From a lake filled with mysterious skeletons to a secret fort found in Alaska – plus
a morbid discovery in a Chinese tomb!
Here are ten of the most shocking archaeological discoveries of all time!
10: India’s Skeleton Lake Just imagine heading out to the wild parts
of northern India for adventure and excitement.
As you pass by a remote glacier lake up in the Himalayas, a chill wind hits you.
It sounds like the howling of ghosts.
Suddenly, you see something strange at the edge of the lake.
It’s a human skeleton.
And it’s not alone.
There are hundreds of them!
This isn’t a fantasy, it’s reality.
In India, there is a horrifying lake in which hundreds of ancient skeletons have been found.
The lake is located in Roopkund, about 16,000 feet (5000m) above sea level.
The skeletons were first discovered by a British forest officer in 1942.
At the time, the lake was completely frozen.
When the ice melted in the summer, hundreds of skeletal remains were found floating aimlessly
in the water and piled around the edges of the lake.
It was immediately obvious that something awful had happened here.
The feeling was that the bodies were left over from some kind of war.
The British first thought they were Japanese soldiers who died of exposure while trying
to sneak through India.
Scared of a Japanese invasion, investigators were sent to Roopkund to get to the bottom
of it.
As it turned out, the skeletons were quite old.
Some of the flesh was preserved thanks to the cold air, but it was still obvious the
skeletons were probably centuries old.
It wasn't until 2004 when an expedition to the site recovered DNA evidence that indicated
the bodies are from around 850 AD.
They also discovered that those who had died here suffered similar fatal blows that left
cracks in their skulls.
To this day, nobody is really sure why these random people died, with one of the best explanations
being that a group of about 200 pilgrims died suddenly in a hailstorm that caused massive
balls of ice to crack their skulls open.
However, this has yet to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
9: Scottish Ceremonial Site The shocking discovery of a massive ceremonial
site in Scotland where locals gathered nearly 6000 years ago has left archaeologists in
disbelief.
The discovery was made by builders working on a by-pass near Galloway.
The size of the ceremonial complex is being compared to the huge Neolithic site of Orkney.
The area has a history going back over 8000 years.
In the center of the site was discovered a ceremonial complex, likely constructed in
3800 BC.
It would have been one of the most monumental structures in Scotland during its time, styled
like a cathedral and visited by the communities in the region for ritual activities.
However, it's not clear what kinds of rituals went on here or what these early people were
worshiping.
There was hardly any physical evidence left other than a series of post holes discovered
by the researchers.
But we also know that nearby, there have been some of the earliest houses in Britain discovered,
huts that date back to around 6800 BC.
This was when humans first started settling Scotland.
This newfound monument was one of their first and most successful shots at a religious complex.
8: Ancient Camel Skeleton In Austria, the shocking remains of an ancient
camel skeleton have been found inside of a refuse pit.
The skeleton is over 300 years old and dates back to a time when the Ottomans invaded Vienna.
The preserved skeleton was taken from the refuse pit in the small Austrian town of Tulln
on the banks of the Danube River just before the construction of a new shopping center.
From what researchers have been able to put together, the skeleton had probably been used
as a riding animal during the Osmanic-Habsburg Wars of the 17th century, back when the Ottoman
Empire was trying to expand into Europe.
Scientific estimates place the death of the animal in 1683, during the Siege of Vienna.
The reason the discovery is so shocking and interesting is that it's the first complete
camel skeleton ever found in Central Europe.
There have been some isolated camel bones found previously in places like Serbia and
Belgium.
But there have never been camels found of this nature this close to central Europe.
Even more fascinating is that the camel was a type of hybrid between two similar species.
This means that for the citizens of Tulln, the camel would have been an extremely exotic
beast.
They wouldn't have known what to think about such a creature, but it probably terrified
them, especially when violent Turkish warriors were riding it!
7: Rare Viking Treasure Hoard A rare hoard of Viking artifacts has been
found on the Isle of Man and declared a national treasure.
