100 Ancient Sites Abandoned So Suddenly, Everything Was Left Exactly Where It Was

Name: 100 Ancient Sites Abandoned So Suddenly, Everything Was Left Exactly Where It Was
Uploaded: 2026-10-07T16:00:00+00:00
Duration: 1 h 24 min 49 s
Channel: KirTop Top 100

00:00:00I'm Kirtop, and these are 100 ancient places that were abandoned so suddenly that everything was left in place.

00:00:10It was built by giants.

00:00:13On the coast of Northern Ireland, a stone causeway arises from the sea made up of uniform columns.

00:00:19There are about 40,000 of them, and each of them has the shape of a perfect hexagon,

00:00:24the same shape as the cells bees use to build honeycombs.

00:00:27The columns fit together so tightly and so precisely as if they were crafted by a giant master on a

00:00:32lathe,

00:00:33and then arranged row by row all the way to the horizon.

00:00:36You stand nearby and refuse to believe that this was made by nature, and not by someone's hands.

00:00:41For centuries, the locals didn't believe it either.

00:00:44According to an old legend, this road was laid by a giant named Finn.

00:00:48He was building a stone bridge across the sea to reach another giant on the other side and fight him.

00:00:53Every stone was given a name.

00:00:55Here is the organ, here is the giant's boot, here are the honeycombs.

00:00:59It's a beautiful story, and tourists still come here just for it.

00:01:02And then geologists got involved.

00:01:05And it turned out that no builder was needed here at all,

00:01:08once huge flows of molten lava came to the surface from deep cracks in the earth.

00:01:12They cooled down, and the molten stone contracted and cracked.

00:01:16Exactly the same way as drying mud cracks at the bottom of a puddle.

00:01:19Only on a gigantic scale, the cracks converged at equal angles.

00:01:23And by themselves they cut the rock into those very hexagonal columns.

00:01:27No giant, just cooling stone and physics.

00:01:30For a long time it was believed that this entire volcanic epic stretched over 13.5 million years.

00:01:36But recently, specialists from the British Geological Survey,

00:01:39led by geochronologist Simon Tapster,

00:01:42recalculated the volcano's age from scratch,

00:01:45and they reduced it by more than half,

00:01:47to about five and a half million years.

00:01:49Chief geologist Mark Cooper explained it simply,

00:01:51The process was much faster and more intense than everyone thought.

00:01:55What looks like the slow handiwork of a giant

00:01:57was actually a short and furious explosion of the planet itself.

00:02:02Man-made caves underground

00:02:05England, Shropshire, at Cainton Hall Estate.

00:02:08If you walk across the field and watch where you're stepping,

00:02:11you can spot a small hole in the ground about the size of a rabbit's paw.

00:02:15But this burrow leads down into a large underground hall,

00:02:18and then into the next one,

00:02:19and then into an entire system of man-made chambers

00:02:22carved into the red sandstone,

00:02:24with arched ceilings, with niches and columns.

00:02:27Officially, the Cainton caves date back to the late 18th

00:02:30and early 19th centuries.

00:02:32Someone put in an incredible amount of effort to carve out these halls.

00:02:35Exactly why is unknown.

00:02:37Maybe for storage?

00:02:38Maybe as a place of solitude?

00:02:40But local lore has long connected this place with the Templars,

00:02:43the Catholic military order founded in the 12th century,

00:02:46which in 200 years became the richest organization of the medieval world.

00:02:50In 1307, the French king Philip IV

00:02:52arrested the leadership of the order.

00:02:55Torture and executions began.

00:02:56The order was dissolved.

00:02:57And where the Templar treasures went is still unknown.

00:03:01The shape of the halls really does resemble Romanesque chapels.

00:03:06Low arches, a certain symmetry, niches where statues could have stood.

00:03:10In 2012, the entrance was bricked up because of vandals and people

00:03:13who used the underground halls for occult rituals.

00:03:16Traces of candles and devilish symbols were found on the walls here.

00:03:20In 2017, a photographer published pictures of these halls from the inside,

00:03:24and images of the caves instantly went viral.

00:03:27Most likely, this is just a beautiful place built in the 19th century

00:03:30by some wealthy landowner with a vivid imagination.

00:03:33And there were never any Templars there.

00:03:35But here's what's interesting.

00:03:37Even if you remove all the legends, the question doesn't go away.

00:03:40Someone put in a huge amount of effort

00:03:42to carve several neat halls with arches and niches into the rock.

00:03:46Why here?

00:03:48Why like this?

00:03:49And why at all?

00:03:50No one really knows to this day.

00:03:52Did the first forest appear in Russia?

00:03:55In Russia, near Luga in the Tolmachevsky quarry,

00:03:58they found something you usually see in textbooks,

00:04:00not in the sand of a quarry.

00:04:02A petrified stump with real roots.

00:04:04It's about 385 million years old.

00:04:06This is the late Devonian.

00:04:08A time when the land was just beginning to turn green.

00:04:11At first, everyone thought it was a prototaxites.

00:04:14The ancient column shaped organisms famous in this area.

00:04:17But the roots settled it.

00:04:18This isn't a fungal column.

00:04:19It's actually a tree.

00:04:21The discovery was made by an amateur paleontologist.

00:04:23He noticed a large piece in the sand,

00:04:25something that didn't look like an ordinary stone,

00:04:27and he showed it to the experts.

00:04:29Then scientists from SPBSU got involved.

00:04:32They carefully excavated, documented,

00:04:34and sent the sample to the laboratory.

00:04:36There, by examining thin sections and tissue structure,

00:04:38they will determine the species and age more precisely.

00:04:41It's important that the first tens of trees were already growing here.

00:04:43The root system held the soil,

00:04:45changed water runoff,

00:04:46and influenced the carbon balance.

00:04:47Simply put,

00:04:48this was the beginning of the forested planet we're used to.

00:04:50You could pile up a lot of scientific terms here,

00:04:53but the essence is simple.

00:04:54The scientists went looking for a giant fungus,

00:04:56but ended up finding the ancestor of our forests.

00:04:59Now they have to compare the sample with known Devonian trees

00:05:01and precisely identify what it was.

00:05:04Even if the species name is still in question,

00:05:06the discovery itself already changes the local picture of the past.

00:05:09A skull,

00:05:11but not from one of our ancestors.

00:05:13In 1960,

00:05:14in the Petrolona cave in northern Greece,

00:05:16a skull was found encased in limestone in the cave wall.

00:05:19Since then,

00:05:19its age and place in evolution have been the subject of debate.

00:05:22Estimates have ranged from 170 to 700,000 years,

00:05:26and interpretations from early Homo sapiens

00:05:28to an ancient European from an unusual evolutionary lineage.

00:05:31New research has narrowed the window to no younger than 277,000 years.

00:05:36In terms of features,

00:05:37it is closest to Homo heidelbergensis,

00:05:39the ancestor of Neanderthals

00:05:41who lived in Europe during the Middle Pleistocene.

00:05:43This is not a definitive answer.

00:05:45The dating depends on the layer and the method,

00:05:47and the skull itself has gone through a long history of research,

00:05:50but the picture is becoming clearer.

00:05:51At this time,

00:05:52early Neanderthal populations were already present in Europe,

00:05:55and the Petrolona specimen fits into this group.

00:05:57Based on the condition of the teeth,

00:05:59he is considered a young man.

00:06:01There's something else important as well.

00:06:03The discovery confirms the presence of ancient humans in the region

00:06:06long before the classic Neanderthal sites

00:06:08and before the appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe.

00:06:11Petrolona is used as a testing ground.

00:06:13Here, they compare dating, morphology,

00:06:15and the results of new scans.

00:06:17For now,

00:06:18the conclusion is cautious.

00:06:19The find is rare,

00:06:21but its features fit into the lineage of European Neanderthal ancestors.

00:06:25The Triangular Shield,

00:06:2720 kilometers southeast of Sofia,

00:06:29the capital of Bulgaria,

00:06:31archaeologists have excavated a rare Roman watchtower.

00:06:33Its base is an equilateral triangle with sides about 7 meters long.

00:06:37It is dated by coins from the reign of Emperor Caracalla.

00:06:40The end of the 2nd century AD,

00:06:43this is unusual for the Roman Empire.

00:06:45Most outposts were square or circular.

00:06:48The question arises,

00:06:49why a triangle?

00:06:50The narrow tip of the tower faces the slope.

00:06:52Blows from battering rams or stones would glance off the wall

00:06:55without damaging the masonry.

00:06:56Inside,

00:06:57they found a stone well and remnants of a wooden floor

00:06:59rebuilt during the Byzantine period and the 2nd Bulgarian Empire.

00:07:0312th century,

00:07:04similar designs are found only among frontier watchtowers.

00:07:07The Romans called such borderlines a limes.

00:07:10That is,

00:07:11the entire system of roads and fortresses along the border.

00:07:13In Bulgaria,

00:07:14this is the earliest example of irregular planning.

00:07:17Instead of a standard template,

00:07:18the engineers chose a geometry that better suited the mountainous terrain.

00:07:23Today,

00:07:23the tower is part of the Irvich Museum complex.

00:07:26It shows that Roman builders knew how to deviate from standards

00:07:29when local conditions required it.

00:07:32Egypt and the swastika.

00:07:34The more I studied the archives about the Anenerbi,

00:07:37the clearer it became.

00:07:38It was important for the Nazis not just to find an ancient artifact.

00:07:41They needed to write themselves into a grand past.

00:07:44To create a narrative where the Aryans were not just a people,

00:07:47but the direct heirs of the most ancient civilizations,

00:07:50Egypt held a special place in this system.

00:07:52Not because of the pyramids and mummies,

00:07:54but because of the symbols and rituals.

00:07:56They called the swastika the solar cross.

00:07:58For them,

00:07:59it was not just a sign,

00:08:00it was a code.

00:08:01The swastika does indeed appear in the cultures of India,

00:08:03Tibet and China.

00:08:04And in Egypt,

00:08:05at least in the form of indirect symbolism.

00:08:07The movement of the sun.

00:08:09Four directions,

00:08:10culture.

00:08:11They found confirmation of their ideas in this.

00:08:13Sometimes it was far-fetched,

00:08:15sometimes quite convincing.

00:08:16Before the war,

00:08:17some researchers associated with the Anenerbi

00:08:19really were in Egypt.

00:08:21Unofficially.

00:08:22They were interested in ancient books,

00:08:23burial rituals and ideas about the afterlife.

00:08:26The way the Egyptians connected power,

00:08:28magic and order,

00:08:29the Nazis saw it as a system,

00:08:31not a religion,

00:08:32but a mechanism of control.

00:08:33As if the ancients knew something that had been forgotten.

00:08:35And they came to restore it.

00:08:37I looked at photographs from those expeditions.

00:08:40People in SS uniforms.

00:08:42Standing by temples.

00:08:43Stone bas-reliefs decorated with runes.

00:08:45It wasn't just imitation,

00:08:47it was an attempt to create their own religion.

00:08:49A new one,

00:08:50not relying on symbols that inspire power.

00:08:52When Hitler spoke about bringing back the past,

00:08:54he didn't mean Prussia.

00:08:55He was looking further back,

00:08:57across millennia,

00:08:58into civilizations that disappeared,

00:09:00but left a trace.

00:09:01And he wanted that trace to lead to them.

00:09:03A continent underwater.

00:09:06At the bottom of the Madura Strait,

00:09:08near the island of Java,

00:09:09archaeologists found something no one expected.

00:09:12Not a sunken ship,

00:09:13not artifacts,

00:09:14but an entire ecosystem.

00:09:15Layers of earth where remains of Homo erectus were preserved,

00:09:18fragments of skulls,

00:09:19and traces of life about 140,000 years old,

00:09:22along with them bones of giant bulls,

00:09:24a shell,

00:09:25turtle shells,

00:09:26traces of bones broken to extract bone marrow.

00:09:28This is not just a prehistoric human campsite.

00:09:31This is a fragment of a submerged continent,

00:09:33a vanished world that once connected the islands to the mainland.

00:09:36Scientists call it Sundaland.

00:09:38Today,

00:09:38it is underwater.

00:09:40But back then,

00:09:41these were plains.

00:09:42It was something like an Asian savanna,

00:09:44with rivers,

00:09:44forests,

00:09:45and herds of large animals.

00:09:46On the animal bones,

00:09:47archaeologists found traces of processing,

00:09:49just like those made by continental Homo erectus.

00:09:51But until now,

00:09:52it was believed that the Javanese groups did not have such skills.

00:09:55Now it's clear,

00:09:56there was contact between the populations,

00:09:58and cultural exchange as well.

00:10:00People shared hunting methods,

00:10:01ways of butchering carcasses,

00:10:03and processing shells with each other.

00:10:04This speaks not only about technique,

00:10:05but also about memory and the transmission of knowledge.

00:10:07In addition to hunting traces,

00:10:08remains of mollusks and river sharks were found.

00:10:10Everything points to the fact that there was once a rich,

00:10:13vibrant,

00:10:13and complex landscape here,

00:10:15where humans were part of the ecosystem.

00:10:17Now all of this is at the bottom.

00:10:19Sundaland went underwater tens of thousands of years ago.

00:10:21Without noise,

00:10:22without traces of cities or temples,

00:10:23it just disappeared.

00:10:24And if it weren't for random finds on the seafloor,

00:10:27we wouldn't even know it existed.

00:10:29It reminds us that huge pieces of history can disappear

00:10:31not because of a catastrophe,

00:10:33but simply because of time.

00:10:34And all that's left is a fragment of bone lying cold in the silt.

00:10:38This place can only be seen from space.

00:10:42In the Sahara,

00:10:43there's a place that from above,

00:10:44looks as if the Earth has opened a huge eye,

00:10:47and is staring straight into space.

00:10:49This is the Richard structure,

00:10:50or the Eye of the Sahara.

00:10:51It's located in Mauritania,

00:10:53in the middle of the desert.

00:10:54And it consists of giant rings,

00:10:56about 40 kilometers in diameter.

00:10:5840 kilometers isn't just a big crater.

00:11:01That's the size of an entire city.

00:11:03But the strangest thing is,

00:11:04if you find yourself there on the ground,

00:11:06you'd have no idea what you were looking at.

00:11:08In front of you,

00:11:09there will be rocks,

00:11:10hills,

00:11:10dry plains,

00:11:11sand,

00:11:11and sparse vegetation.

00:11:13You could walk there for hours,

00:11:15and not even notice that you're inside

00:11:16one of the most recognizable objects on our planet.

00:11:19The whole picture only appears from above.

00:11:22From a satellite,

00:11:23or from orbit,

00:11:24you can see that there's a huge stone structure,

00:11:26lying in the middle of the desert.

00:11:28It's an almost perfect target,

00:11:29made of concentric rings.

00:11:31That's why the Eye of the Sahara,

00:11:33has long inspired one theory,

00:11:34after another,

00:11:35about its origins.

00:11:36Each one stranger than the last.

00:11:38At first,

00:11:39many people thought it was the mark,

00:11:41left by a meteorite impact.

00:11:42And the logic here is clear.

00:11:44The object is round,

00:11:45huge,

00:11:45and easily visible from space.

00:11:47At first glance,

00:11:48it really does look like,

00:11:49an ancient impact crater.

00:11:50But when scientists began to study the rocks,

00:11:53that theory started to fall apart.

00:11:54A real meteorite impact,

00:11:56leaves behind special traces.

00:11:58The rocks experience tremendous pressure.

00:12:00The rocks melt.

00:12:01The resulting damage,

00:12:03follows a distinctive pattern.

00:12:04No such signs were found,

00:12:05at the Eye of the Sahara.

00:12:07So,

00:12:07it's not a scar from a cosmic rock.

00:12:09Fans of alternative history,

00:12:11have linked this place to Atlantis.

00:12:12Because Plato described its capital,

00:12:14as a system of rings of water and land.

00:12:16Some talked about an ancient civilization.

00:12:18Others about traces of extraterrestrial intelligence,

00:12:21because the object looks too strange,

00:12:23as if it was deliberately drawn,

00:12:25in the middle of the desert.

00:12:26But the official explanation is much simpler.

00:12:29Scientists believe that at some point,

00:12:31magma rose deep beneath the ground.

