From a creepy new discovery found carved in an Egyptian cliff to a mysterious gateway
to hell!
Here are ten of the most amazing archaeological sites you’ve probably never heard of!
10: Mysterious Egyptian Chambers A team of archaeologists recently discovered
one of the strangest sites anywhere in Egypt.
The team was out in the desert, just west of Abydos, when they realized there were small
openings scattered along the highest side of a cliff.
These openings, from a distance, looked like square post holes.
They instead turned out to be entrances which led to mysterious chambers caved into the
rocky cliff.
These chambers are significantly larger than the archaeologists had expected, with some
of them having up to five rooms connected by passages cut into the rock.
The mysterious chambers were found just south of the ancient royal cemetery of Umm al-Qa’ab.
They contain no decoration and no clues as to what they were used for.
Archaeologists found scraps of ceramics, the fragments of benches, and small nooks in the
walls where candles may have been placed.
Matthew Adams with the New York University Institute of Fine Arts said that after a careful
inspection, it was determined these chambers were not used as cemeteries.
There was no evidence that any bodies were buried or even entombed here.
Instead, the chambers probably held some great religious significance.
Because they were carved into the cliff so high off the ground, so difficult to get to,
they may have been used in extremely secret ceremonies.
The issue is that whoever performed these ceremonies left no evidence of their activities
behind.
As for how old the cliff chambers are, they've been dated back to between 323 and 30 BC.
9: Qumran Qumran is probably most famous as being the
place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
The archaeological zone of Qumran is located in the desert of Israel, right in the middle
between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
Remains here have been found dating all the way back to the Iron Age.
Qumran itself was established as a settlement in the Hellenistic period sometime around
200 BC.
It remained inhabited until 68 BC when the Romans showed up.
Archaeologists have uncovered structures, pottery kilns, many different houses, and
even an aqueduct system that had been used to bring fresh water to the desert city from
the fertile regions in the north.
The city was occupied by a Jewish sect called the Essenes, who wanted to separate themselves
from the big city and live in a commune situation.
They spent all of their time studying sacred scriptures, performing mysterious religious
rituals, and practicing celibacy.
But this wasn't a very big settlement.
Only about 200 people lived here, and they are the ones who created the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scrolls were written just before the failed Jewish revolt in which the Jewish people tried
to gain independence from Rome.
The rebellion lasted from between 66 to 70 AD, with many of the Jews of the time being
forced to seek shelter in Qumran from the rampaging Romans who didn't really appreciate
being rebelled against.
Just before the Romans showed up to Qumran and destroyed their settlement, the Essenes
stashed over 200 sacred texts inside of jars and then hid them in various caves, where
they weren't discovered again until 1947 totally by accident by a couple of sheep herders.
8: Fortress of Solitude Some people refer to the most mysterious archeological
site in Russia as the “fortress of solitude.”
In reality, this bizarre fortress is called Por-Bajin, and it’s a bizarre ruin from
the medieval days that sits just 20 miles from the border of Mongolia.
The ruin is on a small island, which itself sits in the middle of a very remote lake high
in the Siberian mountains.
The walls of the medieval ruin still rise 40 feet above the ground.
The area within the walls is about 7 acres, with the remains of over 30 buildings creating
a bizarre stone labyrinth unlike anything else on Earth.
Por-Bajin is believed to have been built by local Uighur people, who were Turkic-speaking
nomads that once ruled a massive empire that comprised much of Mongolia and a huge piece
of Siberia.
The descendants of the Uighur people are now mostly restricted to living in western China,
though they were once a serious force to be reckoned with in the Far East.
The fortress was most recently excavated by Irina Arzhantseva from the Russian Academy
of Sciences.
She and her team have uncovered all kinds of amazing artifacts dated back to the middle
of the 8th century.
This was right at the end of the Uighur Empire’s power, as they began to decline in the year
848.
But unfortunately, nobody can say yet what the immense fortress island was used for.
It may not have had anything to do with the military, instead acting as a type of religious
sanctuary.
