In the following video we will discuss about one of the most disruptive and useful medieval animals. What is it and why was it so important? Watch the video to find out more!
Hera the Olympian Goddess Greek Mythology
In today’s video we will get to know the history of Hera, as well as her myths and why she is an important goddess in Greek mythology. Enjoy!
Geneticists Studying Ancient DNA Discovered A Girl Whose Parents Were Two Different Species
At a laboratory in Germany, a researcher sits stunned. Surely it can’t be true? It looks like something scientists thought they would never find. But there’s no mistake here: this girl was born from two entirely different human species. Once the startled experts uncovered the true significance of the unsettling discovery, they realized there was no going back. The mysterious girl, and our own forgotten past, would never be the same.
The chances of uncovering proof of this? Slim at best, or so the experts thought. Then researchers in a cave in Siberia stumbled upon a tiny fragment of bone. Initially, the team didn’t even realize that this came from a hominin – a term that just means “all the species regarded as human.” But soon an incredible story began to unfold.
When A Ferocious Storm Swept across Wales, The Sand Shifted To Expose Evidence Of A Lost Kingdom
It’s May 2019, and the dramatic Storm Hannah has recently subsided from Britain and Ireland. In its wake, Wayne Lewis decides to take a stroll along the coast of the small Welsh village of Borth. On this walk, he sees something unusual – strange shapes are jutting from the sand. Could this finally be solid evidence of the existence of an ancient kingdom posited by local folklore?
The real meaning behind the ancient eye of horus left people shocked
The real meaning behind the ancient eye of Horus left people shocked.
Egyptian mythology is a fascinating subject. Egyptian gods and mythical creatures are a significant part of Egyptian history. For example, the sun and the moon were regarded as the eyes of the god Horus. But, you will be shocked to know the real meaning behind the eye of Horus.
Today we will discover the real meaning behind the ancient eye of Horus that left people surprised.
Adonis: The Man Disputed by Two Goddesses
In the video below we will explore through comic illustrations the story of Adonis, the man who was disputed by two goddesses. Enjoy!
Forbidden Texts Not Included In The Bible
In the following video we will go through forbidden texts that are not included in the Bible. Watch the video to find out more!
The Mysterious Roman Dodecahedron: Unraveling Its Secrets
The Roman dodecahedron is an ancient artifact that has puzzled historians and archaeologists for centuries. This mysterious object is made of bronze or brass and is shaped like a 12-sided polyhedron, hence its name. Despite its widespread occurrence across the Roman Empire, the exact purpose of the dodecahedron remains a mystery. In this video, we will explore the history and significance of this enigmatic object and try to uncover its intended use. Join us as we delve into the world of the Roman dodecahedron and uncover its secrets!
Scariest Recent Archaeological Discoveries
In this video below we will explore the scariest recent archaeological discoveries. Enjoy!
5 Mysterious Ancient Finds That Scientists Can't Explain
In this exciting video, we explore the top 5 ancient artifacts that have left scientists scratching their heads. From puzzling inscriptions to mysterious objects with unknown functions, these ancient finds continue to defy explanation. Join us as we delve into the history and mystery behind each artifact, analysing their unique features and the theories that have been put forward to explain them. Whether you're a history buff, an archaeology enthusiast, or just love a good mystery, this video is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Jimmy Corsetti Shares New Evidence for Atlantis Theory
In the following video Jimmy Corsetti shares to Joe Rogan new evidence for the theory of Atlantis. Watch the video to find out more!
The Incredible Rock-Cut Theater of Ancient Petra
We’ve all seen examples of Roman theatres, stadiums and amphitheatres, often circular or semi-circular, tiered constructions with seating so an audience can watch a spectacle, whether its gladiators facing off, drama, dance, music or an athletic competition, but there is one example I’ve recently come across from the famous ancient city of Petra that is really quite something else.
Dating back to the Nabatean kingdom, the Petra Theater was a major cultural and political landmark under Aretas IV, who reigned between 9 BC and 40 AD, when Petra was a client state of the Roman Empire. Under his rule, and no doubt dictated by the Romans, Petra underwent large-scale construction projects and this theatre is an incredible example of this work.
