12 Most Amazing Artifacts Finds

archaeologists must sometimes feel like they've seen everything there is to see after all once you've seen one fragment of pottery you've seen them all every now and then though they come across something that stops them in their tracks and makes them remember why they took up archaeology in the first place this video is about those discoveries the ones that stand out from the crowd and truly give you a sense of wonder of all the things a human being could leave behind what could be more personal than a fingerprint a fingerprint is unique and contains enough information to identify you individually the chances of two individuals having the same fingerprint are less than one in 64 trillion and it's never been known to happen in all of recorded history speaking of history here are one of the oldest fingerprints we've ever seen it was left behind by a potter as they made a clay vessel on the scottish island of orkney five thousand years ago the tiny ceramic fragment was found in april 2021 at the island's nessa brodger archaeological site which has been undergoing constant excavation since 2006. this is the only fingerprint that's ever been discovered in all that time in time archaeologists hope to be able to identify the age and sex of the person who made it countless artifacts have been uncovered at the site over the years but none has given archaeologists a personal connection to the past like this one has our next discovery isn't new but we do have new information about it it's a bust of the goddess flora and for a long time it's been suggested that the sculpture was carved by leonardo da vinci we have bad news for da vinci fans it turns out that this wasn't his work after all in fact it wasn't even made until several centuries after da vinci had passed away the giveaway is the fact that the head of the bust is made from spermachetti which can only be obtained from the heads of sperm whales the material has recently been dated and the results suggest that it comes from the 19th century that rules out da vinci who passed away in 1519. this doesn't change the fact that it's a beautiful object though it's still likely that whoever created this artistic interpretation of the roman god of flowering plants was inspired by da vinci's work because her facial features are strikingly similar to those of the women da vinci painted in his famous works the elimination of da vinci as a candidate means we now have no idea who to credit for the work it's a commonly held belief that the first people to bake bread and farm grain were either the ancient egyptians or the ancient chinese that commonly held belief is wrong in both cases the australian aboriginal people have them both beaten by around 20 000 years we're confident in making that statement because of this discovery from may 2020 it's a grinding stone discovered in cuddy falls new south wales archaeologists believe that it was used to grind grass seeds into flowers some 36 000 years ago if the experts are right about the age of the grinding stone and its purpose it will make this the oldest evidence of bread baking in the entire world we tend to think of the human beings of 36 000 years ago as being little more than barely evolved apes taking their first steps out of caves but that must not have been the case in australia this is a strong challenge to the traditional depiction of ancient australian aborigines who are generally said to have been little more than hunter-gatherers prior to the arrival of the first europeans on the continent that obviously wasn't the case and now we have to wonder what else they might have been capable of [Music] there was a mighty discovery in the ancient greek city of thessaloniki in april 2021 and we do mean mighty it's the burial place of an ancient gothic warrior who was laid to rest with all of his weapons he must have been considered a big deal by the people of his time because he was buried in the middle of a basilica this is the first discovery of its kind in thessaloniki archaeologists believe that the basilica dates back to the early christian era and was probably constructed during the 5th century sadly there's no identifying material that might tell us the name of the warrior but he went to his grave with his sword dagger and shield strangely the sword was carefully and deliberately bent and then folded in two rather than being broken this must have been a symbolic act perhaps representing the fact that his fighting days were over but historians can't say for sure the byzantine empire is known to have employed goth mercenaries in the area toward the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th so that likely explains his presence in the city we'll probably never know what he did to earn such high status that he was buried in a basilica you'd have thought that archaeologists would have seen every kind of ancient egyptian burial by now but the history of the country is long and complicated and there's always something new to find take this discovery as an example it's a collection of more than 300 deliberately buried mummified crocodiles found at the temple of combo the temple was already thought of as one of the most unusual in the entire country it has two entrances two halls two sanctuaries and two courts evenly divided between the worship of horus and worship of sobek it's thought to have been built during the ptolemaic period more than 2 000 years ago it's in bad shape today but the inscriptions are still clear enough to see multiple crocodile representations on the walls of the parts of the temple dedicated to sobek this half of the temple is sometimes referred to as the house of the crocodile based on all of that we should have known that we'd eventually find mummified crocodiles inside the temple somewhere but it was still a shock when they were discovered in such large numbers there are always archaeologists working in jerusalem because there's always something to find in 2019 a particularly remarkable and poignant discovery was made there it's a small piece of an ancient cylindrical column and upon its surface is etched the word jerusalem this is thought to be the oldest known appearance of the city's name in its current form there are older artifacts but they refer to the city either as shalem or yerushalayim this is the first recorded use of the current spelling and pronunciation in aramaic experts believe it to be around 2000 years old the column was probably once part of an ancient roman structure but the structure itself was destroyed centuries ago even then this particular column appears to have been repurposed from an older building the full inscription were leads hananiah son of dotalus from jerusalem we have no idea who hananiah and dodolos are and we probably never will but this ancient inscription has landed them both a place in history they were probably a father and son team of artists and potters which would make this inscription the ancient equivalent of a maker's mark [Music] of all the materials you might consider making a mask out of gold is one of the least viable it's a very expensive and precious material and hardly suitable for the purpose that didn't