- 8 months ago
A team digging in the desert thought they’d find a few old ruins, but instead they uncovered a megacity so ancient it beats every known civilization by thousands of years. The place had massive walls, complex layouts, and signs of organized life long before anyone thought cities even existed. What’s wild is that most of it was buried under sand for ages, almost like the desert was hiding it on purpose. The discovery could totally rewrite human history because it suggests people were building huge urban centers way earlier than textbooks claim. And in this video, you’ll see why this forgotten megacity has archaeologists losing their minds. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
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For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00Eridu, a megacity older than the first known civilization, and older than the pyramids of Giza,
00:08was buried in the sands of the Mesopotamian desert for over 2,000 years.
00:13Now, scientists have made a discovery that changes what we know about the ancient city.
00:19They found over 4,000 canals around Eridu that brought water to more than 700 farms
00:25where people worked between the 6th and the early 1st millennium BCE.
00:31Now, Eridu was founded around 5400 BCE and was the city of the first kings,
00:37and history's first city according to the Sumerian king list, an ancient text on a clay tablet.
00:44Ancient Sumerians believed that deities created this city when they decided to settle on Earth.
00:51Eridu plays such a big role in Sumerian myths and legends that, at some point,
00:56people used to think it was just a mythical location.
00:59The most famous Eridu myth says that the skies got angry because humans were too noisy,
01:05so they decided to send a great flood to wipe them out.
01:09A new study showed that the Euphrates River served as the source of water for the entire city.
01:15The researchers mapped what remains of the ancient landscape and found a well-developed network of artificial irrigation canals.
01:23They discovered 200 large main canals pulling water from the Euphrates,
01:28and those canals fed another 4,000 smaller canals.
01:32The team used everything from satellite images and drone footage to soil analysis,
01:38old records, and remote sizing tech to map out the area.
01:42The 700 farms that used the water from the system were different in size,
01:46from about 5,000 square feet to over 200,000 square feet.
01:51The main canals were a little over a half mile long, and some stretched more than 5 miles.
01:57The smaller canals could be as short as 32 feet.
02:01Rivers in Mesopotamia were the main water sources for farming,
02:06so ancient farmers had to learn how to guide water from the river to their fields.
02:11It all started with simple methods, like digging small canals.
02:15But over generations, they learned how to build massive canals up to 62 miles long.
02:22The Euphrates itself helped the farmers.
02:25Water was moving thanks to gravity down its elevated river banks,
02:29and natural breaks in the banks let it spill onto the land.
02:32Researchers aren't sure when each canal was in use,
02:35and it's unlikely that all 4,200 canals were active at the same time during that long period.
02:41Eridu used to be an important religious and trade center,
02:46because of its strategic location on the Persian Gulf.
02:49Its economy mostly had to do with fishing, thanks to the Euphrates River.
02:54Researchers found fishing nets and weights, and whole bales of dried fish at the site.
03:00And there were even models of reed boats,
03:03the earliest physical evidence we have for constructed boats anywhere.
03:07The city was thriving, until people abandoned it around the year 600 BCE.
03:13And scientists still aren't sure why they did it.
03:16The local residents, plus the visiting pilgrims and merchants,
03:20had just exhausted all the resources of the land.
03:23They had to let it rest several times before abandoning the city for good.
03:28It happened when the Euphrates changed its course,
03:31and they lost their main source of water.
03:34Now, many centuries later, in 1854,
03:38a British official was on a mission to this area to check out a remote place
03:42that had a bunch of mounds called tells,
03:45which are piles of debris left behind by ancient human settlements.
03:49At first, Taylor wasn't impressed.
03:52He had been hoping to find something big,
03:54maybe statues, ancient writing, or ruins of palaces and temples.
03:58But with the brief time he had,
04:00all he found were things like walls, drains, stone platforms,
04:04and pieces of limestone columns decorated with tiny mosaic cones.
04:09But he didn't know that these boring mounds
04:13were hiding one of the oldest cities on Earth, Eridu.
04:17The people at the British Museum got interested in the finding,
04:21but the first full-scale excavations took place here only around a century later.
04:26The local Iraqi authorities got really interested in the excavations
04:31as they were hoping to find more about the earliest days of Mesopotamian history.
04:36So, they focused on Mound 1, a massive tell as tall as an eight-story building.
04:43Soon they uncovered part of an unfinished step pyramid from the end of the third millennium BCE.
04:49As they dug deeper, they found layers of human life going back in time.
04:54There were levels from the Uruk period,
04:57and even remains from a time before the Sumerians called Proto-history.
05:02In those lower layers, they discovered multiple rebuilds of the Temple of Enki, the city's main deity.
05:09People rebuilt this temple again and again for over 2,000 years.
05:13Every time the temple collapsed, they built a new one right on top.
05:17Each new version of the temple was bigger and more impressive than the last.
05:22From the middle of the fourth millennium BCE, these temple buildings became massive,
05:28more advanced than anything else humans had built up to that point.
