From giants trudging around North America to a mysterious war fought by the Egyptians,
here are ten controversial archaeological discoveries!
10: New Mexico Mystery Stone The New Mexico mystery stone, also known as
the Decalogue Stone, can be found on a mountain in a remote part of the desert, deep in New
Mexico.
This mysterious stone has an inscription written on it in what some say is an extinct language.
The reason this particular discovery is so controversial is that nobody can agree on
what the script on the stone says or even exactly where it came from.
Some say the language is Paleo-Hebrew and others that its Cypriotic Greek.
Perhaps it is Pheonician, though there has yet to be any proof.
The stone was discovered in the 1880s but not properly documented until 1933 by the
famous archaeologist Frank Hibben, who happened to be from New Mexico.
Proponents that it is Paelo-Hebrew say that based on a translation by a Harvard Scholar
in 1949 that it is a record of the ten commandments.
In another scholars translation using Cypriotic Greek, the inscription says that it is a report
from a warrior from the Mediterranean named Zakyneros, who is lost in the wilderness and
is now struggling to survive.
However, it could be that Hibben himself made it up, in an attempt to try to demonstrate
that there was contact between Europeans and native American people way before Columbus.
9: American Giants Across the United States of America, there
are burial mounds and remnants of strange grave sites that some say belong to an ancient
race of extinct giants.
As you can imagine, this is a very controversial subject.
The best place to start is at Cahokia.
In the year 1100, it was the largest city anywhere north of Mexico.
It's currently located in southern Illinois, very near the Mississippi River.
The city was built only 50 years before it became the largest city in northern North
America, and it was occupied up until the year 1400.
At peak, its population was up to 50,000, way bigger than London at the time.
There were three major boroughs connected by waterways and walking trails all across
the St. Louis area.
It was an advanced civilization with organized urban planning and agriculture as well as
arts and culture.
They abandoned the site when the climate started to change and their magnificent city was flooded.
Depending on who you ask, the people who lived here were literal giants.
The claim is that giant skeletons have been found buried inside the mounds at Cahokia.
However, mainstream scientists absolutely refute any such discoveries.
And this is made more frustrating by the fact that it's well known that the pioneers who
first discovered Cahokia attributed its creation to people from across the ocean instead of
giving the Native American people here the credit for building it.
From an archaeological standpoint, Cahokia is one hot mess.
The giant skeletons apparently turned to dust when they were taken from their graves.
Some even claim the Smithsonian covered up their existence.
There were many mistakes and errors when the first excavations started and very little
respect for the site.
Now it’s been a task for more modern researchers to piece together what happened and perform
more organized and serious excavations at the site!
8: The Holy Nail Archaeologists in the Czech Republic allegedly
discovered a secret chamber beneath the floor of a monastery from the 12th century.
Within the secret chamber, they found an ancient box with a gold plate and the words “Jesus
is King” inscribed upon them.
When they opened the box, they discovered a single nail inside, about 6 inches long.
The immediate reaction was that the nail had been used in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
when he was nailed to the cross.
The discovery comes from the South Bohemian region, in the small town of Milevsko.
Historians know the region has been inhabited throughout most of human history, all the
way through the Bronze Age and Iron Age at least.
The place was settled by the Slavs in the 8th century.
The monastery was built in 1187 and later destroyed in 1420 by an attack from the Hussites.
It's believed that when the Hussite warriors attacked, a lot of precious Christian artifacts
were hidden beneath the monastery in the secret chamber to protect them.
One of those artifacts is apparently the holiest nail in the world.
But researchers do have more to go on than just the inscription.
The box was carbon dated and they found it was constructed with larch wood taken from
Israel, dating back to about 1290, and also from oak wood from as early as 260.
These dates add up with the story.
When asked why the secret chamber remained a secret for over 600 years, the discovery
team simply told local news sources that after the Hussite invasion, there were no records
left indicating the secret chamber even existed.
Nobody knew it was there.
So, there was no reason to look.
7: The Earliest Horseman There is a big debate over who were the first
people to start riding horses.
The relationship between horses and humans is long!