Although it does look Roman in style and design, the Nabateans certainly built their Roman theatre in the Nabatean way – carving it straight from the bedrock with distinct floral capitals designed into it.
In 106AD, The Nabatean kingdom lost its independence; the Romans annexed the city and in doing so, they refurbished many of the public buildings, including the theatre. They rebuild the stage back wall and extended the orchestra’s floor level and some say they even doubled the amount of seating.
Watch this video to learn more about this incredible feat of ancient engineering, to learn more about the rocks and dating methods for the ancient city of Petra in Jordan and why this is arguably an even better feat the theatres of ancient Roman Empire.
99 Million-Year-Old Insects Stuck in Amber Reveal An Ancient World Of Vibrant Color
When you think of the colour scheme sported by the prehistoric world of the dinosaurs, greens and browns typically spring to mind.
But more and more research has shown that millions of years ago, vibrant, vivid colours were everywhere in nature, just like they are today. The latest evidence - 99-million-year-old insects caught in amber with incredible colours of purple, blue, and metallic green.
One of the reasons it's so hard for us to know the colours of prehistoric creatures is due to what's left from them - a fossilised bone can't convey what colour the animal was. But lately, scientists have been working out pigments from fossilised feathers; or, in the case of this latest study, used Burmese amber to peer into the world of ancient colours.
"The type of colour preserved in the amber fossils is called structural colour. It is caused by microscopic structure of the animal's surface," explained palaeontologist Pan Yanhong from the Chinese Academy of Science.
"The surface nanostructure scatters light of specific wavelengths and produces very intense colours. This mechanism is responsible for many of the colours we know from our everyday lives."
Structural colour is what makes peacock feathers and butterfly scales appear iridescent; in this case, it was created by the outer cuticle of the insect's exoskeleton.
The team collected 35 amber specimens containing ancient insects that also possessed these intense structural colours.
The vast majority of the specimens were either cuckoo wasps (family Chrysididae) or chalcid wasps (part of the superfamily Chalcidoidea). The amber-encased creatures showed off their metallic bluish-green, yellowish-green, purplish-blue, or even vibrant green bodies.
Interestingly enough, the cuckoo wasps in amber (see, for example, the first green insect in the series of images above) were nearly the same colour as the cuckoo wasps that are around today.
"The colour displayed by fossils can often be misleading because fine nanostructures responsible for coloration can be altered during fossilisation. However, the original colour of fossils can be reconstructed using theoretical modelling," the team writes in their paper.
"The calculated reflectance peaks match the observed metallic bluish-green coloration of the mesopleuron of our studied wasp, confirming that extremely fine nanostructures can be preserved in Mesozoic amber."
The team also thinks they have an explanation for why only some amber insect fossils retain the colouration of the animals inside.
After cutting through the exoskeleton of two of the vibrant wasps and one comparatively dull fossil, they found that in the dull sample, the cuticular structures which create the structural colours are damaged. In the colourful fossils, the insects' exoskeletons and the nanostructures that scatter light were still preserved.
While we admire the discoveries, it's important to note the palaeontology community is currently debating whether the scientific information that can be gleaned from these specimens collected and sold in Myanmar is worth the price of the potential human consequences, including the persecution of ethnic minorities.
In the last few years, amber has given us incredible creatures from the Cretaceous. These animals lived nearly 100 million years ago, and findings include the skull of the smallest dinosaur, some tiny frogs, a bird with a weirdly long toe, and many, many more.
Archaeologists Have Found an Ancient Roman Mosaic in Syria That Miraculously Survived Rampant Looting and a Civil War
A mosaic uncovered in 2022 located in the Syrian town of Rastan dates from ancient Roman times, and includes depictions of the Trojan war and of the sea god Neptune (alongside 40 of his mistresses).
Archaeologists say it is the first significant find in the area since Syria’s long civil war began in 2011.
The mosaic, which measures about 1,300 square feet, is inlaid with colorful tesserae, which Humam Saad, the associate director in charge of the excavation, described as “rich in details,” according to the Associated Press.
“What is in front of us is a discovery that is rare on a global scale,” Saad said.
He could not yet identify the type of building on which the mosaic appeared, “whether it’s a public bathhouse or something else,” he said, “because we have not finished excavating yet.”
