12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Discoveries

you've probably heard of the phrase digging up information it refers to the process of working through the past trying to find things that are relevant to the present it's also a perfect metaphor for the practice of archeology which literally involves people digging into the ground below our feet to find out more about the people and places that came before us in this video we're going to find out all about the most impressive and exciting archaeological discoveries of recent times our journey begins in France where an ancient and grave stone has just been pulled out of the ground in angle M close to Bordeaux the stone said to be twelve thousand years old has crude etchings of horses and other animals on it and is believed to have been a marker for an ancient hunting site dating back to the Paleolithic era the stone is a mere seven inches long but contains detailed engravings on both sides the most prominent of them is a headless horse which takes up almost half the space on the side it's on the stone is yet another remarkable recent discovery in France where researchers have also recently discovered ancient stone circles that predate Stonehenge in England it's now thought that stone circles made in the style of Stonehenge which appear all over Western Europe may have originated in France we're still no closer to knowing why they were built though we live in the age of video games now so board games feel a little old-school as it turns out they might be even more old-school than you could possibly imagine in the case of backgammon which is considered to be a classic parlor game its origins may have begun as long ago as 4000 years we say this because of a recent discovery in a rock shelter in Azerbaijan the game has been hiding in plain sight for centuries it just took someone with knowledge of backgammon to pay closer attention to the series of holes carved in the shelter's floor to notice it the shelter was used by nomads and herders so it was presumably a way for them to pass the time and entertain themselves there are 58 holes in total which makes it consistent with the game known as hounds and jackals which bears a strong resemblance to modern backgammon it's also known that this game was popular in Egypt at the same time these carvings were made in Azerbaijan which suggests that the nomadic tribes of the Bronze Age were extremely well traveled just south of Paris in France there's a mysterious ancient forest that people very rarely venture into and it's called Fountainbleu covering over 173 square miles it's large enough to contain an entire secret civilization and now archeologists believe that it once may have done that we know that humans lived in the forest 40,000 years ago but the marks they left behind on the rocks and in the caves don't translate nor are they consistent with markings left elsewhere in France or even elsewhere in Europe most of the carvings are simply geometric shapes crosses circles and lines often they form a kind of mesh that is etched into the stone to add to the mystery the carvings are found most often in places that are hard to reach as if they were intended to be kept secret as if that weren't enough in other areas in the forest there are carvings of elephants and seals animals which simply wouldn't have existed in France at that time and shouldn't have been known to anybody living here then a secret society once live and thrive here everyone knows that dragons are a symbol of China it would appear that they were once equally is symbolically important to the people of neighboring Mongolia excavation work at a series of tombs in the country has turned up some interesting artifacts which once belonged to aristocratic members of the Sheung new people a loose alliance of tribes who you may have heard referred to more often as the Huns they had several notable clashes with the Chinese during the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago the set of Xian nu tombs is believed to be the oldest yet discovered and contains two tiny silver gilded dragons they're barely 3 inches long but intricately detailed each dragon has clearly defined eyes teeth horns and feathers and the team who unearthed them believed they were most likely once attached to a decorative drinking vessel their style is consistent with Han Dynasty artifacts found in China dating from the same period so we're now left to wonder which side of the border such designs originated from there are so many myths and legends about the ancient Mayan society that we could fill a whole book with them they were so advanced that their calendar was able to predict the time and date of every solar eclipse for centuries in the future unsurprisingly many people consider it to be a possibility that they were once contacted by extraterrestrials and recently released photos of carvings and sculptures seemed to support that theory the carvings were discovered long ago but have only recently been unveiled by the Mexican government and one of the carvings is the unmistakable shape of a classic flying saucer seeming to hover over the ground with an alien pilot inside several more carvings of faces reveal the traditional shape of a standard gray alien with the signature large sloping forehead and big eyes even the human faces in the carvings aren't mysterious they appear to depict Africans and Caucasians races that the Mayans ought not have encountered thousands of years ago were they simply a very advanced civilization or did they get a little help from outside our world the Sutton Hoo helmet isn't exactly a recent discovery but it has only recently gone on public display the British Museum has recently allowed the public to inspect the famous artifact if they visit room 41 of the building the legendary piece of armored head gear was found during the excavation of an Anglo Saxon ship burial in 1939 and is thought to have been as important decoratively as it was in combat not every angle Saxon soldier would have been permitted to wear such an elaborate piece some people even believe that it was effectively the crown king raedwald of East Anglia who died in the seventh century as well as protecting the back and sides of the head the Sutton Hoo helmet also features a face plate upon which is an etched eyebrow a nose and even a moustache the facial features also double up as the outline of a dragon symbolizing that the owner was a mighty warrior what you see if it now represents an incredible piece of restoration work the helmet was initially found in fragments which were painstakingly put back