Dogs might be our best friend but horses are a very close second!
A new archaeological discovery out of Kazakhstan is shedding some light on this ancient mystery.
Two horses were found inside of a tomb from the Bronze Age, and they have been dubbed
the earliest evidence of horsemanship anywhere on Earth.
The horses were buried on the banks of the Tobol River, inside an ancient cemetery hidden
in the Eurasian Steppes.
There are about 30 other burial mounds in the area, all of them dating back to the Bronze
Age.
Radiocarbon dating placed the tomb complex at being used between 1890 and 1774 BC.
This is fascinating because the earliest evidence of horse breeding only goes back to the year
2000 BC, about 100 years before this burial.
But who lived in Kazakhstan 4000 years ago?
It was the Petrovka people, sometimes known as the Andronovo culture.
These were some of the first people in the world who raised horses for meat.
However, now it seems like sometime after they started eating horses, they also started
riding horses.
The teeth from the horse skeletons showed evidence that they’d worn bridles with cheekpieces.
There were even three cheekpieces found buried with them.
What this shows is that horsemanship was already alive and well during the Bronze Age.
The people of the Eurasian Steppe were already making equipment for horses and riding them,
and even burying them alongside humans.
It still doesn't give us a clue as to exactly when this behavior began.
6: Kensington Runestone The Kensington runestone is an intriguing
artifact first discovered in 1898.
According to the Runestone Museum where it’s currently housed, it was found wrapped in
the roots of an old aspen tree, discovered by a farmer about 15 miles from Alexandria
in Minnesota.
Ever since its discovery, researchers have been fighting over what it means, where it
came from, and why an ancient runic artifact dated back to 1362 ended up in North America.
The runestone has also been the source of much controversy.
After all, it's been over 100 years and its authenticity is still in question.
The slab of stone is about 200 pounds, with an inscription scrawled on the face of it.
The inscription was allegedly left there by Scandinavian explorers from the 14th century.
This of course would mean the Vikings had explored much more of North America than previously
believed.
It would seriously change the narrative surrounding the so-called discovery of North America.
Unfortunately, the runestone has been classified as a hoax ever since 1910.
Some even say the guy who found it, a Swedish immigrant named Olof Ohman, crafted the stone
himself to gain some notoriety in his community.
Other scientists believe it's real.
And this is the great big controversy; nobody can agree on whether the stone is real or
a hoax, and so it's largely been discredited in all historical reports.
5: Medieval Wife Swap Scientists have made a very strange discovery
in a medieval religious book.
Scientists working at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum were checking out a medieval bestselling
book called “The Hours of Isabella Stewart” when they noticed one of the paintings inside
the book had been altered.
As it turned out, the author of the book had pulled off one of the oldest recorded wife
swaps in the world.
He replaced a painting of his first wife with a new painting of his second wife.
And as you can imagine, considering this book was produced back in the year 1431, swapping
wives was a pretty controversial thing to do.
The book itself was painted on vellum, either goat’s skin or cow’s skin.
Researchers had to use infrared photographic technology to analyze the original pigments
of the manuscript.
What they found was that its author – Francis I of Brittany – had replaced his first wife
Yolande of Anjou with his second wife.
The original painting showed the first wife kneeling before the Virgin Mary.
But then something happened.
Maybe Francis killed his first wife or maybe she died from the pox, and he replaced her
with a new woman, literally painting over Yolande’s face with the face of his second
wife, who was named Isabella.
And then the manuscript was altered again to make room for the first daughter of the
new marriage.
An extra page was added to show her painting!
4: Skull 5 There was a skull discovered in the Republic
of Georgia that has been dated back 1.8 million years.
It’s called Skull 5 and was excavated in 2005.
But now, after studying the skull extensively for years, scientists have made a very controversial
discovery that could rewrite human evolution as we know it.
But it might rewrite evolution in a more simplistic manner.
What scientists found is that all of the old, distinct species of human – I’m talking
about Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo floresiensis, may have come from a single
lineage that evolved over time.
What this means is that they weren't different species.
They would have been the exact same breed of human, but they looked different depending
on where in the world they lived, what food they ate, and how quickly they evolved.
