Are These Machines Proof of Lost High-Tech Civilizations-

You've probably heard about the mysterious sea state of Atlantis. It was a high-tech utopia where people lived happily. But then something happened, and Atlantis disappeared from the face of the Earth. Many people believe that this city lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But what if we've been looking in the wrong place all this time? What if it's somewhere different from where they're trying to find it? What if all this time Atlantis was in the middle of the Sahara Desert? Well, this unexpected theory has some evidence. But to study this version, you first need to understand what Atlantis was and how we got to know about it. The very first mention of the mysterious city was in 360 BCE. Ancient philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis. His work, Dialogues, described Atlantis as a rich land with advanced technologies. Its inhabitants were powerful, intelligent, and beautiful, like superhumans. He described in detail the structure of the city, and this was the main reason why many people believed in the existence of Atlantis. According to his records, the Atlanteans built this place in several concentric circles of black and red stone. Then they covered these circles with brass, tin, and precious metals. In the city, there were water channels on which ships sailed. The Atlanteans were sailors, so they built a passage from their city to the open sea. On the internet, you can find many drawings of Atlantis, created based on Plato's descriptions. Take a look at these drawings and an actual photo of the Eye of the Sahara. This place in the Sahara has a shape of several concentric circles. It looks as if a destroyed city left a trace on the sand. Many people have written online that the lost city was located there, but no one could prove it. Once upon a time, the Sahara was filled with rivers and lakes. In prehistoric times, there was only water there. So far, everything matches. The Eye of the Sahara was first discovered in the 1930s. This place was considered a crater from a fallen meteorite. But in the middle of the 20th century, scientists conducted a soil analysis and refuted the version with a fallen space rock. In the end, everyone agreed that this was a dome of molten rocks under which magma was raging. For millions of years, wind and water had been destroying the formed landscape and eventually made it look like perfect circles. But what if the Atlanteans once came to this place and used natural circles to build a city? In this case, we would have many traces and artifacts from this developed civilization. And yes, archaeologists did find some arrowheads, spears, oars, and other things there. But this has nothing to do with Atlantis. In the Eye of the Sahara, a multitude of Acheulean artifacts lies. It was an ancient tribe that frequented this place. For the first time, Acheulean tools appeared more than one and a half million years ago. Some of the items found there may be 130,000 years old. And according to the records, Atlantis existed about 12,000 years ago. Archaeologists found no artificial structures in this place. There was also no debris or traces of a large city. People would have found some stuff if a big city with advanced technologies had existed here. The main supporter of this idea was one YouTube channel. It collected a million views and attracted the attention of many historians and anthropologists. The theory that the Eye of the Sahara is Atlantis was quickly refuted. People found too many discrepancies between this place and the description of Atlantis. The author tried to catch the viewer's attention by presenting external similarities between the natural landscape and the fictional ancient city. Another popular theory claims that Atlantis was a real continent located off the Bahamas. But then, this city was swallowed up by the Bermuda Triangle. According to this legend, the city ruins still lie at the bottom of the triangle. But there's no confirmation of this theory either. Writer Charles Berlitz invented it. Adherents of this theory claim that the walls and streets in the western part of the Bahamas might be the ruins of Atlantis. But scientists disagree. They have proven that these walls are natural formations of coastal rocks. There are also rumors that the story of Atlantis was inspired by an actual historical catastrophe. The Black Sea Flood. This is the Bosporus, a strait in Turkey connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. Around 5600 BCE, the Black Sea was twice as small as it is now and had many cities on its shores. Unfortunately, a huge flood destroyed this flourishing civilization. Within a year, cities descended underwater. And surviving inhabitants moved to foreign lands and spread stories about the flood. Maybe these stories inspired Plato to come up with Atlantis. In the 1950s, people came up with another version. Atlantis was the continent that is now Antarctica. Tens of thousands of years ago, a warm continent with a developed city shifted to the northern part of our planet because of the movement of Earth's crust. The Atlanteans couldn't adapt to the cold conditions, and Atlantis was covered with a thick layer of ice. This theory was refuted when scientists began studying the tectonic plate's nature. It turned out that Earth's crust couldn't have moved such a huge continent as Antarctica. The tectonic plates don't behave this way at all. But the main question is, was Atlantis real? No one had described it before Plato. Perhaps the philosopher came up with it. Maybe he did this to emphasize the correctness of his views on life and to identify his philosophical theories. In his works, he wrote a lot about divine and human nature and how people can destroy this nature. He spoke of decaying ideal societies because of immoral behavior and vices. The Atlanteans were once moral, spiritual people who created a utopia. But then they became greedy and mean. They destroyed their inner nature, and for this, they had to witness the destruction of their city. One night, fires and earthquakes hit Atlantis and plunged the city into the sea. The higher powers punished people for their immoral behavior, and Plato also wanted everyone to be afraid of moral decay. But judging by the descriptions of the earthquakes and fire, it may seem that Atlantis was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, as it was with the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. And such destructions have happened pretty often throughout history. Natural disasters ruined many developed cities. One of the most famous cases occurred in 1100 BCE in the Mediterranean Sea, when a volcanic eruption destroyed the highly developed Minoan society. The Minoan society existed for about 2,000 years. These people mostly lived on the islands of Crete and Santorini, located north of Crete. The Minoans had beautiful houses, a sewage system, and a developed economy. They were engaged in agriculture, grew fruits and vegetables, painted frescoes, and made jewelry. They were the first people to found the Thalassocracy, an empire based on the sea. They lived off of fishing, piracy, and maritime trade. At the time, they performed cruel rituals, and their way of life was far from moral. They were used to earthquakes on the island of Santorini, so they reinforced the walls of the city with wooden beams, but they didn't know what a volcanic eruption was. And when the sulfur smell appeared in the air, they didn't suspect the impending catastrophe. When the volcano spilled out tons of lava and ash, all the residents of Santorini abandoned their homes and tried to escape. But they couldn't. The eruption and earthquake triggered a tsunami. A large wave flooded the coastal part of the island of Crete. This hit the economy of the Minoans hard and destroyed their port harbor. Then, foreigners attacked Crete and finally destroyed the developed civilization. Some historians think that Plato could have referred to the Minoan empire when describing Atlantis. Using their example, he showed how immoral actions could destroy people. The Azores are nine islands in the Atlantic Ocean, sitting about a third of the way from Europe to North America. A history textbook will tell you that the Portuguese explorers discovered this beautiful archipelago in the 15th century. Until then, they were uninhabited. The island still belonged to Portugal, so there seems to be no controversy or mystery here, except for the fact that some researchers think the Azores were home to an ancient civilization from thousands of years ago. Others support the idea that the famous Atlantis itself was here. In 2010, archaeologists announced that they found some structures on the islands which looked like they were from the Stone Age. If that's true, it would mean that there was a civilization back then which was advanced enough to travel this far and settle on the remote islands. A special scientific commission studied the matter and concluded that those structures were natural rock formations or had a more modern origin, so the first settlers were supposed to have been the Portuguese. It didn't stop some enthusiastic scientists from further research. They analyzed the DNA of mice from the Azores and found that it had the same genetic characteristics as house mice from Northern Europe. The little rodents couldn't have sailed this far without humans, so it looks like the first people had arrived at the Azores before the Portuguese. And the plot thickens. Dr. Felix Rodriguez, who works at the University of the Azores, is determined to find out exactly when it happened. He's studying the megalithic structures found in the Azores. Similar structures found in Western Europe and the Mediterranean date back to the Neolithic Age. According to Dr. Rodriguez, the oldest findings are from 4,200 years ago. It's not clear when civilizations left them. The professor identified seven megalithic structures in one complex as dolmens for the deceased. The cavities are all cylindrical in shape and definitely don't look like a natural formation. The material from the cavities turned out to be at least 2,500 years old. There are also some pieces of ceramics that seem to be even older. It looks like the rocks in the area had been lifted. You can see it by the small waves left by lava. It's thick and sticky, so it can't leave vertical marks. Someone must have moved the rock from its horizontal position. Another interesting finding is some stone anchors with holes found by the sea. Similar ones were used in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic coast of Europe, dating back to 1000 and 2000 BCE. The 15th century Portuguese were advanced sailors and never used stone anchors, only metal ones. The scientists also managed to find a structure built right in the volcanic top. It looks somewhat similar to the ones built in the Mediterranean that are at least 2,000 years old. These structures are called columbariums and were used to store the ashes of the deceased. They also found something resembling an oven next to it, so they could be a part of one complex. There's also a basin in the middle, and it's not the only one on the island. It looks like they had a special meaning to their builders. There are channels around the construction. They connect the four basins and the sun lights each of them at different times of the year. It was all carefully planned as they were lit the brightest during winter and summer solstices and autumn and spring equinoxes. The water passed through all the basins and went directly into the sea. It could have been a purifying ritual. Some people are skeptical about the findings and believe they're all parts of a fortress from the 16th century. Professor Rodriguez is determined to prove it's all much, much older. There must have been some ancient civilization here that could have left because of the volcanoes that go crazy every 50 years. Antonieta Costa, a postdoctoral student at the University of Porto in Portugal, is also sure that the first people came to the Azores in prehistoric times. She has studied standing stones with small openings, explained as cuts for quarrying the stones. Costa believes they are part of a calendar system. She noticed that none of the slits in the rocks were aligned with the cardinal east direction. The slits closest to it are smaller than the ones facing other directions, so it can't be just a coincidence. It also looks like the slits are aligned with the solstices, and that's what makes Costa think it could be a calendar. She also thinks the inscriptions left on slabs of bedrock on the islands are much like those maps that were left on the rocks during the Stone Age in mainland Europe. Another interesting theory about the Azores is that it could have been the location of the famous Atlantis, which was lost under the sea. Since the Azores archipelago is in the middle of an ocean, it could technically be a perfect place for that. A 20th century scholar quoted Plato to prove this theory was right. The Greek philosopher suggested that Atlantis was in between the continents. The coins and sculptures supposedly found in the Azores when the Portuguese just arrived also point that there was someone else present there. And way more recently, in 2013, a sailor found a huge structure looking like a pyramid off the Azores coast. It was most likely a large submarine volcano, but it's much cooler to think it was some big deal in Atlantis, right? Peru has its own mystery. Amid the desert, you can find some eerie marks called the Nazca Lines. They're known as geoglyphs and were created more than 2,000 years ago by the people of the Nazca culture. Thanks to a dry climate and strong winds in the desert, most of the Nazca Lines have reached our day. To greet them, Nazca people remove the top layer of the pebbles and reveal the soil beneath the ground. The color of the soil changes from reddish-brown to yellowish-gray, so the lines always look different. Most of the geoglyphs depict plants and animals. You can clearly see a monkey, a whale, a condor, a hummingbird, a spider, various flowers, trees, and other plants. There are also some geometric shapes, such as triangles, trapezoids, and spirals. Since they were discovered in the 1920s, scientists have offered different explanations for the lines. Some say that in Nazca culture, people ascribe special significance to these motifs, so they probably created these shapes for deities in the sky to see. Others believe they were a sort of astronomical calendar, and animal sketches were modeled after groups of stars. This theory was proved wrong, so the purpose of the lines remains a mystery. Another place that leaves many questions is Nimrut Mountain in Turkey. This mountain has a complex of monuments with temples and tombs. It was built by the Kingdom of Komagini, which ruled here around the 1st century BCE. There are statues of King Antiotus, two lions, two eagles, Zeus, Hercules, and Apollo. Archaeologists found the ruins of this complex at the end of the 19th century. They thought it had been built by the Assyrians. Then, some of the most famous scientists of the time came here and found an inscription in Greek. It had details about the sculptures and the names of important members of the Komagini royal family. It looked like it had been put there for future visitors. The scientists established that the statues used to be full-size figures. Changes in temperature, strong winds, snow, and the bright sun didn't leave them a chance to last in all their original glory. Plus, the complex is in an earthquake zone. So, all you can see now is mostly the heads of the statues. They look incredibly complex and large for their time. The biggest question is, how did the people who lived thousands of years ago manage to create such huge sculptures on top of the mountain? It's obvious that they worked on shaping the limestone blocks up there, and not on the ground. So, stay tuned, we'll keep an eye on this. Do you think Atlantis could be real? It remains as one of history's greatest mysteries. The legend began with Plato, all the way back in ancient Greece. The tale of a civilization that formed and prospered before our own. Atlantis was supposedly a highly technological society, much like the Mayans. But, as the legend says, due to the poor quality of the land, they were punished by a flood that destroyed and submerged their cities. Different theories try to guess Atlantis' location. Some say it was in the Mediterranean Sea. Some say it's beneath the Bermuda Triangle. But, as science has shown us, Atlantis may be only an allegory for humankind. Today, you'll discover several amazing underwater cities that you have never heard of. They existed indeed, and are not just a myth. We're taking you on an excursion to the underwater city of Baia, which is on the coast of Italy. Known as the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire, Baia was a resort city. The Roman elite traveled there for recreation. Imagine an open-air spa. That was Baia. You can visit the submerged town by scuba diving, and get close to that perfectly preserved magnificent Roman sculpture. A true underwater wonder. You can spot the crumbled temples and buildings through glass-bottom boats. This is a moss-covered museum in Claudio's Nymphaeum. To your left, you can see a collection of classical Greek statues. Swimming down the Via Herculeana, you'll arrive at Villa Aproteo. Villas are Italian-style houses, and here, you can admire their original marble floors. Notice the black and white patterns, and the astounding shapes they make. Next, you'll arrive at Portus Julius. Can you see the collapsing wall structures at the bottom of the seafloor? You'll see well-preserved columns and limestone floors. Behold the ruins of the Thermobaths of Laccas. The remaining multicolored mosaics are something great to see. You'll see their orange, blue, and green tiles if you get close enough. At Pisone's Villa Pila, you'll see 25 preserved Roman pillars. Notice the arches, the frescoes nearby, and the magnitude of this well-kept treasure. The city was located over natural volcanic vents, so there were hot springs to be used at will. People went there looking to have an excellent time. And when I say people, I mean some of the great Roman emperors we learned about in school – Nero, Cicero, Caesar. But around the 8th century, the city was sacked, and the luxurious town was abandoned. Slowly, the water level rose, and the city started to drown. You are on a summer vacation off the coast of Greece, 4 hours outside of Athens, in the Peloponnese Peninsula on Pavlopetri. You dust off your snorkel and head for a free dive on a bright sunny day. Some time into the dive, you start noticing patterns on the seabed. 13 feet below the surface, the outline of familiar objects starts to appear, one by one. As you continue swimming, what looks like the outline of an entire city emerges before your eyes. You wonder how could water have taken the whole city? Rocks are perfectly aligned into what appears to be the foundation of a building. Nicholas Fleming, a British oceanographer on vacation in Greece, was the person that discovered Pavlopetri. He was documenting the seafloor artifacts. The team found the site filled with pots, storage vessels, and tools. A quern stone, for instance, is a tool used for grinding grains and turning them into flour. Multiple amphoras, which were found then, indicate that this settlement dated back to the Bronze Age, 5,500 years ago, when people started living in towns. The settlement is believed to have lasted for over 2,400 years. Pavlopetri is considered today the oldest submerged town yet found, and it's impressive that it wasn't a simple village. It was a vibrant port city, with stone-built buildings, a marketplace, streets, and even squares. Let's continue our exploration and find secrets in other underwater cities. You are diving off the coast of the Ryukyu Islands. Pacific waters are far from smooth. There's a strong current pulling you into the deep sea. Suddenly, you see a huge structure thanks to the sunlight shining down on the seabed. At first, it looks like Machu Picchu's ruins across the globe in Peru. As you approach it, you slowly figure out its form. A pyramid-shaped structure, arches, staircases. It's something that could have easily been a palace or castle. Could this also be a sign of human activity? What you just saw is known today as the Yanaguni Monument. It also goes by the name of Japan's Atlantis. The entire monument is about the size of five football fields, and the height of a five-story building. Its most surprising feature is its expansive terraces that host large crowd gatherings. Explorers and scientists believe that Yanaguni dates back to 10,000 years ago. But whether it is a man-made structure or a natural formation is still under debate. For Japan's top marine geologist, Professor Masaaki Kimura, Yanaguni is the heritage of a lost civilization. Kimura has dived into exploring the ruins over 100 times over the past 10 years. According to him, there are clear signs of human activity down there. The triangle pool, located on the monument's surface, is a triangle-shaped concave that is a historical symbol of water fountains in the region. There is also a giant turtle carved on the eastern side of the structure. And according to Kimura, turtles have an important cultural meaning. Several pieces of stone tools have been recovered from the site. Their estimated age dates back to 10,000 years ago. However, not all scientists are convinced of the same. For many, Yanaguni is the result of thousands of years of erosion. The fact that the monument is composed of one massive rock leads them to believe that it is not human-made. The defined edges and flat surfaces resemble a natural formation occurrence in Northern Ireland, known as Giant's Causeway. A series of interlocking basalt columns look like the ruins of a palace, but they were the result of volcanic activity in the region. Well, stay tuned for more underwater discoveries! The next stop on our voyage is one of today's most famous underwater cities that has turned into an underwater archaeological park. The city of Port Royal in Jamaica exists today only below the surface. But in 1692, it was one of the wealthiest cities in the Western Hemisphere. Port Royal was the center of the British Empire at the time, and an important trade city that attracted people from all over. It was also home to real-life pirates of the Caribbean. On the morning of June 7, 1692, the people of Port Royal met a different fate than they probably expected. The bars and restaurants beaming with life woke up shaking. People were taken out of bed with the power of a massive earthquake, estimated today at 7.5 on the Richter scale. One survivor says he saw the Earth opening up and swallowing the town whole. What he said could be true, as the city was mainly built over sand. The ground sucked buildings, roads, and everyone above. Geysers erupted, and finally, waves as big as 10-story-high buildings hit the city. About 33 acres of the city disappeared underwater. And amazingly, most of its 17th-century remains lie in good condition under 40 feet of water. In the ruins, archaeologists have found taverns, storage rooms, kitchens, and recreational buildings used for diverse purposes. You can see a grand lion statue, a submerged bridge, and many picturesque arches. Now, do you fancy a trip to India? Just outside its coast lies another sunken marvel. A site known as the Lost City of Cambay is located on the Gulf of a similar name. It remained hidden until 2001, when the National Institute of Ocean Technology did a routine water assessment. With sonar technology, which sends a wave of sound to the bottom of the sea, they found something far beneath the surface. Images showed well-defined geometric shapes spread along a 5-mile stretch. The remains found dated to more than 9,500 years ago, meaning that this civilization was lost at around the end of the Ice Age. Debris recovered from the site included construction material, pottery, beads, sculptures, and even bones. Scientists argue whether these artifacts are indeed from the site, but if they truly are, then the Lost City of Cambay would be the oldest civilization in the world. It's 1898, and you're taking part in excavations in Saqqara. This place, not far away from Cairo, is full of ancient tombs and pyramids. You're in your Indiana Jones mood and hope to find something really phenomenal to become famous. Gold, manuscripts, treasure maps, mummies of famous pharaohs. Wait, a wooden bird? You're really disappointed as it looks like a regular toy. An old one, but still. Little do you know that years later, someone would propose that your bird was actually an ancient monoplane. So the artifact, nicknamed the Saqqara Bird, is made of a sycamore tree. The birdie has a wingspan of just 7 inches and weighs around 40 grams. A perfect original souvenir from Egypt, I would say. It's over 2,000 years old and looks pretty plain without any carvings of feathers or other intricate ornaments. It has a beak and eyes though, which makes our find look like a hawk, the emblem of the deity Horus. Its tail is rather unusual as it's square, looks weirdly upright, and it seems like the sunken part of it was the place for a now missing piece. Humans love solving a good mystery, so there have been several attempts to explain the use of the birdie. First, quite simply, is that it was a ceremonial object. The second idea is that it was a toy for a child from some well-off family. It could have been some sort of boomerang, which was a popular concept in ancient Egypt. Then there was a theory that the bird had been used as a weather vane, but this one has been debunked as the figure doesn't have any holes or markings, except for the one made at the museum in Cairo to fix the exhibit on a stick. So there was no way to hang it in the past. Almost a century after the bird was found, Egyptologist Dr. Khalil Masiha proposed a new theory that it could have been a model of a monoplane. He believed the bird was missing a horizontal tailplane. Otherwise, it had its wings set at a right angle, similar to that of modern planes. It could have worked to generate the aerodynamic lift necessary for flights. Dr. Masiha also claimed that it was common at that time to place miniature models of technological inventions in tombs. So did the ancient Egyptians really invent the plane in 200 BCE? That would make the Wright brothers, who are considered the inventors of aviation, really, really upset. They made one of their first flights only in 1903. There's just one way to know for sure, and that is to test the model. But you know the ancient museum in Cairo would unlikely let one of their cherished exhibits fly around like a toy. That's why glider designer Martin Gregory built a similar model, this time of balsa wood, and concluded that even with the missing tailplane, the plane wasn't much of a flyer. Case solved? Not really. This didn't sound convincing enough to the History Channel, so they invited an aerodynamics expert to build another replica of the bird. He tested it in weather conditions similar to those in Egypt and was impressed with the little plane's abilities. So if they did invent the prototype of a plane back in the times of pharaohs, it would be a good example of an upart. That's an out-of-place artifact, an object that's way ahead of its time in terms of technology or history. And the Saqqara bird isn't the only example of such a revolutionary concept. In 1901, a group of divers retrieved the Antikythera mechanism from an underwater shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera. It's been dubbed the world's first analog computer and it's currently dated around 100 BCE. The bronze mechanism could tell the position of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, as well as the lunar phase, the dates of upcoming solar eclipses, and even the speed at which the moon moves through the sky. No one's sure who used it and how or where it was made. But it's obvious that it's extremely precise and way too advanced for its time. The first flushing toilets in the world were invented in the middle of the 20th century. Just kidding. The ancient Minoans on the Mediterranean island of Crete and the Indus Valley civilization both came up with this brilliant invention at the same time, around 4,000 years ago. The plumbing and sanitation were so well done that no one managed to design anything better until 2,000 years later. One ancient Minoan lavatory was discovered at the palace of Knossos. It looks like it had a wooden seat set over a tunnel that directed water from a rooftop reservoir to an underground sewer. Other varieties got water from jugs. Only the super rich people could afford all this glory. So if you wanted to shop for real estate back then, the flushing toilet would be a telltale sign you were in the rich neighborhood. Automated doors became a cool, seemingly new invention back in 1931. But the technology behind them is actually much older. Think the first century CE old. Mathematician and engineer Heron of Alexandria came up with a hydraulic system to open and close temple doors. To bring it into action, you need to light a fire to produce heat. There was a brass pot under the fire, half filled with water. The inventor connected the brass pot to containers that acted as weights. When the fire was burning, the water moved into the containers. They went down and pulled the ropes. It was nothing like a supermarket door that opens in front of you before you even have time to think. Heron's door took hours to open. And there was no way to stop the process. That's why they only opened the doors once a day before people entered the temple to add some mysticism at the temple during ceremonies. Spooky. Looks like the first ever battery was invented in Baghdad around 2000 years ago. A German archaeologist found this oval-shaped clay jar in 1938. Scientists are still not sure what purpose it served and who exactly invented it. There is a theory that it was used for electroplating objects with precious metals. When they filled it with a weak acid like vinegar, the battery produced around one volt of electricity. Another theory says it was a vessel for sacred scrolls. Would you like to buy contact lenses designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself? In 1508, he invented a glass lens with a funnel on one side. You were supposed to wear it with water inside to improve your vision. Sounds a bit uncomfortable, doesn't it? So around a century later, French scientist René Descartes decided to improve the idea and make the cornea contact the future lenses. Contacts because they contact your eyes, get it? The glass tube with liquid did help improve vision. But blinking was sadly impossible. Two and a half centuries later, new technologies in the glass industry let scientists design contacts that would fit in the eye and even let the wearer blink. Thanks, guys! Still, those lenses were made of heavy-blown glass and didn't let the eye breathe. About 50 years later, contacts became plastic. Lightweight, unbreakable and scratch-resistant, but still covering the entire eye. And then, in 1948, an English optical technician accidentally sanded down a plastic lens and figured out they'd still be in place even if they covered only the cornea. Imagine you're living in 19th century London and need to send a message to New York. It would have taken about 10 days to get there by ship. So when delivery time went from days to hours in 1858, it was a true sensation. The first message was sent by Queen Victoria herself. It was all made possible thanks to the transatlantic telegraph cable running under the ocean. Sadly, the new cool invention only lasted a few weeks. It took years to bring it back to life. On October 30th, 1759, the inhabitants of the Middle East were jolted awake by an earthquake. Cracks appeared in the walls of their homes. Roofs began to crumble. People ran out of their homes and gathered in open areas. But because of strong shocks, they kept losing their footing and falling. A month later, there was another earthquake. But it turned out to be even stronger. Trees broke. Houses collapsed. Deep cracks appeared in the ground. The disaster lasted for two minutes. Oases, roads and cities were destroyed. Incredibly, Baalbek's ancient buildings withstood earthquakes. Some historians state that this majestic and mysterious place was built during the Roman Empire. But many researchers disagree. Whatever the truth is, the city is one of the main archaeological phenomena of humankind. The most amazing building of Baalbek is the Temple of Jupiter. The inhabitants of the Roman Empire believed that Jupiter held power over lightning and thunder. The building looked like a platform with 54 columns. A massive roof rested on these columns. Today, you can only see six 70-foot high columns. Each of them consists of three sections and resembles a pencil. The cores of these pencils were made of lead. This made the columns exceptionally strong. Each of these pieces of stone weighed an incredible 80 tons. That's the weight of 35 Ford Explorer SUVs. Look, this is the largest block in the Great Pyramid of Giza. But compared to the blocks from Baalbek, it doesn't even look that impressive. The foundation under the Temple of Jupiter was preserved. That's how specialists figured out it consisted of about 25 monolithic stones, weighing 450 tons each. It means that the blocks from Baalbek weigh almost four times more than the blocks from Egypt. There are three more enormous limestone blocks in the foundation. They weigh 800 tons each. This is more than twice the weight of a Boeing 747 plane. Ancient builders must have had a hard time carving such giants from a piece of stone. And after that, they also had to pull them to the construction site and lift them to a significant height. Repeating these logistics probably turned out to be a nightmare for present-day builders. To do this amount of work, they would need modern equipment. But Baalbek's constructors didn't have trucks, cranes with circular saws, or electricity. How did the builders of the past manage to do this? Scientists have a theory that includes ropes, winches, and lever systems. Naturally, the engineers of the past made all the gadgets from wood. Around 3,000 feet away from the ruins of the temple complex, there's a quarry. Archaeologists suppose that's where the stones for the construction were cut. They found a block of limestone there. It seemed to be too large even for this incredible place. The monolith got called the Stone of the South. It was 65 feet long and 13 feet wide. The ancient builders didn't have time to completely separate it from its mother rock. A group of scientists from Austria estimated that this piece of limestone weighed more than 1,000 tons. That's like three Boeing aircraft or 160 African elephants. It was another surprise awaiting the archaeologists near the Stone of the South. It was the second monolith that weighed more than 1,200 tons. But the ancient builders didn't stop at that. They continued to work. In 2014, in the same quarry, German archaeologists unearthed a block that weighed 1,650 tons. No one has figured out yet why people of the past needed a piece of stone that weighed as much as 125 school buses. It's also unclear how they were going to move this giant and why they didn't finish the job. In any case, this third monolith is the largest processed piece of stone in human history. There are more questions than answers. Some researchers believe that people of the past had high-tech equipment. Others don't think so but are eager to understand how the builders managed to move those stones. There's a huge number of ancient buildings and artifacts on the planet. Lots of them make researchers scratch their heads. Near the Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt, archaeologists have found a network of tunnels. This place is called Serapion. It contains 24 sarcophagi weighing from 70 to 100 tons. The giant boxes are carved from a single piece of granite and covered with heavy lids. The sarcophagi are perfectly symmetrical. To the touch, their walls are as smooth as glass. Even with the current level of technology, this is very difficult to do. But the ancient Egyptians managed this feat. The Lycurgus Cup is a priceless artifact and example of ancient nanotechnology. It's made of glass that can change its color. If you put a source of light in front of the cup, it turns green. If the light is behind the goblet, it becomes deep red. In this case, the figure of Greek king Lycurgus turns pale purple. Scientists understood how this color change worked only at the end of the 20th century. Through microscopes, they saw nanoparticles of silver, gold, and copper. They had been added to the glass matrix. Thanks to this, you can observe a color change called dichroism. Interestingly, the gold and silver were grounded into a fine dust. It's almost impossible to do this by accident. Most likely, the ancient experts knew for sure what they were doing. Bolivia has a curious place called Puma Punku. It looks as if an ancient giant played there with an enormous construction set. And after the game, they forgot to put the pieces back into the box. But there are no giants. And the huge stone blocks were carved by ancient builders over 1,500 years ago. Some of the rocks weigh 100 tons. The blocks were brought to an altitude of almost 13,000 feet above sea level from the quarry 60 miles away from the construction site. There's no forest in that area. This means the builders couldn't use trees to make wooden rollers. The monument belongs to the Inca civilization. Scientists are sure they didn't know anything about wheels. In 1992, the inhabitants of a Chinese village decided to drain a pond. Their ancestors had been using it to wash clothes and catch fish for hundreds of years. They kept pumping the water out for 17 days. At the bottom of the reservoir, they made an unexpected discovery. The villagers saw an entrance to a cave going down to a depth of 100 feet. The incredible find was named the Longyou Caves. Unknown builders carved out 320,000 square feet of galleries. There are separate rooms, bridges, pools, and columns that support the ceiling. The walls of the cave are covered with strange carved lines and patterns. Scientists haven't found any information about who built the caves and why they did it. The construction technology also remains a mystery. Antonio Stradivari lived in Italy in the 18th century. He created musical instruments. More than 600 of his works have survived to this day. 500 of them are violins. One of the instruments was sold at auction for $16 million. The violins made by this master sound clear and deep. Researchers can't understand why Stradivarius instruments produce such unique sounds. Perhaps it's all about the varnish the master used to cover the violins. The answer may also lie in the wood the instruments are made of. In those days, Europe had a cold climate. Because of this, the wood became denser, and the instruments made of it sounded especially pleasing to the ear. In the Indian city of Delhi, there's a 23-foot high pole. It weighs 6.5 tons and is made of 98% wrought iron. The 1600-year-old pillar has no signs of rust or decay. Scientists believe that the monument is so well-preserved thanks to the dry weather and the chemical composition of the metal, it might be resistant to corrosion. And still, researchers don't know how the blacksmiths managed to make an iron pillar that's not afraid of rust. It seems like a tough feat even for modern metallurgists. The Al-Nasla rock is divided into two parts by a perfectly straight slit. Each boulder stands on a small pedestal. Some people believe this is the evidence of ancient laser technology. But geologists think the split happened due to the ground shifting or natural vibrations that occurred under the rock. This process led to the appearance of the crack. It had been deepening for thousands of years. And gradually, the natural monument took the form you can see today.