together over a series of years until work was completed in 1946 owning an alcohol distillery has always been a surefire way to make money the biggest distilleries of the world make millions of dollars every year so we wonder how much this ancient one in China must have been worth built five hundred years ago the distillery is so large that it must have been producing an industrial output of spirits the complex covers a staggering 55 thousand square feet and includes 30 tanks for fermentation and 3 stoves used for distillation for the era this is quite a sophisticated setup while they're in acquired taste in the rest of the world rice based spirits are popular in China today and have been for centuries that is what this distillery would have been making evidence suggests that it opened during the Ming Dynasty during the 1300s and continued its operations until at least the 1600s by which time the Ching dynasty had begun amazingly one distillery which would have opened at around the same time as this one is still operational the shooshing distillery in chengdu the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of almost 1,000 historical documents dating back over two centuries and survived by being buried under piles of rubble and coated in bat droppings one of the scrolls known as the temple scroll is better preserved than any of the others scientists have long wondered why this is the case but they're not wondering anymore the 25 foot long scroll was coated in a solution made from salty minerals an extra layer of protection which wasn't awarded to any of the other documents it appears that whoever buried the scrolls felt that this one which contains the plans of a temple that was never built was more important than the rest interesting leave the solution contained calcium sodium and sulfur which means that it didn't come from the Dead Sea itself in order to come from the floor of the cave in which it was buried how the original owner knew that the solution would work as a preservative is yet to be explained someone in England recently lived the ultimate dream of every antique expert he picked up an old vase from a charity shop for just one pound and is now poised to sell it for more than 80 thousand pounds the seller who wants to maintain their anonymity bought the little flat-backed vase simply because he liked the look of it when it placed on ebay hoping to make a small profit on his purchase he was suddenly flooded with offers realizing he might have something valuable on his hands he cancelled the auction and took the vase to a professional to have it assessed incredibly it was once in the personal possession of Chinese emperor qianlong who had it made for himself during the 18th century there's even a rose marked on the vase a sign that it wasn't to be considered for trade or export but instead it was intended to be kept within the Emperor's own palaces how it eventually ended up in a charity shop in Hertfordshire is unknown but it's a fortunate break for the finder part of the problem of trying to read the Bible as a historical text is that it's difficult to find evidence of any of the claims and accounts which are relayed within the book it all happened so long ago that many records have simply been lost to time sometimes though those lost records reappear a recently discovered stone altar in Jordan for example seems to confirm a biblical account of an ancient war the shrine is around 2,800 years old and was discovered in an old Moabite sanctuary and after off Jordan on this ancient altar are a pair of inscriptions the first of which refers to vast quantities of bronze that were plundered after a tariff was captured in battle the other inscription which only survives in fragments mentions 4,000 foreign soldiers falling in battle within the city and the city becoming desolate both would make sense in the context after Mesha the king of Moab rebelled against Israel and seized a de Roth in the process the battle is referenced in the Hebrew Bible which says mesher rebelled because of excessive tributary demands from Israel when archeologists describe a discovery as once-in-a-lifetime you just know it's worth your attention that label was most recently given to a Pictish stone unearthed in Dingwall scotland the twelve hundred year old relic isn't just any old Pictish stone either it's one of less than 50 Pictish cross slabs ever found although we know its value now it appears that some of our ancestor didn't it was reused as a grave marker during the 1700s and then forgotten about and overgrown by weeds and vegetation until the north scotland archaeological study came along to take her closer look at the churchyard it was hidden in the symbols of that Pictish people are carved all over the stone including mythical creatures soldiers with animal heads and swords and shields stones like this would be placed around the outskirts of a Pictish settlement as a warning to potential invaders for now the team who founded are keeping the reverse side of the stone a secret but if it's anything like Pictish cross stones which have been found in the past it will have an enormous Christian cross on we'd rather not even think about what construction workers usually have to dig through when they're excavating an old sewer but finding anything other than waste has to be seen as a bonus for Henning nor and Janek Vestergaard two Danish workers digging out a drain below one of the oldest streets in all of albergue got their reward in the form of an ancient sword the sword is over three feet long and so whoever managed to wield it must have been enormous ly powerful North Jutland Historical Museum has taken a closer look at the sword on behalf of the men and confirmed that it dates back to the 14th century and possibly even earlier the contact scrapes on the blade of the sword suggests that it was used in anger and that would make sense given the history of the area it was found Aalborg was a flashpoint during a civil war in the 14th century so it's likely that the owner of the sword lost it during a conflict usually a sword like this would be buried with the person who owned it but that wasn't the case with this one 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

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Keywords: 12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Discoveries, archaeological discoveries, archaeological finds, recent discoveries, incredible archaeological, most incredible, most amazing, recent finds, incredible discoveries, 12 most, top 12

Id: _mXKb4i1j-8

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2019