12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Finds

it's one thing to read about history in textbooks or hear about it in classrooms but it's quite another to see it with your own eyes and even to touch it with your own hands that's an experience that archaeologists have every day as they conduct digs and studies into the civilizations and cultures that came before us and they find some remarkable things in the process we hope you'll find everything you're about to see in this video just as fascinating as we do while the conditions that have restricted so many activities across the world in 2020 have prevented many of us from doing our jobs they've allowed archaeologists in the united kingdom to go about their work undisturbed more than 47 000 separate discoveries have been announced in the country over the course of the year but the most significant among them is this horde of extremely valuable tudor coins the coins found in the garden of a house in the new forest are especially notable because some of them bear the initials of the wives of king henry viii including jane seymour anne boleyn and catherine of aragon the 63 coins were minted during the 1530s and are all gold save for one single one and were found by a couple who were turning the soil in their garden to alleviate the boredom during quarantine the names of the king's wives have never been found on coins before which begs the question of why these coins were so special and why they were printed at all as of right now the answers to those questions are unknown sometimes fantastic historical artifacts can be acquired for knock down prices from people who have no idea of their true value during the 1970s professor yigal ronan was walking through a bedouin market in beersheba israel when a tiny oval seal caught his eye he paid only a handful of shekels for it and immediately took it to the ben gurion university of the negev for examination there it was determined that his bargain purchase was actually a 2 300 year old royal seal from the iron age making it the oldest royal seal ever found in israel its regal heritage is verified by the imprint of a roaring lion on its surface and a brief inscription which reads to hear which is presumably shorthand for to hear the voice of the king experts believe that it probably dates back to the time of king jeroboam ii it wouldn't have belonged to the king himself but to royal officials dealing with the monarch's administration and communications although he feared that it might be a forgery a series of high-tech tests carried out in 2020 finally verified that it's a genuine artifact and has earned it a place in a museum you'll find paintings and other works of art in the corridors and rooms of many town halls all over the world but even the occupants of those town halls sometimes have no idea of the value or significance of the works they exhibit for more than 60 years this painting hung on the wall of a small town hall in brussels belgium until december 2020 when it was confirmed to be a rare baroque masterpiece by jacques jordan not only is it a rare work but as it was completed in 1618 it's believed to be the oldest copy of the holy family painting ever discovered that isn't the only thing that makes it notable either tests performed on the painting's wooden frame have proven that the wood came from the same tree that provided the frames for works by jordan's fellow baroque master anthony van dyke seemingly confirming that the two worked side by side in the same studio under the tutelage of peter paul rubens the painting will eventually go back on the wall of the town hall but when it does it will have some additional security measures put in place to safeguard it the best kinds of archaeological discoveries are those that force us to reassess what we think we know about history our next remarkable find fits into that category it's a roman mosaic that was discovered in november 2017 in britain and it's the first known example of a 5th century roman mosaic to be found in the country until now it's been thought that the romans left the british isles after the collapse of imperial roman authority in the country during the 4th century but this mosaic suggests that some of them clung on a little longer tests carried out on the attractive mosaic have shown that it was made during the middle of the century britain was no longer part of the roman empire after the year 410 so whoever these romans were their family stuck around for more than a century after that it's even possible that the gloucestershire area was effectively a roman mini-state that managed to survive and thrive long after the rest of the country had entered the dark ages some of the ceramics and marble found at the same site are imports from the eastern mediterranean so whoever lived here was wealthy and well connected as far as we know pterosaurs were the first creatures capable of flight ever to live on earth they flourished for more than 150 million years before becoming extinct around 65 million years ago where they evolved from and how they became capable of flight has always been an attractive mystery to historians and paleontologists and a newly discovered set of fossils skulls and skeletons found across north and south america in recent years might provide a few answers they belong to species known as lager petits who lived before dinosaurs and might be the closest ancestor to the pterosaur lager pettids were incapable of flight as they had no wings but they were small agile and very well balanced their skulls and forelimbs are very similar to those found on pterosaur skeletons pointing to an evolutionary connection between the two to back the idea up scientists performed microcomputed tomographic scans on the remains to prove that the brains and sensory systems of both creatures were alike we still don't know where the wings of pterosaurs suddenly appeared from but at least we appear to be a step closer to finding an answer [Music] archaeologists in ukraine have spent much of 2020 investigating a number of findings on the island of cortisia and they finally made those findings public in november among their discoveries are a large cannon on a carriage used for storming fortresses winter homes once owned and lived in by cossacks and most impressively of all an undisturbed tomb belonging to a mighty scythian warrior it's the first time such a tomb has been found undisturbed since 1992 and it had remained untouched for around 2500 years inside the tomb archaeologists discovered the occupant buried with a quiver of arrows at his side indicating his warrior status they believe he was around 40 when he passed away and had unusually clean and healthy teeth for someone of his era he was also unusually tall for his time standing at five feet and ten inches at his side the experts found a plate of sacrificial food along with an iron knife featuring a handle made from bone the winter villages on the other hand were probably built during the 15th century and occupied by soldiers taking part in military operations during the coldest months of the year our next journey takes us to croatia where archaeologists have found an extremely rare greek illyrian helmet hidden inside an ancient burial cave open-faced bronze helmets like this were