From an ancient Chinese sword found in the Americas to tools from 1 million years ago,
here are ten of the most mysterious archaeological discoveries you’ve never heard of!
10: Chinese Votive Sword In 2014, a discovery in the state of Georgia
in the US might change the way we look at the past!!
An explorer was out and about and spotted a small, partially exposed sword on the bank
of a small stream.
It was a Chinese votive sword just about one foot long (30 cm).
Votive swords are not meant to fight but express a religious vow or wish.
The sword was analyzed, and experts identified it as being made from Lizardite, a type of
green stone found all over the world.
Hopefully, further analysis will show exactly which deposit the material came from, allowing
experts to verify if the artifact really did come from China.
The sword is just one more example of out of place Chinese artifacts that indicate the
Chinese may have arrived to America before anyone else.
Of course that includes Christopher Columbus.
While it’s hard to determine its age just from the context, there are other clues as
to its origin.
Symbols and shapes on the sword have also been found on jade objects dating from between
2070 and 256 BC, throughout the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.
There's a dragon figure at the tip of the blade that is inarguably Chinese.
There's also a face mask on the handle of the sword that first appeared sometime between
3400 and 2250 BC, from the Liangzhu Culture.
If the sword is indeed thousands of years old, scientists have no idea how it could
have gotten to Georgia.
Nobody knows if it was brought by Chinese explorers or simply left in the mud by a trader
in more recent times who had procured it from overseas.
Some people have made connections between the Chinese and the Olmecs, comparing the
mythology and symbolism of both.
Jade was extremely important to both cultures and there are also similarities between Olmec
and Chinese art.
Perhaps the sword was exchanged and spread via ancient trade routes throughout central
and north America.
There is no way to know for sure yet if the ancient Chinese actually went to Georgia.
9: Ancient Stargates Stargates are doors or portals that lead to
other realms.
On Earth, the story goes that stargates are often hidden within the magnetic field, waiting
to transport people to faraway places, be it a different universe or a different planet.
Of course, there isn't any scientific evidence that supports stargates being real.
But there are some examples of potential stargates found on our planet.
One such example is near Lake Titicaca in Peru.
It's called the Gate of the Gods, and the mysterious archaeological site was first discovered
in 1996 by a tourist guide.
The gate itself is nothing more than a massive stone door.
However, local legends say that it once worked as a portal for heroes to pass through and
join with the ancient gods.
The door is about 21 feet high and carved into the face of the Hayu Marca Mountain.
Yet another example of a potential stargate is at Lake Michigan.
Professor Mark Holley found a stone formation 40 feet below the surface of the lake back
in 2007.
The stone formation looks something like Stonehenge, only underwater.
Some have claimed what Mark found in Lake Michigan is the shattered remains of a prehistoric
portal that once led to another world.
Finally, a third stargate might be in Sedona, Arizona.
Here we have mysterious vortexes that some claim were used in the past to travel between
dimensions.
Sedona was sacred to the nearby tribes before colonials arrived but has since lost much
of its mystique.
But some claim that there are still tunnels and gateways underneath the stone cliffs that
can act as portals.
And now for another very mysterious location but first wanted to give a big shout out to
Vanessa Heslop who is a new subscriber!!
And to Lasagna and wife!!
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8: Sanchi The Great Stupa at Sanchi is one of the most
mysterious and amazing archaeological locations in all of India.
It was founded many thousands of years ago by Emperor Ashoka.
And even though it has been standing for so many centuries, it still boasts some of the
most impressive Buddhist artwork found anywhere on the planet.
Each gateway of the stupa has a pair of square pillars set with lions, elephants, and dwarves.
Starting in the 3rd century BC, Sanchi became the center of the Buddhist faith in the region.
It began as a building of brick and mortar, but through the years more and more was added
until it became the impressive structure that it is today, with the gateways not being added
until the 1st century BC.
But what exactly does this mysterious structure represent?
The body of the stupa apparently symbolizes the cosmos as a mountain.