Despite Rastan’s historical importance as an ancient city dating back approximately 4,000 years, the area witnessed some of the worst conflicts during the Syrian civil war, when it was used as a stronghold of the opposition before Syrian government forces reclaimed it in 2018.
“Unfortunately, there were armed groups that tried to sell the mosaic at one point in 2017 and listed it on social media platforms,” Saad said.
Looting—if not outright destruction—of Syria’s cultural heritage has been an ongoing problem. In 2015, UNESCO warned of “industrial scale looting” by groups in areas where conflicts had ravaged civilian populations, including in areas around Homs and Apamea, a city founded in 300 BCE. The oasis city of Palmyra, located in south-central Syria, a UNESCO world heritage site boasting 2,000-year-old Roman-era colonnades, was gravely damaged by ISIS militants following their sweeping takeover of large swaths of the country in 2015, leading to global condemnation.
With the latest discovery in Rastan, hope is slowly being restored that Syria’s long at-risk antiquities and cultural heritage are finally again being given protection and care. Slowly but surely, everything from Aleppo’s centuries-old-bazaar to the ancient site of Palmyra are being rebuilt as Syrians come to terms, assess, and reconstruct damage caused by war.
Mexico discovered an unusually well-preserved “monster tail 5 meters long” of 72 million years old
A team of paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a 72 million-year-old dinosaur tail in a desert in northern Mexico, the country’s National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) said on Monday.
Apart from being unusually well preserved, the 5 meter (16 foot) tail was the first ever found in Mexico, said Francisco Aguilar, INAH’s director in the border state of Coahuila.
The team, made up of paleontologists and students from INAH and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), identified the fossil as a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur.
The tail, found near the small town of General Cepeda, likely made up half the dinosaur’s length, Aguilar said.
Paleontologists found the 50 vertebrae of the tail completely intact after spending 20 days in the desert slowly lifting a sedimentary rock covering the creature’s bones.
Strewn around the tail were other fossilized bones, including one of the dinosaur’s hips, INAH said.
Dinosaur tail finds are relatively rare, according to INAH. The new discovery could further understanding of the hadrosaur family and aid research on diseases that afflicted dinosaur bones, which resembled those of humans, Aguilar said.
Scientists have already determined that dinosaurs suffered from tumors and arthritis, for example.
Dinosaur remains have been found in many parts of the state of Coahuila, in addition to Mexico’s other northern desert states.
“We have a very rich history of paleontology,” Aguilar said.
He noted that during the Cretaceous period, which ended about 65 million years ago, much of what is now central northern Mexico was on the coast. This has enabled researchers to unearth remains of both marine and land-based dinosaurs.
The presence of the remains was reported to INAH by locals in June 2012. After initial inspections, excavation began earlier this month. The remains of the tail will be transferred to General Cepeda for cleaning and further investigation.
80 Shackled Skeletons Found in Greek Grave After Ancient Mass Execution
A mass grave was recently discovered four miles outside of Athens in the historic harbor city of Phalaeron. But this wasn't just any mass grave—36 of the 80 skeletons were restrained in iron shackles and were arranged in a row next to each other. Because of this, some researchers speculate that they might be adherents of Cylon, a despot who attempted to conquer Athens in the seventh century B.C.
About 1,500 skeletons have been discovered in a 1-acre cemetery near Phalaeron, according to Tia Ghose of LiveScience. But, this most recent set was discovered in a location where the Greek National Opera and a new branch of the Greek National Library are being built. Scientists were able to date the cemetery between 650 and 625 B.C., a time period that ancient historians claim was full of unrest for Athens, thanks to two tiny vases discovered among the bound skeletons.
The teeth of the remains, according to AFP, indicate that they were largely from younger, healthy individuals. This supports the hypothesis that they were political outlaws who attempted to take control of Athens. A bioarchaeologist from the University of West Florida in Pensacola named Kristina Killgrove, who was not involved in the study, tells Ghose that "these might be the bones of persons who were part of this coup in Athens in 632 [B.C. ], the Coup of Cylon."