7: The Cave of the Sibyl The Cave of Sibyl was discovered in modern
times back in 1932 by an Italian archaeologist named Amedeo Maiuri.
The cave was probably constructed sometime around the 5th century BC, during a time when
Rome was heavily influenced by the Greeks.
Within the cave is a passageway cut from rock that goes on for almost 400 feet.
It runs parallel to the cliff face outside, with bizarre walls shaped like trapezoids.
At the very end of the corridor is a room with a vestibule and three small cells.
According to legend, this was the place where the prophet Sibyl would give her predictions.
In Roman lore, Sibyl was a priestess who acted as an oracle.
She toiled deep in the earth below Rome’s Temple of Apollo.
She would write her predictions on leaves and then display them at the entrance of the
cave.
Up until the discovery of her sanctuary, she was mostly thought to be a myth.
Archaeologists are now certain this person really did exist – although how powerful
her predictions were and how important she was to the Romans at the time is still a mystery.
6: Ancient Stone Structures Archaeologists from the University of Western
Australia and Perth believe they have just identified some of the oldest stone structures
anywhere in the world.
These structures were found in northwestern Saudi Arabia and were probably built during
the 6th Millennium BC for ritual purposes.
Archaeologists identified 350 stone structures from the air by using a helicopter, with another
641 being found thanks to satellite images and remote sensing technology.
In total, they uncovered at least 1000 of these bizarre pieces of ancient technology.
They vary in size, shape, and general appearance.
Some appear to be stone cubicles, others are standing stones, and all were built during
the Neolithic period.
Archaeologists say the structures were probably used as ancient animal pens that the people
would utilize to sacrifice wild and domestic animals to the unknown deities they once worshipped.
This is according to Hugh Thomas, one of the archaeologists involved in the study.
He says the structures are now the earliest evidence of Neolithic religious activity happening
in the Arabian Desert.
The big mystery is trying to figure out why these structures were built.
They are significant in size, suggesting large communities or big groups of people needed
to work together to build them.
This suggests social organization as well as a common belief system.
But considering this happened roughly 8000 years ago, it's impossible to say what had
motivated these people to build over 1000 megalithic stone structures just for the purpose
of sacrificing animals.
5: Ancient Stone Circle Archaeologists have made an amazing breakthrough
in discovering a mysterious stone circle that is even older than Stonehenge.
This was discovered in Turkey, with the experts saying the Neolithic archaeological site not
only predates Stonehenge, it predates everything ever built as the first temple in the world.
The structure is made up of a series of stone circles that were probably built in the year
9000 BC.
This is based on radiocarbon dating of organic material taken from the stonework.
That means 11,000 years before today, a mysterious group of ancient people built the first megalithic
structure in the history of the planet.
This happened 6000 years before anyone even got the idea to build Stonehenge.
The archaeological site is called Gobekli Tepe.
Jens Notroff from the German Archaeological Institute said that we today are closer to
the ancient people who built Stonehenge than they were to the people who built Gobekli
Tepe.
What else is truly amazing is that the people here built the stone circles without any proper
tools.
Metal hadn't been invented yet, there was no such thing as a wheel, and yet they managed
to bash stone together to create something truly impressive.
Who built it and why is still being debated by scientists.
What do you think about all these mysterious ancient circles??
Why do you think we humans love them so much??
Let me know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already for
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4: Lost Monastery The old seat of power for one of the most
influential women in English history was just discovered in a small village in Berkshire.
The discovery came in the form of a lost monastery where Queen Cynethryth once ruled.
The ruins of the monastery were found by a research team from the University of Reading.
They uncovered pieces of timber leftover from the buildings in which the monks and nuns
had lived, as well as pieces of jewelry, cooking items, and personal effects.
If you're wondering who Queen Cynethryth was, she was the wife of King Offa.
Together, they ruled one of the oldest kingdoms in English history, the Kingdom of Mercia.
This was roughly 40 years before the Vikings arrived in 793.
The rulers of Mercia were hellbent on distributing Christian values throughout the land.
