ever since the late 1800s people have

debated the meaning and purpose of cave

art welcome to watch mojo and today

we're counting down our picks for the

top 20 greatest archaeological

discoveries ever to the public she was

simply lucy scientists tried to piece

together a picture of her life for this

list we're looking at the most amazing

and important archaeological discoveries

throughout human history have you

visited any of these locations let us

know in the comments

number 20. gobekli tepe while this site

was first noted in 1963 its importance

wasn't recognized until decades later in

the mid 90s german archaeologist klaus

schmidt realized that the stone slabs in

the area were the tops of prehistoric

megaliths and began excavating during

the intensive dig

schmidt and his team

begin to unearth dozens of additional

giant stone monoliths covered in

intricate carvings

some weighing as much as 20 tons what he

unearthed was a site of massive circular

structures on stone pillars dating all

the way back to the neolithic period the

megaliths at gobekli tibet are the

world's oldest erected as early as 9500

bce no one really knows what the site

was used for but the carved reliefs

provide glimpses into prehistoric

religious practices quebeckly is a

beautiful story it was the first temple

in the world the birthplace of religion

it carries with it a certain mysticism

that sparks the question why what we do

know is that gobekli tepe is one of the

world's oldest human settlements marking

the transition from nomadic lifestyles

to permanent habitation

number 19 the oldest footprints in north

america in 2018 human footprints were

found in british columbia canada that

dated back about

000 years at the time these were the

oldest footprints discovered in north

america but just a few years later in

2021 that record was shattered the

footprints show how humans coexisted

with large wild animals many are of

children and reveal a story about

everyday life and play archaeologists

working in new mexico's white sands

national park unearthed tracks that are

between 21 000 and 23 000 years old not

only does this almost double the record

for oldest footprint in north america it

also completely restructures our

understanding of early north american

settlement the new footprint suggests

humans came before the ice blocked

migration and came to the southwestern

u.s up to 23 000 years ago prior to this

game-changing discovery most experts

dated the continent's earliest

habitation to between 11 000 and 13 000

years ago number 18 richard iii's grave

this controversial figure ruled as king

of england and lord of ireland until

1485 when he died in the battle of

bosworth field with his death the wars

of the roses came to an end and with it

the middle ages in england his reign was

later immortalized in shakespeare's

eponymous play as shakespeare put it my

kingdom for a horse

but richard had lost his steed in battle

and he fell dead on the ground

the last british king to die on the

field of battle following richard iii's

death his corpse was quickly buried and

lost to time until 2012 that year

researchers discovered the foundations

of a medieval church underneath a modern

parking lot and it was there that they

found the skeleton of richard iii but

this is where he was discovered his

well-preserved skeleton was buried

without a coffin or a shroud a

combination of markings on the bones and

genetic analysis proved what the experts

had hoped for after more than five

centuries we had finally found one of

england's most notorious rulers

number 17 madaba map in the late 19th

century construction began on a new

greek orthodox church in jordan's

capital city of madaba while building

the new structure workers unearthed an

ancient mosaic on the floor of the

existing church right at the center of

it

is this piece of showing jerusalem

when we look at jerusalem you can see

the walls going around this mosaic is

now known as the madaba map and it shows

parts of the middle east dating to the

6th century the map contains the oldest

known depiction of both jerusalem and

the holy land not only that but it was

used extensively to locate sites

mentioned in the bible and it is

currently the oldest geographic floor

mosaic in the world but also

if you look you'll see other cities we

have jericho here we have ascalon and

and gaza

represented here as well

right at the top you'll see the dead sea

number 16 the sarah piam of alexandria

serving as the greatest library of its

age the library of alexandria attracted

scholars to egypt and served as the

ancient world symbol of knowledge in its

prime the library of alexandria housed

an unprecedented number of scrolls and

attracted some of the greek world's

greatest minds it proved so popular that

a so-called daughter library was later

created called the serapeum of

alexandria the serapium lasted a bit

longer than its famous father and it was

finally destroyed in the year 391 the

site later became a muslim cemetery in

the mid-1940s the foundations of the

serpentine were discovered and with it

one of the greatest centers of learning

in human history was unearthed

number 15 nasus found on the greek

island of crete nasus is often regarded

as the oldest city in europe and that's

saying something featuring a massive and

world-renowned palace complex nasus was

the primary capital of the ancient

minoan civilization which inhabited both

crete and other aegean islands however

very few know that around the palace

there was a very extensive settlement

the largest urban center in crete and

mainland greece the civilization

prospered from about 3 500 bce to 1100

bce but it's believed that nasa's had

been inhabited since the neolithic

period an amateur archaeologist named

minos kalokirinos discovered the

location of gnosis in 1878 and the

ancient site was unearthed by sir arthur

evans throughout much of the early 1900s

so arthur evans began the first

systematic investigation of the