00:12:33It didn't break through to the surface,

00:12:34like a volcano.

00:12:35But it lifted the rocks from below,

00:12:37as if the ground swelled up,

00:12:39with a huge bubble.

00:12:40This formed a geological dome.

00:12:42Then time slowly went to work.

00:12:43Wind, water and temperature changes,

00:12:45eroded this dome for millions of years.

00:12:48The softer rocks wore away faster,

00:12:50while the harder ones lasted longer.

00:12:51That's how the rings that are now visible from space,

00:12:54gradually appeared.

00:12:54And here's what's really interesting about this place.

00:12:57You don't have to look for aliens,

00:12:59or Atlantis in this story.

00:13:00The very fact itself,

00:13:02is already strange enough.

00:13:03Nature, without any plan,

00:13:04without a blueprint,

00:13:05and without human involvement,

00:13:07created a city-sized formation,

00:13:09in the middle of the desert,

00:13:10that you can't make sense of from the ground.

00:13:11But it's perfectly visible from above.

00:13:14Sometimes the mystery is in the scale.

00:13:15We understand the process,

00:13:17but we still have a hard time imagining,

00:13:18how much time,

00:13:19wind,

00:13:20water and erosion,

00:13:21it took for ordinary land,

00:13:22to turn into a giant eye,

00:13:24in the middle of the desert.

00:13:26The Giant's Staircase of Antarctica.

00:13:29One of the most discussed discoveries,

00:13:31made through satellite monitoring,

00:13:33was a structure in the Enderby land region,

00:13:35at the coordinates,

00:13:3668 degrees,

00:13:3754 minutes,

00:13:38south latitude,

00:13:39and 88 degrees.

00:13:42At 42 minutes east,

00:13:43longitude,

00:13:44an object was discovered,

00:13:45that was named the Giant's Staircase.

00:13:46It is a series of massive stone steps,

00:13:48that emerge from a creeping glacier,

00:13:50and descends steeply down the slope.

00:13:52The visible part of the structure extends for more than 200 meters,

00:13:56and it does not fit into the surrounding landscape at all.

00:13:59The main argument in favor of the artificial origin of this object,

00:14:03is its geometry.

00:14:04Each step is exactly 14 meters wide,

00:14:07and about 4 meters high.

00:14:09Unlike natural terraces,

00:14:11which are formed by erosion or landslides,

00:14:13here we see perfectly flat horizontal platforms,

00:14:15and vertical cuts at a 90 degree angle.

00:14:18Geologists officially call this a stepped glacier,

00:14:21but ice in motion is not able to retain,

00:14:23a sharply defined rectangular shape for decades.

00:14:26The material of the object is dark andesite,

00:14:28an extremely dense rock,

00:14:30that was used to build megalithic complexes,

00:14:32in Peru and Bolivia.

00:14:33The scale of the Giant's Staircase is astonishing.

00:14:36If this is really the remains of an ancient structure,

00:14:39then it surpasses even the largest Inca foundations in size.

00:14:42Scientists from Pennsylvania State University,

00:14:44during their analysis of the shadows in the 2026 images,

00:14:47confirm that there are virtually no gaps between the blocks,

00:14:50which indicates the precision with which the stones were fitted together.

00:14:53The fact that the site is located at an altitude of 2,000 meters above sea level,

00:14:57rules out the possibility that any civilization known to us built it.

00:15:00This is physical evidence that in ancient times,

00:15:04when Antarctica was not yet buried under ice,

00:15:07there were megastructures here,

00:15:08the scale of which we are only beginning to realize.

00:15:11Access to this area is strictly limited today,

00:15:14and the coordinates of the site are often blurred on commercial maps,

00:15:18which only fuels the interest of independent researchers.

00:15:22Crystal figures from Peru.

00:15:24And here is the last story, but let me warn you right away.

00:15:27There's no mainstream scientific research behind this,

00:15:30no academic articles, and no confirmed sources either.

00:15:33Everything you're about to hear are stories told by people who claim they were there,

00:15:38and saw everything.

00:15:39I'm telling you this honestly.

00:15:42Take it not as a fact, but as a story.

00:15:44But it's a story that simply can't be ignored.

00:15:47In the high mountain regions of Peru,

00:15:49there are caves in the rocks that are hard to reach.

00:15:51According to people who claim to have made it there,

00:15:54in one of the rock chambers there are figures about 3 meters tall,

00:15:57made of transparent rock crystal, pure quartz,

00:15:59with a strength that's almost impossible to find in nature in such quantities.

00:16:03Inside each figure, you can see thin channels and structures that resemble something living,

00:16:08as if there are vessels or nerves running through the stone.

00:16:11And devices placed near these figures supposedly pick up some kind of rhythmic signal coming from inside.

00:16:16The locals call this place the Hall of Sleeping Guides, and they avoid it.

00:16:20They say if you touch it, some kind of balance will be disturbed.

00:16:24Those who came there with different equipment talk about electronics malfunctioning and strange behavior of the devices.

00:16:29And during the full moon, according to them,

00:16:31such a low hum appears in the cave that you feel it not with your ears but with your whole

00:16:34body,

00:16:35and communications go down within a radius of several kilometers.

00:16:38And then they stopped letting people in.

00:16:40The military closed off access.

00:16:42None of this has been confirmed.

00:16:44It's quite possible that this is just a story passed down by word of mouth,

00:16:48and each time it gets new details added to it.

00:16:51Mountainous Peru is a hard to reach place.

00:16:53Legends are easily born there.

00:16:55But here's something to think about.

00:16:56Every year, something is found that seemed impossible just yesterday.

00:17:00Sunken cities, temples of unknown gods, traces of people where no one expected to find them.

00:17:05The crystal figures are most likely a legend.

00:17:08But the line between legend and discovery is sometimes thinner than it seems.

00:17:13I wonder what all these stories have in common.

00:17:15Thompson hid the gold on purpose, and took the secret with him to prison for 10 years.

00:17:20The ship sank on the very first day of battle and lay there for 400 years.

00:17:24An entire city went underwater in one night after an earthquake.

00:17:28A cemetery 3,000 kilometers long.

00:17:32From 1840 to 1860, hundreds of thousands of settlers rushed to the American west

00:17:38along the so-called Oregon Trail,

00:17:41a route about 3,200 kilometers long from the banks of the Missouri to the Willamette Valley.

00:17:47They crossed endless prairies, arid steppes, and formidable mountain passes,

00:17:52often spending more than half a year on the road.

00:17:54The journey was full of hardships.

00:17:56Lack of food, thirst, disease, and unpredictable weather

00:17:59claimed the lives of many before they even reached their destination.

00:18:03Historically, this region, called the Oregon Country, belonged to Great Britain.

00:18:07However, after acquiring Louisiana and successfully migrating to new lands,

00:18:12America claimed it as its own.

00:18:13The first expeditions of Lewis and Clark and the fur trader John Astor paved the way,

00:18:18but it was only in 1836 that the first wagons with settler families set out on the western trail.

00:18:24By 1843, about a thousand migrants had already formed the famous wagon train of the Great Migration,

00:18:30proving that it was possible to overcome such a dangerous journey.

00:18:34However, the road could easily turn into a real nightmare.

00:18:37Swift rivers overturned wagons, cholera and typhoid mercilessly claimed lives,

00:18:42and careless handling of weapons led to tragedy.

00:18:45According to statistics, up to 10 graves were left on every mile of the trail,

00:18:49and now they say that the Oregon Trail is the longest cemetery in the world.

00:18:52Many of the grave markers along it are nameless,

00:18:55because burials had to be done in haste,

00:18:57sometimes packing down the earth with wagon wheels,

00:18:59so that predators wouldn't find the remains.

00:19:02Thus, the legends and myths of conquering the Wild West

00:19:04became closely intertwined with the stories of people

00:19:07whose lives were marked by hardship.

00:19:09Where could it go?

00:19:10A billion years of history disappeared.

00:19:12In the Grand Canyon, there's a place where you can see one of the strangest things on earth.

00:19:16It looks like just a rock.

00:19:18Stone below, stone above, and between them, a thin line.

00:19:22But if you ask a geologist,

00:19:23he'll tell you that almost a billion years are missing between these two layers.

