From strange walls in the middle of nowhere to unexplainable manuscripts, here are 8 fascinating
unsolved archaeological mysteries.
8.
CLEOPATRA’S TOMB
Cleopatra VII was the last and arguably the most well-known of the Ptolemies, a series
of Egyptian rulers that ran the ancient empire from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C.
She went down in history for her beauty and intelligence, and for her famous love affairs
with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, both of whom she had children with.
It’s also a well-known fact that after Cleopatra and Mark Antony were defeated by their former
ally, Octavian, (Julius Caesar’s adopted son), at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.,
the two committed suicide.
It is believed they were buried together near a temple of the Egyptian goddess Isis, in
a tomb that was described by writer Plutarch as “lofty and beautiful.”
But nobody knows exactly where this tomb is located, other than that it’s somewhere
near modern-day Alexandria.
The city was hit with a huge tidal wave around 1,000 years ago, which took much of Alexandria’s
artifacts with it.
Since 2009, an elusive excavation has been being carried out at Taposiris Magna, a tomb
25 miles west of Alexandria by noted Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, along with criminal lawyer-turned-archaeologist
Kathleen Martinez.
But the mission has largely been kept on the down-low for several years, with the researchers
limiting the information they provide the curious public with, despite a PBS docu-series
having been made about the project.
One unfortunate possibility the explorers and hopefuls must accept is that the tomb
may not have been found because it may have been emptied by grave robbers - an all-too-common
problem among ancient Egyptian ruins.
And if robbers did find it, they aren’t telling anyone.
7.
ATLANTIS
Scientists, researchers, and explorers have searched, and continue to search, for the
lost city of Atlantis, to no avail.
Atlantis was originally written about by Plato in 360 B.C. Plato described Atlantis as a
once-booming hub of naval power that sank catastrophically into the ocean some 10,000
years ago as the result of a hugely tragic but unidentified event.
And because the people were getting punished by the gods for their selfish and bad behaviour.
Sunken ruins have been discovered all around the world and it’s possible, or even likely,
that more will continue to be found.
But some researchers sincerely doubt the existence of Atlantis, and its possible location remains
an equal mystery.
People have claimed to have discovered Atlantis in many places, including the Bahamas, the
Greek Islands, Cuba, Spain, Morocco and even Japan, but all these claims proved to be unfounded,
and no definitive proof exists that Atlantis was ever a real place.
According to National Geographic, Atlantis is, indeed, a mythical place, and many researchers
have classified it as fictional.
But the legend persists, so why is that?
One possible reason is because Plato’s writings were highly influential, as evidenced in their
continued role in modern academia.
Perhaps it’s difficult for people not to believe everything the wise man had to say.
James Romm, a professor at Bard College, blames the human imagination, stating “It's a great
myth.
It has a lot of elements that people love to fantasize about.”
Or maybe, just maybe, Atlantis really did exist, and we just haven’t found it yet...As
you know, there are a lot of people looking for it!!!
6.
ANCIENT ANIMAL TRAPS
Until recently, archaeologists were puzzled about a series of lines throughout the eastern
Sinai Desert in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan since their discovery in the early 20th century
by British Royal Air Force pilots flying overhead.
The lines, which have been nicknamed “kites” because of their shape, are made of low stone
walls.
They’re somewhere between 2,300 and 2,400 years old, and in some places throughout Jordan,
form chains up to 40 miles long.
These lines remained a mystery for a while.
Finally, in 2010, researchers figured out the purpose of the strange lines, which were
abandoned 2,200 years ago.
The low, long walls were used to funnel wild game, such as gazelle, into small killing
pits, simplifying the hunting process by enabling the killing of large numbers of prey at once.
Uzi Avner of Ben-Gurion University-Eilat in Israel mentioned in an interview with Discovery
News that learning the uses of the walls has shed light on how our ancient ancestors were
more knowledgeable about animals and sophisticated with construction than they were previously
given credit for by the scientific community.
Before, some researchers believed that the walls were used to corral domesticated animals
- a notion that has been largely abandoned.
