[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] global pyramids we all know of the Mayan temples of Central America and the pyramids of Egypt yet the Middle East boasts its own ancient pyramidal constructions called ziggurats giving structures different labels is commonplace yet ziggurats are essentially stepped pyramids in Mesopotamia these iconic step buildings were created to be home of the patron god or goddess of the city they first appeared in the proto-elamite pyramid sometimes called the early dynastic period which ended around 2700 BC just about every corner of our planet has pyramids of some shape size and design they're still being discovered and excavated as the mind-blowing Gunung Padang in Indonesia is still giving up her mysteries was this a collective venture by an ancient lost civilization who embedded these structures all around the globe contrary to belief they're not a normal build style that would naturally develop they involve complex math planning and design the enigma of pyramid building has long been associated with a culture that went down in Cataclysm the tannerite step pyramids are still claimed by the locals as the last remnants of Atlantis let's look at some of the oldest strangest and captivating pyramids around the globe number one tap a clck pyramidal structure Iran the oldest known ziggurat the mysterious Teppei clck is one of four highly unusual ziggurats in Iran the others Chagas anvil 1250 BC Seuss's ziggurat 1800 BC and haft tappa 1375 BC the Ala mite civilization skillfully constructed them almost entirely with mud-brick their Center wasn't Khuzestan to the west of the Zagros Mountains would their capital at Susa the ella mites were not the only people to build ziggurats lead Babylonians and Assyrians also built them as did the earlier peoples of Mesopotamia the Acadians and Sumerians dating back some 7,500 years tap ACL is an anomaly and testament to the ancient civilization that was truly sophisticated beyond its time with this being the oldest known ziggurat it suggests they may be of Persian origin and not Mesopotamian as previously believed the Zion de River culture has been in the region since 6000 BC throwing major confusion as to who invented these ziggurat concept its comparative to the Ubaid phase in sumerian development where serpent headed deities ruled Mesopotamia mythology chap ASA elk in Persian Tapei means Hill or mound was initially excavated in 1933 by a team of European archaeologists led by Roman Gershman most of the artifacts from the original excavations are currently maintained at museums outside Iran such as the British Museum the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Museum of Iran and some are elusively in the hands of private collectors however some remains can also be found at the National Museum in Tehran and the archaeological site itself the two hells are called the Greater clck southern Hill and smaller clck northern Hill the entire area around the ziggurat is thought to have first originated as a result of the pristine water sources nearby that still run today the Sushma Yates solimene Salomon Spring has been supplying water to this area from nearby mountains for thousands of years it's interesting to consider that the Tower of Babel which was meant to allow humans to climb to the heavens is believed to have been a ziggurat the inspiration for the building in biblical tales is said to have a Babylonian ziggurat known as Ottoman Anki meaning house of the foundation of heaven on earth the structure is recorded to have soared to a height of 92 meters unfortunately Ottoman Anki was demolished in antiquity unlike Ottoman Anki Teppei sialic has survived for thousands of years it may have been the inspiration for the Sumerians and can provide priceless information concerning the history of human civilization archaeologists around the world have launched a campaign to preserve the site as the progenitor of all pyramids number two the stepped pyramid of djoser pyramid there's no doubt this pyramid has captured the imagination of the modern era with its famed intellectual architect Imhotep being portrayed in the cinema and archeology seriously questioning the links between Sumerian ziggurats and Djoser's pyramid the theory loosely stands that the concept spread from Sumerian lands to Egypt Joseph's pyramid complex is an engineering marvel highly advanced in architectural design and it sits there in the earliest epoch of the third dynasty the head symbol known to represent stability was used in the pillars of Yasser Saqqara complex at Temple t what is famously portrayed as the doser complex is the rows of cobras leading many to believe in connections to the new world pyramids both cultures had obviously acquired the unique process of building step pyramids chichen itza being the most famous example yet both cultures worshiped poisonous dangerous snakes lesser-known as both cultures practiced a ritual known as opening the any logical