11.
PABLO ESCOBAR’S PLANE WRECK
During the 1970s and ‘80s, the tiny Bahamian island of Norman’s Cay was the epicenter
of cartel leader Pablo Escobar’s drug smuggling ring.
It was a refueling point for the notorious kingpin’s pilots, who would land along the
small runway before continuing along to the U.S.
Off the island’s southern shore, a World War II-era plane wreck sticks out from the
shallow Caribbean waters, which are world-famous for their visibility.
Nobody knows the exact story behind the partially submerged aircraft.
The most popular version of the tale claims the plane landed just shy of the runway while
carrying a shipment of cocaine in 1980.
It came to rest on a sandbar and the crew swam to safety.
Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured.
They supposedly even saved their illicit cargo.
The drug-smuggling days at Norman’s Cay are long over.
Today, the area operates primarily as a tourist attraction known for its pristine beauty.
Over the last 40-plus years, the wreck has become an artificial reef and is now a popular
snorkeling and diving site.
10.
ANCIENT THEATER BATHROOM
While excavating a 2,000-year-old theater in the ancient city of Smyrna last year, archaeologists
discovered what appeared to be the ruins of a communal toilet.
In modern-day Turkey, someone built the bathroom in the 2nd century A.D. and it remained in
use until the 5th century A.D.
The shared commode is the first of its kind ever found within a stage building, according
to the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality.
Measuring 16 inches (40 cm) high, the U-shaped structure accommodated 12 to 13 people at
a time.
It had a three-to-four-inch (8-10 cm) deep trough filled with clean, flowing water.
Researchers believe they reserved the latrine for performers, rather than audience members.
This is because the theater contains a larger toilet that was open to the public.
The actors who used the facility would have cleaned themselves with a shared sponge on
a stick, which they rinsed off in the nearby trough.
In modern society, the idea of going to the bathroom in front of others is mortifying
to most.
But to the ancients, it was just a part of everyday life, and they even saw it as a chance
to socialize.
After all, you might as well catch up while you’re sitting there, doing your business.
9.
STOLEN BOOKS One night in early 2017, someone stole over
200 historically priceless books from a transit warehouse near London.
The books were waiting to be shipped to a specialist in Las Vegas.
In what was a planned heist, the sophisticated thieves cut a hole into the building’s roof
and dropped inside, cleverly avoiding security sensors along the way.
Valued at over $3,200,000, authors like Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, and 18th-century painter
Francisco Goya wrote them.
And their loss was a travesty.
Shortly after the theft, London Metropolitan Police Detective Inspector Andy Durham described
the collection as “irreplaceable and of great importance to international cultural
heritage.”
Three years later, police discovered the priceless literary works in a hidden concrete pit beneath
a floor while raiding a house in the Romanian countryside.
Authorities ultimately traced the suspected thief to a gang connected to the notorious
Clamparu organized crime family.
Authorities suspect the gang committed as many as 11 other burglaries in London.
Twelve out of 13 suspects plead guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary for various
incidents that took place between December 2016 and April 2019.
Authorities returned the books to their rightful owners in an emotional exchange after they
had long struggled with the thought they might never see their treasured works again.
8.
OLDEST FOOTPRINTS IN THE AMERICAS
Last September, archaeologists announced the discovery of a set of 23,000-year-old footprints
in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park.
This dates back to the earliest known human presence in North America by at least 10,000
years.
They found the footprints in an ancient lakebed over a several-thousand-year period during
what’s known as the Last Glacial Maximum.
It captured the pitter-patter of children and teenagers who walked along the shoreline
before the glaciers of the last ice age melted.
The discovery marks a turning point in the endless debate over who first stepped foot
into the Americas and when.
Some researchers argue people reached the continent long before anyone ever made the
footprints, which is certainly possible.
But for now, evidence of these claims remains scarce.
The fossilized footprints are a game-changer.
All signs pointing toward their dating are accurate.
They proved that humans reached North America when researchers previously believed ice sheets
had blocked them from entering.
For this reason, researchers theorized until recently that the first humans to reach the
continent were a group known as the Clovis People, who arrived around 13,000 years ago.
Now, they face the question not of if someone ventured into the Americas before the Clovis
People, but who and when.
7.
