10: The Aztec Underworld In Aztec mythology, those who died had to
go through an intense journey down into the underworld.
The underworld, known as Mictlan, had nine levels, similar to the nine circles of hell.
But in Aztec mythology, everyone both good and bad had to take this journey.
It lasted four years and was filled with dangerous obstacles.
The objective was to eventually arrive at the heart of the underworld where the soul
of the departed could finally rest for eternity.
Just like practically every culture, we definitely don't have any physical evidence that an Aztec
underworld ever existed.
But archaeologists have found plenty of examples in architecture and artwork throughout Mexico
of the journey itself in the spooky caves and tunnels underneath Aztec cities.
The first step was to cross a river (the Apanohuaia River) with the help of a dog that had a bright
color so that it would help you see in the darkness!
Even in death our doggie friends are still helping us out!!
Most researchers believe the dog was inspired by the Mexican hairless dog that's still alive
today.
The next level was to travel across some ghostly mountains and follow a dangerous path of obsidian
rock which the Aztecs revered as blades used for human sacrifice.
The 4th level was a place where the spirit had to stop and remember the saddest moment
of their life.
To get rid of the sadness, the spirit had to travel through miles and miles of snow
to get to the middle of the journey.
This was a place with such strong winds that most souls would get stuck.
Those who weren't strong enough were blown away into oblivion.
If you did manage to make it through, you would be met by a barrage of arrows raining
down and if you didn't get hit, you could continue on to reach the jaguar.
This jaguar god would ask you to abandon any worldly things you might still have.
The jaguar deprived the soul of its heart so the soul had to be completely free of everything
in order to travel on.
Nearing the end, in the 8th stage, the soul would watch their entire life over again and
then finally meet Mictlantecuthli, the god of the dead depicted as a blood spattered
skeleton and a headdress of owl feathers and a necklace of human eyeballs.
Here is where the soul could finally rest.
Not quite my version of peaceful but hey!
9: Trash Tombs Just about 2000 years ago, the Roman city
of Pompeii had a trash problem.
Even before it was buried by volcanic ash in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, circa 79
AD, Pompeii was kind of a mess.
Particularly, the tombs of Pompeii.
Archaeologists have discovered trash littering the floors of multiple tombs, so much so that
was obviously a huge problem.
The litter includes animal bones, pieces of broken pottery, smashed bricks, and dirty
old charcoal.
The mystery here is that scientists have been trying to figure out why the ancient Romans
were using tombs where their dead were laid to rest as garbage dumps.
Now, archaeologists have come up with a new theory.
To explain why there is so much trash buried with the dead, they say there was an earthquake
15 years before the eruption that decimated Pompeii.
The eruption caused chaos and disorder, and resulted in a lot of structures being broken.
Since there was so much rubble and nowhere to put it, the citizens just started dumping
it in the tombs.
It's really shocking to see that even 2000 years ago, when push came to shove, tombs
also lost their sacred value and were used for more practical purposes.
8: The Coyote Man From between 1400 and 1521, the meso-American
civilization known as the Tarascan dominated huge parts of western Mexico.
During drainage work in the municipality of Tacambaro de Codallos, construction workers
came across the statue of the coyote man.
This just so happened to be the exact same place where in ancient times, the Tarascan
had built the amazing city of Tzintzuntza.
In the local language, the city name translates to “place of the hummingbirds.”
The sculpture of the coyote man is nothing short of fascinating.
It depicts a man/coyote hybrid perched on a huge throne of basalt.
It's only about 3 feet tall, but it's unlike anything else that’s been excavated in the
area.
Other figures of a coyote man have been found, but they're usually quite small.
This one is enormous.
But the coyote man is a huge mystery.
The very last rulers of Tzintzuntzan called themselves the lineage of the eagle.
They don't appear to have had much to do with coyotes at all.
Yet there were some other large cities nearby, with one of them being Ihuatzio.
This translates roughly to “place of the coyotes,” and it's been where most of the
sculptures were discovered.
Researchers believe that there may have been a totally separate dynasty or cult ruling
the neighboring city who may have considered themselves to be descendants of the coyote.
7: The Lady Scribe The skeleton of a woman from medieval times
was discovered buried at a monastery complex in Germany, in the city of Dalheim.
Anita Radini from the University of York took an interest in the skeleton and did a full
investigation.