In other words, our own ancient ancestors would have been as different as a Scandinavian
from an African – but both the same species, just like we’re all the same species today
but look slightly different.
The big question now is why didn't scientists see this before?
It was probably because of the bones.
Most of the ancient human bones found from various parts of the world have looked a bit
different, and this has prompted scientists to label them all as different species.
But according to David Lordkipanidze and his team of scientists who studied Skull 5, even
though old hominids looked different and had different bones, they were still the same
species that first originated in Africa.
3: David and Goliath An ancient artifact that dates back 3000 years
may have revealed the history behind David and Goliath from the Bible.
An archaeological dig near the biblical hometown of Goliath has shown evidence of religious
practices dating back before the birth of Christ, pointing to a controversial historical
connection between the stories of King David and the legendary story of King Solomon.
The site of this ancient city is known today as Khirbet Qeiyafa.
It's about 20 miles from Jerusalem and once stood near the Philistine city of Gath.
The giant known as Goliath allegedly came out from Gath to face the Israelites, only
to be defeated by David and his tiny sling.
And while there is a huge amount of controversy surrounding the legitimacy of the David and
Goliath story, and of course many stories written in the Bible, there have been recent
artifacts that prove some aspects of the story are true.
For example, there was evidence of a strong military force inside the city.
There were also 3000-year-old cult artifacts, including standing stones, altars, and shrines
– and many sculptures made of clay that were likely used as inspiration for the description
of Solomon’s Palace.
In other words, the artifacts here reveal a story that may have been interpreted into
the Bible.
Some experts even believe David was simply a legendary figure like King Arthur or Robin
Hood, and that’s why he was integrated into the Biblical tale of Goliath.
2: Ancient Stone Artifacts Controversial cave discoveries are suggesting
that humans reached North America far earlier than previously imagined.
Archaeologists working in a cave in central Mexico found evidence that humans occupied
the area over 30,000 years ago.
If true, this would mean people arrived on the continent 15,000 years earlier than what
scientists currently believe.
The discovery includes ancient stone tools, and the hypothesis is even backed up by data
collected from other ancient sites.
But even though these are facts, some are still skeptical, and this has led to much
debate.
What we do know is that the first humans into North America came from East Asia.
Mainstream researchers are still adamant that they began arriving about 16,000 years ago.
Other researchers think it could be as far back as 130,000 years ago.
No matter which way you turn, the evidence is disputed.
These newest discoveries are a bit hard to refute though, considering at least 2000 stone
tools have been found inside the Mexican cave, and they all date from between 25,000 and
32,000 years.
There are some missing pieces to this puzzle that’s for sure!!
1: The Ramesseum The Ramesseum is the burial temple dedicated
to Ramesses II.
It was originally intended to be the Mortuary temple of the great king when he died, but
it was also a temple dedicated to Amun.
And even though we know it as the Ramesseum, the Egyptians actually called it the “House
of Millions of Years of Usermaatre Setepenre that Unites Thebes the City in the Domain
of Amun.”
And let’s be honest, that’s too much of a title for anyone.
The Ramesseum is one impressive temple.
It's absolutely huge.
Many of the statues have since been broken or destroyed, and yet the temple still stands
against time even though it was built thousands of years ago.
It's outer walls are decorated with depictions of military triumphs and old Egyptian gods.
The controversy here is that some people believe these depictions show an ancient war against
the Egyptians and a race of superior beings known as the Anunnaki.
There's absolutely no proof that the Anunnaki even existed, which is why the theory is so
controversial.
From a purely scientific and archaeological standpoint, the Anunnaki were nothing but
the gods worshipped by the old Mesopotamians, not beings from outer space that warred with
the ancient world and mixed their alien blood with humans.
The truth is that the depictions on the walls of the Ramesseum are not showing Egyptians
fighting alien gods.
They show Egyptians fighting other humans and dedicating their victories to their own
gods.
Thanks for watching!!
Which of these discoveries did you find the most interesting?
What are your thoughts on these debates?
Let me know in the comments and be sure to subscribe!!!
See you next time!