The ancient historians Plutarch and Thucydides claim that Cylon participated in the 640 B.C. Olympic Games as an athlete. His triumph there earned him a higher position and the hand of the Megarian tyrant's daughter. Because of the bad harvests and social disparity, Athens experienced unrest during the following 10 years. In 632, Cylon launched a coup with the aid of his father-in-army, law's expecting that the citizens of Athens would follow him. Though most didn't, some did.
As a substitute, Cylon fled the city, and his rebels sought refuge on the Acropolis. They eventually started to hunger, but Megacles, the city archon, guaranteed them safe passage. But he killed them as soon as they exited the shrine. According to Thucydides, "They even killed several of them in the very presence of the dreadful Goddesses at whose altars they had sought sanctuary while passing by." "The killers and those who follow them are considered cursed and transgressors against the Lady."
Nonetheless, it is far from definite that the skeletons belong to Cylon's disciples. Killgrove explains to Ghose that one of the issues is that there aren't many historical records from that century; as a result, "we really have no history" and "it might be a stretch for them to connect these shackled skeletons with this coup." "There are any number of possibilities for why a mass grave — really, many mass graves — of shackled skeletons were uncovered in Athens," says Killgrove in Forbes.
Less archeological sites from the time period do, however, depict people from lower socioeconomic levels. According to Killgrove, these skeletons could provide researchers with information about the working-class Athenians of the time.
Medieval treasure unearthed at the Abbey of Cluny
In mid-September 2017, a large treasure was unearthed during a dig at the Abbey of Cluny, in the French department of Saône-et-Loire: 2,200 silver deniers and oboles, 21 Islamic gold dinars, a signet ring,1 and other objects made of gold. Never before has such a large cache of silver deniers been discovered. Nor have gold coins from Arab lands, silver deniers, and a signet ring ever been found hoarded together within a single, enclosed complex.
Anne Baud, an academic at the Université Lumière Lyon 2, and Anne Flammin, a CNRS engineer—both from the Laboratoire Archéologie et Archéométrie (CNRS / Université Lumière Lyon 2 / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University)—led the archaeological investigation, in collaboration with a team of 9 students from the Université Lumière Lyon 2 and researchers from the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux (CNRS / Université Lumière Lyon 2).
The excavation campaign, authorized by the Bourgogne–Franche-Comté Regional Department of Cultural Affairs (DRAC), began in mid-September and ended in late October. It is part of a vast research program focused on the Abbey of Cluny. Students in the Master of Archaeology and Archaeological Science program at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 have been participating in archaeological digs at the Abbey of Cluny since 2015. This experience in the field complements their academic training and gives them an insight into professional archaeology.
At the site, the team led by Anne Baud et Anne Flammin, including the students from the Université Lumière Lyon 2, discovered a treasure consisting of:
more than 2,200 silver deniers and oboles—mostly minted by the Abbey of Cluny and probably dating to the first half of the 12th century—in a cloth bag, traces of which remain on some of the coins
a tanned hide bundle, found among the silver coins, fastened with a knot, and enclosing
21 Islamic gold dinars struck between 1121 and 1131 in Spain and Morocco, under the reign of Ali ibn Yusuf (1106–1143), who belonged to the Berber Almoravid dynasty.
a gold signet ring with a red intaglio depicting the bust of a god and an inscription possibly dating the ring back to the first half of the 12th century
a folded sheet of gold foil weighing 24 g and stored in a case
a small circular object made of gold
Vincent Borrel, a PhD student at the Archaeology and Philology of East and West (AOROC) research unit is currently studying the treasure in more detail to identify and date the various pieces with greater precision.
This is an exceptional find for a monastic setting and especially that of Cluny, which was one of the largest abbeys of Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The treasure was buried in fill where it seems to have stayed for 850 years.
It includes items of remarkable value: 21 gold dinars and a signet ring, a very expensive piece of jewelry that few could own during the Middle Ages. At that time, Western currency was mostly dominated by the silver denier. Gold coins were reserved for rare transactions. The 2,200 or so silver deniers, struck at Cluny or nearby, would have been for everyday purchases. This is the largest stash of such coins ever found.
The fact that Arab currency, silver deniers, and a signet ring were enclosed together makes this discovery all the more interesting.
