12 Most Mysterious Recent Artifact Finds

you don't have to stop learning about history just because you've finished school or university there are so many fascinating things to discover about our ancestors and their civilizations that you could spend your whole life studying them and you'd still never know everything there is to know allow us to give you a crash course though we've packed this video full of some incredible and fascinating findings from the world of archaeology and we're excited to share them with in november 2020 a 2 000 year old ring was discovered in the foundations of the western wall in jerusalem and it's creating quite a stir among historians and archaeologists the tiny ring is engraved with the image of a deity but many historians feel that the deity represented is decidedly non-jewish in fact they suspect that it's a representation of the greek god apollo the ring was probably used by its owner as a means of stamping and sealing letters and contracts but it's unusual for an image of a non-jewish god to be found in jerusalem the design of the piece of jewelry crafted from jasper stone is definitely consistent with a typical jewish seal ring but the image on the ring is not experts have speculated that the wearer might not have worshiped apollo but wanted to express the same things that apollo stands for according to the ancient greek belief success purity health and light even if that's true they would have been taking quite a risk by wearing it to the people of the time it would probably have been seen as blasphemous [Music] nowadays we're all familiar with the concept of a selfie millions of these self-focused photographs are taken all over the planet every day it was harder to create a selfie before the invention of the camera you either had to paint a self-portrait or as one mischievous craftsman appears to have done in a spanish cathedral immortalize yourself in stone the santiago de compostela cathedral was built in the 11th century based on carefully laid plans that presumably didn't include this self-portrait hidden away in a remote corner close to the ceiling as it's 40 feet off the floor it would never have been noticed by the clergy and in fact it managed to remain unnoticed until a detailed survey was carried out in october of 2020 900 years after the cathedral was built it's thought that hidden self-portraits like this might have been the equivalent of a signature for the people who worked on grand scale buildings like these often concealed in places where most people would never find them but other masons or artists might looking at the codex cosby inside balogna university library it would be easy to believe that this was created and published only yesterday unlike the majority of ancient texts it hasn't faded or frayed and the colors are still bright and vivid this is no recent creation though it's an ancient aztec manuscript dating back to pre-columbian times in south america quite how the colors have managed to survive for so many years is unknown so a new study has been announced to begin in november 2020 aimed at finding out how the codex cosby was created and what substances were used to create the colors of this 15th century treasure it's hoped that cutting edge fluorescence and hyperspectral imaging techniques will detect both organic and inorganic matter on the pages of the codex finally shedding light on the mystery of how it was created it's likely that organic dyes such as indigo were employed along with the signature maya blue shade that was popular across the aztec empire but the nature of some of the other colors is a riddle that will hopefully soon be solved as we're on the topic of pre-columbian mexico let's talk about the los labrados petroglyphs the strange and intricate markings left on the rocks of sinaloa represent almost all that we know about the sinaloa people they didn't leave behind any written records nor many structures so if we're ever to discover more about them we'll have to get to the bottom of the mystery that the petroglyphs represent that might be easier said than done though the majority of the carvings are on the beach of barris de piaxla where they've been exposed to the elements for several centuries resulting in significant erosion from what's left we can see carefully arranged patterns of animals humanoid figures concentric circles geometric shapes and over 600 other distinct shapes most of the markings were probably made between the years of 900 and 1350 it might even be the case that the sinaloa people left behind the entire history of their civilization recorded on the rocks it's just down to us to interpret it correctly so we can understand it [Music] we're moving on to some other thousand-year-old rock art in south america now but this rock art is much grander in scale found at the site of cruces de molinos in the chilean andes the art appears to depict a series of llama caravans historians are divided on what their meaning might be one school of thought is that they mark the beginning of a safe or prosperous trade route through the andes another is that they designate a ceremonial gathering place for groups of caravaners as they made their long journeys in later years the best path through the mountains was to follow the inca road system but these carvings were made long before the inca began their work even then the idea of loading up a caravan and embarking on a long trading expedition wasn't new there's evidence to suggest that caravans passed this way 3 000 years ago it's hard to find out much about who these hearty travelers were as the nature of the lives they led meant they were nomads leaving few records behind as they came and went if these rock carvings were created by caravanners they might be the only large-scale monument they ever made chess has existed in one form or another for centuries with different cultures and civilizations putting their own twists on the game the viking equivalent of chess was a game known as henafotiful but what can a few old viking chess pieces tell us about the history of whale hunting in europe well it all has to do with burial sites apparently some vikings loved their chess game so much that they were buried with their board and pieces early viking burials have been found to contain chess pieces made from stone or reindeer bones but from the 6th century onward the pieces found in graves were more likely to be made from whale bone experts from sweden's uppsala university have traced the origin of these whale bones to the edge of the norwegian sea and believe that they confirmed the idea that the vikings were the first civilization in the world to carry out whaling on an industrial scale they now think that it's through their experience with whaling which necessitated an improvement in their sailing skills the vikings started down a path that would eventually lead to maritime dominance in europe northern ireland is a comparatively small country so you might imagine that everything worth finding there from an archaeological point of view has already been discovered but seems that isn't the case in