person hearing these facts would posture a link of some sort yet were not allowed to even suggest that outside archaeology another unusual aspect of yowzers pyramid is that it's more famous for its architect Imhotep than who it was built for you would think this was a no-no for ancient Egyptian pharaohs but in hotep the grand architect became worshipped as a deity in the New Kingdom Imhotep was revered as the patron of scribes personifying education and everlasting wisdom we see in the Turin papyrus that he's also described as the son of pita a long way from where he started as advisor to the pharaoh many have questioned the true age of this pyramid complex and complex it is it contains a well hidden labyrinth within it with some elusive ritual associated with it it's so complex many have challenged the dates attributed to construction this is supposed to be the first pyramid the complex of yowzer appeared at the dawn of the pyramid age which means it likely wasn't the dawn at all why does the pyramid of cheops get all the limelight there are so many exciting aspects of Josas pyramid the pyramid is part of a 40 acre complex contained within a courtyard many temples all enclosed inside a gigantic wall the entrance to the complex is built into the wall Imhotep wasn't just an architect he was a polymath a doctor a priest and a sculptor among many other job descriptions just like these sumerian architects they had widely attributed talents as polymath architects there's no doubt across cultural influence and the spectacular Step Pyramid stands testament to this number three Choga zanbil ziggurat iran the most remarkable aspect of Chagas anvil translated as basket mound is that it's the most preserve ziggurat in the ancient Near East located in these special province of Khuzestan Iran the Chagas anvil ziggurat is estimated to be about three thousand years old or more long known to have been an alle might construction it may have been inherited by this culture from a further epoch the elamite civilization was one of the earliest cultures to have flourished along the rivers of Khuzestan but not be first considered to be part of a special group of four step pyramids this ziggurat is closely associated with the bull God in Shushan Ock quite a lot is known about in Shushan Ock and there are remarkable brick murals preserved in the Louvre Museum from this elamite pyramid he was regarded as protector of Susa famous for being invaded by Ashurbanipal it's the pyramids of the ancient Near East that we glean a lot about their use Chagas anvil was a worship place with no habitation the building materials in Chagas anvil our standard mud bricks some baked and many have cuneiform writing on them experts speculate due to the sheer number of temples at show gazaam bill that untap arisia was desperate to create a new religious capital a last desperate attempt to unify the alle mites of upper and lower lands much reminiscent of ancient Egypt the entire complex which Chagas anvil ziggurat is part of is the biggest of its kind in this region the ziggurat pyramid as a defining feature of an irregular outer wall this extends 3,900 by 2,600 feet or about 1200 by 800 meters around the special inner sanctum of 13 temple buildings of which 4 are preserved the ziggurat base 344 feet 105 meters on each side was built principally of brick it now stands 80 feet 24 meters high losing half its estimated original height what makes the preservation so unique is that it was unknown to the outside world until the British investigated in 1935 discoveries of many ancient artifacts at the site includes several bull sculptures scholars have also discovered a collection of middle elamite cylinder seals with incredible background information one of the structures held five vaulted underground chambers what makes Chagas anvil so perplexing is that all this activity revolving around in Shushan ock has no context outside the complex the nearby bahu stone inscriptions and mal amir inscriptions bear no mention of in Shushan OCH the famous inscriptions have been dubbed the rosetta stone of persia containing old persian another in elamite and the third in Akkadian yet no context for Chagas anvil is anywhere to be found hardened scholars have claimed for a long time that this unique pyramid was either an inheritance and reused or was a breakaway culture like many other examples in the ancient Near East number four Muro pyramid group Sudan surprisingly Egypt is not the region with the most pyramids that honor goes to the butanna region 30 kilometers north of shendi Sudan situated on the east bank of the Nile River about 200 kilometers northeast of Khartoum Sudan's capital lies Moreau in approximately 1000 BC the Nubian kingdom of cush arose is the leading power in the region of the middle Nile it followed the collapse of the 24th Egyptian dynasty their vast empire extended from the heart of Africa to the Mediterranean and the architecture found there testifies to the