We know that many of the depictions are of Buddha, such as the horse without a rider,
the umbrella over the throne, and the footprints.
And still, much of this ancient place remains a mystery.
7: Mass Cannibal Site In Germany, archaeologists found evidence
of one of the most brutal places from the Neolithic period.
They found what is now believed to be a human burial site used by cannibals.
The site dates back 7000 years.
According to the BBC, at least 500 human remains were found here, and almost all of them were
cannibalized.
This includes the bones of children, all of which had been intentionally mutilated.
The bones had been deliberately cut and broken, which is a sure sign of cannibalism.
Bruno Boulestin from the University of Bordeaux says that they also found evidence that the
people buried here had been spit-roasted and cooked.
But here's where science gets a little strange.
Many mainstream scientists have rejected the notion that these people were cannibals.
Instead, they said flesh and bone were ripped asunder as part of a burial ritual.
But this doesn't make sense, as doctors who investigated the remains literally said that
many of them had been chewed.
Unless the burial ritual involves chewing on dead people, chances are we're dealing
with what's left of an ancient Neolithic tribe of cannibals who feasted on their very own
people.
Or perhaps rival tribes??
We don’t really know the social structure or relations of these ancient humans.
Mind you, the main reason people decided to eat each other thousands of years ago was
famine.
During food shortages, our very early ancestors resorted to eating one another to stay alive.
In the case of the German mass burial, it looks like they feasted on an entire village.
6: The Tower Tomb In Bulgaria, there is a massive tower tomb
not unlike the enormous tombs found in places like Petra and Palmyra, and researchers believe
it probably belonged to the Roman emperor Phillip I the Arab, who was named such because
he had been born in Arabia.
The huge building comes from the 3rd century AD.
It was only exposed in 2018 after archaeologists dug underneath the largest ancient burial
mound in all of Bulgaria.
Digging beneath the Thracian mound revealed the broken remnants of the tower tomb.
Keep in mind that all of these structures were buried and then lost deep underground
for a long time.
Archaeologists still haven't uncovered all of the tower tomb, though they say it could
be well over 60 feet in height.
What makes the tomb so exceptional is that it obviously didn't come from the ancient
Thracians.
They built more primitive stuff out of stone and dirt.
Plus, Philip the Arab was betrayed and murdered at the Battle of Verona.
It makes sense that he wouldn't be buried in a proper Roman plot – so, maybe he was
buried here, only to have the Thracians cover up his burial with one of their own like many
civilizations before.
Kind of like how the Spanish built churches over the bones of the Aztec temples.
5: Neolithic Orkney Orkney is one of the most mysterious archaeological
sites in the whole world.
Orkney is a region and not a single site, though it is a dramatic landscape populated
by stone circles, ancient burial cairns, the ruins of primitive villages, and archaeological
riches beyond imagination.
It is the heartland of Neolithic Great Britain, with one of the most amazing places being
the Ness of Brodgar.
The Ness of Brodgar is a temple complex built with shocking sophistication.
And according to Nick Card from the Orkney Research Center for Archaeology, it has no
equal anywhere in Western Europe.
For years, researchers simply thought this was a hill.
It wasn't until just recently that they realized the hill is actually manmade and that it was
perhaps one of the most immense complexes ever made in Neolithic Great Britain, spanning
an area of over 6 acres.
The Ness of Brodgar was once protected by walls over 300 feet long.
There were dozens of temples here, outhouses, kitchens, paved boulevards of stone, and so
much more.
Archaeologists have found the bones of sacrificed animals and shards of elegant pottery.
And yet despite everything they know, the purpose of this enormous complex is still
an enigma that scientists can't seem to solve.
Some parts were constructed at least 5000 years ago, making the Ness of Brodgar older
and way larger than Stonehenge.
But why it was built and what the Neolithic people did there is an absolute mystery.
4: Ancient Slovakian Treasure Archaeologists have discovered a secret cachet
of mysterious silver coins hidden beneath the floor of a Slovakian church.
