12 Most Incredible Archaeological Discoveries That Really Exist

We might not be able to talk to our ancient ancestors to find out who they were or how they lived, but they've left plenty of artifacts behind that can help us to get a sense of how they lived their lives. There's rarely a day that goes by without something remarkable being discovered or dug up, and some of those discoveries are truly incredible. From stunning sculptures to mysterious works of art, we've put some of the best and most thought-provoking ancient archaeological discoveries together for you in this video. There are so many ancient artifacts buried in Egypt that we may never find all of them. Even though hundreds of archaeological sites in the country have been fully excavated over the years, there's always a new one for experts to sink their teeth into. And a sarcophagus that turned up at a construction site in Alexandria in December 2019 is the latest great example. The 2,000-year-old black sarcophagus dates back to the Ptolemaic period and was found 16 feet below the ground by workers from the Supreme Council of Antiquities in City Garber as they built new offices in the area. The coffin is still sealed, but a heavily weathered bust found alongside it might have provided a clue as to who the occupant might be if it were in better condition. Sadly, time and nature have eroded the bust very badly. Only wealthy people from that era would have been buried in such a heavy black granite sarcophagus. So when the 15-ton lid of the casket is finally lifted away, we may find that it contains the remains of a long-lost leader. Don't hold your breath waiting to find out though. Full excavation may take five years. The only thing we know for sure about Old Croghan Mann, the name given to the body of an Iron Age body found in an Irish bog in 2003, is that he met with a violent end and that his end came around 2,000 years ago. He was likely to be in his early 20s at the time and at around 6 foot 6 inches tall, he would have towered over almost all of his peers. Study of his remains has confirmed that not only was he decapitated and cleaved in two, he also suffered a stab wound to the torso on his way to the grave. Despite all the violence, he probably wasn't a warrior. His nails were manicured. His stomach contents revealed he enjoyed a rich diet of meat, wheat, and buttermilk, suggesting he was of high status. The theory of his nobility is seemingly backed up by the presence of a decorative leather band that was tied around one of his arms. The ancient hill above the bog was once used for coronation ceremonies of ancient leaders in Ireland. So, he might even have been a king who was sacrificed by his subjects because of a poor harvest or prolonged poor weather conditions. Fashions change all the time and so it's not all that unlikely that you'd see a shoe like this on the foot of a model taking to the runways in Paris, London, Milan, or New York. This is no recent design though. It's an incredibly well preserved example of Roman footwear from 2,000 years ago. It survived the passing of the centuries in such good condition largely because it had been at the bottom of a well at the site of the Salberg Fort in Germany until its discovery in 19th century. It's thought that the Romans were the first to design shoes that encased the entire foot like this. Prior to that, sandals were the only widely popular form of footwear. It even has laces and the laces are still attached after all these years. The Salberg Fort was built somewhere around the year 90 to protect the expanding Roman empire from advances by hordes of dramatic tribes and so it's likely that the shoe belonged to the wife of a soldier who was stationed there. It wasn't just people who were afforded lavish ceremonial burials during the times of antiquity. Powerful warriors and leaders were sometimes buried with horses and carriages to serve them during the afterlife. Unfortunately for the horses, they were often still alive when they were entombed. That explains why these horse skeletons excavated in Bulgaria in 2013 as part of a 2,500 year old tomb were still standing up when they were discovered. The tomb is thought to be Thracian and was found in a village called Svestari in the northeast of the country. There have been other Thracian carriage burials discovered in Bulgaria in the past, but none that look quite like this one, which still contained many of the decorative items that the human occupant was buried with. The majority of Thracian tombs were raided by looters centuries ago, so discoveries of unspoiled ones like this happen very rarely. The remains of harnesses were found still attached to the heads of the horses, suggesting their last act may have been to pull the carriage into position in the grave before they were buried. If you're someone who likes to have a little sauce on your fries or your meat, you might be interested to know that your enthusiasm for condiments was shared by people living thousands of years ago. During the days of the Roman Empire, a fish sauce called garum was just as popular as an accompaniment to meals as ketchup is today. We now know a little more about how and where it was manufactured, thanks to a discovery of a garum production facility just outside Ashkelon in southern Israel in late 2019. The site contains huge vests, jars for storage, and pools that would have been used to house the fish that eventually ended up in the sauce. The manufacturing process would likely have created a foul smell, which explains why the site was around one mile away from the town that it probably served. Fish guts would be fermented in the vats for months and then layered between herbs and salt before being strained into creating garum. The ancient Greek documents from 2,500 years ago contain references to trading garum, so enthusiasm for the sauce spread far and wide from its Roman origins. We understand that fish gut sauce may not be for everyone, so if that didn't whet your appetite, how about this 2,000-year-old lump of butter? We're reliably informed that it still contains plenty of flavor, despite sitting out the centuries in an Irish bog before being unearthed in 2016. And if you were feeling especially adventurous, it would still be edible. A man named Jack Conway was digging up peat moss to burn in the winter for heat near his home in County Meth, where he came across the find and took it to the nearby Cavan County Museum, who identified it as ancient butter. Opinions vary about who so-called bog butter is often found in locations like this. Some people think it was put there as an offering of appeasement to ancient gods, while others think it might have been a deliberate act of food processing designed to change the butter's chemical composition and enhance the taste. The lack of oxygen and high levels of acid inside the peat bogs are perfect for preserving food, so storage is another option, although we still don't think we'd be brave enough to try it. At the start of this video, we mentioned that ancient Egyptian burial sites still turn up within the country with alarming regularity. Sometimes they're so enormous that it's incredible that nobody has come across them before now. That's definitely the case with this network of 800 tombs that were found at Lisht in 2018. It's one of the largest Middle Kingdom burial sites ever discovered, and the people interred there passed away around 4,000 years ago. A pair of pyramids to the north and south of the site gave away its historical significance years ago, but nobody of our era had ever dug this far down until the sand until recently. Unfortunately, it would seem that the teams of experts who found the tombs weren't the first to open them. At some point in the distant past, the majority of the tombs had been raided, but that doesn't mean that we can't learn anything from them, as they don't belong to nobles or royals. They can tell us a lot about how the average ancient Egyptians of this period lived and died. In this case, families appear to have been entombed together in private vaults containing space for eight burials. The ancient Romans had a god for almost any occasion and any activity, and if you're fond of the occasional glass of wine, your favorite of them would probably have been Dionysus. He was the wine god according to the ancient Roman customers and large marble sculpture of the god's head was found built into a medieval Roman wall in Rome in 2019. It's likely that the placement of the head inside the wall wasn't an act of reverence of worship. Ancient statues were often recycled as building materials during the time of the Roman Empire, and so if the statue no longer had any purpose, it would probably have been reclaimed. The head almost certainly once had a body to go with it, and the scraped out eyes suggest that there was once precious stones within the sockets. Presumably, when it was a complete piece around 2,000 years ago, it would have been incredibly beautiful. Although it's made of white marble, experts think that it may have been painted in the past, and they're now checking the area for the rest of the statue to confirm their theory. During February 2020, archaeologists found a Neolithic well in Eastern Europe. That would have been an exciting discovery on its own, but this well is just a little more exciting than your average Neolithic discovery. That's because at 7,000 years old, it's thought to be the oldest wooden structure ever found anywhere in the world. The well is on an old farmland in what's now Chechya, and was fashioned out of oak somewhere around 5,200 BCE, if the results of dendrochronological dating are to be believed. Wood doesn't last as well as stone, and so anything this old made of wood usually rots away long before archaeologists have had a chance to discover it. Even the act of discovery may have put this well at risk. It's only lasted this long because it spent the majority of the last 7,000 years underwater. Now it's exposed to the air, and preservation work will have to be performed quickly to protect it from the risk of disintegration. This square well is built under corner posts which have grooves to hold planks in place, which is an impressive achievement in terms of precision design for a culture working mostly with stone or bone tools. That's impressive carpentry skill for the Neolithic era. Times of drought can bring trouble for the areas afflicted by them, especially when vital water supplies evaporate. They can also sometimes uncover long-forgotten relics though. During summer 2019, when Iraq was hit by a particularly harsh drought, and the water levels of the Mosul Dam dropped sharply, the remains of a 3,400-year-old palace in the Kurdistan region of the country were revealed for the first time in living memory. The existence of the palace was first identified during 2010, but a close inspection of the ruins was impossible at the time because of the water. Excitingly, it's now thought that this is a relic of the Mitanni Empire, one of the least understood and least known empires in the region's past. The palace would have once stood on the banks of a river in the area and had mud brick walls over six feet thick to stave off the risk of flooding. Wall paintings in faded shades of red and blue have now been discovered inside, along with 10 clay tablets upon which cuneiform inscriptions have been written. We're now waiting on a translation of those inscriptions and hopefully will tell us more about the palace and the people who lived in it. We know that the ancient Romans were very fond of public baths. They built them almost everywhere they went, and they were presumably considered to be one of the luxuries of the Roman standard of life. They weren't the only ancient culture to enjoy them though. The ancient Chinese also enjoyed luxury baths, and they were building them at around the same time. Here's a set of them that were discovered in Xi'an in northwest China in 2017. The site contains three different baths, along with an ancient fireplace that would have been used to keep the water heated. There's even a sewage outflow pipe and the remains of what would once have been beautiful tiling work on the walls. Presumably, had they not been abandoned and built over centuries ago, they would still be perfectly serviceable and quite luxurious today. Experts in ancient Chinese culture have pointed out the similarity between the baths and some further examples found closer to the imperial palace of Xi'an, which was the capital city of China during the Qin dynasty. These more recently discovered baths seem to be even older though, and so they may have inspired the design of those found close to the palace. The archaeological site of Pompeii in Italy is every bit as full of ancient treasure and wonder as any Egyptian site, and is still giving up its secrets today, many years after its discovery and initial excavation. One of the most eye-catching finds from Pompeii in recent times is this stunning and highly detailed fresco of two gladiators engaged in combat. It's around 2,000 years old, and experts think that it might once have been a decorative item on the wall of a local tavern, probably put there for the same reason that bars and pubs near you have pictures of sports stars on the wall. One of the gladiators, the one who is seemingly on the verge of defeat, given the fact that his shield is on the ground, is wearing a Thracian style of dress. The other is a more classic murmilio. Battle between these two types of gladiators was a popular sporting attraction at the time. A barracks have been found very close to the newly located site of this tavern in Pompeii's Regio V region, and so it might be that this is where the soldiers came to drink and talk during their time off. Subscribe to the channel, turn on the notification bell, and enjoy watching new videos on my channel. 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