exchange between the arts languages and religions of both regions no one yet has been able to decipher the Mirotic's script very little is known concisely on how Moreau grew to become the wondrous city written about by Herodotus in circa 430 BCE as ongoing archaeological work shows the inhabitants of Nubia particularly those in the kingdom of Moreau find a way to imitate Egypt's monuments Moreau is home to more than 200 pyramids the most notable difference is in size and pitch the largest pyramid at Moreau was originally 30 metres high with an unusual angle approaching 70 degrees the first of these was constructed at the site of El kuru including the tombs of King PE and his father kashta together with PI's successors Chewbacca Shabet akka and ten went Amani fourteen pyramids were constructed for their Queens several of whom were fierce warrior queens this can be compared to roughly 120 pyramids that were built in ancient Egypt throughout 3,000 years these secluded monuments seemed to have been forgotten by the modern world with almost zero tourism employed only the dedicated researchers make it there they're known as nubian pyramids with narrow bases and steep angles on the sides built between twenty-seven hundred and twenty-three hundred years ago with decorative elements from the cultures of veronik Egypt Greece and Rome some of the antechambers contain well-preserved decorative items including hieroglyphics and carvings the differences do not end there an 1897 British expedition to gavel barkal excavated inside a pyramid and soon discovered there was no burial chamber as would be expected in Egypt the burial chamber was underneath the pyramid so the Nubian pyramids rather than being tombs were simply enormous headstones unfortunately most of the pyramids have lost their peaks they were destroyed by an italian treasure hunter and adventurer Giuseppe Fellini in the 1830s having found precious items in the top of one pyramid he infamously used gunpowder to access 40 more it's not known where the people of Moreau originated an even greater mystery is where these moronic people are today and why these unconquerable peoples left their ancient city and seemingly vanished from the face of the earth number five King Shihuang pyramid China China may have the largest collection of pyramids in the world with a blockade of foreigners who show interest in their heritage we see a huge embargo on Chinese pyramids located in Lin Tang district cheyanne shanssey province in China this site is best known for the Terracotta Warriors a collection of 8,000 statue men with horses and artifacts these famous figurines were intended to guard and help the Emperor with all his needs for the afterlife this stunning project was discovered in 1974 when farmers uncovered strange figures while digging a nearby well each statue was crafted to an individual image from assembly molds and given bright painted colors and weapons rebel Jang new plundered some of these six metre deep pits soon after their construction several pits of figurines have yet to be excavated but the real treasures in the pyramid nearby which this army guard despite being one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all times the pyramid of the first emperor of China Kim Shi Huang endures as a mystery to archaeologists and historians as the main burial chamber a football pitched sized Hall between a massive mound of Earth remains sealed among the most incredible ancient constructions ever detailed is the inner tomb of the Chinese emperor Qin Shihuang it's said to be an enormous room and with exquisite details of life in ancient China hatched on the floor the ceiling is a great arch of the night sky with pearls and other precious gems representing the Stars and most impressively of all 100 rivers lakes and oceans represented by liquid mercury flowing constantly from perpetual mechanical pumps this theory is that the main chamber contains a kind of microcosm of all of China 700,000 people a day were sweating at the tomb construction which lasted more than 40 years given the fact that the creation of the underground city crypt dates back from the beginning of the 3rd century BC we can imagine the tremendous nosaka tech chiral project for that time geological explorations beginning in the 1960s concluded that the pyramid had an original height of 115 meters many of China's pyramids are aligned similarly to those found in Egypt for example with barely a slight deviation from the cardinal points exactly how they carried this out is still debated with a recent study suggesting they used the Stars at the equinoxes ken was no different he also had his elongated pyramid lineup in nearly perfect north-south direction it's almost sure that his architects use the positioning of the Sun and constellations to find the direction of the geometric South Pole the answers to many historical mysteries may lie buried inside that tomb but whether modern people will ever see inside this