10: Montezuma Castle Montezuma Castle in Arizona stands 90 feet
(27.4 m) above the valley floor and is one of the most fascinating structures built by
ancient people in North America.
Interestingly enough, it was Teddy Roosevelt in 1906 who gave the presidential office the
power to create national monuments.
One of the very first ones he chose was Montezuma Castle in Camp Verde.
Teddy Roosevelt, one of the greatest presidents in history, recognized the importance of this
historical place and wanted to preserve it for all the generations to come.
Despite its name, Montezuma Castle is not really a castle in the traditional sense.
It doesn't have spire towers and huge ramparts.
Instead, it's more of a cliff fortress, a large settlement carved into the side of a
massive piece of rock over 1000 years ago.
But that’s not the only part of this place’s name that’s a little misleading.
When archaeologists first came upon it, they thought the cliff fortress had been built
by the Aztec, hence the name Montezuma.
But in reality, it was the indigenous Sinagua people of the Verde Valley who built the structure.
The reason they built it high up on the limestone cliff is actually pretty simple.
They used the place like a modern apartment building, only reachable by a series of really
long fire escapes.
If they ever came under attack by a rival tribe, they could simply scurry up their ladders,
pull the ladders up, and then hide in their castle until the threat was gone.
9: The Walls of Uruk The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient piece
of literature that tells the mythological tale of a Mesopotamian demigod, a superhuman
named Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh completes a number of tasks and goes on many adventures, with one of his greatest
adventures being oddly similar to that of Noah in the Bible.
It’s said Gilgamesh survived a great deluge that wiped away much of the life on the planet,
a flood of what you might call biblical proportions.
Another thing Gilgamesh accomplished is building the great outer walls of the city of Uruk
to defend all the people of Mesopotamia from their enemies.
Now, we can't say if Gilgamesh really existed.
He supposedly lived 126 years and completed nearly as many impossible labors as Hercules.
Some historians have even speculated that the Greek hero Hercules is based on the figure
of Gilgamesh.
Other historians say Gilgamesh was the 5th king of Uruk, whose influence was so grand
and his deeds so profound that he transcended the world of man and became legend.
Whatever the case with Gilgamesh, we know Uruk was real.
It was the largest settlement in Mesopotamia around the year 4500 BC and did indeed have
huge, powerful walls to keep out enemies.
The walls were so large that the story of them has lasted over 6000 years.
The sad part is that there's almost nothing left of these great walls today except their
foundations.
8: Gumusler Gumusler is a Byzantine cave monastery carved
out of solid rock in the modern country of Turkey.
It was constructed not that long ago, only about 1300 years ago, you know...
It became a center for religious learning and home to a group of monks.
But what makes the monastery truly unique is the way it was built.
It was carved out of a single rock formation and consists of a massive square courtyard
in the center, a church, and a subterranean lair of rooms, passageways, crypts, and dwellings
for the monks.
It's almost a subterranean cave city.
The monastery was built after the fall of the original Roman Empire and during the reign
of the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire.
After Rome fell and chaos swallowed Europe, a new power rose from the ashes miles away
from Italy, in Turkey, with its capital being Constantinople, what’s today called Istanbul.
Researchers believe there were three different master artists involved in painting the artwork
found within the monastery here.
These artists were so good that over a millennium later, their works are still some of the best-preserved
frescoes in the region.
They depicted scenes of Christ, heavenly angels, gospel writers, Mary, and the disciples.
The cave monastery remained a complete secret to the western world until 1962 when the artwork
was published by a local Turkish historian.
7: The Sechin Culture Pyramid In Peru’s northern province of Casma, archaeologists
discovered a mysterious ancient pyramid structure about 5000 years old.
They believe this incredible structure came from the very first Andean civilization to
ever rise in Peru, the Sechin culture.
Historians know very little about the Sechin.
While they built some of the first monumental buildings in South America, and they may have
been the first complex society on the continent– that’s pretty much the extent of our knowledge.
