hi it's katrina
number 10. the lost golden city 300
miles south of cairo on the banks of the
nile river there lies the city of luxor
not far away is the legendary valley of
the kings the very place where
archaeologists discovered the tomb of
king tut a century ago but when they
found the tomb of the young king tut
archaeologists were a little confused
because they couldn't find a mortuary
temple that they believed should have
been nearby
a place where priests and relatives of
the ruler could leave their gifts and
tributes
recently egyptologist zahi hawas went
looking for this lost mortuary temple
what he found instead was a lost golden
city his team started looking in the
area around luxor where tut's successors
had their own mortuary temples built
that was when they stumbled upon the
remains of an ancient metropolis just
weeks after the dig started they began
uncovering mud bricks stamped with the
name of pharaoh ammon hotep iii
this allowed the researchers to date the
city to three thousand four hundred
years ago they must have established it
during the rule of amenhotep iii between
1391 and 1353 bc
hawas named it the golden city because
it was founded during the golden age of
egypt when the egyptians were at their
best this was a time of great prosperity
fantastic military might and relative
peace inside the kingdom
ammon hotep iii had one of the easiest
rules of any egyptian pharaoh he wasn't
at war once and sat on the throne for 40
years while egypt's economy grew larger
and larger
number 9 the mouth of truth the mouth of
truth is one of the more bizarre
artifacts discovered in italy which
dates back to the days of the romans
they used the mouth of truth as a lie
detector test in the 1st century a.d
instead of hooking electrodes up to keep
watch on someone's vitals they invited
them to stick their hand into the mouth
of truth if a person stuck their hand
between the jaws of this stone head they
had no choice but to speak the truth
if they lied they believed the mouth
would bite off their hand it was a
pretty good scare tactic especially
because the enormous head looks like it
wouldn't mind biting off a couple of
hands but nobody knows where this
bizarre thing came from it's a tall
stone disk carved with an angry human
face in its center with hollow lifeless
eyes and a huge gaping mouth
it looks like an oversized medallion or
giant evil coin
and even though they used it as a lie
detector in the middle ages in actual
court proceedings some say the original
purpose of the mouth of truth wasn't as
exciting it may have been a well cover a
piece of decoration for a fountain the
lid for an access hole or the face of a
pagan god the truth was lost ages ago
the people who used it at trials in the
middle ages probably didn't even know
what it was originally used for
number 8. the oldest shipwreck
archaeologists have discovered what they
think could be the oldest intact
shipwreck in the entire world they found
this mysterious shipwreck sitting at the
bottom of the black sea right off the
coast of bulgaria
it's over 60 feet long and was likely
sitting undisturbed for 2 400 years at a
depth of over 6 000 feet yet despite its
age the ship is in fabulous condition
its mast rudders and even its rowing
benches are still complete as if the sea
had never damaged them the entire ship
looks like it floated gently to the
bottom of the sea and then sat there
without decaying
this is actually possible because of the
low levels of oxygen in the black sea as
compared to other bodies of water where
ancient ships sailed like the
mediterranean the ship was likely greek
as it looks quite similar to the ships
painted on greek wine bases 2 000 years
ago
professor john adams from black sea
maritime archaeology says such an
amazing discovery could change our
understanding of shipbuilding in the
ancient world
bringing it all the way back to the
surface to study is going to be a hard
task they've only been able to take
small pieces of it away for testing at
one time we still don't know who it
belonged to or even what it was doing in
the black sea or how it sunk
number 7. prehistoric children's art a
new study has revealed that 25 of
prehistoric rock art around the world
could be nothing but children's doodles
what archaeologists thought of as the
complex paintings of adult artists could
have just been kids messing around with
pigments this study analyzed 750 hand
stencils from across western europe
including countries like spain and
france throughout the study researchers
saw that at least 25 percent of all the
paintings were made by children
either young kids or even infants
according to diego garate with the
cantabria international institute of
prehistoric research the point of this
study was to get a better look at the
motivators behind the artwork this means
researchers wanted to know not what the
art represents but why it was being made
in the first place and by who
learning that kids did so much of the
artwork kind of turns the world of
prehistoric rock art on its head before
the study scientists agreed worldwide
that prehistoric men were the only ones
who created art in caves there's been a
kind of mythical status surrounding a
lot of rock paintings with
anthropologists dissecting them
endlessly and now it's become ironic
that they have done so much studying to
pick apart the drawings of a bunch of
five-year-olds it's the equivalent of
ten thousand years of archaeologists
studying a modern kid's refrigerator
painting of a dinosaur number six the
cursed tablet this new discovery of a
mysterious cursed tablet could prove to
be the key in learning once and for all
who wrote the bible and when
the folded lead tablet contains a
written curse on the inside and they
discovered it in the holy land on mount
ebal just a little while ago
scientists have dated the tablet back to
around 1200 bc and has the name yahweh
on it which was the name for god given
by the hebrew people what's interesting
about the tablet is that it proves over
3200 years ago when the israelites
entered the holy land they were already
literate it means they would have been
able to document biblical events as they
happened in real time
this is one of the most mysterious
unanswered questions about the bible
some people claim the bible was written
as things were happening but historians
believe it was written centuries later
by people retelling versions of events
the discovery of this tablet the first
evidence of hebrew writing before the
alleged birth of christ means they could
have written the bible much earlier than
previously thought as for what's written
on the tablet it says you have been
cursed by the god yahweh and you will
surely die
it's all very mysterious and its
implications are far-reaching just
because there was hebrew script 3200
years ago doesn't mean they wrote the
bible as an ancient documentary
hopefully this scary ancient curse will
help shed some light on the matter
number 5. new sakara tombs
scientists have discovered a new
collection of mysterious tombs in
saqqara egypt they found approximately
five ancient pharyonic tombs at the
