10: The Island of the Gods Delos is a small and rocky island in the Aegean
Sea, and was considered by the ancient Greeks to be the most sacred of all their islands
back in the 3rd century BC.
Greek legend says it was here that the sun god Apollo was born, as well as his twin sister
Artemis, goddess of the moon.
The actual history of the island goes back over 5000 years.
The first sanctuary to Apollo was established in the 9th century BC.
By 167 BC, Delos had become one of the most important trading cities in the Mediterranean.
And by the 2nd century AD, Delos was the biggest and most luxurious trading center anywhere
in the world.
But too much fame caused the island to fall into turmoil.
The Mithridates attacked and pillaged Delos twice, it was attacked again by pirates a
few years after that, and from here the island was gradually abandoned.
Its ancient temples were burned, its houses were left in ruins, and it returned to the
vacant rocky island that it was 5000 years ago when humans first settled it.
Today, the island is one huge archaeological site.
There have been numerous sacred places discovered, as Delos was largely a sanctuary site.
There were many temples and sanctuaries dedicated not only to Greek gods and goddesses, but
temples of Sarapis, Isis and Anubis of Ancient Egyptian culture, Syrian gods Haadad and Atargatis,
and even a Jewish synagogue.
One site believed by the ancients to hold great power is the Temple of Isis.
It’s a ruin now, but in the 2nd century BC locals thought praying to Isis would give
them good health.
It was also believed that thanks to the temple, the local sailors could roam free with Isis’
protection.
9: The Guardhouse Monkey In the city of Mons, Belgium, there is a very
old and very mysterious monkey.
It’s called the Guardhouse Monkey, and it’s located at the entrance of the Mons city hall.
The small metal monkey has been in the city for centuries, yet nobody can quite remember
where the little guy came from.
Some say it's the masterpiece of an ancient blacksmith, some say it was once part of a
pillory where criminals were taken to be publicly shamed, and others say it was once part of
a tavern sign.
Though the tavern and the sign have been lost for hundreds of years.
No matter where the strange monkey came from, it's still a major part of the city’s old
architecture.
One of the legends that surrounds the monkey is that it can grant wishes.
We don't know where the legend came from or why people believe this, but locals insist
that if you rub the monkey’s head, it will occasionally grant your wish.
It's also supposed to provide good luck.
The monkey’s head has been rubbed by so many people over so many centuries that it’s
become naturally polished.
8: Ireland’s Holy Wells There are thousands of holy wells all across
Ireland that serve as sites of worship, even to this day.
In fact, there are over 3000 of these holy wells and each one has its very own saint,
its own legend, and its own unique power.
The holy wells have been around for centuries, with people still seeking them out today to
be healed by their miraculous waters.
These holy wells predate Christianity.
The original Irish who lived on the island treated the wells as sacred sites associated
with their pagan gods.
The wells were said to have magical waters that could heal the sick and even grant good
fortune.
But the power behind the wells changed with Christianity.
As Saint Patrick roamed the countryside baptizing people in wells and streams, the wells became
symbols of a more holy nature.
For example, the St. Patrick’s Well in Belcoo was originally associated with Crom Dubh,
the pagan god of harvest and human sacrifice.
Legend says that St. Patrick hit the well with his staff and broke it to pieces, thereby
expelling the dark pagan god and transforming the well into a Christian landmark.
Yet still, the well was said to perform the same miracles.
Its water was still supposedly able to cure ailments, it was just now thanks to God instead
of a rambunctious pagan lord of sacrifice.
7: Sri Lanka’s Stargate By far one of the most mysterious places in
the entire world is the sacred city of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka.
In modern times, the city has been a popular source of tales about UFOs and other paranormal
activity.
But locally, it's known as Rajarata, land of kings.
The first kingdom established here was in 377 BC.
The city eventually grew to be the holiest place in Sri Lanka, with pilgrims seeking
out the ancient Buddhist temples and stupas.
It's about 40 acres (16.8 hectares) of some of the most breathtaking Buddhist architecture
anywhere in the world.
