From the first worldwide manhunt in history to the reconstruction of King Tut’s father,
here are 10 unbelievable archaeological discoveries!
10: Pirate Coins In Rhode Island, a handful of ancient coins
were discovered at an orchard where people can visit to pick their own fruit.
These coins may help to solve one of the oldest cold cases in the world.
This cold case involves a murderous English pirate who became one of the most-wanted criminals
in history after plundering a ship filled with Muslim pilgrims.
The coins that were found in Rhode Island were from the 17th century and had been minted
in Arabia.
These are some of the oldest coins ever discovered in North America, and they might explain how
the captain of the pirate vessel vanished after attacking the ship.
The plundering went down in 1695.
The pirate ship was named Fancy and the captain was Henry Every.
He decided to attack a ship owned by the Indian emperor Aurangzeb.
At the time, he was one of the most powerful men in the world.
And not only were there Muslim pilgrims on the boat but huge stashes of gold and silver
worth millions of dollars in today’s money.
It was one of the most lucrative robberies of all time that you've never heard of.
The band of pirates killed and tortured most of the people on the ship.
They then escaped to the Bahamas where pirates hung out back in the day.
The crime was so heinous that a massive bounty was placed on their heads and it turned into
the very first worldwide manhunt in human history.
But the pirates were never found and nobody knows where they went.
Some are now saying that these 17th-century coins discovered in Rhode Island along with
a few other places in the United states prove that the pirate thieves made it to New England
with their wealth and managed to take an early retirement.
9: Sharing a Tomb A tomb was recently discovered in Spain containing
the remains of a woman and a man who had been buried together sometime during the Bronze
Age.
The tomb was discovered at the archaeological site of La Almoloya, which had been a center
of power for El Argar civilization.
The woman was buried wearing a symbol of her immense wealth: a silver crown.
The silver diadem was only one of around 30 precious artifacts found inside the tomb.
All together the hoard contained 230 grams of silver, equal to 938 daily wages at the
time!
Researchers theorize that this woman may have been a ruler of El Argar, which thrived in
the Iberian Peninsula from 2200 to 1550 BC.
The archaeological site of La Almoloya was first discovered back in 1944 and is known
today for its incredible and sophisticated artifacts, especially for so long ago!
This newest excavation was done by researchers from Barcelona who investigated 50 new tombs
at the site.
This tomb stands out from the rest because the man and woman found inside were curled
together in a unique position and surrounded by their precious objects.
The tomb also contained earrings and bracelets, rings, a bronze dagger, textiles and pottery.
The silver diadem that the woman was found wearing is one of only five others discovered
throughout archaeological sites once populated by El Algar.
This means that this woman was one of a few that may have ruled over the land.
She was buried with a man who may have been her husband or lover, but he was definitely
a warrior.
He died before her and was buried with very few items.
Upon her death she must have requested to be buried along with him.
Most of the grave goods were buried next to her, including a silver-rimmed drinking cup
so that her lips would always touch silver.
Researchers have found the remains of a little girl nearby that may have been their daughter.
There is so much to learn about the Algar civilization and I definitely want to learn
more about this intriguing couple!
Don’t you??
8: The Snakefly Fossil In a collaborative effort Paleontologists
from Simon Fraser University and the Russian Academy of sciences recently discovered four
new species of ancient insects in British Columbia.
The fossil species are from a group of insects called snakeflies.
These strange insects lived about fifty million years ago and what's even more remarkable
is that they still exist today.
Snakeflies are thin, predatory insects native to the Northern Hemisphere.
They are not found anywhere in tropical regions.
Scientists have always thought that snakeflies require a cold winter to trigger some kind
of development for them to morph into adults.
However, these newest fossils have revealed that snakeflies actually lived in warm climates
as well.
The one question remaining is why are there no more snakeflies in tropical areas today,
and why are they found now only in the coldest regions of North America?
Scientists don’t really know.
Paleontologist Bruce Archibald has been adamant that understanding how life – even boring
life like snakeflies – adapts to different climates can help explain why certain species
are found in certain places across the globe.