july 2020 archaeologists reported the discovery of what they believed to be enormous ancient religious structures at navan fort not far from the city of armagh today armag is proudly a christian city hosting anglican and catholic archbishops but even before christianity arrived here in the 5th century it appears that it was an important religious center these newly discovered temples and complexes appear to have been built during the iron age with the possibility that some are even older than that the buildings are invisible to the naked eye at ground level but their presence has been confirmed by using magnetic radiometry along with an electrical resistance survey the religious complex appears to have been built in a figure of eight with a lower loop of the eight having a diameter of more than 500 feet that would make it one of the largest iron age structures ever discovered the archaeologists are now hoping that they'll receive government funding to fully excavate the site and find out what's hiding beneath the soil unlike the religious complex in northern ireland the giant mounds of jerusalem aren't a new archaeological discovery we've known of their existence for a long time we just don't know what they were built for nor does anybody else the gigantic mounds some of which are as tall as a six story building are made from mud and stone and were built around 2500 years ago there's no chance that they occurred naturally so someone went to a lot of trouble to create them not all of the mounds appear to contain anything but one of them has been found to have been built around a 2700 year old building containing dozens of jar handles the jar handles are stamped with a mark that connects them with the kingdom of judah during the first temple period but their significance is unknown as there isn't a better explanation some people believe that the mounds were created by the refe a race of giants described in the bible as a community of tall mighty people who lived in canon even if that were true what purpose would these mounds have served them ostrich eggs were a luxury item in ancient times they were often painted with attractive patterns then sold to the wealthy as commodities for home decoration but sometimes they served a more practical purpose as we can see with this vase-like ostrich egg which has been fitted with a stand at the bottom and a hole for dispensing at the top they were occasionally used as perfume cases similar designs were used when adapting ostrich eggs for wine storage the majority of ancient ostrich eggs found across the ancient world have turned out to be exports from egypt and the levant but didn't come from ostrich farms studies have shown that these ancient eggshells some of which are 2900 years old resemble those of wild ostriches more than captive ones it appears that egg traders went hunting for wild ostrich to steal their eggs which would have been a dangerous pursuit because an angry mother ostrich is capable of killing a human being with a single well-placed kick no wonder they were so expensive to buy the egg hunters had to make sure their earnings were worth the risks they took to obtain them [Music] there are a few things better than a comfortable bed to sleep in at night and get a good night's rest the people of two hundred thousand years ago knew that just as well as we do today we know this because we found their old beds inside border cave in the lumbo mountains of south africa these ancient beds were made by paleolithic people by stacking layers of camphor bush on top of layers of ash the ash was probably a primitive attempt at pest control because it would have made it difficult for insects ticks or other unwanted guests from climbing up into your sleeping space at night layer upon layer of beds have been found inside the caves leading archaeologists to believe that when a bed was no longer comfortable it would be burned with the ash becoming a new bottom layer to lay fresh piles of camphor bush on top of it we generally think of paleolithic humans as nomadic but whoever lived in these caves stuck around for a while the bed-making practice appears to have gone on at the site for an incredible 160 000 years elements of it have survived to the present day camphor bush and ash is still used as an insect repellent in some rural parts of east africa [Music] in august 2020 the university of saskatchewan in canada published the results of an exciting new study shedding new light on a rapid increase in marine biodiversity between 560 million and 440 million years ago the team responsible for the study has spent the past 20 years studying rock formations at the bottom of current and former seabeds all over the world they've been able to prove for the first time that creatures living all that time ago were capable of engineering the ecosystem that surrounded them mostly by creating burrows on the seafloor these burrows would have provided them with shelter from predators and also with the means of attracting and trapping their own prey marine worms and small sea creatures progressed from building burrows to building tunnels for even greater protection so their numbers grew quickly as they branched out taking on more territory to accommodate their swelling ranks they evolved and diversified eventually laying the foundations for all marine life as we understand it today the burrows might not look like much more than a few grooves and shapes in the rock to you or i but they're actually the cradle from which almost all life in the oceans emerged [Music] while marine biologists marveled over the discovery paleontologists from england's university of portsmouth were getting equally excited about an ancient discovery of their own fossilized plant gum from 110 million years ago the material which is described as having a color and consistency like amber was discovered inside the fossilized leaves of the well wichiophylum plant inside the cradle formation of brazil's ara ripe basin what's special about this discovery is that until it was found it was thought to be impossible plant resin survives the fossilization process by becoming amber scientists have always thought that the fossilization process destroys plant gum yet here it is to prove them all wrong even the planet was found on is fairly remarkable it's almost identical to the well wichita plant of angola and namibia meaning the species has survived almost unchanged for millions of years the university's paleontologists along with many more from around the world now wonder how many ancient amber fossils are actually examples of ancient fossilized gum that's been mislabeled because of a lack of understanding [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

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Keywords: 12 Most Mysterious Recent Artifact Finds, archaeology finds, artifact finds, ancient artifact, mysterious artifacts, mysterious archaeology, mystery, artifacts, recent finds, recent archaeological finds, 12 most, top 12, most amazing

Id: YjPagusmIhA

Length: 15min 29sec (929 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020