The issue is that all their buildings are so old that they've either been ruined, completely
buried, or used as material for newer structures after the Sechin vanished.
The Sechin people left behind very little in the way of artwork, and nothing written.
This pyramid was discovered deep under the ground.
A team of special archaeologists and excavators had to dig down roughly 18 feet (5.5 m) and
move huge pieces of stone out of their way just to get to the steps of the pyramid.
But despite being buried under dirt for so long, the pyramid is in shockingly good condition.
It was about 15 feet (4.57 m) wide at the bottom and 10 feet (3 m) tall.
This might be obviously quite a bit smaller when compared to later pyramids in Egypt and
Mesoamerica, it is still a pyramid.
The pyramid was not the only thing archaeologists uncovered during excavations.
They also found human skulls and evidence of sacrifices.
One of the skeletons appeared to have had their limbs severed while they were still
alive!
Researchers believe this miniature pyramid may have been one of the first sites in Peru
used for human sacrifices.
All the brutal killings that came later – the mere idea of sacrificing a human life to appease
a god – may have begun right here on the top of this very pyramid.
6: The Temple of Hera The Temple of Hera is one of the coolest and
strangest monuments ever built by the powerful ancient Greeks.
Construction on the temple began in the 7th century BC, and it was originally used for
the worship of both Zeus and Hera.
It was also originally made out of wood.
But over the years, the wood was replaced with stone.
Zeus was eventually pushed out in favor of his wife, and the master of Olympus got his
own temple built nearby.
A huge statue of Hera was built, with her giant head being discovered in modern times
buried underneath the temple.
The temple’s main purpose, other than being an altar of worship to Hera, was for storing
the most important items in Greek culture.
It was almost like a museum, holding extremely valuable objects as well as offerings to Zeus
and Hera.
There was a great statue of Hermes holding the baby Dionysus stored in the temple’s
basement, a small bronze disc called the Iphitus of Elis, and a table of olive wreaths from
each victor of the Olympic Games.
In fact, the temple was such an important part of Olympic culture in Greece that it
is still used today to light the Olympic flame.
Sadly, the temple is in pretty rough shape.
During the Roman period, they shut the temple down because of their persecution of pagans.
Then in the 4th century AD, it was all but destroyed by an earthquake.
5: The Beehive Tombs of Oman The beehive tombs of Oman are mysterious yet
captivating.
They can be found in the rugged, mountainous interior of the Arabian Peninsula, at one
of the most impressive and least-investigated archaeological sites in the Middle East.
The entire area is dotted in these unusual tombs that look like standing beehives.
According to the researchers, these tombs are the leftover remnants of an ancient civilization
that once ruled the desolate landscape here.
These days, the closest functioning city is 15 miles (24 km) from the tombs.
And even though I say city, it’s not exactly a bustling metropolis.
That makes the tombs isolated and far from major civilization.
But that wasn't always the case.
These used to be necropolises belonging to a powerful Bronze Age civilization.
UNESCO has declared the whole area a fossilized Bronze Age landscape, while the archaeological
evidence says this was once the land of Magan, spoken of in ancient Akkadian cuneiform texts.
The land of Magan was described by the ancient kings of Mesopotamia and their scribes as
a place of great resources and hungry for conquest.
4000 years ago, there was a lot more than beehive tombs here.
There would have been towers, settlements, cities, and all kinds of amazing constructions.
The issue is that time has not been friendly to the land of Magan.
Everything except the tombs has been reduced to rubble.
And now for number 4 but first if you are new here welcome, and be sure to subscribe
if you haven’t already for more videos about amazing archaeological discoveries!
4: The City of Nakum The entire city of Nakum was a brilliant feat
of engineering on the part of the Maya.
A recent study has shown how engineers in Nakum constructed the city to direct rainwater
from the tops of buildings and other structures into nearby reservoirs to be used by the residents.
The rulers of the Maya Kingdom represented themselves as rain makers.
They were the ones who made the rains come, they were the ones who spoke to the gods,
and they were the only ones that could keep everyone eating.