She discovered traces of the blue gemstone lapis lazuli in her teeth!
What this means is that the woman most likely worked as an artist licking her paintbrush
or inhaling blue dust.
This would happen if you were grinding the very expensive blue stones to create the blue
pigment.
During medieval times this monastery along with many others was responsible for creating
the beautiful illuminated manuscripts that took a high level of knowledge and skill to
make.
But its been a long-held assumption that they were always written and painted by monks who
were men, and that women were not allowed.
So how did a woman end up buried in a monastery with blue on her teeth?
While nuns were involved with the church, they weren't usually allowed to do anything
important- at least that we know of because there isn’t much documentation.
Yet the discovery of blue on this woman's teeth suggests she was actually quite talented.
The woman was somewhere between 45 and 60 when she died, with her bones being dated
back to the 10th or 11th century.
According to an expert on medieval scribes, Alison Beach, the only way someone could have
gotten lapis lazuli in their dental tar would be if they were a highly skilled artist.
This means that women religious artists could have been more common than we thought.
Much of the artwork still in circulation today could very well have been done by female scribes
sitting in a monastery somewhere.
Except, it was then signed by a man to hide the truth!
6: Viking Longhouses In Norway, archaeologists used ground-penetrating
radar to detect five previously undiscovered longhouses.
One of the buildings once stood 197 feet long, making it the largest known Viking longhouse
anywhere in Scandinavia.
The longhouses were found by the same team that discovered a Viking ship at the archaeological
site of Gjellestad in 2018.
The buildings are all from the Iron Age, and are accompanied by several nearby burial mounds.
If it hadn't been for the radar scans, the archaeologists would have never identified
these amazing structures.
Nobody knows what the longhouses were used for.
But considering the shocking size of the biggest, this must have been a very important place.
And because of its proximity to the huge burial ship found years before, archaeologists may
have accidentally stumbled upon a secret Viking capital.
This could have been one of the biggest and most important Viking settlements in Scandinavia,
and yet nobody knows its name or why it was abandoned.
It's a total mystery – one that archaeologists are still working very hard to solve.
5: Stonehenge Celebrations The story of Stonehenge is one of the most
remarkable and mysterious in all of Europe.
It's undoubtedly the most enigmatic historical landmark in the world, built 4500 years ago.
This was a time of huge social change in Europe, as well as the beginning of technological
advances that would bring us to where we are today.
But nobody knows what Stonehenge was used for.
There have been all kinds of theories and suggestions, but we simply don't know.
A new study in 2019 revealed that Stonehenge may have been used for mass gatherings.
We already knew that it was probably utilized for strange rituals, but the study has revealed
more specific details.
Archaeologists examined 131 pig bones discovered at four Neolithic sites around Stonehenge.
After extensive research and looking at old animal bones across all of Britain, the experts
came to one conclusion.
It seems people traveled from all over the UK and brought pigs with them.
They then hunkered down near Stonehenge, within a 20-mile radius, at one of the multiple megalithic
sites, and butchered their pigs as part of a massive festival.
Research has shown the pig bones found near Stonehenge are identical to pig bones that
were raised locally in Scotland, West Wales, the northeast of England, and other regions
of the British Isles.
Dr. Richard Madgwick says this demonstrates a scale of movement and social complexity
that nobody had previously believed possible.
It doesn't solve the mystery once and for all, but it shows that Stonehenge truly was
the center of ancient life here.
If you could go back in time, would you attend the great gathering at Stonehenge??
See how the pyramids were built?
Or something else??
Let me know in the comments and don't forget to hit subscribe before the end of the video!!
4: Ancient Super Camel When archaeologists were working to restore
a temple in Iraq that had been damaged by ISIS, they found something strange.
They uncovered evidence of an ancient hybrid camel.
The discovery was made at the Temple of Allat, from the 2nd century AD.
It was once part of the great city of Hatra, capital of the Hatra Kingdom.
Sadly, the remains were vandalized and destroyed between 2015 and 2017, and before that had
been greatly neglected.
Above a door at the temple was found a horizontal piece of stone artwork.
It shows a monstrous ancient camel.
But the picture of the camel is just one piece of the puzzle.
Archaeologists have found other pieces of artwork to suggest that there was a crossbreed
of camel found throughout much of the Middle East over 2000 years ago.
