What the 10 Greatest Archaeological Discoveries Reveal About Our Lost Civilizations | Biography Plus - video Dailymotion

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Beneath the sands, the stones, and the oceans lie the secrets that built our world… From the Rosetta Stone to Göbekli Tepe, these are the 10 greatest archaeological discoveries that rewrote human history.  Each one reveals a lost chapter of civilization — from Egypt’s golden tombs to the frozen cities of Pompeii and the temples that existed before time itself.  Join Biography Plus as we uncover how these discoveries changed everything we thought we knew about humanity’s past.  📜 Part 1 of a 2-part special — stay tuned for Part 2.  🔔 Subscribe for more cinematic history and shocking true stories that shaped the world.  #BiographyPlus #Archaeology #HistoryDocumentary #LostCivilizations #AncientMystery

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00:00There are moments in history when the past refuses to stay buried, when something hidden

00:05for thousands of years suddenly reappears, changing everything we thought we knew about

00:11who we are. This is the story of those moments, of forgotten empires, lost gods, and silent tombs

00:19whispering their secrets again. You're watching Biography Plus. It's 1799 in Egypt. A French

00:27soldier, part of Napoleon's campaign, uncovers a strange black slab of rock near the town

00:32of Rosetta. What made it so special? It was covered in three different scripts. Ancient

00:38Greek, a local script called Demotic, and the mysterious, beautiful hieroglyphs of the pharaohs.

00:45For centuries, no one could decipher the language of ancient Egypt. The civilization was silent,

00:51its stories locked away, but this one stone held the key. It took another two decades,

00:57but in 1822, a brilliant young linguist named Jean-Francois Champollion finally cracked the

01:04code. Suddenly, 2,000 years of silence ended. The pharaohs, their gods, their wars, and their

01:11daily lives all spoke to us once more. The Rosetta Stone wasn't just a rock, it was a

01:17resurrection. It brought an entire civilization back to life. 100 years later, in 1922, the

01:25world's attention turned back to Egypt. In the Valley of the Kings, archaeologist Howard

01:30Carter, after years of fruitless searching, finally broke through a sealed doorway. As he

01:37peered into the darkness with a flickering candle, his patron, Lord Carnarvon, asked impatiently,

01:43Can you see anything? Carter's whispered reply became legendary. Yes, wonderful things. What

01:50he saw was gold, mountains of it. A treasure chamber untouched for over 3,000 years. This

01:57was the tomb of Tutankhamun, the boy king. But it was more than just treasure. It was a perfectly

02:03preserved message from the past. A snapshot of power, belief, and the ancient world's view

02:09on mortality, all frozen in time. The opening of the tomb ignited a global obsession with

02:16ancient Egypt, and of course, fueled the chilling legend of the pharaoh's curse, which was said

02:22to follow every person who dared disturb the king's eternal rest. Now let's journey back

02:27to 79 AD. In the shadow of a beautiful mountain, the Roman city of Pompeii thrived. It was a bustling,

02:36vibrant place. Until one afternoon, when that mountain, Vesuvius, erupted with unimaginable

02:43force. In a single day, the city and its people vanished under a thick blanket of hot ash and

02:50pumice. For nearly 1,700 years, Pompeii lay forgotten, a lost city buried beneath fields and

02:57vineyards. Then, in 1748, excavators began to uncover it. They found not just ruins, but an entire

03:05city, frozen at the exact moment of its destruction. Streets, homes, bakeries with loaves of bread still

03:13in the ovens. But what truly haunts us about Pompeii isn't the death. It's the life. Plaster casts captured

03:21the final moments of its citizens. People caught mid-stride as they tried to flee, lovers locked in

03:27a final embrace, families huddled together. Pompeii is not a ruin. It is a time capsule,

03:35a terrifying and poignant reminder of human fragility in the face of nature's power. Fast forward to China,

03:421974. A group of farmers are digging a well in Xi'an. Their shovels strike something hard. It isn't rock.

03:50It's the clay face of a soldier staring up at them from the earth. What they had stumbled upon was one

03:57of the most astonishing archaeological finds of all time. As excavations expanded, an entire army

04:05emerged from the ground. Thousands upon thousands of life-size terracotta soldiers, along with horses and

04:12chariots, all arranged in battle formation. Each warrior's face is unique, every detail meticulously

04:20handcrafted. They were built over 2,000 years ago to guard the tomb of China's first emperor,

04:27Qin Shi Huang. This was his vision of immortality, a man so powerful he conquered a world and was

04:34determined to command an army even in death. This silent legion stands today as a breathtaking

04:41monument to ambition and the eternal quest for power. In 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd was tending

04:49his flock near the desolate shores of the Dead Sea. Bored, he threw a stone into a dark cave opening

04:56high up on a cliff. He didn't hear a thud, but the distinct shatter of a clay jar.

05:04His curiosity led him to a discovery that would shake the foundations of modern religion.