05:32The city in Eridu was also becoming more complex, with clear social classes.
05:38Eventually, they stopped rebuilding the temple and put up a step pyramid on top of the ruins.
05:44Even though Eridu faded, it likely stayed important as a religious site.
05:50Archaeologists found pottery from the second and first centuries BCE during excavations,
05:55although there were no signs of houses.
05:58The Sumerians were an innovative civilization, as you can tell.
06:02By 1500 BCE, they invented the cedar plow,
06:06a tool that let farmers plow and plant seeds at the same time, using animals like oxen to pull it.
06:13This gear even came with instructions.
06:17The Sumerian Farmers' Almanac gave farmers advice on how to grow more crops with proper tilling and irrigation.
06:25These smart farming tricks helped feed more people, which led to larger cities,
06:29an organized ruling system, and more focus on religion.
06:33And as their cities expanded, so did their work in writing, math, and spiritual life.
06:395,000 years ago, the Sumerians had already produced cuneiform, one of the first writing systems in history.
06:48So another recent find from the same part of the world proves that bureaucracy existed already 4,000 years ago.
06:56Archaeologists found ancient administrative tablets in another ancient Sumerian city.
07:02These clay tablets are the oldest solid proof we have of the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire.
07:09The tablets were inside a state archive building made of mud bricks, which had different rooms that acted like offices.
07:17Now, before this discovery, archaeologists didn't really understand how the first known empire in the world, the Akkadian Empire, worked behind the scenes.
07:26But now, thanks to the recent Gerso excavations, we have the first real and unambiguous evidence of the empire's administrative system.
07:36They tracked everything, deliveries, spending, and inventory, from fish to sheep to grains, fabric, and even gems.
07:45The tablets also include population records, with names and jobs of men, women, and kids, an ancient version of a census.
07:53From these records, scientists found out that women played a key role in Akkadian society.
07:58Some women had powerful positions, like high priestesses.
08:03The tablets also show a wide range of jobs, from skilled workers, like stonecutters, to people with simpler roles, like temple floor sweepers.
08:12Some even included building blueprints, field layouts, and canal maps, proving that the empire had serious organization and planning.
08:21Eventually, the city rebelled and gained its independence, and the Akkadian Empire's 150-year rule ended.
08:28Now, researchers are carefully cleaning and translating the tablets to fully understand what they say.
08:35These new finds will replace older, incomplete ideas about the empire,
08:40and give us a way more accurate picture of how Akkadian power and the ruling system actually worked.
08:46They finally did it. After 300 years of searching, archaeologists pinned down the location of the lost land of the White Jaguar,
08:58the city of Maya hidden in the wild jungles of Mexico.
09:03It all kicked off back in the 1500s, with the La Condon Maya.
09:09These guys were some super tough survivors who just didn't quit.
09:13When their main capital, La Comtun, fell to the Spanish in 1586, most people would have called it game over.
09:20But not the La Condon.
09:22Nope, they packed up, headed deeper into the rainforest, and built their last stronghold, Sac Balan.
09:29It was a hidden fortress of stone temples, twisty jungle trails, and howler monkeys acting like noisy little guards.
09:37For over a hundred years, the La Condon managed to keep their traditions alive there, far from European control.
09:44Then, in 1695, history came crashing in.
09:49A Spanish friar, named Diego de Rivas, stumbled into Sac Balan.
09:54And yeah, that was basically the beginning of the end.
09:57Soon after, the Spanish took over.
10:00By 1721, the Maya had abandoned Sac Balan.
10:05The jungle didn't waste time.
10:07It swallowed the place whole, with roots tearing into walls and vines smothering plazas.
10:13The city didn't just disappear.
10:15It got eaten alive.
10:17For the next 300 years, Sac Balan turned into more of a myth than a memory.
10:24A name archaeologists and explorers would whisper, secretly hoping to find it one day.
10:31Plenty of expeditions tried to track it down, but the rainforest is sneaky.
10:36Every path looks identical, maps fall apart in the humidity, and even GPS can't cut through the thick green ceiling.
10:44It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
10:47Except the haystack was alive, covered in thorns.
10:50And yeah, crawling with jaguars that would happily make you lunch.
10:58So how did the scientists crack the mystery?
11:00One word, a letter from the 17th century.
11:04The letter by Diego de Rivas described all the routes, rivers, and trails leading to Sac Balan.
11:11It showed in every detail the journey of the soldiers who walked four days to the Lacuntun River after leaving Sac Balan.
11:19Then they sailed for two days and arrived at the church, El Encuentro de Cristo, left their canoes, and continued on foot to Lake Petanitza in Guatemala.
11:29This was already detailed enough, but the scientists needed to pinpoint the exact location with geographic information systems.
11:36They took into account vegetation layers and how much each person was carrying to map an approximate range where Sac Balan should be.
11:45They fed this information to GIS and calculated where the city should be.
11:50And bingo! It worked!
