Certain structures, megaliths, and buried items defy explanation, but there are some crazy theories about them. Let's take a look at some historical artifacts that continue to baffle experts to this day.
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00:00Certain structures, megaliths, and buried items defy explanation, but there are some
00:05crazy theories about them.
00:07Let's take a look at some historical artifacts that continue to baffle experts to this day.
00:12You might think that real-life archaeology is nothing like what you see in the movies
00:15with its treasure maps with spots marked by an X.
00:18An X never, ever marks this spot.
00:22But not so fast.
00:23The Copper Scroll is an honest-to-goodness treasure map.
00:26It was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it tells the story of exactly how to find
00:30major ancient treasures.
00:32Sort of.
00:33According to the text, 64 treasure hordes were scattered across Jerusalem and the Judean
00:38Desert, and they were used to hide the most valuable treasure in the world from invaders.
00:43That treasure includes not just religious artifacts, but also a huge amount of gold,
00:47silver, and coins.
00:49The pieces of archaic text that have been translated give rather precise directions.
00:53The problem is that the directions are a little too precise, and refer to things like
00:57water tanks, reservoirs, and underground passages that we have no way of tracing now.
01:03Some think the whole thing is fiction anyway.
01:05But another school of thought believes the Copper Scroll was a record of the actions
01:08of a religious sect living in the city of Qumran, who were responsible for safekeeping
01:13Jewish treasure.
01:15Scattered across four different sites in the Costa Rican jungles are the remains of a civilization
01:20that date to between 500 and 1500 AD.
01:23In addition to the regular sort of archaeological remains, they also contain around 300 stone
01:28spheres known as las bolas.
01:31They're close to perfectly shaped spheres and are all different sizes.
01:35Some could fit in your pocket, and others are estimated to weigh somewhere around 15
01:39tons.
01:40For hundreds of years, they were buried under dirt, mud, and sediment, and that's kept them
01:44safe from all kinds of unsavory characters.
01:47That hasn't helped experts figure out much about them, though, and we thus have no clue
01:51who made them, when they were made, or what they possibly could have been for.
01:55There's no apparent rhyme or reason to the placement of the spheres, most of which are
01:59in residential locations.
02:01One of the sites has a set arranged in a linear pattern, another has an abnormally large sphere,
02:06and a sadly large number have been looted, destroyed, or moved.
02:10And that means we don't even know how many there really were.
02:13They can't be carbon dated, but based on the layers of sediment they were buried in, it
02:16looks like someone was carving them over a period of about 1,800 years.
02:21Lore says that the gods used them to control the weather, but maybe they were just a sort
02:25of divine bocce set.
02:26Sometimes, incredible discoveries get incredibly boring names, like the Big Circles.
02:32Made out of stone and dating from sometime between 2,000 and 4,500 BC, the Big Circles
02:37were first spotted in 1920, but it wasn't until 2014 that archaeologists discovered
02:43how weird they are.
02:44So far, 12 have been found scattered across Jordan, along with one in Syria.
02:49They range between 720 and 1,460 feet in diameter, with a rough average height of three feet.
02:56What's weird is that they're pretty perfectly round, and that there's no entrance to any
02:59of them.
03:00The fact that there's no entrance puts an end to most of the theories about what they
03:04might have been used for.
03:05There's no practical reason that you're going to, for example, keep a herd of cattle in
03:09an enclosure you'd have to lift them in and out of.
03:12The sheer distance between each of the sites is also confusing.
03:15It is known, at least, that some of them have been destroyed.
03:18The one in Syria was all but demolished by expanding towns, but that hasn't gotten us
03:23any closer to figuring out what they were built for.
03:25In 2016, archaeologists from the University of Glasgow unearthed a prehistoric site that
03:31had already been discovered once.
03:33After the Kokno Stone was thoroughly documented in the 1960s, it was reburied to protect it
03:38from vandalism.
03:40Dated to around 3000 BC, the stone sits next to a housing estate and is said to have some
03:44of the best depictions of Neolithic and Bronze Age carvings ever discovered.
03:48But we don't know why people went to all the trouble of carving the exquisite markings
03:52into relatively soft stone, or what any of it means.
03:56The surface of the stone was already mapped before it was defaced by graffiti and people's
04:00boots.
04:01The goal of the 2016 excavation was to map it more extensively, with 3D scanning technology
04:06that would allow archaeologists to get a look at the stone as it was originally intended.
04:10While we doubt that this is the case, we would love the irony if the carvings turned out
04:14to be graffiti from prehistoric hoodlums.
04:16How do you say Eda Joes in Neolithic?
04:19Judicola Rock is named for the Cherokee legend that Judicola, an ancient giant, was the one
04:24who left the markings on the boulder's surface.
04:27The tale says that he was jumping from mountain to mountain when he pressed his hand into
04:30the stone and left the imprint of his seven fingers.
04:33But aside from that, no one's really sure what the deal is about the North Carolina
04:37Stone with the prehistoric petroglyphs.
04:39Strangely, some of the best images we have of the rock come from the 1930s, when archaeologists
04:44filled in the carvings with chalk to show where the markings were.
04:48In the decades since, weather has taken its toll on the soapstone boulder, and it's inevitable
04:52that at some point, the carvings are going to wear away completely.
04:55They've already been dated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.
05:00Not only do we not know what the carvings mean, we're not sure who made them, either.
05:04Even stranger, there's supposedly two other similar stones in the area, but no one can
05:08find them anymore.