invented in peloponnese and became popular 2 800 years ago but they must have remained popular for a very long time the remains of the warrior in the grave the helmet was discovered inside are more like 2 400 years old perhaps that's not surprising because the helmet design spent years passing from one civilization and culture to another it began with the greek etruscans but moved on to the citians and then to the illyrians it was considered obsolete in greece for at least a hundred years before this warrior was buried that doesn't mean that the graves occupant was poor or forced to used hand-me-downs as armor though his other grave goods included spears knives a series of spiral-shaped bronze ornaments several amber beaded necklaces and 15 bronze and silver clasps despite all of that treasure though the helmet is still the most valuable find and is one of fewer than 40 that have ever been discovered in europe speaking of value discoveries in graves we've also recently heard about a tomb in the southeast of south korea belonging to an ancient sila kingdom princess and according to the archaeologists who've seen it dripping with gold both the princess and the treasures date back to the silla kingdom of the 5th century right in the middle of its period of dominion over the korean peninsula which started 2100 years ago and ended in the year 935. the treasures found within the tomb which are so rare and rich that it's almost impossible to value them include a gilded bronze broach golden chest ornaments golden earrings and pendants bracelets and rings made of solid gold and golden jewel beetles some of the more curious discoveries made alongside them include hundreds of the duck stones believed to have been used to play a board game popular in east asia during ancient times and 50 mica pieces which according to taoist tradition denote eternal youth the small size of many of the jewelry pieces suggests that the occupant of the tomb died young which might explain why the tributes afforded to her were so lavish [Music] we tend to think of counterfeit money as a modern day problem but humans have been attempting to get away with fraud for as long as they've existed and we can prove this by telling you about this vast horde of ancient egyptian counterfeit money discovered in december 2020 coins and notes didn't exist when this counterfeit money was created 2 200 years ago and so the economy of the time was dominated by gold silver and bronze unfortunately when several bronze age civilizations collapsed within a few decades of each other in the eastern mediterranean silver became scarce that led to people taking criminal measures archaeologist zilla eschel has spent much of the past year studying hoards of what's long been thought to be bronze age silver collected from sites all over egypt and israel only to find that much of it is actually cheap copper alloy coated with silver to make it look like something more valuable this probably wasn't a con carried out by market traders though zilla thinks it's much more likely that the rulers of egypt didn't want people in canaan which belonged to egypt back then to find out that they were running out of silver they ordered the creation of the fake silver to make it appear that they were still rich during a time when everyone else was running low it was such a good scam that it went undetected for thousands of years people in china have been farming rice from paddy fields for generations but even some of the people who still do it today don't know how far back the traditional occupation goes they know that their grandparents did it and so did the grandparents of their grandparents but the discovery of an ancient paddy field close to the ruins of han jin in sohong county jiangshu has shown that it goes back a lot further than that this site was first farmed approximately 8 000 years ago the archaeologists responsible for the discovery believe that it's not just the oldest wet farming site in china but the oldest in the whole world the existence of the field has been missed up until now because it's so small and also because of where it is it covers only 300 square feet and it's overshadowed by the existence of the famous neolithic ruins next to it there can be no doubting its purpose though carbonized rice has been identified at the site as has evidence that rice was implanted into the soil repeatedly over many years while there's some evidence of the ancient chinese cultivating rice 10 000 years ago this is the first known example of them doing so in such an organized fashion when viking leaders erected runestones they generally did so in order to either commemorate a great victory or to tell the world how great and powerful they were sometimes they did both at the same time they sometimes did so for other reasons though and you'll find evidence of that at roonricket also known as the rune kingdom in sweden there are over 100 stones placed close together at the site most of which were carved during the 11th and 12th centuries many of them tell the story of jarla banga who ruled the region and oversaw a number of construction projects in the area including a bridge that's still standing today many of the runestones tell of his achievements but there's also evidence of a power struggle from reading the runes it appears that yarla bunka spent his whole life at odds with his half-brother who repeatedly tried to make his own claims on the territory when mentioning this conflict the inscriptions on the stones seek to legitimize yar labanka while simultaneously ridiculing and denigrating his relative who's treated with such disdain that he's never even named on the stones we suppose this would be the ancient equivalent of airing your family's dirty laundry on social media [Music] while historians and archaeologists accept that they don't know everything there is to know about ancient human history they have a rough order of events when it comes to the founding of the first permanent human settlements and then the first large-scale towns and cities that order of events definitely doesn't allow for the existence of a massive city in mozambique 200 000 years ago but as of march 2020 that opinion might need revising new evidence has revealed the existence of a colossal network of stone circles covering an area of more than 1200 square miles astonishingly archaeologists are beginning to believe that the entire area was connected effectively forming one gigantic ancient metropolis traces of roads have been found between the stone circles along with agricultural platforms and what appear to be gold mines around the perimeter of the settlement some of the stones appear to be the egyptian ankh symbol but egypt wasn't founded until the distant future from the point of view of the people who presumably lived here is the symbol actually theirs rather than the egyptians more importantly than that who were they 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: 58,599

Keywords: 12 Most Incredible Recent Archaeological Finds, archaeological finds, archaeological mystery, artifacts, ancient artifacts, ancient archaeology, recent archaeological finds, ancient finds, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: QkOVO0w2CwY

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021