11:52Archaeologists traveled through the jungle and found stone temples rising like broken teeth from the earth.
11:58There were also some tools and ceramics, and a Spanish church right in the middle of the ruins.
12:04The discovery isn't just about cool ruins. It rewrites history.
12:11For decades, people assumed the Lacandans simply scattered after Lacam Tun fell.
12:16But Sac Balan proves they regrouped, fought, and preserved their culture for over a century more.
12:23It's like discovering the final chapter of a book we thought ended too soon.
12:27There's also irony here. The Spanish friar who revealed Sac Balan helped doom it.
12:34Yet his letter, centuries later, also helped save its memory.
12:38Today, the ruins sit inside a biosphere reserve, protected by the same jungle that once hid them.
12:44Tourists can't just waltz in. It's raw, tangled, alive.
12:49The city breathes again, but on its own terms.
12:54Scientists just uncovered another lost city, buried under the thick jungles of Mexico.
13:00It had been hiding there for 600 years.
13:03The place is called Gengola, and it's massive.
13:06About 360 hectares, with more than 1,100 buildings, two and a half miles of defensive walls,
13:13its own network of roads, and a super-organized city plan.
13:18Because it was so deep in the jungle, you'd never realize how huge it really was unless you spent years hiking through it.
13:25But modern tech swooped in to save the day, using LiDAR, a kind of laser scanning tool.
13:31Researchers flew over the site, and in just two hours, they had a full 3D map of the entire city.
13:38Gengola was built sometime between 1350 and 1521, back in pre-Columbian times, and it used to be buzzing with life.
13:48It was a major hub for the Zapotec people, who had been around in the region since about 600 BCE.
13:55Families there lived in homes with big central patios surrounded by rooms, and as they got new members,
14:01they'd just add more rooms and stretch their houses out.
14:04They even used the mountains around them as natural walls and channeled mountain water for drainage.
14:10A lot of their buildings are still standing, which is wild considering how much time has passed.
14:16By the late 1400s, the Zapotec were real powerhouses along the Pacific coast.
14:23They even fought off the Aztecs, who were constantly trying to expand.
14:28At Gengola, they survived a brutal 7-month siege.
14:32But even though hiding in the mountains kept them safe, it wasn't perfect.
14:37They didn't have enough fresh water or farmland to feed everyone.
14:41Just 12 miles away, the smaller city of Tehuantepec had what they needed.
14:47So the Zapotec moved there right before the Spanish arrived in 1521.
14:52What the scientists have seen so far is just scratching the surface.
14:56That LIDAR scan revealed more than a thousand buildings, and archaeologists are planning years of research to figure it all out.
15:04Instead of digging everything up and risking damage, they'll use advanced scanning tech to keep studying the city safely.
15:11Alright, now let's hop across the world to Egypt, where archaeologists stumbled on a whole lost city, called Imit, tucked away in the eastern Nile Delta.
15:24The place was buried under layers of mud, water, and time, hiding in a swamp that's been shifting and changing for thousands of years.
15:34Scientists first noticed it from way up high, in faint little clusters of mud brick foundations in satellite images.
15:41The shapes looked shaky and ghost-like, but too neat to be natural.
15:46So they followed the patterns down on the ground, started digging, and the city started coming back to life.
15:53They found multi-storey tower houses, basically mini skyscrapers of the ancient world.
15:59They had multiple floors, thick foundations, and could handle some serious weight.
16:04That kind of vertical living is super rare in Egypt, especially outside the Nile Delta.
16:11It showed that people in Imit weren't just spreading across the land, but stacking upward,
16:16which means the city was packed, carefully planned, and way more urban than anyone thought for that time.
16:23And it wasn't just fancy housing either.
16:26Archaeologists also uncovered a grain processing center with paved work areas, animal pens, and organized spaces for food production.
16:35Clearly, this was a city with a real economy running behind it.
16:39Not far from there, they spotted a ceremonial road that once led to a temple for Wajet, Imit's patron deity.
16:47But later on, other buildings got plunked down over the road, which shows that Wajet's worship faded over time.
16:55Still, the ruins coughed up some amazing relics, a green faience little funerary figurine,
17:01and a stela showing Harpocrates perched on crocodiles and gripping snakes.
17:06He was the Greek spin on Horus, deity of silence, secrets, and the newborn son.
17:13And there was even a bronze sistrum, an ancient Egyptian musical instrument decorated with twin heads of Hathor.
17:22Turns out, Imit was active from around the 4th century BCE onward, stretching from Egypt's late period into the Roman era.
17:31Its location along trade routes made it a magnet for merchants and pilgrims visiting Wajet's temple.
17:37So it wasn't just hanging on, it was thriving, connecting, trading, and adapting with the times.
17:44And this isn't just another dusty ruin.
17:46Imit is giving us a window into everyday life, religion, and urban planning in the Delta,
17:52which we've always known way less about compared to the big pyramids and tombs.
18:01That's it for today.
18:02So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
18:07Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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