10: Cave Temple On Shodoshima Island in Japan, there is a
series of mysterious cave temples high up in the mountains.
These temples were originally occupied by monks, and to access them, some monks and
pilgrims climbed up the sheer rock faces using chains just to reach them.
Inside the safety of the caves, the monks meditated in privacy, far from the prying
eyes of society.
Nowadays accessing the temples for either pilgrimage or tourism is much easier, since
there are real roads and stairs.
But centuries ago, it was incredibly difficult to get here.
The first main group of temples are on the southeast part of the island, gathered on
a group of peaks about 1500 feet (457 m) high.
These temples are hardly noticeable from the ground, tucked into the niches in the rock.
One of the temples, simply called Temple 1, was dedicated to Kobo Daishi, the famous founder
of Shingon Buddhism.
Legend has it that a mysterious spring inside the cave was created by Kobo himself when
he struck the ground with his staff and released a clean flow of water from within.
The most mind-boggling site is the Konpira Shrine, standing at the top of the mountain,
where it looks impossible for any human to have ever built anything.
It is honestly incredible how anyone could have climbed up the cliff face with construction
materials.
Nevertheless, the shrine still stands today in a rock crevice - mysterious and fascinating.
9: Mesopotamia’s First Empire Archaeologists in Iraq recently discovered
an ancient lost city below the modern Iraqi city of Kurdistan.
The ruins were found at the edge of the Zagros Mountains and were part of Mesopotamia's first
empire some 4000 years ago.
The hidden settlement was found by a French mission which had been active in the area
since 2012.
Ever since Iraq opened up to scientists, archaeologists have been busy trying to hunt down lost archaeological
sites like this one.
Initial excavations suggest the place was a thriving city populated by mountain people
at the western edge of Mesopotamia's border.
Researchers discovered the foundations of buildings, ancient tablets, artifacts, and
evidence of livestock farming and irrigation.
The tablets have proven to be interesting because they appear to be records of trading
between merchants, with items such as flour listed in ancient writing.
Based on the location of the settlement, it was probably part of the Akkadian Empire.
This was the first true empire that ruled the Mesopotamia region, stretching from the
edge of Turkey to the Persian Gulf.
While little is known about the place, it was sizable, with a few thousand residents.
Archaeologists will need to do more excavations throughout the area to see just what kind
of role the settlement played in the Akkadian Empire.
8: The Naneghat Hills The Naneghat Hills rise nearly 3000 feet (914
m) above sea level in India, and are part of an ancient mountain pass filled with water
cisterns, mysterious caves, and ancient ruins that have long since been destroyed.
The very peak of the Naneghat Hills is at the top of a cliff overlooking a vast landscape
of green forests and rolling pastures.
These days, it's a popular place for hikers and rock climbers – but the history of the
hills goes back much further.
Ancient traders moving through India were forced to cross over the Naneghat Hills.
Because so many caravans moved along the route, it's no surprise that buildings cropped up
here and there.
Merchants would spend the night in caves or at outposts set up in the misty plateaus.
In fact, the name Naneghat roughly translated means “coin pass,” as the area acted as
a sort of toll booth between trading regions.
But one of the most mysterious caves goes back even further, to around the 1st century
BC, during the Satavahana dynasty.
There are inscriptions in this cave believed to be roughly 2000 years old.
These inscriptions have fascinated historians for one main reason.
According to specialist Georg Buhler, the inscriptions are some of the oldest historical
writings in western India.
The inscriptions speak of Vedic deities and Hindu deities, linking the two religions.
This is important because it proves that even with the rise of Hinduism, the older Vedic
ideas were still practiced into the 1st century BC.
7: The Rock of Guatape The Rock of Guatape, or known in Spanish simply
as El Penol, is an incredible place in Colombia.
Though it isn’t exactly a mountain, it is remarkably similar to one.
It's actually an enormous rock that weighs about 10 million tons and was once worshiped
by the Tahamies Indians as a god, centuries before the Spaniards ever showed up.
The Rock of Guatape is the tallest thing for miles around, visible from nearly everywhere
from the surrounding town of Guatape, Colombia, about two hours outside of Medellin.
At the highest point of the rock, it has an elevation of 7,005 ft (2135 m) above sea level.
A staircase built into the stone made up of 659 steps leads to the top, La Piedra Del
Penol.
The view from the top of the staircase is astounding, offering panoramic viewing of
the surrounding countryside.
Residents turned the rock into a tourist attraction.
There is some other rather unusual history associated with the rock.
The letters G and I appear painted on the side, but it was actually the beginning of
the name of the town Guatape that was being painted - however, a mob from a neighboring
town that also claimed the rock, El Penol, interrupted the process, so only the single
stroke of the U was completed.
The two towns have had a longstanding dispute over the location.
6: Plane Wreckage In one of the most remote parts of India’s
Himalaya Mountains, a missing plane from World War Two was just recently discovered.
The plane crashed into the mountains roughly 80 years ago, in 1945.
Tragically, there were no survivors.
A search followed the initial crash but was called off because it was lost too high up
in the mountains.
None of the bodies of the 13 people onboard the C-46 transport were ever found.
It was a US adventurer named Clayton Kuhles who led the mission after being approached
by the son of one of the people who died on board.
The expedition took several months, especially since Clayton didn't know exactly where to
look.
He and his team of guides had to wade through rivers up to their chest and camp in freezing
caverns at extraordinarily high altitudes in their search.
Three of the guides unfortunately died from hypothermia when they got caught in a snowstorm.
