00:00In 1936, British Egyptologist Walter Brian Emery found a small object in the desert that
00:07made people debate whether it was an elaborate stone model of a flying saucer or even a hyperdrive
00:14from a spaceship that belonged to some advanced civilization that visited the Earth.
00:20Emery spent years excavating sites along the Nile River Valley, especially in the huge
00:25ancient necropolis of Saqqara.
00:29He found countless treasures from ancient Egypt, and the most bizarre one was definitely
00:33from the tomb of a high official, Sabu.
00:37Historians don't know exactly who he was for sure.
00:40Some sources say he was a king's son.
00:43His burial at Saqqara means he was an important figure in the royal court.
00:47There are no records from this early period he lived in, so Sabu's role and fate are still
00:53a mystery.
00:56Inside his tomb, scientists found seven funerary chambers, each filled with traditional grave
01:01goods, animal bones, flint tools, pottery, ivory objects, and stone bowls.
01:12And then there was a strange, broken artifact that became famous as the Disc of Sabu.
01:19It resembles a shallow, round-bottomed bowl, but with three delicately carved, curved lobes
01:24spaced roughly 120 degrees apart around its perimeter.
01:29These lobes are separated by three holes, and at the center there's a thin tube.
01:37The material used to build the disc is meta-siltstone, or schist.
01:42This type of rock is fragile, highly porous, and super difficult to carve.
01:46It flakes easily and crumbles under pressure.
01:51So how they made the disc out of it with rather simple stone and copper tools from 3000 BCE
01:57is still a mystery.
02:00The next big question is why they decided to bury Sabu with it.
02:06Perhaps if we knew its true purpose, it would make more sense.
02:10When it was first discovered, archaeologists thought it was nothing more than a vase, an
02:14incense burner, or a ceremonial decoration.
02:17But those who took a closer look from the point of view of an engineer decided it could
02:22actually be a component of a larger mechanism.
02:27An amateur historian made an exact copy of the artifact with a 3D printer, and it turned
02:32out that the Disc of Sabu was an ancient impeller, a crucial part of a centrifugal pump.
02:39When they put it in a housing and span at high speeds using the small central shaft,
02:44the disc was able to displace water.
02:47When it was tested without a housing, the disc created a powerful vortex.
02:53It became clear that the curved lobes and slightly concave shape of the disc weren't random.
02:59It was probably all engineered to move water with remarkable efficiency, like a powerful
03:04pump mechanism.
03:07Ancient Egypt's entire civilization depended on irrigation.
03:11Later dynasties perfected basin irrigation and managed to control the rise and fall of
03:17the Nile to take the most from agriculture.
03:21So the engineers of the first dynasty may have been experimenting with advanced irrigation
03:26techniques thousands of years earlier than scientists previously thought.
03:32But then again, some people have doubts schist is strong enough to be used for a pumping
03:37mechanism.
03:38They suggest that artisans from Egypt's first dynasty were trying to recreate an even older
03:44object, using whatever tools and materials they had.
03:48It could be a stone replica of something originally made from metal, possibly belonging to a civilization
03:54far older and more advanced than ancient Egypt itself.
04:00One Swiss author takes this idea even further and proposes that the disc is a copy of a
04:05component from an extraterrestrial spaceship's hyperdrive, or stone model of a flying saucer.
04:13One French researcher believes the disc of Sabu was part of a secret massive factory
04:18system to manufacture sodium carbon inside pyramids.
04:22Some people suggest that the disc may have been a primitive tool for weaving ropes.
04:28The lobes held strands of silk or fiber that were twisted into twine when it was spun.
04:34Or it may have been a gigantic lamp.
04:39Another historical mystery is a map from 1513 that is believed to be the oldest surviving
04:44detailed map showing the Americas.
04:48The author of the map is a Turkish captain, Piri Reis.
04:52He never crossed the ocean himself and put together this map from 20 regional maps.
04:58He used an Arab map of India, four Portuguese maps showing India and China, and a map of
05:05America by Christopher Columbus as he saw it.
05:09This last map was lost for many years, so Reis' map gave us an idea of what Columbus
05:15must have recorded during his third voyage to the New World.
05:19A historian who studied the map suggested that it showed Antarctica in prehistoric times
05:25because it strangely resembled Antarctica's true coastline the way it looked when it was
05:30free of ice.
05:32But it was later proven that this idea wasn't right.
05:37Another idea that rocked the science world was Klerksdorp spheres.
05:41They were found in deposits of mineral periphalate in South Africa and looked like tiny ancient
05:46cricket balls with lines around the middle.
05:51Back in the 1980s, there was a theory that some super-advanced pre-flood civilization
05:55we know nothing about had made these spheres.
05:59One journalist shared stories about how they rotated on their own in a display case.
06:06There was also a TV show that invited a psychic who was telling everyone the spheres were
06:11pieces of an ancient spaceship.
06:14But according to geologists, these spheres are pretty regular spherical objects formed
06:19from different minerals than the surrounding rock.
06:23The seam-like lines on them are just imprints from the host rock's layers building up
06:28over time.
06:29The Klerksdorp spheres come in different shapes, from flattened spheres to distinct disks.
06:36As for that episode when one of these spheres spun on its own, the curator of the Klerksdorp
06:41museum cleared that up too.
06:44He said that when he put one sphere on its glass shelf when the journalist came to visit,
06:48the sphere rotated a bit because it's round.
06:52There are some gold mining activities going on nearby, so the land where the museum stands
06:57often experiences earth tremors.
07:00In a remote part of China, there are some bizarre pipe-like formations known as the
07:05Beigon Pipes.
07:08A local explorer found them back in 1996 protruding from Mount Beigon and along the shores of
07:15Tosan Lake nearby.
07:18Some people thought they were the work of ancient guests from other planets.
07:23When scientists tested samples of the pipe material, they found out that they contained
07:28mostly common minerals, but there was a mysterious 8% of unknown stuff.
07:34Some extra tests showed that these pipes had been there before humans.
07:38Chinese geologists later visited the site and suggested that these pipes were formed
07:43naturally over time.
07:46It was probably fossilized tree roots from the area's super green past.
07:50It's still a real mystery with no clear-cut answer.
07:55While digging a trench along a river in Romania, workers found a wedge, which is now famous
08:01as the Aluminum Wedge of Ajut, or the Object of Ajut.
08:07Right next to it, there were some mastodon bones.
08:10Those distant relatives of elephants lived 11,000 years ago, so some people concluded
08:16the wedge is of the same age.
08:19The cool part is that it's made of aluminum, but this metal wasn't discovered until the
08:231800s.
08:25This material requires serious heat to produce.
08:29The wedge is said to be covered in a thick layer of oxide that's been sitting there for
08:34hundreds of years.
08:36Some folks believe this wedge must have crash-landed here on a spacecraft from some other planet.
08:42Some scientists think it's all a hoax, and others suppose it might be a human-made object
08:48with an unknown purpose.
08:52That's it for today!
08:53So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
08:57friends!
08:58Or, if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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