archaeological site and brought to light

the so-called palace of king minos the

center of a hitherto unknown

civilization number 14. etsy just

imagine mountaineering through the alps

when you stumble across an ancient human

corpse embedded in a glacier this is

exactly what happened to german tourists

helmut and erika ziemann in september of

1991. hikers erica and helmut simon

decided to take a shortcut down from the

peel

as they passed a rocky gully

they made a grisly discovery they found

what is now known as ertsy the iceman a

natural mummy dating to about 3230 bce

ertsy is the oldest natural mummy in

european history having died about 5000

years before he was found preserved in

ice regardless the body is in remarkable

condition considering its age and it's

provided researchers an incredible

glimpse into copper age europeans and

their lifestyles for sure we want to

know about how he died and why he died

and because it's also such a

spectacular finding this mummy such an

old mummy is the only one we have here

in this region number 13 mohenjo-daro a

large human settlement dating to 2500

bce mohenjo-daro is one of the oldest

cities in the world located in

modern-day pakistan mohenjo-daro was one

of the most ambitious cities of its day

complete with street grids a sewage

system and many other ingenious feats of

engineering the city of mohenjo-daro

rivaled the ancient civilizations in

egypt and mesopotamia archaeologists

believe that over 35 000 people once

occupied the city

it was a remarkable settlement that

showcased the creativity and boundless

imagination of humanity unfortunately

mohenjo-daro was completely abandoned

around 1900 bce as the local indus

civilization went into a decline it

remained lost to time until the 1920s

when an officer of the archaeological

survey of india located the ancient city

sixty years after its discovery

mohenjo-daro was named a unesco world

heritage site so far only 10 of the city

has been unearthed the authorities have

stopped digging because they don't have

the resources to preserve what has so

far been discovered number 12 the

antikythera mechanism if it hadn't been

discovered

when it was in 1901 no one would

possibly believe that it could exist

because it's so sophisticated this

mysterious object was found submerged in

grecian waters at the turn of the 20th

century located inside an ancient

shipwreck the strange device was already

2000 years old when it was found and

despite being eroded by the sea for all

that time it was still eventually

identified as the world's oldest

computer finally another century after

its discovery and we now know

definitively what it did it was a device

used to chart the positions of celestial

bodies so that the ancient greeks knew

when eclipses would happen some have

argued that it's so complex the greeks

couldn't have made it at all

there are even some who say it must have

been created by ellis it took a 3d

reconstruction of the entire device in

2021 to get a better understanding of

how it worked though its purpose was

suspected for decades

number 11. troy for centuries historians

debated not only whether the trojan war

actually happened but also whether the

lost city of troy ever existed at all

it's a story that's been told and retold

by poets and actors for thousands of

years

but is it real

did the city of troy actually exist the

trojan war is the focus of one of

ancient greece's most famous epic poems

homer's iliad and legendary greek heroes

like achilles and odysseus fought in it

but troy's location became lost

knowledge throughout the 1800s many

researchers argued that hisarlek a site

in western turkey was probably the

elusive city throughout the 20th century

scholars have become aware that we can't

even be sure that troy is indeed

destroyed finally after decades of

debate experts came to a consensus that

yes hisarlek is in all likelihood troy

unfortunately we've yet to find

conclusive evidence that the trojan

horse existed but troy's identification

was hugely important for historians

the idea that the greeks would have in

fact

built a large wooden horse hidden inside

it and had it dragged inside of troy

is certainly

possible but it kind of

strains your credulity a little bit that

someone really could have pulled that

off

number 10. tutankhamun's tomb tuta car

moon's burial chamber is filled with

magical decoration

but beside it the rest of the tomb is

left bare

this simple tomb is unlike any other

royal tomb in the valley

the valley of the kings is the final

resting place of many ancient egyptian

pharaohs but throughout its history a

number of tombs have fallen victim to

grave robbers this is the egyptian red

list of the missing species we are

already missing from the museums and the

sites and everywhere in egypt and we

give it to interbone to stop any piece

of them if they're moving from a country

to a country tootin commons tomb was

different remarkably though grave

robbers did break in shortly after it

was initially sealed up most of its

contents were intact when archaeologists

found it in 1922. over 5 000 priceless

artifacts including golden statues

in the burial chamber the pharaoh's

mummy wearing a golden death mask was

placed inside a coffin made of more than

200 pounds of solid gold today tootin

common's gilded mask makes him arguably

the most famous and recognizable pharaoh

in history considering tooting common

only reigned for about 10 years and died

between the young ages of 18 and 19 that

is quite the legacy this modest tomb was

jammed full of all the royal possessions

that we usually buried with a king

it can't have been meant to be all

jumbled up like that people are just

trying to cram as much stuff as possible

along with the mask the tomb also

contained a statue of anubis the god of

the dead and a dagger made from a fallen

meteor

number 9. sutton who one of the most

remarkable medieval graves anywhere in

europe was excavated in england in 1939.