The archaeologists were local, and they found 500 silver coins with the oldest of them dating
back to 1702.
What's really mysterious is that they were found underneath the floor of the church as
if someone stashed them there to come back.
They were only uncovered because construction workers had been called in to do some renovations.
The coins were hidden inside of a seemingly normal ceramic jug which had been concealed
beneath a stone in the original floor of the church, as well as the top of the jug being
concealed with a stone.
It's not clear how much these coins would have been worth back in the 19th century.
It's safe to say that considering each silver coin was wrapped individually in linen, they
were probably worth an absolute fortune.
They may have been collected by the church as donations from pilgrims, then hoarded and
buried, never to be spent.
But this may have actually been a good thing since the church was raided and pillaged in
1705.
Obviously, the hidden jug of coins was never discovered by the robbers.
Even when the church went through a reconstruction in the middle of the 19th century, nobody
found the coins.
3: Qalatga Darband Qalatga Darband is located in Iraq, in the
Kurdistan province.
It was recently investigated by archaeologists who concluded that this ancient place may
have originally been founded by Alexander the Great or at least during his reign, before
being ultimately lost to the world for over 2000 years.
Archaeologists found traces of a fortified settlement, previously unknown.
They don't know exactly how large the city was or how long it took to build, or even
exactly when it was abandoned.
What they do know is that judging by the general age of the ruins, the city was probably founded
shortly after Alexander the Great defeated the Persian king Darius III.
In the local Kurdish language, Qalatga Darband translates roughly to “castle of the mountain
pass”.
It was likely a city rich in wine, profiting heavily from selling to the soldiers and merchants
who moved between what is now modern Iraq and modern Iran.
The archaeological site was only found in the 1960s because of satellite images taken
by the United States during the Cold War.
These photographs were declassified in the 1990s and shown to professionals who identified
the outlines of an ancient settlement.
But considering how volatile the region has been, archaeologists haven't had a whole lot
of time for excavating.
Some recent activity was going on in 2020, but we haven't heard anything new just yet.
2: The Mancave In Sudan, hundreds of well-preserved stone
tools were discovered inside of an abandoned gold mine in the Sahara Desert.
A gold rush in Sudan led miners into open-pit mines in the desert, but prehistoric hominids
have already been there!
Miners discovered ancient tools, such as hand axes and cleavers built from simple stone.
The hundreds of stone tools were made by homo erectus and may be up to 1 million years old!
Archaeologists found stone flakes all throughout the abandoned mine, suggesting it had been
used as a kind of workshop.
As of right now, this is the oldest site in the Eastern Sahara where Stone Age tools have
been found.
There could have been one guy building tools for everyone in the region, sort of like the
local blacksmith.
He just hung out in his mancave and whittled stone axes for his friends.
It's hard to give an exact picture of what was happening one million years ago by looking
at some leftover rocks, but experts have a pretty good idea.
Palaeolithic artifacts used by both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens have been found in some 200
sites in the region.
Homo erectus was the first hominid that began to travel the world and had a body and gait
just like modern humans some 2 million years ago.
1: Xanadu The site of Xanadu is yet another mysterious
site located in China, north of the Great Wall.
Xanadu was the capital city of Kublai Khan, originally designed in 1256.
This city is one of the only surviving examples of the attempted assimilation between the
nomadic Mongolian hordes and the Chinese culture of the Han dynasty.
From this city, Kublai Khan established what would grow to be the Yuan dynasty, subsequently
ruling China for about 100 years while it extended its borders all across Asia.
This city was the origin of a great religious debate that resulted in Tibetan Buddhism spreading
throughout the region.
Alas, Xanadu was abandoned less than 200 years after it was established.
Today, you would never know such a great city rose far into the distance, as its remains
are few.
There’s nothing but grass and a few short, stubby rock walls.
It’s known that the city fell into disrepair after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, but how
the Mongols managed to lose their grip on the city and what the chaos looked like in
the final days of Xanadu are still a mystery.