The hybrid camel is something of a mystery because researchers have been trying to figure
out when experimentation began with mixed breeding.
It seems to have been in the 1st century, when people took Bactrian camels from Central
Asia with two humps and bred them with Arabian camels that only had one hump.
The result was a beast of massive proportions.
The animal was so impressive that it became sacred.
Kings would have monopolies on breeding specific types of camels because they were so valuable.
Camels were responsible for bringing merchants back and forth on the Silk Road.
Big money!!
Stronger and more durable camels meant more and more money flowing faster and faster through
trade.
This made camels some of the most important animals of the ancient world.
Horses were for war, but camels were for riches. 3: Native American Trade Networks
Archaeologists have always wondered just how extensive trade networks were between Native
American tribes before Europeans arrived.
Now, a research team of professionals from Binghamton University and State University
of New York have made some interesting breakthroughs.
They discovered a copper band from 3500 years ago buried with the cremated remains of seven
people in Georgia.
It was unique because until now, both copper and cremated remains were almost never found
in the southeast US.
At least, not from between 3000 to 8000 years ago.
Copper and cremated remains have, however, been discovered frequently in the Great Lakes
region.
That's nearly 1000 miles away.
The mystery presented to archaeologists is how a copper band made on almost the other
side of the country wound up buried in a grave in coastal Georgia.
Also, why were the dead cremated in the Great Lakes fashion instead of in the local fashion
of just being buried?
The theory is that there was an extensive trade network that went all across North America,
connecting tribes and settlements.
It was much vaster than experts have ever imagined, trading not only goods like copper
but also cultural practices like the cremation of the dead.
2: The Golden Pendant Archaeologists were left holding onto their
hats when a golden pendant depicting an Egyptian goddess was found in an unexpected place.
The ancient piece of jewelry shows a depiction of the goddess Hathor, crafted in about 1500
BC.
But it was uncovered very far from Egypt, in a Greek tomb in the ancient city of Pylos.
Hathor can easily be identified by her huge, crow-like ears.
She was the goddess of the sky and of fertility.
The pendant was uncovered in one of two underground tombs known as Tholos, which were excavated
by archaeologists with the University of Cincinnati.
They were looking for the remnants of an abandoned town that once surrounded the great Palace
of Nestor.
They thought they might find workshops and houses.
But instead, they found the tombs.
Here's where things get mysterious.
These tombs were uncovered very close to where a different burial site was found in 2015,
known as the Griffin Warrior grave.
In this grave, archaeologists found all kinds of treasure, and even Minoan artwork that
must have arrived via a trade network from the island of Crete.
With this newest discovery of the Egyptian pendant, archaeologists are pretty sure the
city of Pylos may have played a major role in the Mycenaean civilization.
The Mycenaeans lasted from between 1650 to 1100 BC, originating from Mycenae in Greece.
But with the discovery of so many foreign artifacts, it seems the city may have played
a bigger role in sea trade than previously thought.
It may even have boasted a surprisingly large population of people from foreign lands.
The pendant was probably brought to the city by a native Egyptian, someone who may have
moved to a new kingdom in search of a better life.
1: Tiny Warhorses A team of archaeologists working closely with
historians have discovered the mysterious truth behind ancient warhorses.
You know, the powerful stallions that once carried valiant knights into battle.
We've all seen movies and television programs showing knights in suits of armor storming
across a battlefield on a great big steed.
But after examining the bones of 2000 horses from between the 4th and 17th centuries, that
may be a bit of an exaggeration.
Researchers looked at horse bones found in medieval cemeteries and other archaeological
sites, including English castles.
What they found is that medieval warhorses were probably much smaller and daintier than
the way we imagine them.
They weren’t hulks by any means, but more likely about the size of modern ponies.
Professor Alan Outram from the University of Exeter says we need to throw away everything
popular culture has tried to teach us when it comes to warhorses.
They were actually very small, so small that the person riding them probably would have
been able to almost touch the ground.
The horses used in war probably stood no taller than four feet and 10 inches.
Of course, there may have been some larger horses, but the researchers never found any.
It really makes you wonder just why the soldiers used horses at all if it didn’t give them
much of a tactical advantage except being able to move a lot faster.
On such short horses, they would have been easy targets for the other soldiers.
Would you ride a war pony into battle?
Let me know your thoughts on these mysterious archaeological discoveries in the comments
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