The queen is fascinating for a number of reasons, not least of which is that she was one of
the first English female leaders who had a genuine status among the people and wielded
a significant amount of influence.
Archaeologists have found letters exchanged between King Offa and Charlemagne in France,
and Charlemagne always addressed the letters he sent to England to Offa and Cynethryth
both by name.
The newly discovered monastery was where the queen ruled over Mercia after her husband's
death until she died in the year 796.
It was found along the River Thames, at the exact place where the border between Mercia
and the Kingdom of Wessex once was.
3: Viking Drinking Hall Archaeologists in Scotland have uncovered
what they believe to be a Viking drinking hall.
The ruins were found during excavations on a farmstead in Orkney.
Researchers dug up stone walls, pieces of pottery, and even an old Norse bone comb.
Everything they found has been dated back to the 10th century, with the experts saying
the drinking hall may have been used by the famous Viking chieftain Sigurd.
To make things a little clearer, Orkney in Scotland was once a great seat of power for
the Norse empire.
Even today, many small towns in the region still have Norse names.
The land was only given back to the Scottish crown in the year 1468 when Christian I of
Denmark volunteered to give it up.
The people in the area have been closely linked to the Scandinavians who arrived in what is
today the United Kingdom back in the 8th century.
This newly discovered drinking hall is just one piece of what was once a huge Viking settlement.
1000 years ago, the Viking conquerors sat in this hall and shared flagons of ale.
2: Monte Testaccio Monte Testaccio is an ancient Roman garbage
dump.
There’s no easy way to put it, but for 250 years, Romans smashed their used terracotta
jars and dumped them on this specific hill.
It became known to the Romans as Monte dei Cocci, which translates roughly to “the
mountain of shards.”
It’s located today next to the Tiber River port, an area that had likely been used for
storing imported goods, things like olive oil.
Excavations from the 1990s revealed to archaeologists that the hill had been created intentionally
as an organized garbage heap.
The jars found here date back to between the years 140 and 250, though some layers of trash
underneath may be even older.
The jars also didn't come from Rome, but were instead imported from Spain, Tunisia, and
even Libya.
Archaeologists have estimated there at least 80 million pots smashed on the hill.
It stands 115 feet tall with another 45 feet of trash buried beneath the street level.
The hill was in use until around the year 500 when Rome was effectively destroyed.
The hill became a location for Pagan rituals and festivals, for feasts, and even for reenactments
of the crucifixion of Jesus.
It wasn't until the 1930s that an architect realized how important Monte Testaccio was
and had the whole place turned into a protected public park.
In modern times, a low budget has left the hill abandoned yet again.
1: Gateway to Hell The is an ancient sanctuary that was once
believed to be the gateway into hell.
In reality, this place was used for the mysterious cult ritual known as the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Today, the ploutonion is just an old cave in Athens with some crumbled stone lying out
front.
But back in the 6th century BC, the cave was thought to be used as a portal into the underworld.
Those who followed the Eleusinian Mysteries were part of the cult of Demeter – the goddess
of agriculture – and they believed the story in which Demeter’s daughter, Persephone,
was kidnapped by Hades and taken into the underworld.
Persephone basically became the queen of hell.
But her mother was extremely unhappy about her daughter being in the underworld.
So, Hades agreed to let Persephone out to be with her mother for six months out of the
year, and this of course ended up representing the agricultural cycle.
Demeter would not allow anything to grow while her daughter was in the underworld, representing
fall and winter.
In any case, The connection between the underworld, agriculture, and the seasons is all quite
closely intertwined.
It was in this cave where the mysterious Eleusinian Mysteries would be carried out.
Archaeologists and historians don't know what exactly these rituals looked like, but they
had something to do with regeneration, rebirth, and the coming of spring.
Unfortunately, the sanctuary here was closed in 392 AD when the Romans outlawed what they
considered to be Pagan activities.
The Romans then destroyed many of the places important to the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Would you dare walk into the gateway to hell?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and thank you for watching.
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