00:19:27And that's hard to wrap your head around.

00:19:29You're not looking at a simple pit,

00:19:31not at a ruined city,

00:19:33not at the bones of an ancient animal.

00:19:34You're looking at an ordinary rock.

00:19:36But in this rock, a huge chunk of the past is missing.

00:19:39At the bottom, there are rocks about 1,700,000,000 years old.

00:19:44On top, there are rocks that are about 520,000,000 years old.

00:19:47And then everything that should have been between them just disappeared.

00:19:50It's as if the earth was writing its history,

00:19:52and then someone tore out several of its thickest chapters.

00:19:55Imagine a book where after page 100, page 500 starts right away.

00:19:59And everything in between has been torn out.

00:20:01No traces, no explanations, just emptiness.

00:20:04It's the same here.

00:20:05One layer lies on top of another,

00:20:07even though there should have been a whole billion years between them.

00:20:10Scientists think glaciers and the movement of continents are to blame.

00:20:13At some point, huge masses of ice could literally scrape kilometers of rock off the surface of the earth.

00:20:18That's why these rocks were carried away by water, wind, and time.

00:20:21And they disappeared so long ago that now it's almost impossible to restore them.

00:20:25But that's not even the most interesting part.

00:20:28After that missing piece, the history of life suddenly speeds up.

00:20:30Creatures with shells, eyes, and hot bodies appear in the oceans.

00:20:34The world, which until then had been almost invisible in stone,

00:20:38begins to leave more and more traces behind.

00:20:41And then a strange thought comes to mind.

00:20:43Maybe the earth didn't just lose part of its history.

00:20:45Maybe it was this very loss that changed something.

00:20:48Stones wore away.

00:20:49New substances entered the oceans.

00:20:51The water became different.

00:20:53And life on the planet became more complex.

00:20:55Scientists can't know everything.

00:20:57They are ordinary people who look at this stone just like we do.

00:21:00In front of us is a place where there seems to be an explanation.

00:21:04But there is still a feeling that you are looking at the trace of a huge event.

00:21:07Which happened so long ago that all that remains of it is a gap between two layers of rock.

00:21:12And the most interesting thing is that this kind of oddity isn't found only in the Grand Canyon.

00:21:16It seems that gaps in the geological record are found in different places around the planet.

00:21:20In China, Australia, and even in Russia.

00:21:23A giant refrigerator.

00:21:24After seeing this, any viewer would be sure that here, nature itself is taking revenge for the damage humans have

00:21:33done.

00:21:33In the 1960s in Yakutia, Soviet workers cleared a section of the taiga for the needs of a nearby settlement.

00:21:40However, the trees in these places served a very important function.

00:21:44Their canopies created shade that prevented the sun from heating the soil.

00:21:48There is permafrost underground here.

00:21:50And for thousands of years, it remained untouched.

00:21:53As soon as the trees disappeared, the sun reached the ground.

00:21:56The ice began to melt.

00:21:58The soil subsided.

00:21:59And a small ravine formed.

00:22:01Today, that ravine is called the Batagaica crater.

00:22:04It is 1.5 kilometers long.

00:22:06The depth is 115 meters.

00:22:09The area is over 80 hectares.

00:22:11Every year it expands by another 10 to 15 meters.

00:22:13And no one can stop it.

00:22:15The locals call it the gateway to the underworld.

00:22:18And if you look at it from the air, it's hard to disagree with that.

00:22:21But scientists are interested in Batagaica for another reason.

00:22:25Permafrost is a perfect natural refrigerator.

00:22:28And the walls of the depression have exposed layers of earth up to 650,000 years old.

00:22:33Animals that lived here during the ice age are literally thawing out of these walls.

00:22:37In 2018, they found a foal of a prehistoric horse that was 42,000 years old with preserved

00:22:44dark brown fur, tail, mane, and internal organs.

00:22:48The animal looked as if it had only just fallen asleep.

00:22:51In 2024, Batagaica presented scientists with the carcass of a one-year-old mammoth that was

00:22:56just as remarkably well-preserved.

00:22:58But there is another side to this story.

00:23:01The frozen ground preserved not only animals, it also stored carbon, which had been accumulating

00:23:05there for hundreds of thousands of years.

00:23:07Now it is thawing and being released into the atmosphere as methane and carbon dioxide.

00:23:12From Batagaica alone, over its entire existence, more than 150,000 tons of carbon have been released.

00:23:18And across the entire Arctic, there are thousands of such places.

00:23:21They are all melting.

00:23:23And each of them releases gases that accelerate the very warming that melted them in the first place.

00:23:28Climatologists call this a feedback loop.

00:23:30The story of the giant natural freezer known as Batagaica began when someone cut down a

00:23:35few trees.

00:23:36Seventy years later, a hole the size of a small town keeps growing.

00:23:40And scientists still don't know where it will stop.

00:23:44Traces of opium dating back 3,500 years.

00:23:50Archaeologists in Israel made a sensational statement.

00:23:53Bronze Age people who lived in the Levant used psychoactive substances.

00:23:58In 2017, during excavations in the tombs of Tel Yahut, archaeologists unearthed clay pottery.

00:24:04However, the analysis was only conducted this year.

00:24:07The study of such excavations is very similar to a forensic examination at a crime scene.

00:24:13The analysis of 22 clay items was carried out using equipment that is used by the police.

00:24:19People who used opium in the Bronze Age could never have imagined that they would be studied

00:24:23by police officers from the 21st century.

00:24:25The gas croquantography and mass spectrometry analysis conducted as part of the study showed

00:24:31that eight of the vessels contained opium alkaloids.

00:24:34The vessels contained morphinan associated with opium derived from the poppy plant, which

00:24:39comes from morphine, as well as opiumic acid and other compounds found in the chemical signature

00:24:45of opium.

00:24:46Based on this, we can conclude that the ancient Canaanites were familiar with the psychoactive

00:24:51properties of the poppy.

00:24:53The ancient Egyptians might have used opium as an offering to the afterlife, or priests

00:24:57used it to summon the spirits of deceased relatives.

00:25:01As early as the 1960s, experts first suggested that such drugs were used for making opium.

00:25:08Their long necks resembled an upside-down poppy head.

00:25:12The first written mention of opium was on 3000-year-old Sumerian clay tablets, where the drug is referred

00:25:18to as Gil, which means happiness.

00:25:22This is far from the first discovery confirming that people used drugs in ancient times.

00:25:27Archaeologists have repeatedly found traces of marijuana, which was most likely used for

00:25:32religious rituals.

00:25:35People ate mommies.

00:25:37Sometimes it's hard to believe that certain events really happened in reality.

00:25:41For example, it's hard to believe that the people of medieval Europe had a certain habit

00:25:47of feasting on Egyptian mummies.

00:25:49Of course, it wasn't exactly feasting.

00:25:52The people of the Middle Ages had somewhat different goals.

00:25:55Starting from around the 12th century, people actively consumed the remains of ancient Egyptians,

00:25:59either cut into small pieces or ground into powder.

00:26:02Since ancient times, people have used bitumen, a product of oil weathering, in everyday life.

00:26:07They treated arrowheads with it, used it to make kitchen utensils, and also employed it

00:26:12as a therapeutic remedy.

00:26:14At that time, Pliny the Elder himself recommended it in combination with wine for the treatment

00:26:19of dysentery and severe cough.

00:26:20It was believed that bitumen relieved toothache and was effective against cataracts.

00:26:25The Egyptians used this substance to mummify their most prominent dead.

00:26:28It had the ability to penetrate deep into the tissues, and over time it became difficult

00:26:33to tell where the bone was and where the bitumen actually was.

00:26:36As its natural reserves were running out, people came to the conclusion that it was quite reasonable

00:26:41to use mummies as a source of bitumen, and they began to actively search for and process

00:26:46them for profit.

00:26:47Of course!

00:26:48Just because something looks like a mummy, doesn't mean it actually is a mummy, since

00:26:53enterprising traders quickly found alternative ways to meet buyers' demand for mummies and

00:26:58passed off well-roasted camel meat as mummies.

00:27:01Since the popularity of the practice lasted for quite a long time, some medieval businessmen

00:27:06went even further, and started making mummies from the bodies of recently deceased citizens.