But there's one spot in the old city that defies logic and has some speculating that
it could hold the secrets of the universe.
This supposedly cosmic thing comes in the form of a map, or perhaps a chart.
It's a circular grid filled with bizarre symbols carved on the side of a rock and sandwiched
between three Buddhist temples.
Locals call it the Sakwala Chakraya, which translates to the Universe Cycle.
Archaeologists have no idea what the symbols mean or even who carved the chart.
But whoever did it realized its importance because they even sculpted a rock in front
of it into a seating area for four people.
Thousands of years ago, it appears as though people used to sit in front of this mysterious
cosmic chart and well, stare at it.
The bottom line is that nobody knows what the cosmic chart was designed for.
However, many speculate that it could have been a stargate, or an interdimensional portal
used to travel great distances.
In other words, a teleportation device.
And while this may sound fantastical, that’s exactly why it is just a theory.
There's no way to prove that the ancients somehow discovered a way to travel through
space using a chart.
But that being said, if aliens did indeed visit our planet thousands of years ago, this
could have been how.
And if so, it’s the only stargate of its kind left on Earth – that we know about.
6: Zerzevan Zerzevan Castle is an ancient structure located
in southeastern Turkey, dating back about 3000 years.
The castle has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, first by the Assyrians, and
finally by the Romans.
The Romans used it as a fortress and barracks, and also as the location for one of their
temples of Mithras.
In fact, the Zerzevan Castle contains the most well-preserved temple of Mithras anywhere
in the world.
And that's saying something considering there are only 22 of these temples left.
The one furthest in the west is in London and the one furthest in the east is in Zerzevan.
If you're not sure what Mithras was, it at one point was the largest religion in the
world.
And in fact, it was a popular religion that dominated Europe for longer than Christianity
has even been around.
Yet despite its longevity, nobody knows really what the religion was all about because it
was kept a total secret.
The initiation rituals for people joining this religion were held in the Mithras temples,
just like the one at Zerzevan.
But we don't know what those initiation rituals involved.
It’s honestly one of the best-kept secrets of the ancient world.
Imagine if 3000 years from today there were only a handful of Christian churches left
and nobody could figure out what had gone on inside of them.
It's that big of a secret.
5: The Ancient Portal to Hell In Greece, there is a temple built over what
many believed was a portal to hell.
Any animal or person who went too close to this portal allegedly dropped dead.
Not understanding why, the Greeks began to tell stories to explain the reasons for these
deaths.
They thought the portal led directly to the underworld and that it was the breath of Hades
killing any creature that dared get too close.
The temple is tucked away in the old city of Hierapolis, and is just as deadly today
as it was 2000 years ago.
An ancient geographer named Strabo described his trip into the portal – after Christianity
came around and people no longer believed in Hades – as one of peril.
He said the portal led to a cave, which was so full of a vapory mist that he couldn't
even see the ground.
He threw birds into the cave to see what would happen and they all immediately died.
So, people went on believing the portal led into some kind of hell, Christian or otherwise.
Amazingly, there is some science behind the portal of death.
Researchers published their findings in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological
Sciences, saying they believe deadly concentrations of CO2 seeping out of the crust of the earth
caused deaths near the temple.
In the grotto below, scientists found concentrations of CO2 of up to 91%.
This is one ancient place that really does hold power – it’s just that the power
is a natural source, and not stemming from actual hell.
4: The Blarney Stone You may have heard of the Blarney Stone before,
the Irish rock that allegedly gives a person the “gift of gab”, meaning eloquence and
persuasiveness.
The iconic stone can be found at Blarney Castle, which was constructed over 500 years ago in
1446 by the king of Munster, Dermot McCarthy.
But the actual site of the castle goes back even further.
Blarney Castle was actually built over the bones of a different castle from the 13th
century.
But let's get back to the stone and why it's supposedly so powerful.
Nobody knows exactly where the stone comes from, but legend says it was the Crusaders
who brought it home to Ireland after fighting in the Middle East.
Another says the Blarney Stone was cut from one of the larger blocks of rock at Stonehenge.