05:09Inside that cave, and others nearby, were ancient scrolls, hidden away for 2,000 years. These were

05:17the Dead Sea Scrolls. They contained some of the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible,

05:23along with other unknown religious texts that offered a stunning glimpse into the world where

05:29Judaism and Christianity were born. These fragile pieces of parchment didn't just rewrite theological

05:36history. They showed us a world of intense debate, faith, and conflict that still echoes today,

05:43reminding us just how fragile and precious the transmission of knowledge can be.

05:47Now we climb high into the Andes mountains of Peru. For centuries, local stories told of a lost city in

05:55the clouds, but to the outside world, it was just a myth. Then, in 1911, an American explorer named Hiram

06:04Bingham, guided by local farmers, hacked his way through dense jungle and up steep mountain slopes.

06:10What he found took his breath away. Perched on a ridge, surrounded by towering peaks,

06:16was an entire city made of stone, Machu Picchu. Breathtaking temples, terraced farms clinging to the

06:24mountainside, and sacred altars all perfectly preserved. This was a forgotten citadel of the great

06:31Inca empire, hidden so well that the Spanish conquistadors never found it. Machu Picchu became

06:38a powerful symbol of resilience and mystery, proof that even the mightiest civilizations can vanish from

06:45sight, yet their spirit can still whisper to us across the centuries. Let's travel to France, 1940.

06:53Four teenage boys were out for a walk when their dog, Robot, fell into a hole. In their attempt to

07:01rescue him, the boys stumbled into a hidden cave. When they lit a match, the walls around them flickered

07:08to life. They weren't in an ordinary cave. They were in the world's oldest art gallery. This was Lascaux.

07:15The cave walls were covered in magnificent paintings of bulls, horses, deer, and bison, drawn with

07:22incredible skill and vitality. These images are over 17,000 years old. They were created by our distant

07:31ancestors, working by the dim light of animal fat lamps. These weren't just primitive doodles. They were

07:38powerful expressions of spirituality, identity, and awe for the natural world. Lascaux is a profound

07:46reminder that long before we invented writing or built cities, we had art. Creativity is one of the

07:54oldest and most fundamental parts of being human. In the year 1901, a group of sponge divers were exploring

08:02an ancient Roman shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera. Among the statues and pottery

08:08they recovered was a corroded, unremarkable lump of bronze. It sat in a museum for months, dismissed as

08:16just another piece of wreckage. But when it began to crack open, it revealed something astonishing inside.

08:23A complex system of interlocking gears and dials. This was the Antikythera mechanism.

08:29Built over 2,000 years ago, it was an incredibly sophisticated astronomical calculator,

08:37a mechanical model of the cosmos that could predict eclipses and the movements of the sun,

08:43moon, and planets. It was, in essence, the world's first analog computer. The discovery completely

08:51shattered the belief that such precise engineering was a modern invention, forcing historians to rethink

08:58everything they knew about the technological genius of the ancient world. Let's go to England on the

09:04eve of World War II in 1939. An amateur archaeologist named Basil Brown was excavating a series of

09:12mysterious grassy mounds on an estate in Suffolk called Sutton Hoo. Beneath one of the largest mounds,

09:20he uncovered something unbelievable. The ghostly outline of an entire ship, over 88 feet long,

09:28that had been buried in the earth. And inside it was a burial chamber filled with spectacular treasures.

09:34A warrior's helmet with a haunting face, gold buckles, intricate jewelry, and silver from the Byzantine

09:42Empire. This was the tomb of a great Anglo-Saxon king. The discovery transformed Britain's understanding of its

09:49own dark ages, proving they were not so dark after all. This was an era not of barbarism, but of

09:57incredible artistry, long-distance trade, and noble kings who were laid to rest with the splendor that

10:04rivaled the pharaohs. Our final discovery takes us to southeastern Turkey in 1994. An archaeologist named

10:13Klaus Schmidt was examining a site known to locals as Gobekli Tepe, or Potbelly Hill. What he uncovered there

10:22would rewrite the very first chapter of human civilization. He found massive T-shaped stone pillars arranged in

10:28perfect circles, carved with elaborate reliefs of animals. The astonishing part, these structures are 12,000 years old.

10:37That's older than the pyramids of Giza, older than Stonehenge, older even than the invention of pottery or

10:43agriculture. This means that hunter-gatherers, people we thought were simple and nomadic, came together to

10:50build this massive ceremonial center. Gobekli Tepe suggests that civilization didn't begin with settlements

10:58and farming. It began with belief. Before we built homes for ourselves, we built temples for our gods. Each of

11:06these incredible discoveries is more than just a window into the past. It's a mirror reflecting the

11:13questions we are still asking today. Our search for meaning, our desire for memory, and our dream of

11:20immortality. Because in the end, the greatest discoveries aren't just about what we dig up from

11:26the earth. They're about what we rediscover within ourselves. You've been watching Biography Plus.

11:33If you believe history still has stories to tell, don't forget to like, share,

11:39and subscribe for more journeys into the past. Thank you for watching.

What the 10 Greatest Archaeological Discoveries Reveal About Our Lost Civilizations | Biography Plus

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