This discovery will breathe new life into research delving into the past of the abbey, a historic site open to the public and managed by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN). It also raises new questions worth answering:
Who owned the treasure? Was it a monk, a church dignitary, or a rich layman?
What can the coins teach us? Where were the silver deniers of Cluny struck? Where did they circulate? How did Islamic dinars minted in Spain and Morocco end up at Cluny?
Why was the treasure buried?
What building lay above the treasure when it was hidden? Was it a building, now in ruins, that we know little about?
Floors in ancient Greek luxury villa were laid with recycled glass
Although this 1700 years old luxury villa was excavated and examined both in 1856 and in the 1990s, it still has secrets to reveal.
New secrets have now been revealed by an international research team, with Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen leading the so called archaeometric analyses: using chemical analysis to determine which elements an object was made of, how it has been processed, etc.
Others in the team are Thomas Delbey from Cranfield University in England and the classical archaeologists Birte Poulsen and Poul Pedersen from Aarhus University and SDU. The team’s work is published in the journal Heritage Science, including archaeometric analysis of 19, approximately, 1600 years old mosaic tesserae.
One of seven wonders of the world
The tesserae originate from an excavation of a villa from late antiquity, located in Halikarnassos (today Bodrum in Anatolia, Turkey). Halikarnassos was famous for King Mausolus' giant and lavish tomb, which was considered one of the seven wonders of the world.
The villa was laid out around two courtyards and the many rooms were adorned with mosaic floors. In addition to geometric patterns, there were also motifs of various mythological figures and scenes taken from Greek mythology; e.g. Princess Europa being abducted by the god Zeus in the form of a bull and Aphrodite at sea in her seashell.
Motifs from the stories of the much younger Roman author Virgil are also represented.
Inscriptions in the floor have revealed that the owner was named Charidemos and that the villa was built in the mid-fifth century.
A costly luxury
Mosaic flooring was a costly luxury: expensive raw materials like white, green, black, and other colors of marble had to be transported from distant quarries. Other stone materials, ceramics and glasses also had to be imported.
- I received 19 mosaic tesserae for analysis in my lab in Denmark. Of these, seven were of glass in different colors; purple, yellow, red, and deep red. My conclusion is that six of them are probably made of recycled glass, says Kaare Lund Rasmussen.
This conclusion is based on a chemical analysis called inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. With it, the research team has determined the concentrations of no less than 27 elements, some of them all the way down to a concentration of billionths of a gram.
Waning of Roman Empire
- We were able to distinguish between base glass from Egypt and base glass from the Middle East and also, we could determine which elements were added by the ancient craftsmen to color the glasses and to make them opaque, which was preferred at the time, he says.
It is of course difficult to extrapolate from only seven glass mosaic tesserae, but the new results fit very well with the picture of Anatolia in late antiquity. As the power of the Roman Empire waned, trade routes were closed or rerouted, which probably led to a shortage of goods in many places - including raw materials for glass production in Anatolia.
This, together with the stories depicted on the floors, allows the classical archaeologists to put together a more detailed picture of what was fashionable in late antiquity and what the possibilities were for the artistic unfolding.
The Biggest Secrets Of The Vatican
In this video we will be exploring the biggest secrets of the Vatican. Watch the video to find out more!
Explore Baia – the ancient Roman city sunk deep under the sea for more than 500 years
Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire – the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs.
Rome’s ultra-wealthy took weekend trips here to party. Powerful statesmen built luxurious villas on its beach, with heated spas and mosaic-tiled pools where they could indulge their wildest desires. One resident even commissioned a nymphaeum - a private grotto surrounded by marble statues, dedicated solely to ‘earthly pleasure’.
More than 2,000 years ago, Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire – a resort town approximately 30km from Naples on Italy’s caldera-peppered west coast that catered to the whims of poets, generals and everyone in between. The great orator Cicero composed speeches from his retreat by the bay, while the poet Virgil and the naturalist Pliny maintained residences within easy reach of the rejuvenating public baths.
It was also the place where the rich and powerful came to carry out their illicit affairs.
“There are many tales of intrigue associated with Baia,” said John Smout, a researcher who has partnered with local archaeologists to study the site. Rumour has it that Cleopatra escaped in her boat from Baia after Julius Caesar was murdered in 44BC, while Julia Agrippina plotted her husband Claudius’ death at Baia so her son Nero could become emperor of Rome.