IRON AGE JEWELS In early 2017, archaeologists in southern
Germany discovered the treasure-filled tomb of an Iron Age woman who had laid undisturbed
for some 2,600 years.
Her people laid her to rest around 583 B.C. at the Heuneburg Hillfort near the Danube
River.
The five-foot, three-inch (1.62 meters) tall woman’s remains suggest she was between
30 and 40 years old when she died and that she was an elite member of Celtic society.
They buried her with a hoard of valuables surrounding her body.
They included amber, gold and bronze jewelry, furs and textiles, bronze jingle bells that
once hung on a horse’s chest, black stone bracelets, a bronze and leather belt, and
an ornament made from boars’ horns.
The grave also contained a petrified sea urchin and an extinct mollusk called an ammonite.
This led experts to believe that the woman was a priestess of some type.
Lead researcher Dirk Krausse told Live Science that this was the first “richly furnished”
burial among several in the area that nobody had looted.
Located just north of the Alps, the Celtic city-state of Heuneburg was founded during
the sixth century B.C.
Locals have long known about it, but archaeological excavations did not begin until 1950.
It was too late to save some of the site’s contents from thieves by then.
Thankfully, they somehow missed the wealthy woman’s grave.
6.
PENAL COLONY COIN STASH On the Australian island of Tasmania, the
19th-century penal colony of Port Arthur was known for housing the most hardened convicts.
Authorities typically sent them there after they proved too difficult to handle at more
conventional penitentiaries.
The rules at Port Arthur were between extremely strict and outright inhumane.
Inmates languished in near-constant solitary confinement and guards didn’t allow them
to interact with one another at all.
They certainly didn’t allow them to have money, but like any prison, prisoners sneaked
things in and out.
Last year, archaeologists found a stash of silver shillings beneath the prison’s workshop.
The coins amounted to roughly the one week's salary of a guard.
And while they knew inmates to have some coins in their possession, this was an unusual amount,
according to project officer Sylvana Szydzik, who spoke with ABC Australia.
Archeologists found the money stashed under the floor, where a prisoner likely hid it
after stealing it from an officer.
Whoever it was, they never made it back to their hiding spot to retrieve the coins.
They may have fallen under the suspicion of prison staff, or they may have been transferred
elsewhere for release.
Researcher Richard Tuffin explained someone probably stole the coins during the 1850s.
An expert will examine the shillings, which are dated between 1814 and 1844.
Only 10 percent of the prison population worked at any given time.
Officers gave the jobs to the best-behaved inmates because they often involved working
with tools that they could use for the wrong reasons.
Prisoners who were already skilled tradesmen before their life behind bars were also given
priority with jobs.
Besides the coins, archaeologists have found handmade gambling tokens, tobacco pipes, and
metal products.
Do you think a penal colony on an island is a good idea in modern times?
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Be sure to hit that subscribe button and while you’re here, how about a thumbs-up, so I
know you want to see more videos like this.
5.
LOST CROWN CENTERPIECE
Kevin Duckett of Northamptonshire, England, encountered the surprise of a lifetime in
2017 when his metal detector picked up what he thought was a crumpled piece of foil peeking
out from the ground.
Upon taking a second look, he realized he had found something potentially precious.
Speaking with the Sun newspaper, he later recounted, “I was holding what appeared
to be a heavy solid gold and enameled figurine.”
The two-and-a-half-inch (6.35 cm) statuette, which depicts the 15th-century monarch King
Henry VI, might be the missing piece from King Henry VIII’s coronation crown.
It was worn by Henry VIII during processions marking the Feast of the Epiphany.
His five successors also wore it during their coronations.
Researchers have long thought the piece was lost to history, having possibly been melted
down and its jewels sold in separate pieces after the British monarchy fell in 1649.
Duckett’s discovery likely disproves this assumption and suggests that the piece survived
by chance.
He found the figurine near where the 1645 Battle of Naseby took place.
The battle resulted in King Charles I being defeated and deposed, and Duckett believes
the beleaguered monarch may have lost the crown while fleeing the battlefield.
4.
ROMAN TREASURE TROVE In mid-2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities
announced the discovery of a Roman treasure trove, along with the remains of a red brick
building believed to be a Roman bath.