archaeological site and it was revealed
to the public in march 2022
the discovery is thanks to an egyptian
archaeological mission digging near the
pyramid of king marenre the first the
tombs are from 4 000 years ago each one
decorated in immaculately preserved
paintings they also discovered other
burials and interesting archaeological
finds hidden deeper in the cemetery
what's pretty cool is that the
archaeologists have been able to
identify the people in every single tomb
this first tomb belonged to someone
named arie a senior statesman
the next tomb belonged to the wife of
somebody named yaret the third belonged
to a priest called pepe nefany
then we had a priestess of the goddess
hathor named petty and a man called henu
who had several impressive titles
one of his titles was overseer another
was supervisor of the royal house and he
was also mayor and hereditary prince and
supervisor of the orchard it's unclear
what exactly all of these titles mean
but you get the point
number 4. the super quake
3 800 years ago a devastating earthquake
struck northern chile and wreaked havoc
on the coastal populations
according to a new study the super quake
was so devastating it took 1 000 years
for the displaced coastal people to
return to the shoreline just think about
that for a second the quake which was
probably around magnitude 9.5 decimated
the coastline so effectively that it
scared people from returning to the
water's edge for 1 000 years that may
not seem like a long time but in human
history it's a really long time
the super quake generated such a
powerful tsunami that it hurled boulders
hundreds of feet inland all the way to
new zealand an entire ocean away from
the center of the earthquake they made
the discovery thanks to physical
evidence in chile's atacama desert
tsunami specialist james gough with the
university of new south wales says he
and his team found evidence of marine
sediments extremely far inland
which would have only been possible via
an earthquake and tsunami the quake was
almost definitely the result of the
nazca and south american tectonic plates
rubbing together it's the same thing
that caused the 1960 valdivia earthquake
in chile the most powerful earthquake
recorded in modern times
as for the whole human habitation thing
that comes from physical evidence as
well
there are remains of human habitation
dating back 3 800 years on the coastline
but there is a massive gap of a full
millennium before they build any more
settlements
researchers believe the local population
at least those who survived spread
stories of the destruction
then everyone stayed away for as long as
those stories were being told
number three
ancient sacred pool
on an island in sicily researchers have
come across an ancient sacred pool that
was once lined with mysterious temples
and altars the sacred pool reflected
starlight from specific constellations
creating the perfect atmosphere for
strange mysterious pagan rituals over
2500 years ago it's interesting because
until recently they believed this pool
to be an artificial harbor built by the
military during the days of the ancient
phoenicians but archaeologists recently
did some excavations here and they
realized it has nothing to do with the
military at all it was actually a
sanctuary with the pool being the
centerpiece of an enormous complex of
temples and altars dedicated to
different deities
it was the phoenicians who built the
pool in 550 bc as the heart of a new
religious compound
this is according to lorenzo negro from
the sapienza university of rome the
religious complex is on a small island
called moltia off the western coast of
sicily they inhabited it since the
bronze age because of easy fishing and
access to both fresh water and salt
water
then in the 8th century bc the venetian
showed up and started mingling with the
locals they brought their phoenician
culture to the island absorbed the
original island inhabitants into their
own civilization and in 100 years the
entire island had changed it became a
bustling port city with a vast trade
network stretching across the
mediterranean
this brought the island into conflict
with carthage in the 6th century they
destroyed modia
number 2 sumerian riverboat in iraq
archaeologists recently unearthed an
ancient sumerian riverboat they
discovered it in 2018 in the old city of
baruch for those who don't know uruk was
the first actual city in the world
it was originally founded in 5000 bc
when two smaller settlements merged and
it became the very first major
metropolis
it was the birthplace of the first
writing system and home of the legendary
god king gilgamesh
five thousand years ago uruk had a
population of at least 40 000 residents
what made the city truly unique is that
outside its main fortified walls there
were communities of farmers
manufacturing workshops and suburbs
sprawling off into the lands but another
cool fact about uruk is that they filled
it with a network of canals
one of the fundamental ways of getting
around in the ancient city was by using
riverboats
and that's where this new discovery
comes in
they built the riverboat right around
the time that uruk declined circa 2000
bc
researchers discovered the boat under
what is today a flat desert on the
outskirts of the city
there is nothing even left to suggest it
was once a neighborhood or even that
there had been water here that's how
dramatically the landscape has changed
swallowing the city and burying the
river channels
number 1. prehistoric miami during the
demolition of what was once a parking
garage in miami archaeologists came
across prehistoric artifacts and ancient
human remains
they originally built the parking garage
in 1972 for the u.s custom house but
apparently nobody had realized they were
building it over an archaeological site
fast forward nearly 50 years they
demolished the parking garage with plans
to put up three towers 82 stories tall
and a baywalk swanky apartment buildings
nobody expected to find actual native
american artifacts never mind the
remains of a native american person
and yet archaeologists say this
shouldn't come as a surprise because the
construction project is at the mouth of
the miami river people should expect
there to be ancient remnants of
something either the bones of a
settlement or the bones of buried people
the entire area around the mouth of the
miami river is one big archaeological
zone they should consider all of
downtown miami an archaeological zone
according to experts the tequesta
culture once dominated the entire place
but they bulldozed and built over most
of their history we know little
information about the remains that were
found and while archaeologists have put
in a request to do additional digging
before construction continues we don't
know if they've accepted their requests
a lot of money is riding on the
buildings going up so chances are we
won't see too much more about additional
archaeological fines here in the future
what do you think let me know in the
comments below and thanks for watching
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already and i'll see you next time for
more amazing discoveries bye