“She poisoned Claudius with deadly mushrooms,” Smout explained. “But he somehow survived, so that same night, Agrippina got her physician to administer an enema of poisonous wild gourd, which finally did the trick.”
Mineral waters and a mild climate first attracted Rome’s nobility to Baia in the latter half of the 2nd Century BC, and the town was known to them as the Phlegraean (or ‘flaming’) Fields, so named because of the calderas that pockmark the region.
“I visited the site as a boy and the guide poked an umbrella into the ground and steam and lava came out,” Smout recalled.
The calderas were revered by the ancient Greeks and Romans as entrances to the underworld, but they also fuelled a number of technological advancements: the local invention of waterproof cement, a mixture of lime and volcanic rock, spurred construction of airy domes and marbled facades, as well as private fish ponds and lavish bath houses.
But given Baia’s sinful reputation, it is perhaps fitting that the abundance of volcanic activity in the area was also its downfall. Over several centuries, bradyseism, the gradual rise and fall of the Earth’s surface caused by hydrothermal and seismic activity, caused much of the city to sink into a watery grave, where it still sits today.
Tourist interest in the once-popular coastline was only renewed in the 1940s when a pilot shared an aerial photo of an edifice just below the ocean’s surface. Soon, geologists puzzled over boreholes left by molluscs on ruins found near the shore, tell-tale signs that parts of the hillside had once dipped below sea level. Two decades later, Italian officials commissioned a submarine to survey the underwater parts of the city.
What they found was fascinating: since Roman times, underground pressure has caused the land surrounding Baia to continuously rise and fall, pushing the ancient ruins upwards towards the sea’s surface before slowly swallowing them again – a kind of geological purgatory.
The ruins beneath the sea’s surface were the province of just a few intrepid archaeologists until recently. The underwater archaeological site was not formally designated a marine protected area and until 2002, which is when it opened to the public. Since then, 3D-scanning technology and other advances in marine archaeology have offered first-time glimpses into this chapter of antiquity: divers, historians and photographers have captured submerged rotundas and porticos, including the famed Temple of Venus (not a temple, but a thermal sauna) - discoveries that have in turn provided clues to Rome’s most outrageous debauchery.
Because of the undulation of the Earth’s crust, these ruins actually lie in relatively shallow water, at an average depth of 6m, allowing visitors to see some of its eerie underwater structures from a glass-bottomed boat, or videobarca. Local diving centres such as the Centro Sub Campi Flegreo (who partnered with the BBC on a recent documentary about Baia) also offer snorkelling and scuba tours of the submerged city a few kilometres out in the Tyrrhenian Sea. On a calm day, visitors can spot Roman columns, ancient roads and elaborately paved plazas. Statues of Octavia Claudia (Emperor Claudius’ sister) and Ulysses mark the entrance to underwater grottos, their outstretched arms flecked with barnacles.
There’s plenty to see above the water line, as well. In fact, many of the submerged sculptures are actually replicas; the originals can be found up the hill at the Baia Castle, where the Archaeological Superintendency for Campania manages a museum of relics pulled from the sea. Many above-ground Roman ruins are also visible nearby at the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, the portion of the ancient city still above sea level.Excavated in the 1950s by Amedeo Maiuri, the archaeologist who also unearthed Pompeii and Herculaneum, the on-land historical site features the remains of mosaic terraces and domed bathhouses.
Surrounding the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia, modern Baia is a shadow of its former magnificence, though it still captures the spirit of idleness and pleasure. These days the coastline that was once peppered with mansions and bathhouses features a small marina, a hotel and a handful of seafood restaurants lining a narrow road running north-east toward Naples.
Time may be running out to see this lost relic of ancient Italy’s opulence: seismologists predict further volcanic activity along Baia’s coast in the near future, rendering the city’s fate uncertain once again. Twenty small earthquakes were recorded in the area this past year alone, and talk in recent years has touched on permanently closing the sunken ruins to visitors.
For now, however, visitors can search this underwater city for a hidden entrance - if not to the underworld, then at least to some spectacular subterranean treasures.