In reality, the rock is a chunk of limestone around 330 million years old, local to Ireland.
Researchers with the University of Glasgow figured this out by analyzing the rock back
in 2014.
But why in the world people travel from all over the world just to kiss a supposedly magical
stone in Ireland is still a mystery.
Even Winston Churchill kissed it in 1912, which some say is the whole reason his speeches
in World War 2 were so extraordinary.
Could the Blarney Stone have been responsible for Winston Churchill’s motivational talks,
inspiring so many soldiers in the 1940s?
The truth remains a mystery, but there must be some real reason this stone has held sway
over so many for so long, right?
Tell me your theories in the comments!
3: The Enchanted Rock in Texas There's a rock in Texas that supposedly has
magical healing powers.
It's called the Enchanted Rock, and is located in Fredericksburg.
And while the town itself may be modern, human beings have been living in the area for over
12,000 years.
There are over 400 archaeological sites surrounding Enchanted Rock, with 120 of them being state
archaeological landmarks.
But much of the area is still shrouded in mystery.
Even though we know Native Americans lived here for thousands of years, we don't know
the entirety of their history or culture.
There have been stories of Enchanted Rock floating around for centuries, maybe even
thousands of years.
The Native Americans of the area say the entire rock has healing powers and that if you climb
to the summit and sit down, you can meditate to absorb the energy from the rock.
This energy can rejuvenate the spirit and apparently even heal somebody who's sick.
There's no scientific evidence to back this up.
That said, many people who climb to the top of the rock and sit down do report a feeling
of rejuvenation.
Whether this is wishful thinking or real power seeping from the rock, there's no scientific
way to say for sure.
2: Delphi Delphi in Greece was one of the most important
sanctuaries of the ancient world.
It was also supposed to be a place of great power, and coincidentally where the Greeks
believed was the location of the center of the world.
Legend says that Zeus released two eagles, one flying west and the other flying east,
and they crashed into each other at the site that would become Delphi.
Zeus allegedly marked the spot with a sacred stone called the omphalos, and this place
was later turned into the sanctuary of Apollo.
But really, everything about Delphi is mystical.
Greeks also believed the site originally belonged to Gaia, or the goddess representing Mother
Earth.
Her child, a great serpent named Python, guarded the place.
It was Apollo who killed Python and discovered the oracle.
And the oracle is where Delphi really gets supernatural.
The Oracle of Delphi was consulted by the ancient Greeks before they did anything major.
All kings and rulers, between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, had to ask the oracle before
they went to war, before they changed laws, or before they founded a new colony.
Normal people went to the oracle for help as well, paying large amounts of money to
have her predict their future and give them advice.
The oracle, referred to as the Pythia, would go into a trance in which she would mutter
incoherently.
The priests of Apollo would then translate.
But as it turns out, there probably wasn't anything magical about Delphi.
Instead, there are light hydrocarbon gases that slip from a crack in the ground here,
which is likely what caused the oracle to go into a trance.
Either that, or this really was a meeting place between gods and humans.
1: The Angels of Lalibela 800 years ago, King Lalibela of Ethiopia ordered
a new capital be built for the Christians of his kingdom after Jerusalem fell to Islam.
The capital was to be built 8000 feet (2438 m) above sea level in the central plateau
of Ethiopia, called Lalibela.
Nobody knows quite what happened next, but somehow, the people of the time carved 11
churches, each one from a single giant block of stone.
No bricks were used, no concrete, not a single piece of wood – just expert architecture
by master craftsmen.
According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the master craftsman wasn't actually a man
– not even a team of builders.
Instead, the church claims that Lalibela’s churches were constructed by angels.
The power contained here in Lalibela is said to be the power of God Himself.
Around Christmas time, up to 200,000 pilgrims make their way to Lalibela and walk for days
and even weeks, fasting and completely covered in white robes.
They believe God is actually here, and that this is the one place on Earth where they
can come closest to their Lord.
Which of these mysterious places do you think might actually hold some secret power?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thanks a lot for watching today’s video!
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