Hello everyone what is happening!
Im your host Ayman Hasan and welcome back to another video here at most amazing top
10.
History was one of my favourite subjects at school, i think its so interesting to learn
about the past and how they thought and how they lived through everyday life.
Its literally like they came and lived in another world.
I mean at the time i guess it was a different world.
But what really blows my mind are cave paintings.
The fact that people from thousands and thousands of years ago thought to create things that
would help us know about their existence.
Im sure thats not why they did the paintings and it was more just for them if anything
but still.
Its pretty damn cool what some of these are like.
Do remember to subscribe to the channel guys as well as top ten hindi videos for the best
and latest content!
But enough of that, this is the top 10 Scary Cave Paintings That Shocked The World.
Starting us off with number 10 is The Altamira Cave Paintings.
These cave paintings are located near Santilliana (santiyana) del Mar which in the Northern
part of Spain.
Funnily enough the paintings were discovered by accident by a hunter called Modesto Cubillas
in 1868 but werent given much mind until 1879.
These paintings shocked everyone and I mean everyone.
Why?
Because they were so well preserved specialists seriously doubted their authenticity.
The paintings were done around 35,600 years ago yet their colours and details were so
vibrant it was quite sus.
It was only at the start of the 20th century that they were accepted as authentic.
These paintings are single handedly the biggest pieces of evidence of Magdalénian (magda-leen-ian
culture and most depict charcoal and ochre pictures of horses, handprints and bisons
(by-son).
They were so impressive that Picasso himself said ‘after Altamira all is decadence’.
Coming in at number 9 are the Aliens.
These pictographs were found in the Wunnamurra Gorge in Australia.
The paintings date back to approximately 3000BC and they depict the aboriginal Wandjinas which
is a type of religious deity (dee-a-tea) or supreme spirit that were the creators of land
and people.
But the way theyve depicted them is just super weird.
The literally look like white versions of the alien emoji on your phone.
White faces with no mouth and large black holes for eyes and they also have this sort
of halo around them.
The other black figures drawn amongst them look like what like what i can only describe
as closely resembling dementors from harry potter.
Some interpretations of these paintings say that extraterrestrial beings visited earth
10s of thousands of years ago and had direct contact with the people.
Some aboriginals believe that they even played a role in creation which could explain why
they drew the Wandjinas looking like aliens.
At number 8 we have the Chauvet (show-veh) Cave.
This one is located in the south of France and only really gained notoriety in in 1994
after three speleologists discovered its walls were covered in Paleolithic artwork and that
it also contained the fossilized remains of various animals many of which had become extinct
by then.
So thats alot of useful scientific and historical knowledge in that cave already and we havent
even specifically talked about the art yet.
The cave shocked people for many reasons, it was ridiculously large, and the quantity
and quality of the artwork found was quote on quote spectacular.
Its literally been named a cave that has some of the best preserved figurative cave paintings
in the world.
Which is insane since most of the art there is 30-32,000 years old.
The paintings had animals in there that had never appeared in previous ice age paintings
as well as many animals that had, and surprisingly it had no paintings of full human figures,
just one figure that seemed to be a vulva attached to an unfinished pair of legs.
As of now its one of the most significant prehistoric art sites on earth and is UNESCO
World Heritage site.
Filling our number 7 slot is Laas Geel.
These are the cave formations found in the rural parts of Hargeisa (har-gey-sah) Somaliland.
Even though the cave was known to locals of that area for ages the caves only gained international
attention in 2002 when an archaeological survey was undertaken by French researchers and they
were shocked to find this cave undocumented.
The cave contains very vivid paintings which are some of the earliest known cave paintings
in the Horn of Africa.
The rock art was created between 9000 and 3000 BC and its so well preserved till this
day because of the granite overhangs.
The artwork features cattle in ceremonial robes with humans and the necks of the cattle
are embellished with plastron (what the flat part of a turtle shell is made from) and they
also include other animals like dogs and giraffes.
The colours on these paintings are so vivid i would believe if someone told me they painted
them a few months ago rather than thousands of years ago.
Now at number 6 are the Psychedelics.
Tassili n’Ajjer (najer) is a national park located in south-east Algeria.
And of course these caves became part of UNESCOs world heritage sites list in 1982.
Most of the art in there dates back 12,000 years old and theyre more engravings than
they are paintings.
There are 15,000 engravings in the cave and they consist of mostly large animals like
crocodiles and antelopes and it even has humans dancing and hunting.
But they also include something called fungoid rock art.
Back in 1989 psychedelics researcher Giorgio Samorini claimed that the paintings that look
like fungoids were proof that people inhabiting the Sahara desert had taken psychedelics.
Theres one bit of artwork that depicts various masked figures in line dressed as dancers
surrounded by festoons.
And each dancer has a mushroom like object in their hand with lines coming out of the
mushroom and connecting to the dancers head.
Now its obviously open to interpretation on what the picture means but i think you can
see why Giorgio took away from it what he did.
And believe it or not psychedelics aside the caves also house alien depictions.
Flying saucer like figures in the sky asn people that look like humans but have one
eye and just alienlike features.
The pictures are quite creepy im not gonna lie but these caves seems to have it all.