The hoard was buried sometime around 950 AD and then discovered in late 2020 by Kath Giles
and her metal detector.
She was shocked when her metal detector started beeping and she reached into the dirt to discover
some seriously impressive jewelry worth an absolute fortune.
She found a gold arm ring, a silver armband, and even a large silver brooch.
These artifacts will be going into the local Manx Museum to be put on display.
But why was there such a huge hoard of artifacts from the Vikings on such a small island?
Kath did find more than just those three pieces of jewelry, it's just that those were the
most impressive finds.
The reason the Viking treasure was found here, on the tiny, self-governing dependency stuck
between Great Britain and Ireland, is because the Vikings settled the island during the
9th century and began a trade network with Britain.
There have also been burials from the Viking age excavated on the Isle of Man.
Archaeologists have uncovered proof of their Pagan traditions as well.
At the moment, all signs point to this hoard, which has been nicknamed the Giles Hoard,
as belonging to a wealthy Viking trader who must have hidden his loot and then either
forgot about it or never got the chance to dig it back up.
What would you do if you lost a priceless treasure?
How would you get over it?
Or would you be depressed for the rest of your life?
Tell me what you’d do in the comments below.
Then remember to subscribe to Talltanic if you haven’t already for more exciting and
wild videos!
6: Shocking Chinese Tomb Archaeologists working in Yangquan, China
made a shocking discovery when they found a tomb shaped like an octagon with its walls
covered in some very disturbing murals.
These murals date back 700 years to when China was ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan
and his great Mongol horde.
The tomb has a roof shaped like a pyramid.
The ceiling is decorated with images from the cosmos, such as the moon and stars.
One of the more disturbing murals found within the tomb depicts parents trying to bury their
very young son while he's still alive.
Other murals show life in ancient China while under Mongol rule.
There are plenty of normal images of musicians playing music, tea being made, and camels
transporting people and products.
And what's truly interesting about these murals is that the people are wearing Mongol attire
rather than Chinese fashions.
That means the murals were likely made after 1314 when the Mongol rulers issued a dress
code to segregate Mongol and Chinese.
As for who was buried inside the tomb, nobody knows.
There were no bodies or skeletal remains found inside.
The tomb was probably made for a husband and wife, but it’s impossible to say just what
happened to their bodies.
They may have been looted by graverobbers centuries ago.
5: Hippo Graveyard Greek and Cypriot scientists were recently
trying to understand the mystery of why a graveyard of dwarf hippopotamuses was found
at a local dig site outside the popular resort of Ayia Napa.
Paleontologists found about 80 skeletons of dwarf hippos and say there could be hundreds
more just beneath an exposed layer of fossils stuck in the crevice of an ancient coral reef
that is now fossilized above the coastline.
The fossils appear to date back to 11,500 BC – and apparently, they could give researchers
clues as to when humans first began wandering onto Cyprus, an island nation in the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea.
To understand exactly what's going on here, it's important to understand that the hippo
fossils were found inside of a collapsed cave.
It's also important to note that these hippos were significantly different from modern hippos.
You would recognize them, but they’d make you scratch your head if you ever saw them!
They were smaller and had evolved to wander around on land instead of swim to the water.
They could even stand on their hind legs to reach the food from tree branches.
What researchers don't understand is how the hippos made it all the way from Turkey and
Syria to the island of Cyprus.
The only way would be if they somehow clung to tree branches and then paddled across the
enormous stretch of water.
Either that, or the hippos could have already been on the island and human beings living
there far before scientists had previously thought drove them to extinction.
This would explain why so many of them were found in a mass graveyard; they may have been
hunted.
4: Constantine’s Finger A large statue of Constantine the Great has
been reunited with its finger after they were separated for over 500 years.
The statue rests inside the Capitoline Museum in Rome.
Its finger has been kept inside the Louvre Museum in Paris ever since 1863.
The history of the statue and its finger is incredibly strange.
The Louvre first got the finger from an Italian art collector.
But it wouldn't be for almost 150 years that the artifact was recognized as a finger.
