12 Most Incredible Ancient Artifacts Finds

in today's video we have some tantalizing tales of outstanding archaeology taken from all over the world you're going to see archaeologists in modern day countries finding the relics of their original occupants and members of the public stumbling across long lost wonders we'd want to show you these amazing archaeological finds as well as tell you about them though so we're going to jump straight into it excavations at the brazilian archaeological site of vale de pedra ferrata have been ongoing since 2011 and turned up some wonderful things during that time in may 2021 though the researchers there came across something unlike anything they'd ever seen before the artifact in question is this single stone tool which might raise questions about the true history of the arrival of the first humans in south america this tool was unquestionably shaped by human hands and is approximately 24 000 years old prior to its discovery it was thought that the first human settlers arrived on the south american continent roughly fifteen thousand years ago the flat disc shaped tool has serrated edges and was most likely used to cut animal hides and plant fibers since its discovery a further two thousand stone objects have been found in the same location some of which may also be tools we have no idea who the people who made these tools were until may 2021 we didn't even know they existed a few archaeologists and historians are still clinging on to the idea that the tool might not be what it appears to be or that it could have natural origins after all but it's looking increasingly likely that the history of south america will have to be rewritten we've known what the famous pharaoh tutankhamun of egypt looked like ever since howard carter broke into his tomb in 1922. as of 2017 we also have an idea of what his grandmother looked like earlier that year a large alabaster statue was discovered by a cooperative team of european and egyptian archaeologists at the site of the funerary temple of ahmed hotep iii in kamel hetan the experts were actually in the process of trying to move an even larger statue of amenhotep when the second statue was found hidden behind it because of where the statue was placed the team is convinced that it represents queen tai aside from being tutankhamon's grandmother she was also amon hotep's wife they would later go on to find other statues of her hidden in similar ways elsewhere in the temple even with the later discoveries this statue is unique all the others are made of quartzite this is the only one that was made of alabaster and archaeologists aren't sure why the face of the statue is quite badly damaged but unfortunately that's not uncommon in ancient egyptian sculptures [Music] most of us are familiar with the concept of accessorizing by which we mean using a little jewelry to brighten up an outfit if you've ever wondered how long ago human beings started accessorizing we might have an answer for you if these decorative beads are anything to go by the answer to the question is 000 years they were found in a cavern known as the cave of pigeons in tapharao morocco in june 2021 as the wearing of jewelry is associated with the development of symbolic thought among early humans the find is considered to be significant it was once thought that the first use of jewelry happened in europe around forty thousand years ago but these perforated seashell beads are twice as old as that that strongly suggests the existence of a symbolic material culture in this part of the world all that time ago stone tools and animal remains have been found in the same cave which might mean that it was once a hotbed of ritualistic activity the beads were likely worn as necklaces or sewn into clothing even the idea that someone might have worn them because they thought they were pretty is fairly groundbreaking for the people of that era we've already mentioned tootin common in this video so now let's talk about a burial site that's been hailed as the british equivalent to his tomb somewhat and probably the so-called british tewton common site was found in south end essex in 2003 it's thought to be a royal tomb and was found by accident during road works the only thing left of its human occupant was a few tooth enamel fragments but the rarity and quality of the grave goods the person was buried with are sufficient for archaeologists to declare that this was the final resting place of an anglo-saxon prince from the 6th century that makes it the oldest known example of a christian anglo-saxon royal burial among the goods in the grave were an ancient type of harp called a liar gold coins glass beakers and a painted wooden box which is the only surviving example of painted anglo-saxon woodwork in britain most curious of all is a flagon from syria which presumably found its way to britain during times of roman occupation it's thought that the occupant of the tomb was ciaxa the brother of king sabert of essex but there's not quite enough archaeological evidence to prove it when you were a child at school you probably hated being given homework by your teachers if you have children of your own you probably have a hard time persuading them to do theirs that's nothing new in fact there were ancient egyptian children being forced to do homework eighteen hundred years ago and they probably hated it just as much as the rest of us we know about their homework because we found some of it preserved on a wax tablet which was acquired by the british library in 1892 the slab which is around the size of an ipad and contains text written in ancient greek contains two important life lessons in neat handwriting it reads you should accept advice only from wise men and you can't trust all of your friends it sounds like these ancient egyptian scholars were trying to teach their kids to have street smarts in both cases the sentences were written first by adults and then copied by the shakier hands of children right at the bottom is a multiplication table and then a few short reading exercises in short these children of the distant past went about learning in roughly the same way as children of today among the many problems faced by professional archaeologists is that priceless historical treasures are sometimes stolen and then sold on the black market by looters and treasure hunters one such shipment of stolen goods was intercepted in the bulgarian city of schuman in 2015 and it's a good job the authorities got their hands on it when professionals were called in to inspect the illicit shipment they found that it contained a priceless 5 000 year old stone relief from ancient summer in mesopotamia it's thought that it might once have been part of an altar or sarcophagus while other slabs like this do exist you'll only find them in prestigious museums like the louvre in paris having said that even the one in paris pales in comparison to this one which is thought to be the best preserved item of its kind in the whole world on its surface there are scenes depicting people and animals feasting together the significance of which is unknown [Music] nobody knows how the slab ended up in bulgaria but it was found in the hands of a turkish black