05:10Theories about the rock suggest that it's an ancient peace treaty, religious marker,
05:14or even something like the Rosetta Stone giving us the key to unlocking other languages.
05:19Unfortunately, whatever it's unlocking has been so lost to time that we have no idea
05:23where to even start, and it might just disappear anyway before we're able to figure it out.
05:27It's a form of communication, in some ways.
05:30So what is this story?
05:31What are they trying to tell?
05:32Miami, Florida is probably the last place you'd expect to find an ancient stone circle
05:38that's reminiscent of sites like Stonehenge.
05:40But in 1998, construction crews were tearing down six blocks of housing to clear space
05:45for a few new skyscrapers.
05:47In the process, they uncovered a circle of 24 large holes in limestone.
05:51Some more digging uncovered a perfect circle that was 38 feet in diameter, dated to around
05:562,000 years ago, and littered with all kinds of ancient artifacts.
06:01Along with animal bones and shark teeth, archaeologists found tools and axe heads made from basalt.
06:06That's significant because the closest place to get basalt is hundreds of miles away in
06:11what's now Georgia.
06:12Further digging led archaeologists to conclude that the site was left behind by the Tequesta
06:16Native American tribe, one of the most mysterious peoples to settle in the southern United States.
06:22They were a largely nomadic group that managed to survive into the 18th century.
06:26There's a lot we don't know about them, including what the deal is with this ancient circle.
06:31The site is still being studied, and it's also now preserved by state authorities.
06:35If you ever find yourself in Miami anytime soon, you now know you have somewhere cool
06:39to visit besides the beach.
06:41In 1957, an amateur archaeologist found a small coin in what he thought was a purely
06:46Native American site at Nascag Point in Brooklyn, Maine.
06:49Then, in 1974, experts visiting the Maine State Museum announced that it was a Norse
06:54coin, and it took another four years to date it between 1065 and 1080 A.D.
06:59The site itself was dated to just after that, when the coin would've logically been in circulation.
07:04But the question of just how it ended up in Maine has been hugely debated.
07:09Some people insist it's proof of Norse contact with Maine, but since it's the only Norse
07:13artifact that's been found there, others say it's a hoax.
07:16Still others suggest it might've been carried there as a part of some 12th century trade
07:20network.
07:21The coin has a mark that's led some to suggest it had been made into a pendant and was brought
07:25to the New World that way.
07:27If that's true, there's something oddly comforting about the idea that even hundreds of years
07:31ago we were picking up souvenirs, turning them into jewelry, and then losing them.
07:36The eerily-named Starving of Saqqara is a two-foot-tall limestone statue that now resides
07:41at Concordia University in Montreal.
07:44It came to the university from a collection of Mediterranean antiques, but no one has
07:48the faintest idea about the statue's origins or what it's supposed to be, even though there's
07:52no shortage of experts that have been consulted.
07:55Saqqara is the name of an ancient Egyptian burial ground, but no one knows just how the
07:59statue came by that name or if the two are really related.
08:03Even stranger, a mysterious script was etched into the statue, and no one's been able to
08:07even come close to identifying that, either.
08:10If it's a fake, someone went to a lot of trouble to make up something that's not recognizable
08:14as anything of importance.
08:16And if it's not fake, then we have a lot to learn.
08:19Some places aren't typically on anyone's travel plans.
08:23One of those is surely a remote corner of the Southeast Asian country of Laos, about
08:27250 miles outside the capital city of Vientiane.
08:30But if you head out into the literal middle of nowhere, you'll discover the Plain of Jars.
08:35The sprawling site of hundreds of square miles is filled with thousands of these stone
08:39containers.
08:40They're in random places, some alone, some in groups, with some up to nine feet tall.
08:45Some have lids, some don't.
08:46Some are decorated with carvings, others aren't.
08:49At this point, you can probably guess that no one has the slightest idea what the jars
08:53were for.
08:54One theory says that they were burial sites, or that they were urns for placing a body
08:58in to allow it to decompose before the rest of the burial rites were performed.
09:03Others say that they're kilns, and were used to make building materials.
09:06Still, others suggest that they were used for brewing rice wine, and that's probably
09:10our favorite theory.
09:11We're thinking it's either that, or the beer pong of the gods.
09:15In 1986, construction workers near Chengdu, China, uncovered something bizarre, an ancient
09:21cache of artifacts that included animal bones and elephant tusks, along with around 200
09:26jade figures, massive bronze artworks, and a life-size statue.
09:31Most of the Sanxingdui artifacts appeared to have been damaged, dumped into the massive
09:35pits, and buried.
09:37Further investigation dated them to around 1200 BC, and discovered that they were cast
09:41with technology that wasn't thought to have existed at the time.
09:45No one's sure how they were made.
09:46No forges or foundries were ever found.
09:49No tools were uncovered, and in fact, until the discovery, it was thought that Chinese
09:53civilization was busy growing up elsewhere.
09:56Nor does anyone know why the figures were broken and buried.
09:59Traces of similar artwork were found at the nearby Jinsha site, which dates to about 500
10:03years after the burial of the Sanxingdui horde.
10:06But still, no one's quite sure exactly what the story is.
10:09The pieces have a sort of unhealthy, supernatural look to them, with exaggerated features and
10:14almost wing-like ears.
10:16It could be the work of ancient aliens, or maybe it's just proof that there's a huge
10:19amount we don't know about our own collective history.