Coming in at number 5 is the Prehistoric Sistine Chapel.
Yes im not kidding you thats what seem people have nicknamed the Lascaux (lasco) caves.
Located in the southwestern part of France, the caves have in them more than 600 paintings
mostly of big mammals in the area, humans and abstract signs.
The art inside the cave is meticulously split into those categories.
The paintings were the product of a huge combined effort spanning many generations, the earliest
painting was done 17,000 years ago.
However theres one painting called The Crossed Bison that grabbed everyones attention, the
crossed hind legs of the animal create the illusion that one bison is closer to the view
than the other.
The fact that paleolithic cave painters had that skill and primitive form of perspective
is evidence that they were advanced for their time.
Funnily enough the entrance of the cave was found by an 18 year old whos dog fell into
a hole.
The boy came back with 3 friends thinking the tunnel was an entrance into the Lascaux
manor but then they found the paintings.
By 1955 the cave had 1200 daily visitors but that created a preservation problem because
lichens and crystals began to develop.
And on top of that they started having a huge fungus problem so theyve convened many times
to see how they can preserve the caves.
At number 4 are the x-ray paintings.
The Kakadu National Park is a protected area in the northern part of australia and the
place is massive.
Im talking the size of the country Slovenia massive.
Its also home to one of the earths biggest concentrations of rock artwork.
Some are nearly 20,000 years old and they provide an insight into 2 Aboriginal life
like nothing else has before.
The park has 2 main galleries Burrungkuy and Ubirr and im sorry if i pronounced those wrong.
For these people the act of painting was more important than the painting itself and so
they cover older paintings with newer ones.
The art shows the objects they use everyday, the things they do and the animals they hunt.
Some paintings can only be done by the person with the right knowledge so someone who had
no magic knowledge could not do a sorcery painting.
They would paint animals in order to place them in touch with the spirit of that animal
which would hopefully ensure them a successful hunt.
But the painters didnt just draw the animals, they drew their organs and their bones as
well which is the first time discoverers had found depictions like that and hence they
were called x ray paintings.
Filling our number 3 slot are the Underwater Paintings.
This ones about the Cosquer (coskee) Cave located near Marseille (marsay) France.
The cave was discovered by a man named Henri Cosquer back in 1985 but the public only found
out about it 6 years later when 3 divers actually got lost and died in the cave.
But if you wanted to find the cave today you would just have to go through a 175m long
tunnel which is all well and good except the entrance to that is 37m under sea level.
That puts a bit of a spanner in the works i think.
Sadly 4/5ths of the caves art was permanently submerged underwater and hence destroyed but
150 pieces of cave art are still in tact.
Art like hand stencils date back to 27,000 years BP and the newer art of different animals
and signs dates back to 19,000 years BP.
People were stunned at the fact the art was a) underwater and b) it was partially intact.
In circumstances like that the art would usually be lost so it was miraculous that it hadnt
been and thats why it deserves the number 3 slot i think.
Now at number 2 are the Magura Cave Paintings.
This cave is located in the northwest region of Bulgaria and all the paintings were done
from bat guano aka bat poo and are done on stone.
This is probably the most extensive series of cave paintings ever find and they actually
cover a range of epochs - The Neolithic, The Epipaleolithic and even the start of the Early
Bronze Age. there are more than 700 drawings in the cave and they fall into 4 groups: zoomorphic,
symbolic, anthropomorphic and geometric figures.
The figures are mostly stick figures and not extremely detailed but its very easy to grasp
what they were trying to depict.
The cave was formed nearly 15 million years ago and youd have to walk a good 1.6 miles
to cover the whole thing.
It has one main gallery that includes 6 halls, the largest one being the Arc Hall thats 69ft
high and 420ft long.
This cave is filled with quote on quote art and is bigger than nearly all art galleries
in the world.
No wonder people were shook, i would be too.
And finally at number 1 is the Cave of Hands also known as Cueva de las manos.
These caves are located in Argentina and are insanely famous for the numerous numerous
hands painted inside the caves.
The art dates back to 13000 to 9000 years ago and obviously a lot of different groups
of people occupied the caves during that time.
I mean some of the earliest artwork has been carbon dated to 7300 BC. all the hands inside
the cave are stencilled and most of them left hands indicating that the people probably
used their right to hold the spraying pipe or they sprayed the back of their right hand
with their left.
Either way the cave was filled with hands, there was also artwork of full human beings,
geometric shapes, hunting scenes etc. they used mineral pigments to make the images like
iron oxides to get the reds and purples, manganese oxide to make black and so forth.
The site became a UNESCO World Heritage List back in 1999 and people were glad.
Its not everyday you stumble upon a cave that is filled with sprayed hands dating to 7300
BC. just thinking about how much history took place in that cave and all the different people
those hands couldve belonged to and what their lives would have been like i mean it blows
my mind it really does.
And guys thats it for todays video!
I hope you learned something from this one and at least now youre well versed in the
most popular and shocking cave paintings in the world.
Have you guys been to any of these places and how was it if you have lemme know in the
comments below guys.
As always im your host Ayman Hasan and ill catch you in the next one byee.