mausoleum depends not just on the Chinese government our technology at present would not be able to deal with the sheer size and scale of excavating the underground complex and the preservation of the artifacts until further technological advancements have been made it's unlikely that archaeologists will risk opening the tomb of the first emperor of China [Music] number six Western Shai mausoleums China far out in the western regions of gobi desert lie the remnants of a lost civilization a once thriving in artistic culture the kingdom of western china the pyramids in ancient egypt have always been regarded as a mystery of ancient human civilization but another mysterious old construction that resembles their shape can be found in here located 30 roughly kilometers west of Yinchuan the capital of Ningxia how autonomous region Western gize most striking feature are its pyramid shaped tombs including nine mausoleums housing the imperial family and 207 tombs of dupes and ministers spread over 40 square kilometers on the eastern slope of the holland mountain range these strange-looking tombs are proudly called the pyramids of china by the locals the main tombs were discovered during the construction of a military airbase in 1972 the unearthing of ancient bricks and pottery offered the first hints that the soil encrusted something special these tombs have five or seven stories each of which was built with flying rafters that were overlaid with rows of richly decorated glazed green tiles archaeologists believed that the signs of the terraces were initially painted a deep red to contrast with the green tiles we can only imagine how magnificent these tombs must have looked at the southeast corner at the foot of the mountains halong are two of the largest pyramids housing the Yuling and zhiling mausoleums of Lederman and Lygia kane who were posthumously designated Emperor Taizong and Emperor Tai zu the design of the mausoleum area makes these two mausoleums most prominent followed by others built later long ago raiders looted the principal Imperial mounds of their caches of gold and other precious metals gems and other valuable items however they did leave many of the statues hieroglyphics and other works of art untouched after Genghis Khan's rise to power to become the mongol leader he repeatedly raided the western joy empire from 1202 to 1227 the Western Jaya fended themselves and in 1227 Genghis Khan himself died during one of these attacks on the western join the mongols however eventually conquered and decimated the empire they absorb these surviving troops into their army it was a customary practice for each Chinese dynasty to compile historical records of its predecessor but strangely nothing about the state of Western Jai is mentioned in the 24 histories of China historians believe that they had reasonably advanced weaponry and architecture for their times and their own writing system however due to the lack of records historians don't know much of their history or ethnicity archaeologists are digging deeper to find out more about the race in recent years scientific research and exploration have been conducted at the site in hopes of decoding the sudden disappearance of the remaining Western Jaya civilization number seven borobudur or stepped temple Indonesia not only is borobudur or the most significant pyramid-shaped buddhist monument in the world but it's also one of the most intricately carved structures on the planet scholars don't have all the answers for this place they're not even sure what its original purpose was here's what we do know it was constructed at a time when Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms prospered and men raised grandiose monuments to heaven to honor their gods after the periods of distinction they sank into oblivion either as a result of natural disasters or military conquest their monuments were reclaimed by the jungle and lost to humanity for almost a thousand years borobudur is one of the most spectacular ever discovered located in Indonesia on the island of Java Atma Galang 90 kilometers southeast of Semoran the rulers of the Solyndra dynasty built the temple around 800 seee taking roughly 75 years to construct it was possibly created as a monument to Buddha builders hauled 2 million stones from rivers and streams to erect borobudur or a dazzling 95 foot tall 55 thousand square meters Step Pyramid and Buddhist temple complex despite its gigantic size historical records of its decade-long construction are sparse the structure was built without using any cement or mortar and yet all its parts hold together perfectly more than 500 Buddhist statues are spread around the temple the lower terraces include a value Strad that blocks out views of the outside world and replaces them with close to 3,000 Bass relief sculptures illustrating the teachings in life of the Buddha together they make up the greatest collection of such Buddhist sculpture in the world in all we have ten steps