But through all the hardship, the team finally came across the plane near the mountain top.
They identified the wreckage by the tail number, though the aircraft was in pretty harsh shape.
Pieces of it were scattered across the rocks and snow.
And even though it's been identified, the adventurer didn't find any bodies.
They're likely still there, hidden under the frozen terrain.
Do you think it was worth all the death and misery to give closure to the families of
the original crash, or was it simply more tragedy added to the original?
Let me know your thoughts on this mountain discovery in the comments and don't forget
to subscribe before the end of the video!
5: Pre-Hispanic Ruins On a mountaintop in Mexico, experts recently
investigated stone monuments estimated to be over 1500 years old.
It wasn't actually the experts that found the monuments, but a group of villagers who
recognized the two stone artifacts as being ancient and called the professionals in to
investigate.
Archaeologists now believe the mountaintop site was once a major place of importance.
They believe there were seven pyramids here, a massive ceremonial center, and a full games
court.
It was inhabited by the Zapotecs, the people who dominated Central Mexico in the area of
what is today Oaxaca.
If you've ever heard of the great ruins of Monte Alban, they were left behind by the
Zapotecs.
Direct descendants of the Zapotecs still live today in the thousands and throughout the
region.
Some descendants have preserved and can still speak their ancient language.
Sadly, the pyramids and games court and any other structures that may have stood at the
mountaintop are long gone.
The only thing still standing are faded stones and the carvings left on them.
By comparing the carvings to others from the Zapotecs, researchers believe they were meant
to represent the god of the underworld.
It's unclear what all this means right now.
The stones were uncovered at the top of Cerro de Pena Mountain, at a height of 6000 feet
(1828 m).
The site would have been hidden in the 6th century and only accessible via a rocky path
nearly three hours straight up.
It was likely of great ritual importance, and definitely had something to do with the
lord of the underworld.
4: Giant Prehistoric Crocodiles New evidence has revealed that in the Canadian
province of British Columbia, located just north of the US state of Washington, there
were once giant crocodiles.
Fossils of terrifying creatures have been discovered in the mountainous Peace Region
of BC, near Tumbler Ridge.
These weren't simply crocodiles, they were mega prehistoric crocodiles.
The fossils aren’t of actual bones, but tracks left behind by the crocodiles around
95 million years ago.
Researchers also found the tracks of ankylosaurs and turtles.
But it's the crocodiles that really stood out.
Based on the distance between each claw impression, researchers say the body was roughly 36 feet
(11 m) long.
That makes it about twice the size of any living crocodile today!
It would have been a major apex predator, and not something you would want to tangle
with.
3: The Super Mountains Scientists have made a bizarre discovery of
something they’re calling “super mountains.”
This discovery isn't something found IN the mountains, but a set of actual ancient mountains
that are long gone.
Researchers published their findings in a scientific journal, detailing a previously
unknown mountain range that they've named the Nuna Supermountains.
The mountain range existed 1.8 billion years ago.
These great mountains existed on an extremely old continent called Nuna, which combined
modern pieces of land from Africa, Eurasia, South America, and Australasia.
While the mountains may not have actually been taller than the Himalayas, they were
certainly longer.
While the height remains uncertain, in terms of sheer scale, they made the Himalayas look
like a pile of sand on the beach.
They were about three times longer than the entire Himalayan Mountain range, stretching
roughly 4500 miles (7242 km).
Here's another interesting piece of information.
The research team discovered that the mountains existed at the same time as a major evolutionary
change on the planet.
It was right around the time that life began figuring itself out in a very small way.
Scientists from Australian National University believe it was the crumbling destruction of
this mountain range that actually helped develop early planetary life.
As the mountain built up and then broke apart, the erosion and sedimentation leaked substances
like phosphorus into the ancient oceans.
It was a lot of moving pieces, and it likely all worked out to spur on the creation of
the first single-celled organisms.
2: A Very Scary Plant An entirely new type of carnivorous plant
has been discovered living high up in mountain bogs.
The flower, called false asphodel, lives in the wetlands of western North America at high
altitudes.
It can be found all the way from the mountains in California to the mountains of Alaska.
And although the plant itself has been known to scientists for at least 100 years, no one
ever knew it was actually a carnivorous plant.
It wasn't until botanist Qianshi Lin began investigating the mysterious mountain flower
that she realized it’s a meat eater.
By closely studying the false asphodel, she discovered that it gets most of its nutrition
from eating insects.
It has very sticky traps which it uses to catch bugs that land on it.
Then it slurps up their vital nutrients, getting about two thirds of its necessary nitrogen
from living victims.
1: Noah’s Ark Noah's Ark has been discovered in Turkey.
At least, that's according to biblical archaeologists who recently used ground penetrating radar
to look at Mount Tendurek.
According to some, it’s this very mountain which was described in the Bible as the location
where Noah landed his ark after the great flood described in the Bible’s Book of Genesis.
While the belief that this rocky formation is actual evidence of the biblical ark is
unconfirmed, the shape does look remarkably similar to that of a boat.
The team consists of researchers from both the US and Turkey, led by ark hunter Andrew
Jones.
Andrew says preliminary scans reveal some kind of massive object, almost definitely
artificial.
Unfortunately for Jones and his team, geologists aren’t buying the story.
They say that what the ark hunters are looking at is nothing but an ordinary rock formation.
Do you really think Noah's Ark is hidden under the dirt on a mountain in Turkey?
Let me know where you stand in the comments and don't forget to hit subscribe to help
support the channel!
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you again soon!