The kites were built specifically in accordance with the migration routes of various species
of wild animals and were specialized for particular animals.
They weren’t herding their sheep but most likely using it to hunt herds of wild animals
instead.
Why were the walls abandoned?
According to Dani Nadel, a kite researcher from the University of Haifa, Israel, a shift
in subsistence strategies or climate change may have been factors.
5.
THE COPPER SCROLL TREASURE
The Qumran caves are famously known as the site where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were
discovered in 1952.
But one lesser-known item was found alongside them: an ancient copper scroll thought to
describe the existence of a hidden, massive hoard of gold and silver.
The copper scroll dates back to a time when the Roman Empire controlled the Qumran region
- approximately 2,000 years.
It’s considered the final of the 15 Dead Sea Scrolls.
Experts estimate that the scroll was probably written sometime between 25 and 75 A.D. and
they speculate that the treasure was likely hidden sometime during the First Jewish War.
Sixty-four supposed locations of hidden treasure, which researchers believe may weigh thousands
of pounds, are detailed in the text.
So that’s next for treasure hunters, I’m sure!!
The text also mentions a duplicate document that archaeologists have yet to discover.
Calculations done in the 1960’s determined that over 1 billion dollar’s worth of treasure
could be hidden.
Researchers believe that the alleged gold mine was hidden by the area’s residents
to ensure it remained out of Roman hands during one of the local population’s frequent revolts
against the empire.
Attempts to locate the treasure have been unsuccessful thus far, and some scholars doubt
that it even exists or think it was already found.
The Copper scroll is on display in the Jordan Museum in Amman if you are looking for some
clues.
What do you think?
Is the treasure still out there?
Or do you think it has already been found by treasure hunters?
Let me know in the comments below!!
4.
THE HOBBIT
In 2003, remains of one of the earliest human species, Homo floresiensis, were found on
the Indonesian island of Flores.
The remains of the extinct species date back to somewhere between 100,000 and 60,000 years
ago.
It wasn’t the first set of hominid remains ever found, nor was it the oldest.
What made this discovery so unique was the size of the remains.
The 30-year-old woman was just three-and-a-half feet tall and quickly earned the nickname
“the Hobbit” from the people who discovered her.
At first, scientists believed that the individual had suffered from a condition called microcephaly,
because of her small head and short stature.
But they later realized, upon discovering more skeletons, that the entire species of
hominid was likely small on average.
They had small brains, large teeth, receding foreheads, no chins, and shoulders that shrugged
forward.
These little people used stone tools, hunted large rodents and small elephants, and may
have even used fire.
They also lived amongst threatening predators such as the giant komodo dragon.
It’s possible that the species suffered from a condition known as island dwarfism,
which results from spending long periods in isolation, but they may have already been
small when they arrived on Flores.
To this day, experts aren’t sure where Homo floresiensis falls on the family tree of human
ancestors.
3.
VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT
The Voynich Manuscript is a book written in an unknown alphabet and contains a series
of bizarre images and diagrams.
It was possibly written in northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance in the early
15th century.
The odd book was discovered in 1912 when it was purchased by a book dealer named Wilfrid
Voynich, after who it has been named.
There are around 240 pages of the book remaining, and some of the pages are foldable sheets.
Included in the books images are medicinal herbs, naked women, and Zodiac signs.
The text is written from left and right, but little else is known about it.
So far, nobody has been able to decipher the book, including American and British codebreakers
from both World Wars.
This inability to decode the mysterious book has earned it a famous place in the history
of cryptography.
More recently, history researcher and TV writer Nicholas Gibbs claimed to have cracked the
code, as well as AI, but scholars still claim that they have just added to the confusion
and not really deciphered it.
The commonly-accepted timeline of ownership of the Voynich Manuscript can be traced as
far back as when it was allegedly in the possession of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.
However, some experts and armchair cryptographers believe the book is nothing more than a Renaissance-era
hoax - or, even, that Voynich himself created the book.