00:27:10With improved techniques, the new ones were indistinguishable from real ancient mummified

00:27:16bodies.

00:27:18Gradually, with the development of medicine, Europeans stopped using mummies as medicine,

00:27:23and although no modern person, at least with a healthy mind, would think of eating mummy

00:27:27powder, the mummy black market's turnover is estimated at around 3 billion dollars.

00:27:33If the desire to make money is quite understandable, then why do modern people buy mummies at all?

00:27:39To decorate their homes and show their friends how ancient the mummies are?

00:27:43Or is it possible that people still use them for health purposes even today?

00:27:48Tropical forests of Antarctica.

00:27:49The Prince Charles mountains in East Antarctica are the largest geological archive on the planet.

00:27:55It was here, among the sheer cliffs of Mack Robertson land, that scientists found concrete

00:28:00evidence that the current state of the continent is actually an anomaly.

00:28:04In the layers of sedimentary rocks, geologists discovered fossilized forests, preserved in

00:28:09perfect condition.

00:28:10We're talking about plants of the genus Glossopteris, which dominated here about 260 million years

00:28:16ago, during the Permian period.

00:28:18These trees reached 30 meters in height and formed dense forests in conditions that today

00:28:23seem impossible.

00:28:24A group of researchers, led by Eric Gulbranson from the University of Wisconsin, conducted

00:28:28a detailed analysis of these findings.

00:28:31It turned out that the wood preserved its cellular structure to such an extent that traces of

00:28:36ancient fungi and microorganisms were found in it, literally frozen in time.

00:28:40The tissue was so well preserved that scientists were able to extract a fragment of amino acids

00:28:45from the cells, which are over a quarter of a billion years old.

00:28:48Such a degree of organic preservation is only possible with extremely rapid burial of biomass.

00:28:54In geology, such cases are associated with events of instantaneous replacement, when volcanic

00:28:59ash or powerful sediment flows block oxygen excess even before the onset of decomposition

00:29:04processes.

00:29:05This turns the Prince Charles mountains into a giant time capsule.

00:29:08The discovered trunk segments preserved annual rings, which show that the trees grew at an

00:29:14incredible rate, using the round-o-clock daylight of the polar summer, and then abruptly went dormant.

00:29:20An additional fact is the colossal coal deposits found in this same region.

00:29:25Coal is concentrated biomass that forms only from a million tons of undecayed plants.

00:29:32The presence of coal seams in central Antarctica confirms that the continent was once the planet's

00:29:36biological reactor.

00:29:38The scale of these discoveries indicates that the freezing of the continent was not the result

00:29:42of a gradual climate decline, but an abrupt halt to life, traces of which now have to be extracted

00:29:47from stone at extremely low temperatures.

00:29:51A very valuable find!

00:29:53In August, the Canadian mining company Lucara Diamond Corporation announced the discovery of

00:29:59what is considered the second largest diamond in the world.

00:30:03It weighs 2,492 carats.

00:30:06The stone was found in the Karowa mine in Botswana, where another record-breaking diamond,

00:30:11Lesidi Larona, was previously discovered in 2015.

00:30:15It weighed 1,109 carats and was sold for 53 million dollars two years later.

00:30:22The largest diamond in the world remains the famous Kalenan, weighing 3,106 carats, discovered

00:30:28in South Africa in 1905.

00:30:31To recover diamonds of such impressive size, a special tool is used, the Mega Diamond Recovery

00:30:37System, which is based on X-ray transmission.

00:30:40This technology is designed to search for and extract huge precious stones that remain

00:30:45hidden deep within the earth.

00:30:49Archaeologists were mistaken.

00:30:51Get ready for an amazing historical journey.

00:30:54Have you ever wondered who is depicted on the giant statues of ancient Egypt?

00:30:59Here's a story that will definitely amaze you.

00:31:02Back in 2017 archaeologists in Cairo discovered a colossal 8-meter statue.

00:31:06Everyone thought it was a statue of the famous pharaoh Rameses II.

00:31:11However, scientists recently concluded that this was a mistake.

00:31:14This majestic statue was found in the former ancient city of Heliopolis, which is now a district

00:31:19of Cairo.

00:31:21Archaeologists worked long and hard to extract the parts of the statue from the mud.

00:31:25This 3,000-year-old work of art was believed to depict Rameses II, but scientists discovered

00:31:31that they were mistaken.

00:31:33Who is actually depicted on the statue?

00:31:35Metspamtik I, pharaoh of the 26th dynasty scientists, solved this mystery by reading the

00:31:40name Neb inscribed on the statue.

00:31:43This was the nickname of Psamtik I, who ruled Egypt from 664 to 610 BC and made Egypt an independent

00:31:52state again.

00:31:53The Egyptian minister of antiquities called this statue one of the most important archaeological

00:31:57discoveries, and after restoration it will take a place of honor at the entrance of the

00:32:01Grand Egyptian Museum, which will open at the end of 2023.

00:32:05This is the incredible story of one of Egypt's most majestic statues.

00:32:09But remember, history is full of secrets and unpredictable twists.

00:32:15A colony of ice fish A group of scientists broke through a thick

00:32:19layer of ice and lowered a camera half a kilometer down.

00:32:23They saw tens of thousands of round nests, each about the size of a bicycle wheel, and in

00:32:28each nest lives an adult fish guarding more than 2,000 of its future offspring.

00:32:33The cameras recorded more than 12,000 of these fish.

00:32:36The total area of the spawning ground is about 240 square kilometers.

00:32:41These fish are called ice fish because of their unique ability to survive extreme cold.

00:32:46Their blood contains special substances similar to antifreeze, which allows them to live in

00:32:50the harsh conditions of Antarctica.

00:32:52As you can see, despite the cold, life in Antarctica is vibrant and thriving.

00:32:57Message spheres A mystery scattered all over the world.

00:33:01Mysterious message spheres.

00:33:03They are everywhere, but they especially love Costa Rica.

00:33:06They are made of lava and sedimentary rocks, but they are found in places where there was

00:33:11never any lava at all.

00:33:13Scientists believe they are approximately 12 to 14,000 years old.

00:33:17They are perfectly round and weigh up to 14 tons.

00:33:19If you see a drawing or inscription on one of them, don't be surprised.

00:33:23Our distant ancestors could have left it there.

00:33:26These spheres have been found in many parts of the world, from America to Russia.

00:33:29The first ones were discovered in Costa Rica, when a company was preparing land for banana

00:33:34plantations.

00:33:35But where did they come from?

00:33:37There are those who are sure that they are the work of an ancient civilization.

00:33:41Others believe that they were created by aliens.

00:33:44There are also those who say that they are simply natural formations, created by river

00:33:48flows or retreating glaciers.

00:33:50Another theory says that these spheres were made in the 20th century as a tourist attraction.

00:33:55But then the war began, and the spheres were forgotten.

00:33:58And the last hypothesis I want to share with you.

00:34:02If you look at these spheres from above, they form geometric shapes, like star maps.

00:34:07And each sphere could represent a star or a planet.

00:34:11So maybe this is our message to space.

00:34:16Argentina.

00:34:17When I first read about Odessa, it seemed to me like it was just a plot for a movie.

00:34:21An organization created specifically to smuggle Nazis out of Europe.

00:34:25But then I saw documents, maps, interviews, photographs that don't explain themselves,

00:34:30but say more than official reports.

00:34:32After the war, dozens, hundreds of SS men disappeared.

00:34:35They didn't just hide, they vanished.

00:34:37And almost all the traces led to one place.

00:34:39South America, especially Argentina, a country where dictators openly sympathized with Hitler,

00:34:44and in the mountains, those who didn't want to be found were hiding.

00:34:47In 2017, Ikech was found in the Argentine Andes.

00:34:51Weapons from the Third Reich era, medals, maps with German language labels, all carefully hidden.

00:34:57The way things are hidden when they're not museum exhibits, but items that might be needed.

00:35:01Later, CIA archives surfaced, recording conversations mentioning German bases,

00:35:05a hidden settlement, and even Hitler.

00:35:08I'm not a supporter of conspiracy theories, but when too many random discoveries form a chain,

00:35:12it's no longer a coincidence.

00:35:13It's a rout.

00:35:14Someone really was leaving, someone was continuing the work not on the front lines but in the shadows.

00:35:19What is especially frightening is not that they might have survived,

00:35:22but that they might have lived for a long time, and to pass on not orders, but ideas.

00:35:27A human tooth, 1.8 million years old.

00:35:32And now we are going to Georgia, in the South Caucasus.

00:35:36This is where one of the earliest prehistoric settlements in Europe is located.

00:35:40And just recently, archaeologists were in for an incredible surprise again.

00:35:44They found one of the oldest teeth on the planet, belonging to the human species.

00:35:49This once again confirms that Georgia was one of the first places our ancestors went to conquer Europe.

00:35:54The human species that reached Europe most likely originated in this region.

00:35:59The tooth was discovered about 100 kilometers from the capital of Georgia,

00:36:03Tbilisi, in the village of Orozmani.

00:36:05Stone, tools, and animal remains had been found here before.

00:36:09But this is the first time Homo erectus remains have been discovered here.

00:36:12Not far from this place, in the late 1990s and early 2000s human skulls were found here,

00:36:18which are 1.8 million years old.

00:36:20This was the first discovery of its kind outside Africa.

00:36:24This forced scientists to change their understanding of human migration.

00:36:29Based on these findings, archaeologists claim that Georgia was one of the first places

00:36:33where ancient humans arrived during their migration out of Africa.

00:36:37According to Giorgi Bedzenashvili, the scientific director of the excavation team,

00:36:42this tooth belonged to a cousin of Zezva and Zia, the names given to the owners of the fossilized skulls

00:36:47that were previously discovered in Demanisi.

00:36:50But the oldest fossil remains of the genus Homo are still considered to be a part of a jaw discovered

00:36:55in Ethiopia.

00:36:57It is about 2.8 million years old.

00:37:00Scientists believe that the first migrations began about 2 million years ago,

00:37:04although ancient tools that are 2.1 million years old were discovered in China.

00:37:09This suggests that we still have a lot to learn about the ancient world.

00:37:13That's what our channel is for, and it will definitely help you with that.

00:37:16And now, let's move on.

00:37:19The mythical gold mine

00:37:22In 1929, Australia found its own Indiana Jones, Lewis Harold Bell Lasseter.

00:37:29He claimed that three decades earlier, he had discovered a massive gold reef in the very heart of the continent.

00:37:36There was almost no evidence, but rumors of a lost Klondike stirred up prospectors and historians.

00:37:41In 1930, Lasseter managed to organize an expedition and set off into the outback once again.

00:37:46He was accompanied by a pilot, two gold prospectors, aboriginal guides, and even a representative of the governor.

00:37:52However, Lasseter behaved sullenly, contradicted himself in his stories, and was reluctant to show the way.

00:37:58Upon reaching Mount Margery, he claimed that they were lost.

00:38:01His companions considered him an imposter and left.

00:38:04Lasseter was left only with the hunter, but soon he too abandoned him.

00:38:08In the end, Harold continued on alone.

00:38:10A year later, he was found dead in a cave.

00:38:12Judging by his diary, he died of exhaustion, having spent his last months among aboriginal people, trying to survive.

00:38:18Meanwhile, the legend of the reef did not fade.

00:38:21Numerous seekers combed the McDonnell range in hopes of finding gold.

00:38:26The press discussed the mysterious Swede, Olaf Johansson,

00:38:29who supposedly also knew the way to the treasure.

00:38:31Later, books and movies appeared.

00:38:33Director Luke Walker, in the Lasseter's Bones project,

00:38:37found Harold's letters mentioning that very Olaf and hinting at the lost reef.

00:38:41Modern research has not confirmed large deposits in the designated area,

00:38:45although geologist Bill DeCarly came across a quartz seam that resembled Lasseter's description.

00:38:50He believed that Harold was just retelling other people's stories.

00:38:54Nevertheless, the mystery of the treasure continues to fascinate romantics and gold prospectors.

00:38:59An artifact of an unknown civilization.

00:39:03How about a journey into the past,

00:39:05where archaeological discoveries challenge everything we know about our history?

00:39:10It all began in February 1961.

00:39:14Three adventurers, Orellis Lane, Virginia Maxey, and Mike Micassell,

00:39:18set out on a hike to Mount Coso to add to their collection of antiquities.

00:39:22Imagine their surprise.

00:39:24When among the ordinary mountain rocks, they found a stone that simply couldn't have been there.

00:39:29A day later, Michael decided to work on the stone and discovered something incredible.

00:39:33Inside the stone was a ceramic cylinder,

00:39:36and inside the cylinder was a metal rod that for some reason reacted to a magnet.

00:39:40And inside, fragments of fossilized shells and pebbles were also found.

00:39:44The friends showed the find to a geologist they knew,

00:39:47who, after a detailed examination, said,

00:39:49In his opinion, this stone is at least 500,000 years old.

00:39:52Can you imagine?

00:39:53A million years.

00:39:55If that's the case, then our find rewrites the entire history of human development.

00:39:59After all, how can we explain metal elements inside such an ancient stone?

00:40:03Unfortunately, we don't have a detailed description of this research,

00:40:06nor do we have the geologist's name.

00:40:08But one thing we know for sure, the stone was studied by the creationist Roncalli.

00:40:13He took an x-ray and discovered that the rod has a spring,

00:40:16so it's possible that this was some kind of ancient electrical mechanism.

00:40:20But who created it and for what purpose?

00:40:24Where was the ark located?

00:40:26Shiloh, in the center of Israel, is called the main sanctuary of the era before the Jerusalem temple.

00:40:31Here, they excavated the foundation of a rectangular building, measuring 31 by 15.5 meters.

00:40:37The exact proportion is 2 to 1, and the orientation is strictly east to west.

00:40:41These are exactly the parameters described in Exodus for the portable sanctuary, the tabernacle.

00:40:46Essentially a tent temple.

00:40:48Inside, they discovered a massive partition dividing the space into two parts.

00:40:52The sanctuary and an isolated room in the center.

00:40:54The Holy of Holies, where according to biblical tradition, the ark stood.

00:40:58The main evidence is not in the walls, but in the number of sacrifices,

00:41:01over 100,000 bones of sheep, goats and cattle, dated to around 1200 to 1000 BCE.

00:41:08In 97 cases, the right side of the carcass is facing upward.

00:41:12This matches the prescription in the book of Leviticus,

00:41:16where the right portion is given to the priest.

00:41:18Such a profile is not typical for an ordinary settlement,

00:41:21but is normal for a cult center with regular sacrifices.

00:41:24So far, this is not proof of the location of the ark as an object,

00:41:28but archaeology provides what the texts lacked.

00:41:30Exact dimensions, orientation, layout and traces of ritual food preparation.

00:41:35There are too many coincidences to see an ordinary courtyard here.

00:41:38This looks like the site of a sanctuary that people spend centuries searching for only in books.

00:41:44The Flying House.

00:41:45In Loreto, Italy, in the Marche region, anyone can see the Holy House, three stone walls that,

00:41:50according to legend, angels transported from Nazareth at the end of the 13th century.

00:41:55The route in the legend is detailed.

00:41:57First, the house landed on the hill of Tshasat, now a district of Rigeca in Croatia, in 1291.

00:42:04Then in 1294, it ended up in Recanati, and after several relocations,

00:42:09it took its current place on the crest of Loreto.

00:42:11That's why it's called the Flying House.

00:42:13You can tell from the house itself that it's not local.

00:42:17The stone and the mortar match those used in Palestine in the 13th century.

00:42:21There are pilgrim crosses and scratched inscriptions on the blocks typical for the Holy Land.

00:42:25The house stands directly on the ground, without a foundation,

00:42:28as if it was brought here with finished walls and simply placed down.

00:42:31The dimensions of the room match those that medieval descriptions

00:42:35attribute to Mary's house in Nazareth.

00:42:37Now, let's talk about how it could have ended up in Italy.

00:42:41After the fall of Acre in 1291, the crusaders and merchants associated with them

00:42:45transported relics by sea, saving them from destruction.

00:42:48In documents from that time, the name of the Angelos family appears,

00:42:52the Byzantine Angelos dynasty.

00:42:54The church is simple and beautiful.

00:42:55The Angelos, who paid for the transportation,

00:42:58eventually became known as the angels who moved the house.

00:43:00The relocation near Recanati is also explained in a matter-of-fact way.

00:43:04The shrine was moved several times, first on private plots,

00:43:07then on a neutral site, until it was surrounded by the current stone shell of the basilica.

00:43:11Where is the line between mysticism and history here?

00:43:13The church accepts the miraculous tradition,

00:43:16and that's exactly how millions of pilgrims experience it.

00:43:19Archaeologists and historians are more cautious.

00:43:21The materials and techniques point to Palestine,

00:43:23and the traces of assembly indicate an actual transportation in parts in the 13th century.

00:43:28In the 20th century, Our Lady of Loreto became the patroness of aviation,

00:43:32which is symbolic for a shrine that flew.

00:43:35Mummies of the Dry Valleys

00:43:37The Dry Valleys of McMurdo are 30,000 square kilometers of land,

00:43:41where there has been no precipitation for the last two million years.

00:43:45It is here that archaeologists and biologists find hundreds of mummified

00:43:48remains of crabiator seals and weddell seals.

00:43:51The main mystery lies in the locations.

00:43:53The bodies of the animals are found at distances of up to 66 kilometers from the nearest open water,

00:43:58and at elevations of more than 1,200 meters above sea level.

00:44:03Radiocarbon analysis of these finds gives a range of dates from 30 years to 3,000 years.

00:44:08Due to the extreme dryness and the almost complete absence of putrefactive bacteria,

00:44:12the bodies do not decompose, but instead undergo a process of natural preservation.

00:44:16The fetus turns into a hard, parchment-like substance,

00:44:19and the internal organs remain unchanged for centuries.

00:44:23However, mainstream scientists still cannot explain the mechanism of collective suicide.

00:44:27To reach the place of their death, the pinnipeds had to travel

00:44:30dozens of kilometers over sharp rocks and icy hummocks,

00:44:34moving deep into the lifeless continent where there is no food at all.

00:44:38During research conducted in 1970, it was found that many of the mummies are oriented

00:44:42with their heads in the same direction, deeper into the continent.

00:44:46Biologists from Oregon State University recorded that the content of carbon-14 isotope

00:44:51in some samples points to a dating anomaly.

00:44:53This is called the reservoir effect.

00:44:54A marine diet can make seal tissues appear thousands of years older,

00:44:58which makes accurate dating extremely difficult.

00:45:01This means that among what appear to be 3,000-year-old mummies,

00:45:04the remains of creatures from much more ancient eras may lie in the valleys.

00:45:09The presence of so many travelers to nowhere indicates a major failure in the navigation system

00:45:13or the existence of some factor deep within the dry valleys

00:45:16that for centuries has caused marine animals to leave their territory to certain death.

00:45:21It existed.

00:45:23Until recently, scientists believed that the grand project of building the capital of Assyria, Dur-Sharukin,

00:45:29Khorsabad, was left half-finished after the death of King Sargon II.

00:45:35However, new geophysical studies proved the opposite.

00:45:38The city was completed and was actively functioning.

00:45:42Archaeologists used the magnetometry method, which made it possible to discover the remains of an

00:45:47impressive 127-room villa probable royal gardens and water gates as well as other large structures.

00:45:53All these discoveries indicate that beyond the main palace, Khorsabad was a thriving center.

00:46:00Conceived by Sargon II himself in 713 BC, as the fortress of Sargon, the city did not fall into oblivion

00:46:08after his death.

00:46:09New evidence contradicts the long-held belief about an unfinished project and reveals the hidden life of the ancient capital.

00:46:16Work resumed in 2017 after the area was liberated from Isis.

00:46:21Under the leadership of the French archaeological mission, specialists used a high-precision magnetometer,

00:46:26allowing them to visualize underground structures without expensive excavations.

00:46:30It turned out that Khorsabad, contrary to long-standing doubts, served as a full-fledged capital of Assyria.

00:46:36And now modern discoveries reveal even more about the scale and wealth of the ancient empire.

00:46:44A group of researchers discovered nothing less than three pyramids in Antarctica,

00:46:48and it seems that they were not created by nature, but by the hands of our distant ancestors.

00:46:53Antarctica is now the edge of the world, covered in ice, but once it was an oasis full of life,

00:46:59where even dinosaurs roamed. And our discoveries there are proof of that.

00:47:03A total of eight researchers from America and Europe went on the expedition.

00:47:06They discovered two pyramids 16 km from the shore, and a third one right by the water.

00:47:11The question arises, why don't we hear about this in the news?

00:47:14Many claim that this information is being hidden so that we aren't distracted from our usual understanding

00:47:19of the past, but what will we see when the glaciers recede?

00:47:23Is it possible that, besides the pyramids, another Sphinx is hidden under the ice?

00:47:28What do you think about this? Share your thoughts in the comments,

00:47:31and don't forget to subscribe to the channel!

00:47:33A giant creature with hundreds of legs.

00:47:37Scientists have created an amazing reconstruction of the appearance of Arthropleura,

00:47:41a giant millipede that lived on Earth, 300 million years ago.

00:47:46This creature was about 2.6 meters long, half a meter wide, and weighed around 50 kilograms.

00:47:53That makes it the largest millipede that ever lived.

00:47:56The first fossilized remains of Arthropleura were discovered 170 years ago,

00:48:01but a complete skeleton was found only 5 years ago, which allowed scientists from the University of

00:48:06Leicester and the University of Bristol to better understand the anatomy of this creature.

00:48:10Experts suggest that the high level of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time contributed to the

00:48:15gigantic size not only of Arthropleura, but also of other arthropods, such as giant dragonflies and cockroaches.

00:48:23Ancient millipedes, like their modern descendants, were almost blind and had only basic vision,

00:48:28enough to orient themselves by light levels.

00:48:325 Skeletons That Shouldn't Exist

00:48:34In the spring of 2024, archaeologists in Poland made a strange discovery.

00:48:39Under the rubble of one of the buildings in the Wolf Slayer complex, the former residents of the Nazi leadership,

00:48:45human remains were found. 5 skeletons, 3 adults, a teenager and an infant. All of them were missing feet and

00:48:52hands.

00:48:53No identification, no clothing, no explanation. This part of the complex belonged to Hermann Gorin.

00:48:59It was here that he held closed meetings. There were no random people here, and there certainly couldn't have been

00:49:04any burials.

00:49:05The area was tightly guarded, and only a few had access to these rooms. The identities of

00:49:10these people are still unknown. No dental prostheses, no papers, no dog tags were found. Only skeletons,

00:49:16strangely arranged as if someone had deliberately staged the scene. Could it have been an execution?

00:49:21But then, who was the infant? Could it have been a ritual? Archaeologists do not rule out that something

00:49:25irrational, almost religious, was happening in the last days of the Reich. Hitler himself was convinced of the sacred

00:49:30role of this war. He believed that the struggle of the Third Reich was not just politics, but the

00:49:36revival of an ancient order. Why were these particular bodies found in the center of the lair?

00:49:40Why weren't they taken away, buried, but simply left under the floor? And why, during their retreat,

00:49:45did the Nazis spend their efforts not on saving, but on destroying the bunkers, blowing up everything

00:49:50in sight, as if they were afraid not of the advancing Soviet army, but of future archaeologists?

00:49:54Maybe it's not about these bodies at all, but about what was hidden nearby. Something that wasn't supposed to

00:50:00remain after them, something they buried to keep it secret. A cave from the time of Ramses II.

00:50:08It's rare for archaeologists to come across places that have remained untouched for thousands of years.

00:50:13This time, in the Palmachim National Park in Israel, a group of researchers discovered an ancient burial site.

00:50:19During excavation work, a digger collapsed the roof of a burial cave, inside which dozens of artifacts

00:50:24from the time of Pharaoh Ramses II were found. The last time people were here was 3,300 years ago.

00:50:31Archaeologists discovered dozens of fragments of clay and bronze vessels, jugs and bowls of various

00:50:35shapes. Some of the containers held precious substances. In addition to the vessels, they

00:50:41managed to find weapons of war, including spears and arrowheads. All of this was meant to serve the

00:50:45dead in the afterlife. According to archaeologists, such a discovery happens once in a lifetime.