Found at the San El-Hagar archaeological site in Tanis, the cache of artifacts includes
a statue of a ram, a gold coin featuring King Ptolemy III, pottery vessels, terracotta statues,
bronze tools, and a stone fragment inscribed with hieroglyphs.
The items and the building archeologists found them in, which, at 52 feet (16 meters) long,
is especially large for Roman times, likely date back to the Greco-Roman era.
The gold coin especially intrigued archaeologists depicting Ptolemy III, which his son, Ptolemy
IV, created in his memory between 221 B.C. and 205 B.C.
The one-ounce (28 grams) piece, which is one inch (2.6 cm) in diameter, shows Ptolemy III
wearing an extravagant crown on one side and a cornucopia-like symbol of prosperity on
the other.
At the time of the discovery, the Ministry of Antiquities announced plans to continue
excavating at the site to learn more about how the Romans used the building.
3.
ANCIENT DAGGER & BATTLE SITE
During the first century B.C., the Romans clashed with a local tribe in a remote region
of southeastern Switzerland.
Many artifacts have turned up over time, but until late last year, authorities believed
people had thoroughly picked the site through.
They were proven wrong by Lucas Schmid, a dentist who volunteers with his local archaeological
association during his free time.
Using his metal detector to scan the site for buried artifacts, Schmid found a 2,000-year-old
Roman dagger.
He later told news agency SWI that he never would have guessed he would find such a thing
based on his metal detector’s faint signal.
Intrigued by the discovery, an archaeological team excavated the property and found hundreds
of artifacts, including slingshot stones, coins, nails, and part of a shield.
It’s the first Roman battlefield ever identified in Switzerland.
Around 1,500 men took part in the skirmish, making it a minor battle compared to some
other Roman clashes throughout Europe, according to Roman archaeology expert Peter Schwarz.
Experts hope to pinpoint the date of the battle and connect it to a decree that the Roman
Emperor Augustus issued in 15 B.C. to seize control of the region.
They have found no burials, so for now, it’s impossible to know how many soldiers died
in the battle.
Excavations are ongoing, and will hopefully yield more information about exactly what
happened at the site.
2.
POMPEII SLAVE ROOM The discovery of a bedroom that was once shared
by a slave family near Pompeii is helping to shed light on some of the harsh realities
of life in Ancient Rome.
Found in the suburb of Civita Giuliana, the cramped room contained three beds, a chamber
pot, and a wooden chest filled with objects made from fabric and metal.
There were no decorations on the wall, and the only natural light came from a small window.
Archaeologists made the discovery in late 2021, roughly a year after they found the
remains of a slave and master in the same villa.
The findings offer unprecedented insight into the “precarious reality of people who seldom
appear in historical sources,” in the words of Pompeii archaeological park director Gabriel
Zuchtriegel, who spoke with the Guardian.
Beneath the beds, the team uncovered personal belongings including amphorae, which functioned
as storage containers, and ceramic jugs.
The inhabitants made the beds from wood and rope, and one was child-sized.
Zuchtriegel pointed out that while the items in the room may not be considered treasures
in a traditional sense, they’re valuable because they convey the experiences of some
of ancient society’s most marginalized members.
1.
RARE MAP
Back in 1659, before Europeans had fully explored Australia, Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu created
a map of the country.
Much of the eastern coastline is missing in his depiction, known as the “Archipelagos
Orientalis” or “Eastern Archipelago.”
Created over a century before Captain James Cook reached Australia and created a map of
his own, it contains information about seafarer Abel Tasman’s sighting of Tasmania in 1642,
when he placed a Dutch flag on the island.
Only a handful of copies of Blaeu’s map exist, including one that was printed in 1663
and went missing.
It resurfaced in 2010 in a recently deceased antique bookseller’s storage facility in
Stockholm, Sweden.
Researchers believe the map went into storage in 1950 when the bookseller went out of business.
Researchers know Little else regarding its previous whereabouts.
The National Library of Australia (NLA) acquired the map in 2013 and began a painstaking conservation
process.
In the words of NLA manager of preservation Denyl Cloughley, “It was extremely fragile.
Just looking at it, you thought it was going to fall apart.”
The priceless map’s restoration was finally complete in 2017.
Thanks for watching!
Which of these discoveries would you like to own?
Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe to the channel to see more great
videos!
See you next time, bye! :)