Finding our Oldest Beliefs: The Origins of Religion

Are you ready to travel back many thousands of years in time, to before the time of farming, before temples were built for worship, before gods were personified, in fact before there were gods. In this video we will journey back to see if we can see how religion was formed, and what beliefs made it all happen.

A Journey Through Ancient Germania: Unraveling the Tribes and Legends

Step back in time and join us on a journey through a modernized rendition of "Germania," an invaluable historical work by one of Rome's greatest historians, Publius Cornelius Tacitus. Written around 98 AD, "Germania" paints a vivid picture of the diverse cultures, customs, and ways of life of various Germanic tribes some 700 years before the Viking Age.

Although Tacitus himself never set foot in Germania, his accounts, sourced from various traders, soldiers, and Germanic mercenaries, reveal the richness of early Germanic tribal diversity. From the seafaring prowess of the Suiones to the unique societal norms of the Sitones, "Germania" offers a fascinating glimpse into the past.

This video will dive into Tacitus's descriptions of these tribes, exploring potential links to Norse culture and providing context for how the Romans perceived these 'foreign' societies. As we navigate through this ancient text, we'll dissect the societal norms, religious practices, and warfare techniques, along with much more.

Remember, Tacitus's work reflects Roman prejudices and standards of civilization at the time, making "Germania" not only a study of Germanic tribes but also a window into the Roman psyche.

Whether you're a history buff, a student, or simply curious about our past, this video is for you. Join us as we bring Tacitus's "Germania" to life in a whole new way.

Horryfying Things Genghis Khan Did To His Enemies

In this video we will explore Genghis Khan's terrifying acts against enemies in this chilling historical journey. We will uncover brutal warfare tactics, merciless vengeance, and the lasting impact of this feared conqueror. Enjoy!

Should Humanity Bring To Life a Neanderthal Clone?

For now, the Neanderthal genome is an abstract string of billions of DNA letters, stored in computer databases. But it naturally sparks the imagination: Could scientists use that genetic blueprint to create proto-Neanderthals in the flesh? In the not-so-distant future, advances in genetic engineering might enable that feat. But whether such a resurrection should happen is another story altogether. What makes modern humans unique?

Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool, that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors. What's more, Humans and Neanderthals share up to 98.5 percent of our DNA, when you take into account that humans have up to 5% Neanderthal-specific DNA. Furthermore, an estimated 20% of the Neanderthal genome exists in living humans, so finding living DNA would not be so difficult. That’s a pretty small percentage, that means only 1.5% of our DNA is not shared with Neanderthals.

Why Dracorex hogwartsia Is a Dinosaur, Not a Dragon

It's a question we're often —why is Dracorex hogwartsia considered a dinosaur, not a dragon?

In 2003, amateur paleontologists in South Dakota discovered fossils which they believed to be from a Pachycephalosaurus. The fossils were sent to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis’ Paleo Prep Lab for preparation. It was discovered during this process that the bones were not from a dinosaur we already knew about, so our paleontologists got to name the new dinosaur species.

Because most people don’t spend as much time staring at dinosaur fossils as Victor Porter and the rest of our paleontology team, museum guests who saw the new specimen said that it looked like a dragon or a crocodile—or even an alien.

Victor took all this into consideration. He named the small-toothed, herbivorous dinosaur Dracorex after the Latin words for “dragon king.” Why? Because it sounds really cool!

Dracorex is in good company, too. Of the over 1,000 named dinosaur species, several others have been named after creatures from myths and folklore.

  • Dilong and Guanlong, two Chinese dinosaur species, are both named after the mythical “long,” or Chinese dragon. In fact, since “di” means “king” in Chinese, Dilong is also a “dragon king!”

  • Siats is named after a man-eating giant in Ute legend.

  • Seitaad gets its name from a mythological Navajo monster that buried its victims under the sand.

  • Jobaria is named after the Jobar, a gigantic mythical beast from Touareg legend.

  • Tarascosaurus is named after the Tarasque, a lion-dragon monster in medieval French folklore.

  • Harpymimus and Garudimimus are named after Harpies and the Garuda bird.

  • Anzu is named after a lion-headed bird from Mesopotamian mythology.

  • The prehistoric flying reptile Quetzalcoatlus is named for the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl who had the combined features of a snake and an eagle.

Dinosaurs were real wild animals that once walked the earth, but are now extinct. Everything we know about these creatures comes from our discoveries of fossilized evidence of their bones, footprints, dung, and in extremely rare cases, mummified soft tissue.

Dragons are magical creatures from fun stories. Sometimes, dinosaur fossils or even living creatures remind us of dragons. But the evidence tells us that dragons only exist in those stories.

Fortunately, as long as we have imaginations and the ability to tell stories, dragons will never go extinct.

Source: https://www.childrensmuseum.org/blog/why-d...

12 Most Incredible Ancient Artifacts Finds

How much can we learn about history by looking at the things our ancient ancestors left behind? The answer to that question is “a lot.” Even the smallest artefacts can sometimes give us an awful lot of information, and we never get tired of hearing their stories! Let’s take a closer look at some incredible ancient artefact discoveries right now.

After 2,000 years of soaking in hot water, 24 wonderfully preserved bronze statues were uncovered in Italy

More than two dozen beautifully preserved bronze statues fashioned 2,000 years ago have been pulled from the mud of ancient thermal baths in Tuscany, Italy.

These figurines are said to 'rewrite history' about the transition from the Etruscan civilisation to the Roman Empire, due to the fact they bear both Etruscan and Latin inscriptions.

They suggest that, while the Etruscans and Romans were entangled in conflict between the second century BC and first century AD, the groups living in this area still prayed together to deities in the sacred sanctuary.

Archaeologists have carefully removed all traces of dirt to restore the statues to their former glory, revealing some human-like figures of deities like Apollo and Igea, but also individual body parts and organs.

The statues would have been presented to the gods as votive offerings in exchange for medical cures through the baths' waters, according to the ministry.

The new Italian Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano, describes them as 'an exceptional discovery for Italy' and 'immense and unique treasures.'

Most of the Etruscan civilisation migrated to Italy from western Anatolia and what is now Turkey about 2,500 years ago - nearly 500 years before the Roman Empire gave rise.

While in Italy, Etruscans controlled most of northern and southern regions by becoming a trading power in the Mediterranean.

They started to lose their foothold once the Greeks took control of Sicily, which was shortly followed by the Roman Empire in 27 BC that began to spread across the nation.

The Roman Empire began to take Etruscan cities one, by one, while also destroying any evidence that it existed - it is very rare to find artefacts from the Etruscan civilisation.

However, not all was war between the two, as the recent discovery shows the groups once lived in harmony.

The statues, part of excavations that started in 2019, were discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the Siena province, about 100 miles north of Rome.

Jacopo Tabolli, who coordinated the dig for the University for Foreigners in Siena, said the discovery was significant because it sheds new light on the end of the Etruscan civilisation and the expansion of the Roman Empire.

'While there were social and civil wars being fought outside the sanctuary ... inside the sanctuary the great elite Etruscan and Roman families prayed together in a context of peace surrounded by conflict,' Tabolli said.

'This possibility to rewrite the relationship and dialectic between the Etruscan and Romans is an exceptional opportunity.'

He also noted that the sanctuary was active from the third century BC until the fifth century AD.

The sacred area was then abandoned as Christianity began to take hold, which led to the statues being submerged in the water and the pools were closed off with massive pillars and stones.

The find represents the largest deposit of bronzes from this era in Italy and it is also the longest surviving antiquities from the period are primarily in terracotta, the ministry said.

'It's a discovery that will rewrite history,' Tabolli said in a statement, noting its shows when the Etruscans were being assimilated into Roman society, following centuries of prolonged territorial warfare.

Massimo Osanna, a top culture ministry official, called it one of the most remarkable discoveries 'in the history of the ancient Mediterranean' and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were pulled from the sea off the toe of Italy in 1972.

It was an 'era of great conflicts' and 'cultural osmosis', in which the Great Bath sanctuary of San Casciano represented a 'unique multicultural and multilingual haven of peace, surrounded by political instability and war,' the ministry said.

The statues were covered by almost 6,000 bronze, silver and gold coins, and San Casciano's hot muddy waters helped to preserve them 'almost like as on the day they were immersed,' Tabolli said.

The archaeologist said his team had recovered 24 large statues, five of which almost one meter high, plus several smaller statuettes, and noted that it was unusual for them to be made out of bronze, rather than terracotta.

The statues included etchings of what the experts believe are the names of powerful local families, who may have paid to have the artefacts commissioned.

In 2016, researchers uncovered a 2,500-year-old sandstone tablet at the Poggio Colla site in northern Etruria, northeast of modern-day Florence.

They believe the slab, weighing around 500 pounds, is a rare example of an Etruscan sacred text, with at least 70 legible letters and punctuation marks, and possibly the name of a god or goddess.

Archaeologist Professor Gregory Warden, principal investigator of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project, said in a statement: 'This is probably going to be a sacred text, and will be remarkable for telling us about the early belief system of a lost culture that is fundamental to western traditions.

Most Etruscan discoveries are typically grave and funeral objects, for example.

The slab weighs around 500lbs and it is nearly four feet tall by more than two feet wide.

It has at least 70 legible letters and punctuation marks, said Professor Warden, main sponsor of the project.

It is likely to contain words in the lost language that have never been seen before.

The slab was discovered in the foundations of a monumental temple where it had been buried for more than 2,500 years.

Scholars in the field predict the stele, the name given to this kind of tablet, will provide a huge amount of new knowledge about the lost culture of the Etruscans.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar...

Dark Truth of the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthals

Cro Magnon is the name scientists once used to refer to what are now called Early Modern Humans or Anatomically Modern Humans -people who lived in western Europe at the end of the last ice age, around 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. They lived alongside Neanderthals for the first several thousand of those years. They were given the name Cro Magnon because, in 1868, parts of five skeletons were discovered in a rock shelter of that name in France.

Cro-Magnon was human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges from glaciers, predators, and a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. Cro-Magnons had the adaptability that has made modern humans an unmatched success as a species. Living on a frozen continent with only crude tools, Ice Age humans survived and thrived. Indeed, these are one of our most remarkable ancestors. They survived by their wits, in a snowbound world, hunting, and sometimes being hunted by animals many times their size. By flickering firelight, they drew bison, deer, and mammoths on cavern walls- vibrant images that seize our imaginations after thirty thousand years.

Sinosauropteryx: The Tiny Feathered Predator

The incessant humming of flying insects drones out under a canopy of towering pine and yew trees. Dragonflies, wasps and cicadas are all here, and the cacophonous ambience of the woodland at the height of summer is as recogniseable one hundred and twenty five million years ago as it is today. This is China's Yixian Formation, at the height of the Early Cretaceous Period, a place of warm woodlands, vast lakes and dense shrubbery teeming with life. Everywhere you look, something is happening. A small, monkey-like dinosaur chases a large insect into a broken tree hollow. Screeching pterosaurs whirl across a lake in pursuit of mayflies over the water's edge. Somewhere deep within the trees, a lone Beipaosaurus, a genus of long clawed therizinosaurus, calls out into the primal forests, seeking a mate. What is most striking about this world is its colour. Blooming angiosperm plants, vibrant feathered dinosaurs and clear blue skies glow in the light of the early morning sun, which sends dappled light spots down onto the bright green leaves of the undergrowth.

Soon, the commotion of the forest finds its way to the banks of a lake. A bright flash of green - a lizard - darts from the undergrowth and scrambles up onto a fallen tree. Its breathing is frantic, and as soon as it has arrived, it has left once more, as a bright orange shape darts into the clearing and pounces upon the tree where the little reptile once stood. Standing before the lakeside on top of the fallen tree now, is a creature that resembles a dinosaur, but not in the traditional sense. There is not a scale in sight - this long tailed, bright orange, filament coated animal much more closely resembles a squirrel or a lemur than a dinosaur. However - the signs are all there. This little theropod stands on two legs, is equipped with sharp, curved claws, and owns a long, tapering tail. This little predator is Sinosauropteryx - a common resident of the Yixian forests of the Early Cretaceous.

Today, we will meet this fascinating little theropod in all its glory. This is a dinosaur that we know in incredible detail, right down to the colours of its feathers. From its discovery to how it lived, sit back as we take a journey through time to explore the life of Sinosauropteryx.

The Pyramid of Unas

In this video we will show you the earliest pyramid known to contain the "Pyramid Texts," the tomb of Unas, king of Egypt's Old Kingdom. Enjoy!

12 Most Mysterious Ancient Finds

What makes for a better archaeological find - something that can be explained immediately or something that defies explanation no matter how much it's studied by experts? If you ask us, everything is made better by a touch of mystery, and there's more than a touch of mystery about the archaeological finds you're about to see in this video!

Underwater Archaeologists have unearthed a hand-sewn 3,000-year-old boat wreck

Some 3,000 years ago, a hand-sewn boat sank off the coast of what is now Croatia. Now, researchers plan to pull the wreck from the depths in hopes of learning more about historical shipbuilding techniques.

Marine archaeologists began studying the 39-foot-long vessel—nicknamed the “Zambratija boat” because of its location in the Bay of Zambratija—after hearing reports from local fishermen in 2008.

Researchers were surprised to learn the vessel dated to between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE, which they say makes it the oldest entirely hand-sewn boat in the Mediterranean.