well i'd say it's the biggest

archaeological discovery

ever made in this country so it is an

immense responsibility to look after the

site but also

really what we're trying to do at sutton

who is tell

more people about it the owner of an

estate in suffolk edith priddy enlisted

some archaeologists to find out what was

underneath the burial mounds on her

property what they uncovered was

astounding so much so that the story

inspired a 2021 film the dig

that's a ship

how do you mean a ship

that's the ship that's been buried in

the mound

why would anyone want to bury a ship

would i expect because that's a grave

the most promising mound contained an

entire long ship and innumerable

artifacts including pieces of armor made

of gold and other anglo-saxon relics

though it's one of the uk's most

impressive archaeological discoveries

it's still not entirely clear whose

grave it actually is

shortly after the inquest which ruled

that all the items found in the sutton

who burial mound lawfully belonged to

edith pretty pretty donated the entire

collection to the british museum it's

among the most valuable donations of its

kind and the collection itself remains

at the heart of the museum most evidence

suggests it was the final resting place

of a famous east anglian king redwald

who ruled the region around fourteen

hundred years ago

number eight alduvai gorge this isn't

one specific archaeological location but

an entire locality housing some of the

most important works relating to

paleoanthropology or the study of early

humans found in the northeast corner of

tanzania olduvai gorge has been

invaluable in our understanding of early

human culture and evolution telling us

is that there's a lot out there to be

found

that we actually don't have the whole

story of human evolution researchers

have unearthed ancient stone tools and

hominid fossils occupation of the site

is believed to stretch back nearly 2

million years when it was inhabited by

an archaic human species called homo

habilis and then these other things

which are generally termed homo habilis

after the species that um lewis leakey

named at aldebaran 1960. without aldevi

gorge and its riches of archaeological

material our understanding of archaic

humans would be much more limited

number seven the cave of altamira if

you're interested in early humanity then

you cannot go wrong with the cave of

altamira this is the museum of altamira

it was built right next to the cave

where the original cave paintings dating

back to the paleolithic era were

discovered

the original cave has been closed to

preserve its archaeologically important

remains archaeology has uncovered many

notable caves relating to ancient

humanity including lasko and another in

the small spanish town of artales but

nothing beats altamira also located in

spain this cave houses numerous

prehistoric drawings and paintings most

of which depict local animals after the

site was discovered in 1868 the

suggestion that the paintings were

prehistoric was met with some skepticism

not only owing to the nature of the

drawings but also because no other

prehistoric cave art was known to exist

in europe we're also interested in

whether or not human symbolic behavior

coincides for example with language or

whether

human symbolic behavior in fact dates

right back to the point at which we

start looking like humans but the

research eventually prevailed and it's

now believed that the paintings are

around 36 000 years old

number six the terracotta army this is

one of the most significant

archaeological finds of all time and it

was discovered completely by accident

and they find some pieces of the pottery

they also find the head of the target

warriors and they the team

archaeological team came to this area

and they start to

dig the terracotta army was first

uncovered in the shanxi province of

western china by a group of farmers in

the 1970s the army resides within a tomb

constructed over 2 200 years ago as the

resting place of qin shi huang the first

emperor of china which is why it's so

elaborate

he was its first emperor

and his empire became his fortress

protected by a great wall

the legend says he was a tyrant

driven mad by power in the parts we've

been able to excavate there are over 8

000 soldiers made out of clay there to

guard emperor chin in the afterlife row

upon row of warriors

hundreds of secret subterranean soldiers

all life-sized and built to be immortal

but even more astonishing is the fact

that the entire necropolis is believed

to be almost 40 square miles in size

with most of the site hidden in vaults

that aren't yet accessible

number 5. the dead sea scrolls written

mostly in hebrew the dead sea scrolls

are some of the oldest abrahamic

religious texts in existence a young

shepherd is herding goats in qumran near

the dead sea

passing a cave he throws a stone to

scare a wayward animal back to the flock

and hears something shatter

curious he enters the cavern and

discovers ten clay jars

[Music]