Experts had actually thought it was a Roman toe from some unknown statue.
Doctoral student Aurelia Azema finally connected the finger to the statue of Constantine the
Great, and the Louvre has since handed the finger over.
It’s probably the longest time between a finger being removed and then reattached to
anything, ever!
As for the precious statue itself, it probably lost its finger back in 1584 when it sustained
damage after being moved from its original position to a column along what is known as
the Appian Way, one of the major roads in the Roman Empire.
3: Golden Greek Crown A pensioner in Britain recently made the shocking
discovery of a lifetime when he found a golden crown from ancient Greece hiding in a cardboard
box, wrapped up in some dirty old newspaper.
The box had been sitting under his bed for years.
He’d received the artifact from his grandfather but had never really thought much of it, according
to what he told Daily Mail.
Then when he was moving some things around, he thought it might be a good idea to get
the crown appraised.
It turned out to be worth over $200,000.
The crown, first of all, is pure gold.
It's around 8 inches (20cm) in diameter and crafted by hand.
It comes from the era of Alexander the Great, during the Hellenistic period around 323 BC.
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no information on where the man’s grandfather acquired
such a beautiful treasure.
He traveled quite a bit throughout the 1940s and 50s in Greece and Macedonia, and so it's
assumed he picked it up from there.
But who it had belonged to 2000 years ago and how it managed to remain in perfect condition
throughout the centuries is an absolute mystery.
These types of crowns were used sometimes as offerings, left at the graves of famous
aristocrats.
2: Secret Alaskan Fort Radar recently helped to unearth a mysterious
Alaskan fort that had been built as a bulwark by the indigenous tribes who battled against
Russian invaders.
That’s right, native Alaskans fought the Russians at the frozen edge of the world over
200 years ago!
This shocking discovery was built by Alaska’s Tlingit people during the turn of the 19th
century.
The fortification had been used as a defensive barrier against encroaching Russian forces.
It was only found today because of new advances in radar and imaging technologies.
It hasn't actually been dug up or excavated yet, seeing as it's nothing but rotted pieces
of wood, but now researchers know it's there – or that it at least stood in that spot.
But what happened back in the early 1800s?
In 1799, Russia invaded Alaska.
At the time, Alaska was still populated by the indigenous people.
The Russians were interested in fur trading, and they had already basically killed all
the indigenous in Siberia, so they weren't above wiping out another entire group of people
just to trade some furs, similar to what the British and French were doing in the rest
of the continent.
But this impressive fort helped to push the invaders back in 1802.
Sadly, when the Russians came back in 1804, with supplies provided by British traders,
the Tlingit people fell and Russia staked their claim to Alaska.
Of course, that’s before they sold it to the United States in 1867 for a whopping $7
million.
That’s a lot of land for only 7 million bucks!
How would you like to own all of Alaska for a mere 7 million dollars?
Of course, that’s over 130 million dollars in today’s money, but even then, it seems
like a bargain to me!
1: Ancient Roman Safe The curious remains of a wooden safe once
used during the days of the Roman Empire to safeguard jewelry, luxury clothing, essential
documents, and other valuables, has been uncovered inside an ancient Roman villa in Spain.
It’s someone’s secret safe deposit box, from over 1600 years ago!
The villa dates back to the 4th century, when Rome still occupied what is today Spain.
It was a place to keep all of a person’s valuables.
It was made of wood, decorated with bronze, and locked with metal.
Sadly, it burned to a crisp when the luxury villa caught on fire.
This is an important discovery because not many safes like this have been found intact.
And even though this one wasn't technically intact, it was still in shockingly good condition
all things considered.
Only a handful of other pieces have been found, with one of them preserved almost to perfection
in Pompeii.
Unfortunately, we don't know what was kept inside of this particular safe.
For the past several hundred years, everything inside of it has been decaying, except for
some scraps of metal from its exterior.
What could have been inside?
Let me know what you think!
Which of these discoveries did you find the most fascinating?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching.
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