market dealer who was arrested for his part in the crime viking discoveries aren't exactly uncommon in norway but it's rare to find any surviving examples of viking textiles usually they rot away long before archaeologists get their hands on them that's what makes this next discovery so special it's an embroidered wool viking fabric and it's over 1 000 years old the valuable find was discovered inside the grave of a woman in hessness norway during an archaeological excavation project in mid-2020 it's thought that she was laid to rest in the mid 9th century the only other known surviving viking textiles have come from the graves of wealthy individuals in denmark so this is a first in norway whoever this woman was she was also buried with a three-lobbed brooch resembling a turtle and several hundred pearls she was clearly someone of great importance making clothing was a time-consuming and difficult process during the viking age and so it was more common for clothing to be handed down from parents to children than buried like this burying this woman with her clothes was effectively saying that nobody else deserved to wear her clothing another mark of respect [Music] right at the start of this video we discussed the possibility that humans arrived in south america much earlier than we once thought now here's another discovery that suggests the same might be true of north america it's a 24 000 year old horse jawbone marked with the telltale signs of being worked with stone tools and it's one of many such anomalous artifacts that have been recovered from the bluefish caves on the banks of the bluefish river in yukon canada if we accept that humans lived in the caves and worked with stone tools 24 000 years ago it pushes the date of human arrival on the continent back by 10 000 years it also places the date of human arrival into the ice age which might mean that the people who lived here were isolated from the rest of the world that might explain why they didn't spread further across the continent on the other hand you might remember that the tool found in brazil is also 24 000 years ago are we looking at two separate unrelated human cultures or is it possible that both north and south america were populated by the same people at around the same time it's well known that the ancient mayans enjoyed playing ball games we found plenty of ball courts in and around their ancient ruins we also think that they took their sport even more seriously than we do today in fact some historians believe that the losing teams in these ball competitions were sacrificed we don't know the rules of these ancient ball games because no written guides have been left behind but this stone carving at least gives us an idea of what the game and its players might have looked like it was found in the ruins of tipan chen in belize in 2015. it's thought that the carving was once part of a facade marking the entrance to a palace complex and dates to somewhere between the 7th and 9th centuries in it we see a ballplayer wearing a decorative belt and holding an object that appears to have streamers whether the object is connected to the sport is unknown hopefully there are also some hieroglyphs on the carving they've been translated into english as nine handball span which could be the name of the sport or a confirmation about the type of ball that was used this doesn't get us much closer to understanding the game but it's a start the type of shoe often described as a winkle picker has a bad reputation they're often described as shoes that are unfit for almost any purpose but during medieval times they were even worse according to a study that was published in june 2021 pointy shoes like the ones we see here were responsible for painful outbreaks of bunions in medieval britain that must have been an occupational hazard for court jesters to reach their conclusion academics studied the foot bones of more than 200 medieval skeletons buried in the cemeteries of cambridge england they recorded a higher than expected number of foot deformities and they think bad footwear was to blame winklepeckers were known as pulanes during the 14th century and were very much the fashion of the time as many as a quarter of the 14th and 15th century skeletons they studied had deformities compared to only 5 percent of those buried in the 12th and 13th centuries medieval winklepickers were even longer and thinner than those of today so it's no wonder they cause problems it seems strange that people would put themselves through such discomfort for the sake of fashion but then again people still do it today death masks were once a common aspect of burial traditions all over the world nobody else made burial masks quite as unique as the people of the philippines during the 13th and 14th centuries though rather than creating full face masks these ancient filipinos created separate thin sheets of gold to cover the eyes noses and mouths of the deceased the gold sheets would then be pressed into wax and then carefully attached to the corresponding facial features of the person being buried it's thought that the ancient filipinos picked this curious tradition up from cultures who lived in the south of china during the same period their usual design is likely to be connected to the idea that evil spirits can enter the bodies of the dead through the openings in the face unless they're covered after death the most famous and best preserved mask was found in a grave in san antonio otone eolio in the central philippines and is currently on display in the national museum of the philippines in manila strangely the decoration on its left eye is different to the decoration on its right eye what significance this has if any at all is unknown [Music] we wouldn't know about the stunning costco de la hero at all it had not been accidentally discovered by a fisherman as he went about his daily work in galicia spain during early 1976. it's most commonly interpreted as an incredible bronze age helmet but not everyone agrees with that assessment it's also been suggested that it's little more than a well-decorated bowl even if it is a bull it's still an amazing example of bronze age art the fisherman founded on laero beach while he was in the process of cleaning the land ahead of building a new shed for his fishing boats the helmet or bowl was deeply embedded in the debris for all anybody knows it might have been there for thousands of years based on a scientific analysis of the object it seems it was created by hammering out a single sheet of gold and then adding six bands of tiny concentric circles as further decorations that seems like too much trouble to go through for it to be a bowl but we've never seen another crown or helmet that looks anything like this that's part of what makes it so special [Music] 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 in the next video

Channel: Inforado

Views: 104,032

Rating: 4.8626037 out of 5

Keywords: 12 Most Incredible Ancient Artifacts Finds, ancient artifacts, artifacts finds, archaeological artifacts, incredible artifacts, ancient archaeology, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: FKK6qipNW9c

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021