In 2016, Spanish publisher Siloe created 898 identical replicas of the original, with plans
to sell them for a hefty $8,000-9,000 each, proving that even if the original is a hoax,
it’s extremely valuable!
The book was donated to Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript library
in 1969 by its then-owner Hans P. Kraus, and remains there today.
2.
THE KHATT SHEBIB
In Jordan, there’s a 66-mile-long wall that has been a source of confusion for archaeologist
ever since its discovery in in 1948.
Nobody knows who built it, when, or why.
Sir Alec Kirkbride, a British diplomat living in Jordan, was the first person to report
the wall.
While flying overhead, he saw "stone wall running, for no obvious purpose, across country."
As of 2016, the wall’s remains were being investigated by archaeologists with the Aerial
Archaeology in Jordan using aerial photography.
In some sections, portions of the wall run side-by-side, and in others, it branches off.
If missing sections of the wall were filled in, it would extend for some 93 miles total.
The wall is in ruins, but experts have determined that even in its heyday, it couldn’t have
been much more than a half-meter wide and a meter tall.
The researchers also found 100 or so towers along the wall, some of which were constructed
after the wall was built.
People likely used the small structures as overnight refuges, for hunting, and as watchtowers.
Based on pottery found inside the towers, scientists believe the wall was built sometime
between 312 B.C. and 750 A.D.
It may have been built by a kingdom or emperor that ruled Jordan during that period, but
it also could have been constructed by communities.
While experts are able to somewhat speculate regarding when the wall was built, and by
whom, they’re completely stumped about why.
It’s a short wall, so it’s unlikely that it was erected for defensive purposes.
The closest they’ve come to a possible explanation for the wall is that it marked a boundary
between nomadic pastoralists and ancient farmers.
1.
GOBEKLI TEPE
On a hill at the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent in Turkey lies Gobekli Tepe, a site
containing massive, 11,000-year-old carved stones that predate Stonehenge by 4,000 years.
The large stone pillars that have been excavated weigh between seven and ten tons and are arranged
in rings measuring up to 65 feet in diameter.
While some of them are blank, others contain detailed carvings of animals such as lions,
vultures, scorpions, and foxes.
During the 1960’s, archaeologists from the University of Chicago and Istanbul University
examined the site.
They noticed some broken slabs of limestone and dismissed the location as a medieval cemetery.
In 1994, the site piqued the curiosity of German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who traveled
there after reading about the limestone-covered hill.
Schmidt could tell by the shape of the gently-sloped hill, which rises 50 feet above the surrounding
landscape and is unlike the steep plateaus nearby, that he was looking at something man-made.
A year later, Schmidt returned with five colleagues and they got to work digging up the ancient
stones.
In addition to the pillars, the archaeologists found tools, including stone hammers and blades.
However, they did not find any signs of a settlement that have been discovered at nearby
sites of the same age, such as houses, trash pits, clay fertility figurines, or cooking
hearths.
The most telltale signs about how the people of Gobekli Tepe lived have been found in the
animal bone fragments discovered there.
According to Joris Peters, an archaeozoologist who has examined over 100,000 of the bones
at Gobekli Tepe, many of the bones contain marks and splintered edges, indicating that
the animals were likely butchered and cooked.
The bones belonged to wild animals and the site was conspicuously absent of any remains
of domesticated animals, meaning it was probably a hunter-gatherer site.
Archaeologists have mapped the huge site using ground-penetrating radar and geomagnetic surveys
and will be unearthing the megaliths for years to come, despite starting the excavations
over two decades ago.
As of 2008, only five percent of the site had been uncovered.
The discovery of Gobekli Tepe challenges long-held theories about the evolution of civilization.
Experts historically believed that people lacked the time, resources, and organization
to build temples and support complicated social structures until after they began living in
settled communities.
However, the findings at Gobekli Tepe suggest that, perhaps, the coordinated and extensive
effort required to build the monoliths prepared prehistoric tribes for life in complex societies.
That’s all for now, but we’ll be back soon with the next exciting video about historical
mysteries, so don’t forget to hit that “subscribe” button and I’ll see you next time!!
Thanks for watching.
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