accompanied by a caption explaining what happened on the ground during the comet's appearance from those captions we can see that the comets were blamed for everything from plague and droughts to royal deaths we're guessing that the people of the era probably didn't wish on shooting stars like we do today elsewhere in china the tomb of marquis yi of zhang is notable for a number of reasons not least for being one of the only ancient chinese tombs to have been discovered intact neither looted nor attacked that makes it a little ironic that it was discovered during an act of destruction as the people's liberation army destroyed a hill to build a new factory in lagun in 1977. the tomb was created a little over 2400 years ago as the final resting place of marquis yee of zang sometimes also known as duke ye aside from the remains of the duke his armor his weapons and other traditional grave goods the tomb also contains a wide range of musical instruments including a huge set of bells the unusual nature of these inclusions might suggest that the marquee was a key musician during his life that still wouldn't explain the bells though it would take five people to play them together and there weren't five people buried in the tomb aside from all the other artifacts the tomb contains the earliest known examples of chinese ink writing on bamboo created in the calligraphic style of the chew state and listening the names of the people who attended the duke's burial it must have been quite an event you've probably heard of the valley of the kings in egypt but have you ever heard of the valley of the golden mummies you probably should have because it's one of the most remarkable burial discoveries ever found in the whole country when zaki hawas discovered the site at bahria oasis in 1996 he initially thought he'd come across 250 mummies buried around 2 000 years ago that would have been significant enough but as he continued to dig and explore he had to revise that estimate upward he now believes there are more than ten thousand decorated in a variety of different styles some have gilded masks covering their faces and painted waistcoats similar to the way tutankhamun was laid to rest others have masks made of cartonage rather than gold a third burial style involves the deceased being interred within pottery coffins and a fourth has them covered with nothing more than linen despite there being so many mummies at the site they all have their own individual grave goods with them including coins food trays wine jars and bracelets baharia was a rich region 2000 years ago because of its wine production facilities which probably explains why so many people could afford to be buried in a style normally reserved for leaders or priests let's talk about some more mummies but not egyptian mummies this time instead let's look at some north american mummies these incredibly well preserved human remains come from nuke in greenland and are known as the kilakitsok mummies they're a little unsettling to look at and we imagine they must have been even more unsettling for the brothers who found them when they went out grouse hunting for the day in 1972. the brothers are thought to have been the first people in years to enter the abandoned inuit settlement of qilikutstak and it's there that they found the eight human bodies buried under a pile of stones it's highly unlikely that whoever buried them intended to mummify them it just happened automatically because of greenland's icy climate experts were hastily summoned to the site where they confirmed that the brothers had found the remains of six adult women plus two children all of whom perished together around the year 1475 all of them were covered in tattoos which even covered their faces the reason they passed away is unknown but somewhat gruesomely it appears the youngest child may have been buried alive our next item for your consideration is a somewhat controversial one it's the venus of tantan claimed by some to be a sculpture and the earliest known representation of the human form those who disagree say that it doesn't deserve to be classed as an artifact at all because it's nothing more than a rock that's been weathered over thousands of years and the fact that it's human shaped is a coincidence that debate has been raging since it was discovered in tantan morocco in 1999 it's easy to see why historians and scientists don't want to accept it as a genuine artifact the object is more than three hundred thousand years old which predates the emergence of modern humans australian archaeologist robert benarek offers us another theory though he says it's possible perhaps even likely that the rock was already weathered into a vaguely human-like shape when it was discovered by an early human and picked up for this exact reason the early human then carved it with a stone wedge to make the likeness even greater and painted it to finish the effect that would explain the presence of traces of red ochre pigments on the surface of the stone what do you think is this an ancient sculpture or are we just seeing what we want to see when we look at it we know at least part of the story of most of the discoveries we've shown you in this video so far we have no idea of the true story behind margate shell grotto in england and nor does anyone else the grotto covered in mosaics made of over four and a half million individual shells was found by accident by a farmer called james newlove when he was digging in his fields in 1835. his shovel broke through the roof of the grotto and when he went exploring through the hole he was astonished to find there was a 2 000 square foot palatial building below his land the shells used in the mosaics are from the local area but the design of the artwork and rooms appears to be either middle eastern or egyptian quick thinking james turned it into a tourist attraction and charged people for entry but in doing so he caused the destruction of any evidence that might have allowed archaeologists to date the site accurately with hundreds of people trampling through the grotto with gas lamps to light their way anything that might otherwise have been dateable through radiocarbon techniques has been contaminated that means we'll never know how old it is who built it or why although it's known that there were several secretive eastern influenced gentlemen's clubs active in england during the 18th century perhaps this was one of them we've shown you two great treasure collections in this video so far so let's make it a third it's the treasure of guarazar which was found in an orchard in toledo spain in 1858 but dates back to a far earlier time this large collection of crowns crosses and other golden artifacts were presented to the roman catholic church as votive offerings from the kings of the visigoths in hispania during the 7th century when it was assembled it must have been one of the richest treasure collections on earth it probably pained the visigoths to part with it but they wanted to demonstrate their commitment to the church and the scale of their devotion that's how the catholic church came by a lot of its enormous riches although the whole collection is outstanding the star of the show is the crown of king decorated with blue sri lankan sapphires sadly the collection is now incomplete some went to the musee de cluney in france and others went to the palisio real in madrid to make matters worse items from the collection were stolen in both 1921 and 1936 and have never reappeared they've now been missing for so long that they'll probably count as a new archaeological discovery when they're eventually found 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 soon

Channel: Amazing Stock

Views: 109,279

Rating: 4.8524065 out of 5

Keywords: 12 Most Amazing Archaeological Finds, archaeological finds, amazing archaeological, ancient archaeology, ancient artifacts, artifacts, artifact found, amazing artifacts, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: Ht2jRarUY5Q

Length: 16min 48sec (1008 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020