one of the greatest puzzles of borobudur is the mostly concealed base also known as the maha Karma bonjah hundreds of wonderfully carved relief panels are entirely covered a couple of metres underground except for a section in the southeast which the Japanese excavated in the 1940s previously Dutch archaeologists had unearthed it for research and recovered it it's now a memorial and a temple where the secret doctrines concerning Adi Buddha and his mysterious paradise are taught to the initiative's Center on its destruction by fire and water which has led some researchers to find connections to the fabled Atlantis when viewed from above the temple is like the shape of a lotus lotus is one of the symbols used in homage worship religion of Buddha symbolizing purity to remind Buddhists always to keep the mind and heart remained clean despite being in an environment that's not clean how was it discovered when Sir Thomas Henry raffles came to inspect the progress of his expedition in 1814 he found what he described as a colossal pyramid that rose to a substantial bell-shaped pinnacle in the 12th century archaeologists and engineers took the entire stone structure apart stone by stone Abu Simbel style to alleviate water damage and erosion at one time it was feared borobudur might collapse and then it was put back together like the world's most impressive jigsaw puzzle so for now the monument is safe from the elements today it serves as a reminder that a buddhist kingdom the Solyndra dynasty thrived for around five centuries until the 10th century in the heart of what is now Indonesia [Music] number 8 the Cahokia pyramid ancient America ancient America is not usually considered pyramid territory however a thousand years ago giant pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East st. Louis exists today in southern Illinois this majestic urban architecture towered from the swampy Mississippi River flood plains blotting out the region's tiny villages the city expanded out over six square miles and encircled at least 120 mounds and a population of up to 20,000 people the most impressive example of architecture at Cahokia is the 100 foot tall monks mound the title given to it because a group of Trappist monks live near it in historical times like many capital cities around the world gol Kea displayed monumental architecture making it an astounding theater of power in its center the mound nearly as vast as the Pyramid of the Sun at tail Chi Halcon or the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico and more extensive than the Egyptians Pyramids of Giza it's flat top towering 100 feet high covers more than a football field its base measures a thousand feet by 700 feet in front stretches the Grand Plaza which measures 1,000 feet by 1300 feet and is made perfectly flat by filling in gullies and layering a unique kind of soil over the ground at the far end and along the sides rise more mounds 70 feet high all were capped with coloured clays blue white or black archaeologists have found large post holes at the top indicating the presence of what may have been a temple possibly made of wood measuring 104 feet by 48 feet its holes are over 3 feet in diameter the construction being perhaps 50 feet tall along with a grand plaza monks mounds and some of the smaller mounds was contained in with a two-mile long wooden stake wall experts have speculated at least 20,000 wooden posts were needed to build it the original site contained 120 earth and mounds over an area of six square miles of which 80 remain today to achieve that thousands of workers over decades moved more than an estimated 55 million cubic feet of Earth in woven baskets to create this network of mounds and community plazas three types of mounds were developed the most popular of which was a platform mount thought to have been used as large structures for political or religious rituals and may have once been topped by large buildings conical and ridgetop mounds were also constructed for use as burial locations or marking essential locations some archeologists have noted many similarities between the Mesoamerican civilizations of Mexico and the Mississippian culture at Cahokia these similarities include the use of obelisk like timber posts and their worship stories of godlike people the use of Mesoamerican style Flint daggers and an opinion of the cosmos in ways comparable to those of the Mesoamerican cultures however by 1350 it had been deserted by its native inhabitants the Mississippians and no one is sure why number nine gunung padang Java we keep discovering things that remind us our view of history may not be exactly what we thought it was now and then we find the remnants of civilizations that reframe entirely how we think of them at an ever-increasing rate on the island of Java about 120 kilometres from Jakarta the answers to a big mystery is buried in a mountain thankfully it's forcing humanity to rethink our entire history is there proof here of an