And also, what future changes in the climate might tell us about animal migration and evolution.
7: Shocking Egyptian Tombs Just this year, archaeologists on a joint
Egyptian-Dominican mission announced the amazing discovery of 16 burials in tombs just west
of Alexandria in Egypt.
These burials were cut out of rock at the Temple of Taposiris Magna.
These types of rock tombs were very popular during the Greco-Roman era of Egypt.
Several mummies were discovered inside of the burial shafts but were found in pretty
bad condition.
They were found with gilded sarcophagi, gold foil amulets, and even pieces of gold foil
shaped into the form of a tongue and inserted into the mouth of the mummy.
This type of burial artifact was meant to allow the deceased person to speak the language
of the gods in the court of Osiris when they reached the afterlife.
The two most important mummies discovered were found along with the remains of scrolls.
One of the mummies had a gilded decoration showing the god Osiris.
The other mummy had a crown decorated with horns and the image of a cobra in its center.
The mummy also had a gilded decoration on their chest showing the head of a falcon,
meant to be the god Horus.
Unfortunately, there hasn't been any more information released on who any of these mummies
were or why they were buried in this place.
Inside the temple there were broken statues found, as well as coins that bore the image
of Queen Cleopatra VII.
The researchers are probably waiting to make their surprise article drop later on.
6: The Megalodon Tooth In South Carolina, a fossil hunter had his
dreams come true when he discovered an incredible tooth that once belonged to a megalodon.
Matthew Basak was fossil hunting at a construction site when he found the shark tooth.
This guy is a professional fossil hunter who works with Palmetto Fossil Excursions.
He spotted the tooth in a layer of soil that had been exposed while digging a drainage
ditch at the construction site.
The enormous tooth measured nearly 6.5 inches and weighed an outstanding 3 pounds.
Even as a veteran fossil hunter, Matthew couldn't believe his luck.
He had never in his life found something so amazing.
3.5 million years ago, the megalodon was the biggest mega-toothed shark on Earth, roughly
60 feet long and so big that it could swallow a great white like a tic-tac.
These things were as big as buses, and so it's no surprise that the tooth was so big.
According to shark experts, a shark's tooth will be about 1 inch per 10 feet of body length.
That means this megalodon would have been a beast even among its own kind, probably
about 65 feet long!
And believe it or not, megalodon teeth can be found all over South Carolina, particularly
in the coastal plain.
There are also huge deposits of fossils at the bottoms of many rivers and streams in
South Carolina just waiting to be discovered.
Have you ever found a shark tooth or another cool type of fossil??
Let me know in the comments below!!
5: King Tut’s Father An ancient Egyptian pharaoh was discovered
in 1907 in the Valley of the Kings.
This pharaoh was pulled out of tomb KV 55, just a couple of feet from the famous tomb
of Tutankhamen.
It’s believed that this individual was actually King Tut’s father.
And after over 100 years since the mummy’s discovery, scientists have managed to give
King Tut’s father a face.
King Tut’s father was the famous Akhenaten, and he ruled Egypt from 1353 to 1335 BC.
The reconstruction of this man's face took months to design with the help of scientists
at a special research Center in Sicily, along with Cicero Moraes, an expert 3D forensic
artist from Brazil.
The facial reconstruction was done by a process known as the Manchester method.
Facial muscles and ligaments were molded on a skull model of Akhenaten.
Then, skin was placed over the muscles and tissue.
Of course, all of the finer details of the pharaoh’s face were based on detailed measurements
and scaled photographs, and even X-rays of the skeleton.
The end result was a fantastic image of what King Tut’s father actually looked like at
the time of his death.
What do you think?
Pretty impressive right??
4: Roman Time Machine Archaeologists were recently shocked to discover
a Roman site in South Shields with mass granaries so well-preserved that the place has been
referred to as a “time machine” into Britain's ancient past.
During the Roman Empire's conquest of Britain around 2000 years ago, the native Celts who
would have been living on the land were driven out by advancing military campaigns.