stop someone from making one for an ancient thracian king some 2400 years ago though and in december 2020 we found it close to the village of shipka in bulgaria it's thought to be the likeness of the thracian king seth iii including his distinctive beard the mask was found in a timber-lined tomb which is generally thought to be the king's final resting place aside from the mask archaeologists also recovered pottery bronze vessels and other funerary gifts from the tomb another golden mask was found buried in the tomb of another threshing king not far from here in 2004 so perhaps the creation of the masks was part of the civilization's burial custom for its leaders the thracians once ruled all of what's now bulgaria along with parts of greece macedonia romania and turkey until they were invaded by the slavs in the 8th century eventually assimilating with the culture of their invaders [Music] if you ever find a bronze age dagger contact an archaeologist immediately they'll be enormously interested in your discovery and will probably want to put it on display in a museum one thing you should never do with such a discovery is use it as a doorstep but that's exactly what happened to this one in england it was eventually saved from its fate in november 2014. the ceremonial dagger was found in a field in norfolk in 2002 by a farmer as he plowed his field the farmer didn't think much of the lump of metal and spent the next 12 years using it to keep his back door open only when one of his relatives pointed out that it might be valuable was its true nature discovered it's actually only the second ceremonial dirk of its kind to be found in the uk and is thought to be around 3 500 years old it's three times larger than the average bronze age dagger and would have been too impractical to use as a weapon making a ceremonial use far more likely although it's badly bent the band is as ancient as the blade and was probably part of the same ritual that saw it buried it's now held at norwich castle museum which values it at more than sixty thousand dollars as human beings progress from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled societies learning to farm the land around them became an essential skill we could see evidence of that skill developing at this site in british columbia canada it's a strip of land that was exposed during road work operations in 2017. it might look nondescript to the average person but 3 800 years ago this was a thriving potato garden not only is this the oldest evidence of the cultivation of wetland plants in canada but it's the oldest in the entire pacific northwest thousands of wapato tubers were planted here by the patch's attentive gardeners most of them are still here although they're a little rotten in black what makes the site especially unusual is the fact that it would have all once been under water farming this land would have only been possible if a way of controlling the flow of water to the area had been identified there was presumably a dam canal or another hydraulic engineering system nearby but that's yet to be found what's been found in the meantime is a set of over 100 wooden gardening tools most of which look like trowels what we have here is evidence of sophisticated irrigation and farming practices happening nearly 4 000 years ago you might have seen this next artifact on the news relatively recently in 2018 it was stolen from a museum in france prompting a small national panic until it was found and recovered a week later this is an object worth panicking about because it's truly one of a kind it's a human heart contained inside a solid gold vessel topped with a crown this is the golden reliquary of the heart of anne of brittany safely back inside the dobry museum anne was a hugely significant figure in french history she's the only woman ever to marry two french kings and also managed to find time to marry a holy roman emperor before she passed away in 1514 her death was considered such a national tragedy that the official period of mourning lasted for more than a month in her own will she specified that upon her death her heart was to be cut out and placed inside a solid gold container before being sent to the city of nantus and placed inside the tomb of her parents most of her wishes were granted her heart's inside the gold box it may not be in the tomb of her parents but at least the dobry museum is in nantus durham university's museum of archaeology in england had a special exhibit in july 2017 the first of its kind ever seen in the country it was the first complete roman fleet diploma ever to be discovered on british soil the copper plaque which has been turned green by age records the rights and privileges granted to a roman military sailor following their honorable discharge after multiple years of distinguished service the fleet was given to a sailor called tigernose in the year 150. although people had been sailing vessels in and around the united kingdom long before that we don't know the names of those ancient soldiers tigernose is the oldest known named sailor in british history according to the plaque he was born in lanchester county durham and served for 26 years prior to his discharge as thanks he and his descendants were granted full roman citizenship and legal permission to get married how thoughtful the reason so few diplomas have survived to the present day in one piece is that the descendants of their owners would often break off pieces of them to use as proof of their own citizenship perhaps tiggernos never had children the ancient samurai of japan took everything they did extremely seriously and lived their lives in accordance with a collection of ancient texts almost everything they did was performed in accordance with the teachings of those who had come before them including the names they gave to their children we know that because in 2018 someone took the trouble to translate a 450 year old book that contains specific baby naming advice for warriors the book which has a title that translates into english as the hundred rules of war also featured a series of songs that samurai should sing while going into battle although its origins are shrouded in mystery the most commonly told version is that it was written by a samurai named tusakara bakudin in 1571 the same year he passed away his final act was to pass on his wisdom to the samurais who would come after him there's no record of it being printed prior to 1840 but the 1840 publisher claims they were working off a handwritten copy as for what to call a baby samurai the best option is apparently yumi although shahan is also acceptable subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications and you will be the first to know when a new 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Channel: Inforado

Views: 91,229

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Keywords: 12 Most Amazing Artifacts Finds, artifacts finds, mystery, amazing artifacts, archaeological finds, archaeological artifacts, ancient finds, ancient artifacts, ancient archaeology, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: 9bn1XJ2KSUI

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021