ancient civilization one so ancient that any record of it disappeared thousands of years before the Egyptians even thought about building their first pyramid Dutch explorers first found the site back in 1914 but a full archeological excavation on the site only began more recently in 2010 pioneer Danny Hillman and his team got to work using careful excavations and remote sensing techniques like ground-penetrating radar and seismic tomography what they found stunned the archaeological community the majority of the 100 metre Hill is human-made and it's not a hill at all it's a terrorist pyramid built up over millennia by the oldest civilizations the world has yet discovered this is completely spellbound the world of academia there is more evidence that GU Nang Padang is a multi-layered pyramid core drill samples and other techniques have divulged one face being built on top of the next with tons of evidence showing activity at the pyramid at 22,000 BC 14700 PC 9600 BC 4700 BC and 2800 BC the age of the megalithic structures visible today is the 2800 BC layer Hillman and his team now believed that the entire mound is an artificial pyramid of profound antiquity this makes it the oldest known built pyramid and structure for that matter anywhere in the globe the dates Hillman gives were derived from carbon-14 testing of organic materials extracted from core drill samples Danny Hillman is a modern-day Indiana Jones has not only battled against the establishment who tried to take his discovery away keeps making more discoveries a series of andesite pillars laid down in rows beneath the surface of the hill which are never created horizontally only vertically more vindication of his amazing discovery there's undoubtedly an ancient human-made pyramid inside the hill the fact that these columns are stacked forming several terraces speaks volumes to the artificiality remarkably the site is still used as a place of meditation and prayer researchers and investigators think that this may have been its original function there are still battles going on behind the scenes as there are desperate attempts to control the site number 10 Te'o Chi Halcon pyramid complex Mexico City the pyramid complex of t OG Halcon needs no introduction on a par with the Giza Plateau for a number of structures complexity and alignments one could philosophize for hours about the mysteries there there are however recent mind-boggling discoveries that scholars cannot fundamentally understand let alone get used to in 2003 a heavy rainstorm swooped through the ruins of Te'o T how can the grounds of the city's central courtyard were exposed sergio gomez and archaeologists arrived to inspect the damage only to find a sinkhole that opened at the foot of the temple of the plumed serpent the Temple of the plumed serpent is adorned with carved snake heads just like Djoser's pyramid in Egypt what Gomez had discovered was a man-made tunnel gomez knew about a previously discovered tunnel underneath the temple of the Sun he realized the two tunnels linked up gomez measured the tunnel which ran 330 feet but why build and seal it with large boulders over 2,000 years ago during excavations of the tunnel which produced many artifacts Gomez announced against the restrictions imposed on him by the antiquities authorities that he had discovered vast quantities of liquid mercury in a curious chamber below the Pyramid of the feathered serpent you would think this would firstly newsworthy and a public right to know thanks to his courage we do know but it's not the only case of liquid mercury underneath the pyramid the pyramids in China are known to have liquid lakes of mercury underneath them kenchi huang's pyramid already discussed has lethal rivers of mercury flowing underneath it this has been seen worldwide as the final smoking gun needed in connecting all these pyramid cultures we have pyramid structures mummification solstice alignments on pyramids opening at the mouth of ceremonies serpent idols and now liquid mercury even more bizarrely is the extraction of liquid mercury from red cinnabar rock unless you collect the vapor like the modern method a difficult technical process involving apparatus your yield is very low to be creating rivers or lakes of it in an ancient times just stupefies the mind why in both pyramid cultures it was associated with life and immortality and considered essential to represent the underworld there's no doubt many more surprises lurk underneath the pyramids and in them it seems the notion of a lost worldwide pyramid culture is coming to favor whether it's the Mesopotamian ziggurats step pyramids of the old or new world there are some inextricable links that are not going away archaeology can either like them or not like them they're there the encouraging perspective is that many pyramids around the world are now being open to further research and we're learning major things about our past [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]