Over the years – or maybe I should say centuries – Britain was gradually populated by members
of the Roman Empire from as far away as Syria and Iraq.
One of the most impressive structures in the old empire was Hadrian's Wall, which spans
73 miles across England.
It was near Hadrian's Wall that this new Roman fortress was found in South Shields.
This fortification was critical to the construction of the wall and protected a nearby seaport
at the River Tyne.
This port would have been used to ferry supplies to those who were building Hadrian’s Wall.
Archaeologists only recently identified the buildings that had been used as granaries.
Granaries were rarely used in Roman forts but this one had 24.
They were used to feed the tens of thousands of troops that were stationed in Britain.
The fort would have had about 600 men based inside of it, with its enormous supply of
grain keeping an army of over 50,000 men fed.
Later on, the Romans converted the granaries into barracks.
3: A Viking Relic Field archaeologists working for the Swedish
National Historic Museums were excavating a Viking settlement north of Stockholm when
they found 8 silver necklaces and 12 coins.
This treasure had been carefully wrapped in a cloth and stashed in a pot.
It was a genuine Viking silver hoard and incredibly rare.
One of the rarest coins found was a Norman coin minted in the 10th century.
It is only the second of its kind to ever have been found in Sweden.
The reason this is so exciting is that the position of the duchy of Normandy was only
created in 911 when King Charles of West Francia gave some land to the Viking chief Rollo – whom
you might remember from the popular Vikings TV show.
Since the ruler of Normandy was Viking, you would expect tons of Norman coins to find
their way to Sweden, to the Viking’s homeland.
But they are very scarce.
This is because in Scandinavia at the time, they were only interested in pure silver coins,
not the blended copper and silver coins made in France.
This pure silver coin was an exception.
Nobody knows how it got to Sweden or why so few were made, but it’s certainly a remarkable
and one-of-a-kind discovery.
2: Ancient Thracian Necropolis Near the town of Baley in Northwest Bulgaria,
archaeologists discovered 15 graves dating back to the second century BC.
These graves were found inside a necropolis built by some of the earliest Thracians who
ever lived in the area.
These graves were dug during a transition from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age.
The graves were found to contain urns and other artifacts, with one of the most fascinating
being a bird-shaped ceramic vessel that dates back 3000 years.
The bird appears to be a duck or some kind of other water bird.
It was discovered just recently and put on display in 2020 at the Bulgarian Archaeology
Exhibition.
Even though this early Thracian site has been researched for over 40 years, archaeologists
keep finding new and impressive artifacts.
The Thracians themselves can be traced back to early tribes from the Balkan Peninsula
who arrived in modern-day Bulgaria in around 3200 BC.
When they buried their dead, they often put urns and other treasures in the graves as
burial gifts.
1: The Maryland Colonial Site Archaeologists recently discovered the earliest
colonial site in all of Maryland after searching for nearly 100 years.
The historic fort at St. Mary’s was the first ever English settlement in Maryland,
and one of the first in what would become the United States.
It was discovered with the help of archaeological geophysicist Tim Horsley, who used ground-penetrating
radar to detect the outlines of the ancient buildings at the settlement.
Tim managed to uncover the palisaded fort created in 1634.
The scans also revealed evidence of dwellings inside of the fort, some of which are believed
to have been Native American.
An excavation followed the discovery, and archaeologists turned up physical evidence
of a brick cellar, a trigger guard that was used for a musket, and a much older artifact:
a quartzite arrowhead that’s been dated back 4500 years.
The archaeologist who discovered the lost fort at Jamestown in 1994 said that this was
a significant discovery because St. Mary’s was a sister colony of the Jamestown colony.
Archaeologists have been looking for this place since the 1930s.
Today, it's nothing but an empty meadow roughly the size of a football field.
This place was inhabited by 150 colonists, most of whom were English Catholics fleeing
persecution from the Protestant rule back home in England.
They arrived in Maryland on two ships in March of 1634, named the Ark and the Dove.
This was less than 30 years following the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown.