Ancient Discoveries We Celebrated… Until They Were Exposed

Bright Side

Ancient artifacts shocked the world… until scientists took a closer look. 🧐 Some discoveries rewrote history overnight — and then completely collapsed. From legendary relics to museum icons, not everything ancient is authentic. In this video, we dig into famous finds that fooled experts for years. The truth behind them is even wilder than the myths.  Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  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  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  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.

Transcript

00:00Back in 1912, British newspapers were buzzing with one bold claim.

00:06The first humans appeared in Britain, not Africa.

00:09It felt like history itself had been rewritten, and everyone bought into it.

00:13Crowds cheered, scientists raised their glasses,

00:17and the tiny village of Piltdown in Sussex suddenly became the spotlight

00:21for what was hailed as the greatest evolutionary discovery ever.

00:25It all happened thanks to this guy, Charles Dawson,

00:28a curious amateur archaeologist who was dreaming of making a name in science.

00:34He claimed he had found bone fragments of a transitional creature between apes and humans.

00:39Dawson teamed up with Arthur Smith Woodward,

00:42a respected geologist from the Natural History Museum.

00:45And together, they assembled fragments of skulls, teeth, and even primitive tools.

00:50They unveiled their find, the Piltdown Man, to the Geological Society.

00:55And for decades, everyone believed it.

00:58Textbooks even rewrote human evolution around it,

01:01and entire generations memorized it as pure truth.

01:05But here's the twist.

01:07In 1949, new technology to determine the precise age of objects came along,

01:13and things just didn't add up.

01:16Tests showed that the skull was only about 50,000 years old,

01:20not hundreds of thousands.

01:21Then came an even bigger shock.

01:23The skull and jaw didn't even belong to the same species.

01:28Someone had combined a human skull with the jaw of an ape, probably an orangutan.

01:33And even worse, they filed down the teeth to make them look more human,

01:38and stained the bones to match the surrounding gravel.

01:41A Frankenstein fossil and its creator managed to trick the entire world

01:46into believing they'd found a missing piece of humanity's puzzle.

01:50So Dawson went down in scientific history, but probably not the way he was hoping to.

01:56And he wasn't the only one.

01:58Some did it for money, others for fame.

02:00In the late 19th century Paris, museums were collecting ancient treasures like they were trading cards.

02:07When a stunning gold tiara, supposedly belonging to an ancient Scythian king,

02:12Cytoferne, appeared on the market, the Louvre had to have it.

02:16It was breathtaking, detailed, majestic, fit for a ruler.

02:20The museum proudly paid a fortune and displayed it as a masterpiece of ancient craftsmanship.

02:26Then came the heartbreak.

02:27A few years later, an entrepreneurial goldsmith from Odessa

02:31read about the Louvre's glorious fine and burst out laughing.

02:36He recognized the tiara because he made it with his own hands.

02:40It was a modern piece, a commission he created for local dealers.

02:44Except they never told him they planned to pass it off as an ancient treasure.

02:49The Louvre was humiliated.

02:51Once again, the whole world believed in a beautiful lie.

02:54And the goldsmith, who had just made the museum look ridiculous, ended up famous in the world of art.

03:01The tiara still holds the Guinness World Record for the greatest goldsmith fraud of all time.

03:07Another story of a well-planned scientific hoax takes us to a quiet town of Cardiff, New York,

03:13a couple of decades before the Louvre incident.

03:16In 1869, workers digging a well struck something hard and enormous.

03:22They uncovered what looked like a petrified 10-foot-tall man lying in the earth.

03:27Crowds poured in from miles around to see it.

03:31Preachers called it proof of the biblical giants mentioned in Genesis.

03:35Scientists debated whether it was fossilized or divine.

03:39Within days, the Cardiff giant became a sensation.

03:42People paid good money to see it, 50 cents a ticket, which was a lot back then.

03:47Later, it turned out that a man named George Hull carved the mysterious giant from gypsum

03:53after an argument with a Methodist reverend.

03:56Hull just wanted to prove how easily you can fool people, especially religious believers, unlike himself.

04:03So he buried the fake giant, and it worked too well.

04:07Even after experts exposed the hoax, visitors didn't care.

04:11They kept coming, because they wanted to believe.

04:14Over time, the giant changed ownership several times.

04:18You can now see it at the Fenimore Farm and Country Village Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

04:25Well, speaking of museums, you might have seen crystal skulls that glow under light,

04:31presented as sacred artifacts from Mesoamerican temples.

04:34Yes, that skull from an Indiana Jones movie with ancient Aztec powers or even extraterrestrial energy.

04:42So, museums displayed such skulls proudly, until scientists at the British Museum and the Smithsonian

04:48decided to give them a closer look.

04:51And what they found shattered the myth.

04:53They found that the skulls were made with modern rotary tools and abrasives that ancient carvers didn't have.

04:59In other words, someone in the 1800s or 1900s made them using modern machinery and fooled the world.

05:07They weren't messages from deities or some advanced creatures from space,

05:11just very fancy paperweights that tricked so many people into believing in some ancient superpowers.

05:18Well, let's jump several decades closer to the present day, shall we?

05:22In the 1960s, Yale University revealed what looked like a discovery that could rewrite world history.

05:30A 15th-century map showing North America labeled Vinland.

05:35It meant Vikings had mapped America long before Columbus.

05:39The headlines were sensational.

05:41The idea was romantic.

05:43Explorers crossing ICC's century before Europe even knew America existed.

05:48But something just didn't add up.

05:50The parchment was generally medieval.

05:53But the ink wasn't.

05:55Decades of testing revealed it contained titanium dioxide, a pigment invented in the 20th century.

06:02In 2021, Yale confirmed it.

06:05The Vinland map was a modern forgery, drawn over old parchment to make it look ancient.

06:11It wasn't proof of Viking genius, but rather of human cleverness on one side

06:16and the tendency to be easily persuaded on the other.

06:20And when we speak of persuasion, you don't have to try too hard when a really trustworthy source

06:26like National Geographic shares something, right?

06:30Well, in 1999, it presented what it thought was the ultimate discovery.

06:35A fossil that bridged the gap between dinosaurs and birds.

06:39It was called Archaeoraptor, and it was going to change everything we knew about evolution.

06:44The fossil came from China, and on first glance, it was perfect.

06:50A dinosaur tail, bird-like wings, and bones that seemed to tell the story of flight's evolution.

06:56But soon, paleontologists started whispering.

07:00The bones didn't quite line up.

07:02CT scans revealed the ugly truth.

07:05It was literally glued together from parts of different species.

07:09A dinosaur tail from one fossil, a bird body from another.

07:14Someone had Frankensteined the fossils to make a more valuable specimen.

07:19The embarrassment hit hard, especially for National Geographic,

07:22which had built an entire story around a fake the world liked to believe.

07:28Now, if you think scientific hoaxes are all in the past because of all the 20th century high-tech,

07:34here's a surprise for you.

07:36In 2020, the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. made a stunning confession.

07:42All 16 fragments of its prized Dead Sea Scroll collection were modern forgeries.

07:48They'd spent millions acquiring what they thought were sacred 2,000-year-old texts,

07:54only to learn they were made of ancient leather painted with modern ink.

07:58The forgery was so advanced that even experts were fooled at first.

08:02But after detailed forensic tests, it became clear the holy relics were anything but holy.

08:09It wasn't just about money, it was about faith.

08:13Thousands of visitors had stood in front of those glass cases,

08:16feeling awe, reverence, and connection,

08:19only to learn it was a show built on lies.

08:22And finally, it's time for one of the eeriest hoaxes of all.

08:27In 2000, a mummy surfaced in Pakistan, claiming to be a 26-year-old Persian princess,

08:34the daughter of Xerxes.

08:36They found her in a gilded sarcophagus, wrapped in golden robes.

08:40Her face was eerily well-preserved.

08:43Archaeologists were stunned, but something about her looked wrong.

08:47CT scans, linguistic analysis, and radiocarbon dating revealed the horrifying truth.

08:54The mummy wasn't ancient at all.

08:57She was a modern woman, and someone likely took her life

09:00and then mummified her to sell as a fake relic.

09:03Well, yikes.

09:05The story went from exciting to tragic overnight, and broke many hearts.

09:10What was supposed to be a royal miracle turned out to be a human crime and yet another law.

09:16All these stories have one thing in common.

09:19Hope.

09:20People want to believe.

09:22They want to touch the past.

09:24To find proof that connects them to something bigger.

09:27Whether it's scientists looking for the missing link,

09:30museums wanting fame, or believers searching for signs of faith,

09:34we all crave wonder.

09:36History is full of tricksters,

09:38and sometimes the best stories come from the fakes that fooled us all.

09:42You're heading to Spain with a team of archaeologists to try to find some ancient artifacts.

09:48You get lucky and uncover one of the greatest treasures of the Iberian Bronze Age.

09:53Iberian refers to the Bronze Age culture of Portugal and Spain.

09:57So you find and unearthed coins, jewelry, vases, vessels, and two pretty strange items.

10:05One is something like a part of a scepter, and the other resembles a bracelet.

10:10And you know what's strange about them?

10:12They're connected with space.

10:14In 1963, several miles away from the city of Vienna, Spain,

10:20scientists discovered the treasure of Vienna,

10:22one of the most significant gold hoards from the Bronze Age.

10:26Interestingly, are there bronze treasures from the Golden Age?

10:30Never mind.

10:31All the gold found dates back to sometime between 1500 and 1200 BCE,

10:37except for that scepter and bracelet.

10:39But they were made by inhabitants of another planet,

10:42so their production date is unknown.

10:45Okay, that's a joke.

10:46However, a small part of this joke is true.

10:50When scientists studied the found gold,

10:52they discovered that those two items were made of iron.

10:56So what, you might think?

10:57Well, the catch is that in the Bronze Age,

11:00people didn't mine or manufacture iron.

11:02Work with this metal began around 850 BCE,

11:06about 400 to 700 years after the creation of the treasure of Vienna.

11:11How is this possible?

11:14A clue to this mystery can be found in ancient Egypt,

11:17in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

11:19An iron dagger was found,

11:21which was also made of similar iron.

11:24But this dagger was much more valuable than all the others.

11:27And that's because it was made from a space object,

11:30a meteorite.

11:31Yeah, yeah, that bracelet and scepter were also made of meteoritic iron.

11:37Its difference from earth metal is that cosmic iron has a high nickel content,

11:41so it all makes sense.

11:43People from the Bronze Age couldn't mine iron from the deep bowels of our planet,

11:47but nothing prevented them from collecting iron falling from the sky.

11:52Just imagine how cool it is to have jewelry or a dagger

11:56made of material that has traveled millions of years

11:58through the vast expanses of space.

12:01Perhaps it even contains particles of an ancient extinct star.

12:06Today,

12:06these two artifacts from the treasure of Vienna

12:09are the oldest recorded items in the Iberian Peninsula

12:12made of meteoritic iron.

12:17Now, with everything in its place,

12:19you can turn your attention to all the wealth of the treasure of Vienna.

12:22It contains 66 items, bowls, bracelets, bottles, gold jewelry,

12:28three silver bottles, and an amber-gold button.

12:3122 pounds of ancient gold.

12:34People hid it, and only after 3,000 years, we were able to discover it.

12:38This archaeologist's dream can be found in the Vienna Museum,

12:43where exhibits from different time periods are presented,

12:46from prehistoric times like 50,000 years ago to the present day.

12:50Items from the Iberian period, from the Roman period, from the Arab civilization,

12:54you can find not only jewelry and coins,

12:57but there are also remnants of columns, ceramics, and other architectural artifacts.

13:01The collection is considered one of the most important prehistoric treasures of Europe.

13:07And the coolest thing is that you can see it all with your own eyes for just 2 euros,

13:11which is about $2.

13:13Go to Vienna, find the museum, and enjoy!

13:18Hey buddy, I heard you have a metal detector.

13:20Could you help me find a hammer I left somewhere in the field?

13:23Your old farmer friend asks.

13:26You take a metal detector and go searching,

13:28but instead of a hammer, you find hundreds, even thousands of silver coins worth $2 million.

13:35You're so happy that the farmer lost that hammer, and now you're rich.

13:39Stop!

13:40Considering that this land belongs to the farmer,

13:43would you tell him about the find, or take it with you?

13:46In reality, neither of these options happened.

13:49In 1992, Eric Laws was helping a farmer search for a lost hammer in a field near Hoxney, Suffolk, England.

13:55The metal detector stumbled upon a hidden treasure, a huge one.

14:01There were silver spoons, gold jewelry, more than 500 gold coins, and about 14,000 silver ones.

14:08Eric Laws accidentally discovered the largest collection of gold and silver from the late Roman period in Britain.

14:15Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he and the farmer didn't receive the treasure.

14:20It's now in the British Museum.

14:22Let's move away from the farmer's field to somewhere on the Mediterranean coast.

14:27Imagine you're a scuba diver.

14:29There was a strong storm yesterday, but now with the water calm,

14:33you dive in and discover the seabed covered with gold dinars.

14:37This story happened in 2015.

14:40The coins which the storm brought to the shore

14:42might have been minted even before the first crusade that started in 1096.

14:47This collection is one of the most impressive archaeological finds in the world.

14:52All these treasures surely can make the heads of those who find them spin,

14:56but they end up in a museum.

14:58And that's a good thing, because such wealth can drive a person crazy.

15:02A metal detector and a diving suit helped people discover ancient treasures.

15:07What's next?

15:08How about a dog?

15:09Yes, it could be perhaps a great replacement for a metal detector, by the way.

15:14So, in 2013, two people were walking their dog in Northern California on their property.

15:20Suddenly, they discovered a rusty can filled with coins minted from 1847 to 1894.

15:27There were about 1,500 coins, and they all were gold.

15:32Another chance for a carefree rich future?

15:35Not this time.

15:35The find caused a lot of controversy among specialists.

15:40There was one version, according to which these coins could have been stolen from the U.S. Mint.

15:45But later, the U.S. Mint debunked this suggestion,

15:47as they'd never had this gold in their storage.

15:50Anyway, it's interesting what the point was in hiding it all in someone else's yard.

15:56Some thief risked their freedom and life to get rich.

15:59When they succeeded, they just hid the coins as if they never existed.

16:03What a strange deal.

16:04Coins, jewelry, meteorite items, it's all cool.

16:08But let's end our video with something grand and epic.

16:12Archaeologists were conducting research near the Mediterranean coast of Egypt

16:15and discovered a treasure trove inside a sunken temple and sanctuary.

16:21Despite the waves, earthquakes, and seawater,

16:24the massive find was preserved in a not-bad condition.

16:27The temple was built a very long time ago and collapsed in the middle of the 2nd century BCE.

16:34It was an important structure in ancient Egypt.

16:37People considered this place holy.

16:39Pharaohs came to the temple to seek help from the higher powers of Egyptian mythology

16:43to obtain titles for their rule.

16:47Titles of Kings of the Universe

16:48For many people, this place was like the center of the universe.

16:52And now it lies forgotten on the seabed, almost ruined.

16:56Time spares nothing.

16:58Researchers found out the temple had been part of an ancient port city.

17:02A long time ago, an earthquake occurred in this area and destroyed the city.

17:05Tidal waves softened the ground and dragged the town into the Mediterranean Sea.

17:10While studying the temple, scientists found many secret treasures there.

17:15Silver ceremonial instruments, gold jewelry, and alabaster vessels.

17:20In past times, people used them to store perfumes or greasy ointments called unguents.

17:26Perhaps in ancient Egypt, they weren't bad in the field of cosmetology.

17:30Near the temple, archaeologists discovered a Greek sanctuary.

17:34Apparently, the Greeks living in Egypt or coming here on business wanted to pay tribute to Aphrodite.

17:40So they created a small building in her honor.

17:43In that place, archaeologists found bronze and ceramic artifacts from different cultures.

17:48Scientists found out that the Greeks had permission to trade in the Egyptian city

17:52and even be its residents.

17:54It seems pharaohs living around 600 BCE were favorable to the Greeks.

18:00The profession of an archaeologist is very exciting.

18:03But what would you do if you found some ancient treasure?

18:06Before answering this question, find out what law applies to such finds in your country.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended