Did you know archaeologists think they found the final resting place of the Saint Nicholas—yep, the guy who inspired Santa Claus? Deep under an ancient church in Turkey, they discovered a sarcophagus that might belong to the real-life saint from the 4th century. St. Nicholas was known for his generosity and helping the poor, which is how he became the legend of Santa Claus. The church, built in his honor, had been hiding this burial site under its floor for centuries! Scientists are still carefully studying the tomb to confirm if it’s really him, but they’re super excited about the discovery. 🎅✨ Credit:
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0:
Pétra de nuit: By Sylvain L. - https://flic.kr/p/ouEjMN, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35593208
CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/:
Roman writing tablet 02: By Michel wal, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6055468
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0:
Herculaneum papyri: By By Sara Stabile, Francesca Palermo, Inna Bukreeva, Daniela Mele, Vincenzo Formoso, Roberto Bartolino & Alessia Cedola - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80458-z, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129672864
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0:
Pétra de nuit: By Sylvain L. - https://flic.kr/p/ouEjMN, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35593208
CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/:
Roman writing tablet 02: By Michel wal, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6055468
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0:
Herculaneum papyri: By By Sara Stabile, Francesca Palermo, Inna Bukreeva, Daniela Mele, Vincenzo Formoso, Roberto Bartolino & Alessia Cedola - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80458-z, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129672864
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Big news! Santa is real, and he looks like this.
00:04I know, it's not exactly how we pictured the jolly old guy, but a recently discovered
00:09tomb might just be the proof we've been waiting for to show that St. Nicholas was
00:13real and Turkish.
00:17Turns out, he wasn't a North Pole native but a kind-hearted bishop from the 4th century,
00:21famous for giving gifts to everyone.
00:23The legend says he was a wealthy man born in the ancient city of Batara, modern-day
00:28Turkey, who traveled to the countryside to help the poor and the sick.
00:32For centuries, though, people couldn't be sure he actually existed.
00:36Some historical sources say he was buried in Myra, which is now called Demre, Turkey.
00:42Since the 80s, archaeologists have been digging around this area, trying to prove it.
00:46And now, their Christmas miracle has finally come true!
00:50After digging 6 feet deep in an annex of St. Nicholas' church, they uncovered a mysterious
00:56limestone tomb, about 2 meters long.
00:59While they're pretty sure this is St. Nick's final resting place, they're still searching
01:04for an inscription to confirm its exact age.
01:07Now, if we're talking about the fictional Santa Claus, legend says his home is in Lapland,
01:13Finland.
01:14Back in 2018, archaeologists made an interesting discovery that could finally prove that Santa
01:20was real.
01:21They were digging at a site called Tiny Aro, when they stumbled upon about 200 burial pits.
01:27But when they looked inside, there was definitely no sign of Santa.
01:31Actually, there were no human skeletons at all, just a bunch of things like pottery and
01:35animal bones.
01:36So, no one really knows what this place was.
01:39That was the complete opposite of what happened with a group of archaeologists working in
01:44the ancient city of Petra, Jordan.
01:46Since 2003, there have been rumors about hidden chambers beneath the famous monument called
01:51Al-Qazneh, also known as The Treasury.
01:55Twenty-one years later, a team finally decided to dig and uncovered an intact tomb.
02:02Inside they found at least 12 human skeletons and artifacts estimated to be over 2,000 years
02:08old.
02:10Hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to Al-Qazneh every year, and most of them probably
02:14go there to see the site of the Holy Grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
02:19So, do you want to know the funny part?
02:22One of the skeletons in the tomb was clutching a ceramic chalice that looked a lot like the
02:27Holy Grail.
02:30You probably remember the devastating fire that caused massive damage to Notre Dame in
02:34Paris back in 2019.
02:37Because of that, the building, originally built between the 12th and 13th centuries,
02:41had to be restructured.
02:44Archaeologists saw it as a golden opportunity to dig into the site and uncover its hidden
02:49secrets.
02:50The team was only allowed to dig about 16 inches beneath the floor, but that was enough.
02:56As soon as they removed the floor tiles and cleared away a thin layer of dirt, they spotted
03:00the top of a lead coffin.
03:03Then, they found some limestone sculptures, including life-sized heads and torsos.
03:09Altogether, they uncovered over 1,000 fragments of different works of art.
03:15Ancient statues have been found in the most random places, including a sewer.
03:20In July 2024, Bulgarian archaeologists were checking a Roman sewer in the ancient city
03:25of Heraclea Sintica, when they found a nearly 7-foot-tall marble statue of Hermes, the Greek
03:32messenger deity.
03:34This town was completely devastated and abandoned after two earthquakes, one in the year 388
03:41and the other in the year 425.
03:44But somehow, it didn't destroy this statue.
03:47In fact, its head was found in surprisingly good condition.
03:51Finding ancient artwork is definitely fascinating, but imagine stumbling upon an entire hidden
03:57city in the Amazon rainforest!
04:00Using high-tech lasers, researchers uncovered a lost civilization with thousands of structures
04:05and a whole network of roads, canals, and houses, all buried beneath the dense jungle.
04:12This city was built around 2,500 years ago, in an area located in the shadow of a volcano,
04:19which by the way, could have erupted and destroyed this civilization at some point.
04:25It's hard to say exactly how many people lived there, but experts estimate they stayed up
04:30there for about 1,000 years.
04:32This discovery proves ancient people also had huge, organized cities in the middle of
04:38the Amazon.
04:40A similar thing happened in Campeche in southern Mexico.
04:44An archaeologist was doing some research on the internet when he accidentally discovered
04:48a hidden Maya city.
04:50This area, now called Valeriana, was huge, about the size of Edinburgh, the capital of
04:56Scotland.
04:57It had pyramids, sports fields, amphitheaters, and paths connecting different districts.
05:03Thanks to satellite images, archaeologists uncovered an entire unknown civilization from
05:08the Bronze Age.
05:10They were checking out aerial images when they discovered 100 prehistoric settlements
05:15in the Pannonian Plain, a region that includes parts of what's now Serbia and Hungary.
05:21The people who lived there are now known as the Titsa site group, and it looks like they
05:25were a pretty well-organized society, skilled at growing food, hunting, and fishing.
05:32Google Earth helped a team to uncover a mysterious set of 400 ancient gates in Saudi Arabia.
05:39These gates, scattered across the desert, are thought to be from thousands of years
05:43ago.
05:44They're made of stone and arranged in weird formations that have left archaeologists scratching
05:49their heads.
05:50I mean, they don't look like they were meant for funerals, and they don't seem like structures
05:55where people lived, so we still have no idea what they are.
06:01Technology is really changing archaeology.
06:04Thanks to artificial intelligence and, well, a $1 million prize, we've finally been able
06:09to decipher part of an unreadable and super-damaged ancient scroll.
06:14The Herculaneum Scrolls were discovered by workers digging up the ancient town of Herculaneum
06:20near Pompeii in 1752.
06:23But their condition was so bad that, for years, they were considered indecipherable.
06:27Thankfully, AI has helped unveil their secrets.
06:32Based on the studies so far, experts believe that one of these scrolls was written by a
06:36philosopher who valued pleasures like music and food above all else.
06:41No doubt Stonehenge in England is one of the most mysterious places on Earth.
06:46Some theories even suggest it was built by extraterrestrials.
06:50After more than a century of research, archaeologists are still figuring out how it came together.
06:56See that big altar in the middle?
06:59Turns out it came all the way from Scotland.
07:02And that's pretty wild, considering this massive sandstone block weighs over 6 tons, and the
07:07people who built Stonehenge more than 4,000 years ago didn't have the luxury of wheels
07:13or modern tools.
07:15We can find some pretty amazing stuff in the oceans, too.
07:19In 2013, a mysterious shipwreck was found about 20 feet underwater off the coast of
07:25Kenya.
07:26At the time, no one knew where it came from.
07:29But now, researchers are pretty sure this could be a ship from Vasco da Gama's fleet.
07:35You know, the famous Portuguese navigator, best known for being the first to sail from
07:39Europe to India by rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
07:44If it's confirmed, this shipwreck could be one of the earliest European shipwrecks in
07:48the Indian Ocean.
07:52Ancient treasures can take many forms, including a bottle.
07:55Recently, archaeologists in Norway uncovered a 150-year-old message in a bottle during
08:01an excavation of a Viking burial mound.
08:04The bottle contained a letter written by Anders Lorange, an archaeologist who worked on the
08:09site back in the 1800s, along with his business card and a few coins wrapped in paper.
08:15The letter gave some details about the excavation, though it seems Lorange got a few things wrong,
08:21like the exact number of Viking shields discovered.
08:24At the end of the letter, he wrote a personal note in runic script – Emma Gade, my girlfriend.
08:31So it gave us not only insights into history, but also a peek into his love life.
08:36That's it for today!
08:37So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:42friends!
08:43And if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!