holding seven ancient scrolls

they were discovered in a cave in the

west bank in the mid-1940s but in the

decades since we've continually found

more and more scrolls ready to be

translated in a handful of additional

caves the skrills themselves talk of the

battles of the great teacher of

righteousness who led the community into

the wilderness

with the teacher of lies the scrolls are

so significant because they've allowed

historians and theologians to chart the

development of the bible much more

accurately and provided new information

about the dawn of christianity thousands

of years ago as well as the history of

judaism and the holy land now we're

becoming much more attuned to how very

jewish jesus was

very devout jew and that's the heart of

christianity they are unquantifiably

important and still have a lot to teach

us there's really no way of predicting

what the next discovery is is going to

be or what it's going to come from i

think it's

fairly reasonable to guess there will be

something
surely there will be something number

four pompeii among the most famous ruins

in the world pompeii was destroyed by a

devastating eruption from mount vesuvius

in the year 79 a.d the village was left

forgotten until the 16th century over

1500 years later because it had been

completely buried underneath volcanic

ash it took just 18 hours for pompeii to

be buried under millions of tons of

volcanic ash and pumice

an entire living city wiped out but that

ash kept pompeii largely intact when it

was finally excavated with people frozen

in place where they died during the

disaster the point is we have a great

opportunity here because we have a

snapshot of the society we might have

slaves we might have upper-class people

and we can find out if there have been

big differences today it's one of

italy's most popular tourist attractions

and a tremendous source of roman history

as tragic as the story is pompeii has

taught us more about roman life than

many other ancient archaeology sites

anywhere in the world pompeii has

regained its pride and continues to

share its stories with people from all

around the world

number three the library of ashurbanipal

famous writer h.g wells once called the

library of ashurbanipal quote the most

precious source of historical material

in the world and he wasn't far off

english historian and traveler austin

henry liard found the ancient library in

the remains of a palace in 1849 while

the actual building had been destroyed

many of the library's old texts were

still intact though most were in

fragments it consisted of over 30 000

clay tablets which provided an enormous

wealth of information relating to

ancient civilizations of the middle east

the tablets date to the 7th century bce

perhaps the greatest find within the

library of ashurpanipal was the epic of

gilgamesh which is widely considered to

be the oldest piece of literature in

human history inscribed on crumbling

clay tablets was a 4 000 year old story

so riveting the first person to

translate it started stripping from

excitement number 2. lucy

several famous fossils have

revolutionized our view of early

hominins discovered in 1924 in south

africa the tong child a skull of an

australopithecus africanus was described

as quote the missing link between ape

and human although anthropologists

initially resisted the idea that humans

had evolved in africa some scientists

even went so far as to suggest it was

perhaps just a baby gorilla and that the

tongue child would

bear little out on anything other than

the origins of apes themselves eclipsing

the tong child in renown is lucy the 3.2

million year old remains of an

australopithecus afarensis unearthed in

1974 in ethiopia she was named after the

beatles song lucy in the sky with

diamonds which the research team was

playing on repeat the completeness of

her remains gave us much more

information on the evolution of

bipedalism and brain size we now have

400 specimens of lucy species

australopithecus afarensis

named after the afar region

and we know that they're very large

individuals which were males and the

smaller ones

are certainly females in 1994 artie the

skeleton of an artipithecus ramidus

thought to be 4.4 million years old was

also found in ethiopia becoming the most

complete early hominid specimen ever

discovered the pelvis reconstruction has

confirmed that artipithicus was bipedal

a major step forward in the

investigation

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number one the rosetta stone

for centuries archaeologists had

absolutely no idea how to decipher

ancient egypt's complex hieroglyphics

jean-francois champollion in france and

thomas young in britain both believed

that the rosetta stone as it was called

held the key to deciphering hieroglyphs

but the rosetta stone did not yield its

secrets easily without a starting point

they were unable to understand the

inscriptions on egyptian monuments and

artifacts but that all changed with the

discovery of the long-lost rosetta stone

in 1799

an enormous slab of stone inscribed with

everything needed to start translating

this seemingly insignificant rock would

forever change our understanding of

mankind's past the text it contained

wasn't actually all that interesting but

the same passage was written three times

in different languages and one of those

languages was ancient greek the greek

section told of the tablet having the

same information written in all three

while greek was easily understood

several obstacles stood in the way of

using it to translate the two egyptian

scripts by using the greek which is

still widely understood by researchers

we were able to decipher the

hieroglyphics and unlock the secrets of

ancient egyptian writing

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[Music]

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