OE 21 298 Mysterious Ancient Enigmas 10: Lost Labyrinth
The discovery of a mysterious lost labyrinth previously believed to be a mythical structure
is yet another enigma from ancient Egypt.
This newest discovery was made at an archaeological site near the city of Dashur, around 60 miles
from Cairo.
This site contains the mysterious black pyramid of the pharaoh Amenemhat III.
His pyramid stands beside the ruins of what was once a complex system of courtyards and
galleries.
This stuff was all found in the 1800s, with Egyptologists back then believing they had
found the remains of an ancient city.
But in 2008, Archaeologists with the Mataha Expedition made a truly shocking find beneath
the sand.
They uncovered a great lost labyrinth, something said to have been even more complicated to
build than the pyramids themselves.
It was a huge structure, a series of thousands upon thousands of underground halls, temples,
and chambers.
But it was all buried 2000 years ago, lost to the Egyptian desert.
Today, there is very little left of the great labyrinth.
A few rocky foundations and stone towers are all that prove it was ever here at all.
The biggest mystery is that archaeologists can't figure out what it was used for.
Imagine an underground maze so big you could literally get lost inside of it and die of
starvation!
Perhaps it was even home to a mythical beast!!
What it was actually for is the real mystery!!
What would you do with a labyrinth?
9: Ancient Log Coffin An extremely strange coffin was recently discovered
in England.
What makes the coffin so unique is that it was made out of an old log dating back 4000
years.
When archaeologists dug up the mysterious coffin, they discovered the remains of a man
and his battle axe entombed inside.
The log coffin was discovered in a pond on a golf course.
Archaeology doesn't really get much more random than that.
Analysis of the coffin showed that it was carved from an oak tree and its interior lined
with plants.
The axe buried with the dead person was likely a symbol of his authority rather than a weapon
used in war.
4000 years ago when this guy was buried, he had been covered over by a gravel mound.
Over the centuries, the mound vanished, and the land was turned into a golf course.
The exact place where the guy was buried happened to end up in an artificial pond.
It was only because of a heat wave in 2018 that the pond dried up enough for people to
notice the coffin sticking out of the wet soil.
Unfortunately, nobody knows who the mysterious man in the coffin was when he was alive.
Even more, they don't know if there are more mysterious burials hidden underneath other
parts of the golf course.
The business is probably not going to let them excavate the whole place, so they’ll
just have to focus on the one coffin for now.
They hope to have it fully investigated and on display in the next two years.
8: Rare Roman Stone A rare stone from the year 49 has been uncovered
that used to outline the city limits of Rome!!
Almost 2000 years ago, this stone signified the city limits of ancient Rome.
It was found during excavations for a new sewage system going up in the Italian capital.
The experts are calling it a pomerial stone, an absolutely massive slab of rock that was
considered sacred during the days of the Roman emperors.
Stones such as these were used to mark the edges of Rome’s territory.
The stone would have been placed near the city walls, in a sacred area called the pomerium,
where it was forbidden for people to farm, live, or even enter while carrying weapons.
This particular stone was placed during the rule of Emperor Claudius.
The reason it's such an enigma is that only ten others like it have ever been found.
The most recent pomerial stone was discovered more than 100 years ago!!
But the story of the pomerial stones is also pretty mysterious.
According to Roman tradition, the first pomerium, that being the boundary of Rome’s sacred
heart, was created by Romulus himself, Rome’s legendary founder.
He carved a line around what would become the main sanctuary of Roman society.
Then after, the stones were placed all along the edges to mark the boundaries.
But since nobody knows if Romulus ever really existed, we don't know if this story is even
true.
7.
The Oldest War Monument A bizarre and mysterious burial mound was
discovered in Syria.
Archaeologists say it could be the oldest war memorial ever, making it an enigma that
dates back 4300 years.
The mound was discovered with the corpses of at least 30 warriors inside of it, at the
site of Tell Banat.
The mound is believed to be the first example of memorials that began being built in ancient
Mesopotamia.
These unique monuments involved piling up dead enemies into organized structures.
In other words, they turned dead people into huge towers of corpses.
But they didn't do this to desecrate the dead.
According to Anne Porter, a professor at the University of Toronto specializing in ancient
Middle Eastern civilizations, the ancient people were simply honoring whoever was killed
after a particular battle.
Nobody knows if the buried dead were the winners or the losers.
Either way, archaeologists suspect the dead were gathered off the battlefield, piled up,
covered in earth, and transformed into a monument that could be seen for miles around.
What really confuses archeologists is the why behind it.
Nobody can figure out why it seemed so important to create a literal mountain of the dead.
Plus, archaeologists uncovered the dead bodies of children as young as 8 mixed in with the
adult warriors, leading to even more questions that have yet to be answered.
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6.
Yonaguni Monument The Yonaguni Monument, located off the coast
of Japan, is one of the most confusing and enigmatic things ever discovered.
Some call it the Japanese Atlantis, some say it’s a natural formation that just so happens
to look like an underwater pyramid, and others say it's evidence of a lost civilization.
The truth is hard to figure out.
The monument was first found in 1986 off the coast of Yonaguni Island by a diver looking
for hammerhead sharks.
After the initial discovery, a marine geologist named Masaaki Kimura went to investigate – and
continued to investigate for over 20 years.
Masaaki is convinced the monument was built by humans thousands of years ago when this
part of the ocean was above water.
He says the straight angles, obviously drilled holes, and almost perfect triangles are proof
that it was built by humans.
In fact, anyone who looks closely can tell the monument is a man-made pyramid.
Masaaki also found evidence of what he believes to be roads, ruined castles, and abandoned
stadiums near the main structure.
For him, the Yonaguni Monument represents the Lost Continent of Mu, the Japanese version
of Atlantis.
Documentaries show pottery fragments, tools, and other pieces of evidence from the past
that were brought up from the site.
A civilization dating back thousands of years building large monuments is not that outrageous.
It’s happened all over the world.
But what's really strange is that nobody seems willing to discuss the monument in a serious
way.
The Japanese government has even denied that it’s a historical site.
For whatever reason, most official bodies have dismissed the monument as a rock formation…
However a small team continues to dive and search for more evidence to prove once and
for all that this place was once home to a lost civilization that over time, sunk under
the waves.
5.
The Well of Osiris The Well of Osiris is a serious ancient enigma
and one of the least-studied mysteries in ancient Egypt.
The well itself is more of a tomb, a series of tunnels and chambers that were found buried
underneath a road in Giza, near the great pyramids.
The discovery goes way back to the 1930s, but nobody was able to get inside the well
because it was filled with water.
Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass helped drain the mysterious well back in 1999, finally
gaining access to the underground chambers.
The depth of the well was quite the surprise!!
It goes down about 90 feet, with multiple layers and secret chambers that had been flooded
for thousands of years.
The first level is part of an unfinished chamber carved directly into the rock, and inside,
archaeologists took out several granite sarcophagi.
The second level had six separate chambers cut into the rock, with each chamber containing
its own sarcophagi, its own pottery fragments, and its own set of ancient bones dating back
to about 500 BC.
The most impressive level is definitely the third one.
It took two months to drain the interior of the tomb.
Once cleared, archaeologists were shocked to discover four pillars surrounding a large
granite sarcophagus.
What shocked the archaeologists even more was when they found the sarcophagus empty.
After much speculation, historians now believe it was a symbolic tomb designed for the god
Osiris, king of the underworld and ruler of the dead.
However, nobody has been able to figure out why the Egyptians went through so much trouble
to make the tomb, nor what kind of creepy rituals they performed down here, nearly 100
feet beneath the pyramids.
4: Stonehenge Solved!
When you think about ancient mysteries, Stonehenge is probably the first one that comes to mind.
And yes, it is pretty mysterious.
Over the years we have uncovered more and more secrets about this place.
We do know it was built 5000 years ago by an unknown civilization, and the stones used
to build it came from 180 miles away.
But one of the biggest problems with trying to unravel the mystery of Stonehenge has been
trying to figure out how they brought the stones from so far away, some of which weigh
25 tons!
Well, it looks like the mystery may have been solved.
A carpenter from North Wales has recreated the forgotten machine that he said the ancient
people used to move the rock.
He actually rebuilt the contraption to back up his theory on how the stones were transported,
and it's been hailed by experts as one of the most credible explanations ever given.
His machine is nothing short of spectacular.
It has a circular board balanced on a pair of planks, with the board itself sitting on
rockers and wooden feet.
The machine magically defied gravity by slowly moving just about any weight, keeping the
center of mass hovering over the wooden feet.
Basically, the huge stones would have been suspended as if in mid-air during transport,
with the machine slowly inching forward as workers kept the main plank steady and other
workers pivoted the feet.
This would have taken a long time, but it would have allowed ancient people to move
rocks 25 tons with nothing more than some planks of wood and a good understanding of
physics.
3: The Ancient Greek Computer The Antikythera Mechanism has fascinated scientists
for decades as the oldest known computer in history.
It dates back 2000 years, discovered in 1901 off the coast of Greece.
It was taken out of a shipwreck, with researchers believing they had found a piece of a highly
advanced machine or mechanism.
However, nobody could really figure out what the machine was used for or how the Greeks
had managed to make their own computer, turning this into one of the most confusing artifacts
of modern times.
The thing about the artifact is that it looks a whole lot like a mechanism that you would
find in any modern piece of machinery.
But thanks to new technology, scientists have finally unlocked the secrets of the computer.
Researchers with the University of London made a computer-generated reconstruction of
the Antikythera Mechanism.
They scanned the fragment and then recreated what the entire machine would have looked
like.
As it turns out, it was a really complicated astrological clock.
The fragment that’s been captivating generations is just one piece of a machine operated by
interlocking gears.
All these gears were fitted into a wooden case about the size of a shoebox.
The gears worked just like gears inside of a watch, only this machine was used to display
the positions of the sun, the moon, the five planets known to humans back then, and the
phases of the moon itself.
This is just one of many incredible things found in the shipwreck with more and more
being uncovered every year, including treasure and even human skeletons!!
2: The Pyramid of Cholula The Great Pyramid of Cholula is an enigma
for one reason: it's the biggest pyramid in the entire world and almost nobody even knows
it exists.
The structure is located in central Mexico, originally built 2500 years ago.
When the conquistadors arrived in Mexico and started destroying local monuments and temples,
they missed this one because they didn't even realize it was a pyramid.
The structure is hidden underneath a hill, so the Spaniards simply thought it was a natural
formation.
If they would have done a bit of digging, they would have found the largest ancient
monument of any kind, buried under thousands of years of dirt.
It's hard to say why the world has largely ignored this pyramid, especially seeing as
it's the biggest one ever.
To this day, nobody knows who built the structure, why they built it, or really anything more
about it.
It's a total enigma.
Even the Aztec who lived nearby in Tenochtitlan didn't know who built the splendid pyramid,
instead referring to the ancient architects as a race of giants called the Quinametzin.
Whoever was here building pyramids almost 3000 years ago, they were just as mysterious
to the Aztec as they are to us today.
1: The Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt
by the armies of Napoleon during his conquest in the year 1799.
The man responsible for the discovery was Pierre-Francois Bouchard.
His men were occupying a beat-up old fort in the city of Rosetta, and were tearing down
the wall of one of the buildings that they had been using as a defensive fortification
when they uncovered the stone.
Named after the city in which it was found, the Rosetta Stone turned out to be one of
the most mysterious and amazing relics ever.
At the time, Napoleon's troops didn't quite know what they had their hands on.
It was a giant rock tablet with three very distinct types of writing on it.
Bouchard was intrigued and shared the stone with some French scholars who had come to
Egypt to hunt for treasure.
They too thought the stone was important, but they couldn't imagine just how important
it would become.
Until that time, nobody knew how to interpret Egyptian hieroglyphics.
It was just symbols but the wealth of information and language left behind was a mystery.
We know today that the Rosetta Stone was written back when the king, Ptolemy V Epiphanes, took
the Egyptian throne in 204 BC.
At the time, Egypt was experiencing a bit of turmoil, including an internal revolt.
The Rosetta Stone was a declaration created by the royal cult in which they swore their
loyalty to the new ruler.
This is why the tablet was written in Ptolemaic hieroglyphics, Demotic Egyptian, and ancient
Greek- so that everyone would understand.
But the mystery of what was written on the stone wouldn't be cracked until 1822, when
Jean-Francois Champollion, considered the founder of Egyptology, learned how to use
the stone to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
With this new knowledge, scientists were finally able to decipher what was written on the walls
of pyramids and tombs throughout the old kingdom.
Imagine what would have happened without it!!
What’s your favorite ancient mystery?
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