25 Most Mysterious Ancient Finds

Archaeologists have made a lot of discoveries about our ancient ancestors recently, and not all of those discoveries make sense. There are still gaping holes in our knowledge about the practices and customs of the people who came before us, and those holes are never more obvious than when we're staring at an artifact or discovery that we can't comprehend. Check out this collection of mysterious recent discoveries and see what you make of them. In September 2021, archaeologists in China's Sichuan Province completed excavation work at the site of six newly discovered sacrificial pits in the Changxingdui Bronze Age Archaeological Site. Among the many puzzling items pulled out of the pits is this artifact, which has been described as a sacred bronze tree. It's thought to have been made by the Xu culture, which existed here about 3,200 years ago. The tree had been smashed to pieces, so recovering the separate branches, flowers, trunk, ornamental birds, and solar wheel ornaments took four months. The job was made harder because the pieces of the tree had been deliberately disturbed between several layers of ivory. The complexity of the piece is astounding, and its significance is unknown. We know practically nothing about the Xu people because they had no written language. We believe that they worshipped the sun, and that the sun was flown into the sky every morning on the back of a bird, so the birds on this bronze tree might be connected to that belief. That's really just guesswork, though. It's a relic of a culture that we don't understand, and so how could we hope to understand their art? Witch hunts belong to a fascinating but shameful period of British history. They happened all over the British Isles in centuries past, and these artifacts tell us much about how they were performed in Scotland. In September 2021, the collection was assembled and put on display to the public for the first time. They include a set of stone charms, said to have been used by a witch to curse her neighbors, and a Gaelic prayer book that belonged to a wizard in the 16th century. Until now, the objects have been hidden in the archives of Aberdeen University. At least 3,800 people were formally accused of witchcraft in Scotland between the 1560s and the 1730s, most of whom were executed after show trials. The prayer book comes with a large key and is a more recent artifact dating to the 19th century that demonstrates that belief in witches and witchcraft continued here long after the trials stopped. Also in the collection is a 15th century spindle whorl, decorated with feather designs. Feathers were associated with healing charms but could also be used in curses. Most chilling of all are the collection's jugs, iron collars that were attached to the neck and used to secure alleged witches to walls while they were being held. An American court recently ruled that the Guinnell Stargazer idol can stay in the USA. Now that's been decided, perhaps we can finally get to the bottom of who made it and what it represents. The artifact is approximately 6,000 years old and is one of only 15 Anatolian marble female idols ever to be found. It's thought it was illegally looted from Turkey in 1993 by controversial billionaire Michael Steinhardt. The figure is called a stargazer because of its pose, looking up at the sky with its bulging eyes. It's thought to represent a Chalcolithic era goddess of abundance but that hasn't been proven. What we do know is that these figurines were usually smashed as part of a prehistoric ceremony, which is why they're usually found in tiny pieces. The fact that this example escaped that fate just adds to the sense of mystery around it. The fact that it's humanoid but not exactly human-like has long fascinated UFO enthusiasts. It's unlikely that this ancient work of art has extraterrestrial connections but we'd love to know its real story. On the Scottish island of Orkney, there's a 5,500-year-old tomb that's slowly falling into the sea. Nothing can be done to save it, so archaeologists face a race against time and nature to discover its secrets. Recently, they found two delicately carved and polished stone balls inside the tomb. They don't know why the balls were made but they join a collection of around 500 of about the same age that have been found all over Scotland during the past century. There are many competing theories about what the stones were used for but no conclusive answer. Some historians say they might have been fishing weights. Others say that they're projectiles for use in hunting. The lack of flaws or markings on the stones makes both explanations unlikely though, so the idea that they're sacred heirlooms passed on from one generation to another might be closer to the truth. There was a Neolithic settlement nearby at Kada Sand 6,000 years ago but no balls have ever been found there. The placement of the balls inside the tomb must mean something but we don't know what. The history of metal casting in Kerala, India goes back centuries. The precise methods used in the metal casting processes here are never written down. Instead, they're passed on verbally from generation to generation. That means the outside world doesn't understand how a lot of its beautiful artifacts were made. Take, for example, the Aranmula Kannadi mirror. It's said that when you look into it, you see yourself as you truly are. That's a mystical way of saying that its front reflection method eliminates the reversal process that happens when you usually look into a mirror. How this has been achieved is unknown. The mirror-making process is another of the region's secrets. Locals say that the mirror was made about 400 years ago inside the Aranmula temple and it's a sacred object, although how true that is is open to speculation. Replicas of it are still made to this day, all of which have the same properties. Some of them are of better quality than others but none will ever distort your reflection. The Indian government has granted patent protection to the mirror, so we'll never find out how it's done unless someone breaks with several centuries of tradition and tells us. Just when you think you've seen every possible kind of ancient Egyptian burial tradition, another one appears. In December 2020, archaeologists were surprised to find these so-called Conehead Egyptian burials in the ancient city of Amarna. They're thought to be significant because ancient Egyptian art frequently depicts people wearing cone-shaped headgear, but no evidence of any such headgear has ever been found until now. Prior to the discovery, it was generally thought that they were examples of artistic license, much like halos in early Christian art. Now that we know they're real, we have to try to work out what they mean and why they only appear to have been included in burials in this one city. Does the vaguely phallic shape of the cones have something to do with fertility? Might they have been intended to afford the wearer some kind of symbolic protection in the afterlife? The recent increased focus on archaeology in Egypt has given us plenty of information about the way that its ancient citizens went about their lives there, but finds like these remind us that we have still a long way to go in our quest for full knowledge. If you were to visit Abkhazia in the South Caucasus, you'd find hundreds of mysterious ancient dolmens. These dolmens run from here to the Taman Peninsula, and if you counted each one as you passed, you'd be into the thousands by the time you got to the end of the trail. The locals call them isbun, which translates into English as dwarf house. That's an accurate description of their appearance, but it can't have been the intended function of the stone structures. Archaeologists say that the dolmens were made during the Bronze Age, starting about 6,000 years ago and finishing about 4,000 years ago. Each structure consists of just one chamber, made from precisely cut stone blocks and then topped with a slab. Each of them has a porthole, but they can be square, rectangular, or round. Some of the dolmens feature petroglyphs, but many of them are blank. Nobody knows who built them, but candidates include the Koban culture of the Great Caucasus range, the Klynyar culture of the North Caucasus, or the Maikop culture that lived in the West. Not knowing who built them is a pretty big barrier to understanding why they were built. There's a cave in the Yucatan Peninsula that's covered in red and black handprints that were left on the walls around 1,200 years ago, and nobody knows why. It's reasonable to assume that the handprints were left by the Mayans, but beyond that, everything is guesswork. From studying the individual handprints, researchers have concluded that they belong to about 130 different people. The size of the prints might hold a clue. It's likely that all of them belong to children between the ages of 10 and 13, the age of puberty. Based on this, a new theory was put forward in May 2021 that proposes that the cave was a focus of ritual activity. The black prints represent the end of childhood, and the red prints celebrate the arrival of adulthood. The ritual activity theory is supported by the fact there's a saiba tree at the cave's entrance. The Mayans held these trees to be sacred, and so the cave would have been seen as a special place. It's a convincing theory until you consider that there are no other examples of these handprints anywhere else in former Mayan lands. Maybe there are other caves out there waiting to be discovered. Of all the ancient sites in the world, Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England has been studied more than most. That's why it was a surprise when new discoveries were made there in February 2021. A road tunnel is scheduled to be built close to Stonehenge soon, so archaeologists are surveying the area before the work begins. While doing so, they've located 4,500 years old burial ground and a strange enclosure. The graves are thought to be occupied by the Beaker people, so named because they buried their dead with pottery drinking vessels. The most complete grave is that of a woman who passed away in her 20s and was buried with the usual beaker, but also a copper needle and a shale cylinder that might once have been part of a club or staff. The unusual enclosure the archaeologists found is made up of a series of ditches to the south of the graves. The ditches were created about 1,000 years after the last of the burials, though, and are full of burned flint for reasons that the archaeologists can't even begin to guess at. It's possible that the buried Beaker people were involved in the construction of Stonehenge, but the presence of these younger ditches might indicate that the site was still used for ceremonial purposes several centuries later. We're off to the Dingle Peninsula of County Kerry in Ireland now, where a 3,000-year-old tomb was accidentally discovered by workmen in April 2021. The workmen were carrying out land improvements on a farm when their mechanical digger pulled up a large slab, revealing the tomb beneath it. Archaeologists say that the tomb hadn't previously been disturbed since the day it was sealed. Inside the tomb is a strange oval-shaped stone, the like of which hasn't been found in a burial from this era before. This is a chamber tomb and was probably intended to house several burials, but only one set of human remains was identified inside it. The polished stone was placed directly beside the person who was buried here in what was presumably a significant act. The design of the tomb has striking dissimilarities to other Bronze Age Irish tombs, too, including the fact that it's The presence of the stone and the atypical orientation of the grave imply that there was something special about the person buried inside it, but we'll probably never know what that special something was. In May 2021, archaeologists in Istanbul, Turkey excitedly began the process of excavating the They were hoping to find some relatively recent artifacts. Instead, they found something far more ancient. Hidden beneath the station's old waiting platforms is an as-yet unidentified ancient structure. Research is ongoing, but at the moment, the experts believe that the structure was built about 2,300 years ago. Its apsidillin form, which implies that it might be an ancient temple but doesn't confirm it. After expanding the dig, archaeologists found coins and pottery from the same era, spread over an area of 350,000 square feet. This was once part of the ancient port city of Chalcedon, also known as the Land of the Blind, on account of the fact that its founders chose to build it here rather than on this stunning Golden Horn Peninsula opposite it that later became Byzantium. Since it was a port city and busy with trade, it could be that the structure was a warehouse rather than a temple. More digging and more research are required before we reach any conclusions, and that process might take up to three years. This mask may or may not be ancient, and may or may not be a hoax. Someone clearly went to a lot of trouble to make it. But did they do so a few decades ago or a few hundred years ago? It was allegedly found close to the Iowa River in Marshall County, Iowa, USA in May 2021, and is now in the hands of local antique expert Frank White. Despite his years of experience and extensive connections, he hasn't been able to find any information about it whatsoever. An X-ray diffraction test has revealed it to be made of 99.8% pure copper, which explains why it's so heavy. But its age remains a mystery. People in North America's distant past did have access to copper, but making a mask like this could have been difficult, and there's no obvious reason for anyone to have done so. The remaining 0.2% of the mask's composition is an unknown material, which deepens the mystery. The pre-Columbian Hopewellian culture has been pegged as a possible source of the mask, but the facial features on it look European. The only thing anyone can agree on is that it's a beautiful mask. Have you ever wondered why so many ancient Egyptian statues are missing their noses? The absence of these facial features has puzzled many art historians over the years, leading to various speculations about the causes of this phenomenon. One possible reason is natural erosion, as the harsh elements of wind, water, and shifting sand dunes can cause damage to delicate materials like marble and stone. Over the course of thousands of years, these effects may have caused the extremities of these ancient statues to break off, leaving many with missing arms, legs, and noses. However, another major factor that cannot be ignored is human intervention, particularly vandalism. From the mutilation of Aristotle's statue in Turkey to the defacing of past Egyptian monarchs' statues, the act of removing noses and other facial features has been recorded throughout history. While some acts of vandalism were committed in religious fervor, others were done in attempts to erase or diminish the legacies of past rulers. Another theory suggests that early Egyptologists intentionally denied and hid the African origins of ancient Egypt by removing the noses from the statues. However, the same phenomenon can be observed in Greek and Roman statues, indicating that this may not be a case of racism, but rather an act of humiliation or destruction. No ancient civilization has been studied more than the Egyptians, and yet there are still new things to find out about this mighty race and its empire. We don't even fully understand some of the things we've found already, like the Temple of Qom-Ombo. The mummified remains of several hundred crocodiles were recently found underneath the temple, thus finally explaining some of the markings on the walls. Unusually for Ptolemaic-period Egypt, the temple is divided into two. We have two halls, two courts, two sanctuaries, and even two entrances. Half of the temple is devoted to worshipping Sobek, and the other half to Horus. The Sobek half of the temple is covered in crocodile paintings, but nobody could ever work out why. The paintings earned the temple the nickname, House of the Crocodiles. But until the crocodile remains were found, most historians just thought of the artwork as quirky and unexplained. What remains unexplained are the engravings of medical and surgical implements on the temple walls, which are said to be the oldest in the world. Were there two separate priesthoods here? Was one devoted to medicine and the other to crocodiles? If so, what did they have in common? We don't know much more about Tomb KV55 in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings today than we did when archaeologists opened it in 1907. The one body found inside the tomb has never been identified, and that's just the start of the problem. The body was found surrounded by artifacts and grave goods, but they all appear to be associated with different people. There's a gilded wooden shrine inscribed with a dedication to Queen Taiyi in one place, but there are also a pair of clay bricks marked with the name of Akhenaten. The casket is marked with the cartouche of Queen Qiya, but its occupant is male. If there's a clue to be found anywhere here, it's the fact that the DNA of the male is very similar to the DNA of Tutankhamun. That means it could be Smenkhare, Tutankhamun's brother. Smenkhare was to be the heir to Akhenaten, so a connection with him makes sense too. The presence of items connected to Queen Qiya and Queen Taiyi remains unexplained. It's almost as if someone hastily threw a corpse and a load of mixed-up burial goods into a tomb thousands of years ago and then sealed it up before anyone found out what they'd done. It's a little-known fact about Egyptian mummy discoveries that some of them have blonde or red hair. For a long time, it was thought that the coloring was a product of the mummification process, as scientists and historians both felt that the Egyptians could only have had black or very dark brown hair. We now know that isn't true. In 2016, Dr. Janet Davey from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Australia published a detailed study in which she demonstrated that the chemicals known to have been used in the mummification had no impact on hair coloring whatsoever. The hair colors must, therefore, be natural. That means there were blonde and red-headed people living in Egypt thousands of years ago, perhaps having started arriving there during the Greco-Roman period, which began 2,300 years ago. However, there's evidence that there were red-headed people in In the 19th century, the British Museum placed a mummy on public display and called him the Ginger on account of his red hair. The Ginger is more like 5,400 years old and may have lived during the very beginnings of the Egyptian civilization. Speaking of the very beginnings of Egyptian civilization, let's look at a discovery that took place in Gebel Ramla in the middle of the desert in 2019. It's not an especially pleasant discovery. It's the oldest-known infant cemetery in the world. The human remains buried here range between 6,000 and 6,600 years old. That's Egypt's Neolithic era, about which virtually nothing is known. Within these graves, though, the research team found decorative artifacts, including ornamental pottery, ostrich eggshell jewelry, precious stones, and seashells. They also found weapons made of stone and even makeup kits. Many of the places in Egypt that are believed to have been occupied during the Neolithic era have since been swallowed by the Nile. So, discoveries like this one offer archaeologists a rare opportunity to learn about the civilization that existed before the establishment of Egypt. We still don't know what to call this civilization, but based on their grave goods and the way they buried young children away from adults, it was clearly a sophisticated society. Archaeologists will still be finding tombs in Egypt a hundred years from now, and probably well beyond that, too. Some tombs are more interesting than others, though, and here's one that was discovered in Abydos in 2014. It's not much to look at from the outside, but back when it was built 3,300 years ago, none of what's currently visible at the site would have been visible. The entire tomb was once contained by a small pyramid, standing approximately 23 feet tall. Nothing remains of the pyramid, which suggests that it was deliberately demolished for reasons unknown, but the burial was left undisturbed. Fortunately, there was a finely crafted and well-preserved sandstone sarcophagus within the chamber, with hieroglyphic markings identifying the occupant as a scribe by the name of Horemheb. Curiously, Horemheb was buried with four other men, 12 women, and at least two children. It's impossible to be certain about the precise numbers, as their remains have been disarticulated and strewn around the burial chamber. Some of them have decomposed completely. Burials with small pyramids are usually associated with high-status burials, so it may be that Horemheb was a scribe with royal connections. It sometimes feels like the ancient Egyptians arranged their monuments to help future generations understand them. Why else would they leave engraved writing and illustrations everywhere? Even a location as humble as an amethyst mine, a place where slaves and common people were sent to work, contains written history, and one such discovery is currently puzzling researchers. Wadi al-Houdi has been explored many times in the past, but is so full of inscriptions and drawings that much of what's there has been missed by previous expeditions. The location would have been remote at the time it was active, with not even a well to supply water any closer than two miles away. The name of Pontius Pilate is carved into the wall, as well as many references to soldiers watching the workers as they toiled away. Most puzzling of all is a stone tablet, which is 3,400 years old, and makes reference to Usursutet, a noted viceroy of Kush. It's newer than any other carving or stone in the old mine by 500 years, suggesting someone must have deliberately traveled 30 kilometers into the desert to place it at the mine, long after the mine was abandoned. Who did that, and why? Speaking of mysterious writings and inscriptions, our next Egyptian discovery is the Cairo Genizah. Rather than being a monument, the Cairo Genizah is a collection of more than 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments that were once kept in the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo. The manuscripts cover North African, Middle Eastern, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries in deep detail. As well as recording important political events, the documents provide rare and unique information about economic and cultural life during those centuries. This is the largest collection of medieval manuscripts in the world, and it contains liturgical texts, secular texts, biblical texts, and rabbinic texts. There are even a few legal documents, private letters exchanged between individuals, and even school exercise books. A wide range of merchants' account books can also be found within the Cairo Genizah, revealing a trade network that stretched as far as Rouen in France. The big question is who started collecting these documents and why? And why did their successors then continue doing so for 1,300 years? The bulk of the collection is now in the Cambridge University Library in England. There are so many incredible things to see in the Egyptian city of Luxor that sometimes the smaller things get overlooked by tourists. One of them is Hatshepsut's Myrrh Tree. It's little more than a stump today, but Egyptian historians are convinced that it was brought back from Hatshepsut's expedition to Punt. That makes it around 3,460 years old. Modern-day historians aren't even totally sure where Punt used to be. It's described in Egyptian records simply as a land on the Red Sea, and might have stretched from Somalia across the Horn of Africa. The story of the pharaoh's visit to Punt is told in paintings on the walls of the nearby Grand Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, and there are depictions of myrrh trees in the paintings, so the story could be true. However, scientists can't verify the tree's age because they can't carry out tests on it without damaging it, and the Egyptian government isn't willing to do that. If the tree really does date back to the time of Hatshepsut, it's a surprising oversight by her successor, Thutmose III. He tried to erase all documents, monuments, and other references to Hatshepsut, but somehow missed the tree. The most famous pyramids in Egypt are the ones in Cairo, but they're far from the only pyramids in Egypt. It's just that they're larger and in better condition than almost all of the others. As an example, here's what's left of the Pyramid of Senusret II in Cajun. The pyramid was built 3,800 years ago while Senusret was still alive, which meant he could give it a name. Somewhat immodestly, he called it Ka-Senusret, which means Senusret Shines. Curiously, he chose to have his pyramid built in Cajun rather than Dashur, which is where the Pyramid of his father, Amenemhet II, is located. It's a significant break from a tradition that was already well-established by that point, and historians aren't sure of the reason for it. He also hid the entrance to the pyramid in an unusual place. Rather than being on the north face of the pyramid, which was standard for Old and Middle Kingdom pyramids, Senusret had the entrance concealed beneath the tomb of a princess buried a few hundred feet away. It's been speculated that this may have been a measure to guard the pyramid against grave robbers, but that's just a theory. We know from Egyptian historical records that the Benben stone was supposed to have supernatural qualities. It was once found in the Temple of Ra at Heliopolis, and was the first place that the rays of the sun struck every morning. The original stone is now long lost, but it influenced the design of several sculptures and statues that still exist in Egypt today, including the capstones of the famous pyramids. The stone is thought to have symbolized the phoenix, an important creature in Egyptian mythology because of its ability to survive death and return to the living. Some historians believe that the Benben represents the seed of the phoenix on account of the fact that ben loosely translates as fertilization in the language used at the time the Temple of Ra was built, thousands of years ago. One legend says that the Benben was the mound that rose from the waters of Nu when the great god Atum created the world. If you've ever heard the Stone of Destiny in folklore, they were references to this mystical stone. Archaeologists work on Egyptian sites every day, but they don't get to make all the discoveries. In 2019, drilling work on a sewage drain in Tama Sohag had to be called to a sudden halt when workers realized they'd accidentally broken into an ancient temple. Archaeologists were summoned immediately, and they were overjoyed when they realized that the workers had stumbled across the long-lost Temple of Ptolemy IV, which was now open to the air for the first time in 2,200 years. Ptolemy isn't remembered by history as a successful or popular pharaoh. He was said to be more interested in art and hedonism than he was in governing, which might explain why his temple is in an out-of-the-way location on the western bank of the Nile. It certainly explains why he was deposed by his own people, who accused him of being more interested in making art than he was in leading the country. On the other hand, he did build the largest human-powered sailing vessel ever made, the Tessera Conteris, with its crew of 4,000. The temple is less spectacular than temples made for Egypt's more successful pharaohs, but is arguably more interesting for that same reason. Since we're talking about ancient Egyptian mysteries, let's talk about one of the biggest ones. There's a hatch, or a hole, on the top of the head of the sphinx, and nobody wants to tell the world where it leads to. In fact, very few archaeologists want to talk about the idea that there are rooms inside the sphinx at all. The hole can clearly be seen in old pictures of the sculpture, but appears to have been filled in more recently. It's likely that very few people knew it was there at all until aerial photography became possible. Even now, it's illegal to photograph the Giza Plateau from above, which is a sure sign that there's something there that the authorities don't want people to see. Researcher Robert Schock claims to have seismic data that clearly indicates the existence of hollow chambers inside the sphinx, and an underground tunnel that leads from the sphinx to the Great Pyramid. Zahi Hawass has even produced a video that appears to show him accessing the chambers through a hatch and discovering a sarcophagus, although his testimony is disputed, and he now refuses to discuss his video. What's really inside the sphinx, and why aren't we allowed to know? The Egyptians were ahead of all their contemporaries when it came to arts and crafts. To prove it, here are 27 ancient regal statues of Sekhmet, the lion-faced ancient Egyptian goddess of war. The discoveries were made at the site of the Temple of Amenhotep III on the west bank of Luxor. Each of the statues is crafted from black granite. This is a difficult material to work with and must have been chosen with a specific reason in mind. Perhaps the reason was durability. It was a good choice if so, because the statues are still with us thousands of years later. Most of the sculptures are more than six feet tall, although there are a few smaller ones that show the goddess sitting on a throne, holding the Egyptian symbol of life in her left hand. The temple is an enormous site, spanning almost 4 million square feet. To put that in context, it's as big as 65 American football fields. Archaeologists think it was mostly destroyed by an earthquake about 3,200 years ago. There's still plenty more excavation work to do at the temple, so more statues and other artifacts may yet be unearthed.