Without them and their connection to the gods, the rains would stop and everyone would starve.
To help maintain their image, the rulers of Nakum transformed the city into a water paradise.
Just about every single building has a system for collecting water and funneling it into
a reservoir or some other catchment system.
They used every piece of ingenuity at their disposal to capture and redirect every drop
of rainwater that fell from the sky.
They sloped patios and plazas, they dug ditches and gutters, and they made sure their people
had consistent access to drinkable water and fresh crops.
3: Abu Simbel When you think of ancient Egypt, the archaeological
sites that come to mind are probably pyramids and tombs.
But there's one ancient temple complex that should really get more attention than it does.
It's called Abu Simbel, and it's one of the strangest and most impressive structures ever
completed by the Egyptians.
Perhaps one of the reasons it doesn't get too much attention is that it's on the other
side of the country, hundreds of miles south of the pyramids at Giza.
When you're in Egypt, the only way to reach Abu Simbel is by taking a 12-hour train ride
from Cairo to Aswan in the south, within walking distance to the border of Sudan.
Here, you can see a pair of massive temples and huge statues so big they’ll take your
breath away.
The site was originally created under the rule of Ramesses II, around the year 1264
BC.
The temples may have been built to celebrate Ramesses’ great victory against the Hittite
Empire at the Battle of Kadesh.
However, archaeologists can't agree.
They also believe the huge temples may have been built as a symbol of Egyptian power,
right on the border of ancient Nubia.
Whatever the case, it took at least 20 years to build the temple complex.
Two of the temples are dedicated to the Egyptian gods Ra and Ptah.
One is dedicated to Ramesses II himself.
And finally, a smaller temple was dedicated to his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari.
2: Por Bajin Por-Bajin is by far the most mysterious archaeological
site anywhere in Russia.
The ruins of Por-Bajin are on a small island in the center of Tere-Khol Lake, originally
built by the local Tuvan population.
The place was first discovered in 1891, and is believed to have once been a great military
fortress.
It is a huge rectangle with tall walls completely unreachable except by boat.
It would have made an easily defendable outpost back in the 8th century AD.
But modern excavations have revealed more questions than answers.
Archaeologists have been puzzled by a distinct lack of evidence of human life.
They haven't found scraps of pottery or random personal belongings.
It almost seems as though nobody lived here.
If this really was a military fortress on a secluded island in a Siberian lake, something
would have been left behind.
Recently, opinions have started to change.
Researchers now believe this was no military fortress at all, but designed to be a Buddhist
temple complex.
However, it may never have even been used.
By analyzing isotopes inside wooden timbers used for the site’s foundation, researchers
dated it to approximately 777.
That was during the rule of Tengri Bogu Khan.
But the khan was killed two years later after he converted to Manichaeism and his followers
rose up in opposition of this new and strange religion.
The point being: it was likely the khan who commissioned Por Bajin to be built.
Then, when it was finally finished, he was killed and none of his people were interested
in using it.
1: The Churches of the Knights Templar Matera, a perfectly modern Italian city, has
been inhabited since the Neolithic era.
And even though it looks like a nice place to live today, it was once called the shame
of Italy because of the poor living conditions and widespread poverty there in the 1950s.
But we're here to talk about the city's more ancient structures.
Within the borders of Matera are over 150 churches and other old stone structures, many
of them carved into the natural rock walls of the city.
There are dozens and dozens of cavern churches that were chiseled from the rocks centuries
ago, and still exist to this very day.
Some of the cave-like structures have even been converted into chic hotels.
One of the most mysterious of these structures is a complex called Convicinio di S. Antonio.
It consists of four churches and subterranean crypts.
One of them, called the First Church, is decorated in equilateral crosses, a symbol used by the
Knights Templar.
Although it’s unclear whether the Knights Templar ever made use of the churches and
their crypts, there does seem to be some connection.
Which of these ancient and mysterious civilizations do you think built the most impressive structures?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thanks for watching today’s video.
Be sure to come back for more, and remember to subscribe if you haven’t already!
See you soon, bye!