00:00Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for the most egregious incidents
00:04in which archaeological wonders were destroyed by ineptitude.
00:10In 2013, a Chinese microblogger named Shen was on vacation in Egypt when he came across
00:28a vandalised engraving at the Luxor Temple, which was constructed around 1400 BC.
00:34Someone had etched the words, Ding Xin Hao was here, in Chinese characters on the ancient
00:39structure.
00:40Shen took a picture of the defacement and shared it on the Chinese blogging website
00:44Weibo.
00:45It didn't take long for online sleuths to trace the name to a 15-year-old schoolboy.
00:57Apparently he had written those words years earlier, during a trip to Egypt with his parents.
01:02The boy's parents publicly apologised on Weibo, stating that Ding was remorseful.
01:07In response, China's foreign minister implored citizens to act responsibly abroad, to avoid
01:11similar embarrassments.
01:16Offa's Dyke is an ancient earthwork, dating back to the 8th century, that runs along the
01:21border of England and Wales.
01:22It was undisturbed for over 1200 years, until 2013, when a large stretch of it was completely
01:28flattened.
01:29Roughly 148 feet of the dyke was destroyed by a local landowner, to build a stable.
01:35Experts described it as like, driving a road through Stonehenge.
01:38Surprisingly, the perpetrator walked away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
01:42His defence was that he didn't know the dyke existed, despite living there his entire
01:46life.
01:47While that may make little sense, archaeologists worry that such actions set a bad precedent
01:52for the protection of historic sites.
01:58Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada is home to ancient artwork, considered sacred
02:02by Native American tribes from the area.
02:05In 2010, a 20-year-old paintballer and full-blown moron vandalised a series of petroglyphs,
02:10images that have been engraved into rocks for centuries, by shooting at them with a
02:14gun.
02:15Experts compared it to, quote, having a paintball fight in the Sistine Chapel.
02:19The incident was splattered across the ancient paintings, and the culprit was eventually
02:22punished for this abhorrent crime.
02:24He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, fined nearly $10,000, and ordered to complete 50
02:30hours of community service.
02:31Which was quite lenient, considering the fines could have reached $100,000.
02:37In 2007, workers building an IKEA in Nanjing, China, demolished about 10 ancient tombs,
02:44which were roughly 1,800 years old.
02:47Experts believe these tombs belonged to wealthy families of that era, but we'll never know
02:51for certain, as they were lost to make way for the Swedish furniture store.
02:55You'd think this incident would serve as a cautionary tale, and urge greater efforts
02:59to protect such sites.
03:01Unfortunately, history repeated itself in 2013, when more tombs dating back 3,000 years
03:07were destroyed in Guangzhou, to build a metro line.
03:10These tombs were still actively being studied, at least until they were sacrificed for modern
03:15transit.
03:16The Elgin Marbles are ancient Greek sculptures,
03:28that were crafted during the 5th century BC.
03:30In early 19th century, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, and the British ambassador
03:35to the Ottoman Empire, removed these sculptures and took them to the British Museum in London.
03:41Despite Greece's repeated requests for their return, Britain refused.
03:45Adding to the controversy, the British severely disfigured the marbles.
04:00In an attempt to polish them and restore their original colour, the museum scraped away intricate
04:04details, causing irreparable damage to them.
04:08Although the museum eventually admitted its mistake, they deflected some blame to the
04:12Greeks, claiming that the sculptures were improperly cleaned before the British even
04:16took them.
04:30This is yet another story from 2013, which seems to have been a particularly bad year
04:34for archaeology.
04:35In Belize, a Mayan pyramid which stood for more than 2,300 years, was demolished by boulders.
04:42Nothing could be salvaged from the ruins, as the structure was almost completely decimated.
04:47Shockingly, this was done so that a construction crew could get limestone rocks, which they
04:51needed to build a road.
04:53The incident was baffling to archaeologists, who believe that the construction company
04:57was well aware that it was a historical site, considering the structure was about 100 feet
05:01tall and very clearly a pyramid.
05:04The act was not only senseless, but also deeply disrespectful to the rich history it erased.
05:11In 2020, a cave in Australia, which was inhabited for at least 46,000 years, was blown up by
05:19mining company Rio Tinto, to expand an iron ore mine.
05:33Precious artefacts had been excavated there, such as a 4,000-year-old human plait, woven
05:38out of hair from several individuals.
05:40DNA testing showed this hair belonged to the direct ancestors of the aboriginal people,
05:45still living in the area.
05:55While Rio Tinto apologised and were ordered to pay compensation to the traditional owners,
06:00no amount of money can restore the 46,000 years worth of history they blew up.
06:05Following a parliamentary inquiry in December 2020, the company was also ordered to rebuild
06:10the caves.
06:18Giuseppe Fellini was an Italian soldier from Bologna, who later became a treasure hunter
06:23– a more extravagant title for a thief.
06:26His military career took him to Egypt in the 1830s, and in 1834 he went on an expedition
06:31to Merui, an ancient Egyptian settlement in present-day Sudan.
06:35The Sudanese governor-general permitted Fellini to excavate the location, which he then used
06:41as an opportunity to plunder and destroy it.
06:54Merui was home to several pyramids, which were apparently in good condition before Fellini
06:59got to them.
07:00However, his greed pushed him to level these ancient structures in search of treasures.
07:05While he did find what he was looking for, Fellini ultimately destroyed over 40 pyramids
07:09in the process.
07:14Formont was sent by French King Louis XV to Greece in the 18th century, to search for
07:18surviving Byzantine manuscripts.
07:21After travelling the region for over a year, he found no valuable manuscripts.
07:25So he decided to look for even older ones, and found roughly 300 in Sparta.
07:30Instead of preserving them, he proceeded to transcribe and simply destroy them.
07:35He believed this gave his transcriptions exclusivity, and wrote in his letters how excited he was
07:40to be destroying these ancient sites.
07:42Thankfully, he was summoned back to France before he could reach Olympia, which he also
07:46planned on destroying.
07:47Today, all of Formont's published work has been invalidated, as there is simply no way
07:52of verifying the information he transcribed.
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08:14Heinrich Schliemann was a 19th century archaeologist who became famous for discovering Troy, then
08:19very quickly blowing it up.
08:20He was more or less an amateur archaeologist, who attempted to excavate the Mound of Hisarlik,
08:25the site where Troy once stood.
08:27His main blunder was using dynamite to excavate the site, which caused irreparable damage
08:32to most of it.
08:33Schliemann believed the lower layers housed the city described in Homer's Iliad, a book
08:37he was obsessed with.
08:39This caused him to disregard the upper layers, and he annihilated most of the city in the
08:43process.
08:44Classicist Kenneth Hall joked that Schliemann did what the ancient Greeks could not.
08:49He destroyed the walls of Troy.
08:51So were there any archaeological blunders that we forgot to include in our list?
08:55Let us know in the comments section.
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