00:50:50This is not a movie about Indiana Jones. This is real life. A real tomb straight from the ancient

00:50:56world. It's a time capsule. These vessels and weapons haven't been touched by human hands for

00:51:00more than 3,300 years. Usually, in those times, weapons were buried with warriors. The burial chamber

00:51:06was manually carved into the rock in the shape of a square. It might have been the burial place

00:51:11of an entire family or clan. Unfortunately, the condition of the remains was so terrible that

00:51:16scientists won't even be able to extract DNA for analysis. However, the scientists will still be able

00:51:21to conduct research. Scientists suggest that обнаружили в Лондоне.

00:51:27The Tunguska explosion happened earlier than we thought.

00:51:30In the north of Yakutia, in the Verkoyansk range area, a group of geologists discovered an anomalous

00:51:36zone, where dozens of scorched stones and trees lay in the soil, all knocked down in one direction.

00:51:41At first glance, nothing unusual. Fires and landslides are common in these places.

00:51:45But analysis showed that the charing did not occur from burning, but from a brief,

00:51:49extremely intense thermal pulse. Just a few days later, the place was dubbed Little Tunguska.

00:51:54The scale of destruction there, of course, cannot be compared to the fall of the famous celestial body

00:51:59in 1908, but the signs are surprisingly similar. A radial pattern of melted tigap, microscopic beads

00:52:05of fused quartz, traces of rare metals, iridium and nickel. All of this is characteristic of cosmic

00:52:10impacts. Researchers are cautious in their conclusions. It is possible that this is the

00:52:15trace of a meteorite that broke up in the atmosphere and only the shockwave reached the

00:52:18earth. Or perhaps it is part of a vast belt of impacts connected to the same event as the Tunguska

00:52:23explosion. A direct connection has not yet been proven, but there are similarities in chemical

00:52:27composition. The main mystery is the age. According to radiocarbon analysis of the trees and the soil

00:52:31layer, the catastrophe did not happen at the beginning of the 20th century, but about a thousand

00:52:35years earlier. This means that the Tunguska type explosions could have happened in Siberia before,

00:52:40it's just that no one wrote about them back then. Today there is no crater at the site, only a

00:52:45scorched

00:52:45area and a forest that has grown over it. Scientists continue to take samples, but even if the

00:52:49explanation turns out to be simple, the fact remains, our planet remembers far more impacts than we tend to think.

00:52:57This has been preserved for 20 million years. In the middle of the 19th century, farmers in Sioux

00:53:03County, Nebraska began to notice strange things right in their fields. Stone spirals were sticking

00:53:09out of the ground, twisted perfectly like a corkscrew as thick as a human arm and some taller than a

00:53:14person. No one understood what they were or where they came from and pretty quickly people started

00:53:20calling them devil's corkscrews because there just wasn't a normal explanation. In 1891, a scientist and

00:53:27geologist named Erwin Barber finally came to see them. He studied the samples and found out that

00:53:32the spirals were fossil sand-filled tubes with fibrous walls that were clearly of biological origin,

00:53:38but he couldn't figure out exactly what they were. First theory was about giant freshwater sponges,

00:53:45which seemed logical right up until geologists noticed that the rock around the spirals didn't look at

00:53:51all like the bottom of an ancient lake. It looked more like a dry step. Barber switched to the theory

00:53:57about fossilized plants, but then everyone noticed the bones. Inside the spirals, there were bones of

00:54:03small rodents. And even in the Cretaceous period, plants didn't drag rodents inside themselves. In 1893,

00:54:10two scientists independently came to the same conclusion. These were burrows. Ancient burrows that

00:54:17filled with sand and became fossilized. Barber didn't give up and said that the shape was too

00:54:22perfect for the dwelling of some animal, that animals don't dig so perfectly. The argument was

00:54:27finally settled by scratches on the inner walls, claw marks that someone left when the ground was still

00:54:32soft and wet. In 1905, they identified the culprit. It turned out to be Paleocaster, an ancient beaver

00:54:39about the size of a marmot, who lived here 20 million years ago, with short tails, small ears,

00:54:46and incredibly long front teeth. They grew back quickly to compensate for the wear caused by constant

00:54:50digging. This little animal braced its hind legs against the central axis and literally screwed

00:54:55itself into the ground. That's where the perfect spiral comes from. At a depth of about a meter,

00:55:00the burrow widened into side chambers for sleeping and raising young. Sometimes there were separate

00:55:05recesses, which scientists believe were toilets or water storage areas, and the spiral entrance

00:55:10protected against predators. It's easy to stick a paw into a straight burrow, but much harder into a

00:55:14twisted one. Paleocasters disappeared when the climate on the planet became dry and hot, and forests gave

00:55:20way to endless plains. But their burrows still stick out of the hills in a national park in Nebraska 22

00:55:26million years later, with a shape so perfect that a world-renowned geologist couldn't figure out

00:55:32what it was for 40 years. Desert castle? In the middle of the dunes in the Algerian desert stands

00:55:39a ruin, lonely, without roads, without a name. Tourists don't come here, and there are hardly any

00:55:44satellite images. The place is called Ksar Dra, but that's unofficial. Ksar in Berber means palace

00:55:52or castle, and Dra is the name of a river that once flowed nearby. No one knows who built this

00:55:56castle.

00:55:57There are no exact dates, no remains of a settlement around it. Only stone outlines against the sand.

00:56:02It feels as if the structure was cut out of time and simply forgotten. It's amazing that even in the

00:56:07age of geolocation, drones and expeditions, there are still places that almost no one has heard of,

00:56:13and maybe these kinds of ruins are the most important because they don't fit into the usual picture.

00:56:19TRACES OF MEGAFIRES

00:56:20In 2021, an international group of researchers published in the journal Polar Research,

00:56:25the results of an analysis of sedimentary rocks collected on James Ross Island.

00:56:30In the layers belonging to the late Cretaceous period, large deposits of paleu coal, or fossil

00:56:36charcoal, were discovered. This is irrefutable evidence that about 75 million years ago,

00:56:41Antarctica was engulfed by fires of enormous intensity. Fires destroyed hectares of forests made

00:56:47up of coniferous and flowering plants during the era when the continent was still part of the

00:56:51supercontinent Gondwana and had a moderately warm climate. The main question that scientists do

00:56:56not have a clear answer to is the cause and intensity of the fires. James Ross Island is located

00:57:02at 64 degrees south latitude and 58 degrees west longitude. Analysis of the reflectivity of the

00:57:09discovered coal showed that the burning temperature at the epicenters exceeded 1000 degrees. For comparison,

00:57:14a typical forest fire rarely reaches such values. Such temperatures are characteristic either of the

00:57:20impact of large meteorites or of powerful volcanic eruptions with the release of pyroclastic flows.

00:57:26The problem with the official version is that the studied layers did not contain enough volcanic ash

00:57:31or tektites to indicate a cosmic impact. This means that the forests of Antarctica burned with incredible

00:57:38fury, which does not fit into the climate models of that time. The density of soot in the deposits

00:57:43indicates that the fires could have been global in scale, literally burning out the cosmic foundation

00:57:49of the continent. This discovery turns Antarctica into the site of a global catastrophe that occurred

00:57:53long before the onset of glaciation. We see evidence of the violent destruction of life,

00:57:58the causes of which are still hidden in the ancient layers of charred wood.

00:58:04Personal Sacrifice

00:58:05During excavations at Huaca Cao Viejo in northern Peru, archaeologists encountered a striking practice.

00:58:11Teenagers were sacrificed along with their high-ranking relatives. The genetic analysis of the remains,

00:58:18which are more than 1500 years old, showed that the young man and woman were the son and niece of

00:58:23a representative of the Moshe, the Lady of Cao. Moreover, the girl's father turned out to be one of

00:58:28the noblewoman's brothers, who was also buried in the same tomb. Unlike the public ritual sacrifices

00:58:33characteristic of the Moshe, here the victims were strangled as part of a closed ceremony in honor of

00:58:38the noblewoman. Scientists suggest that such a ritual could have helped strengthen power or family ties,

00:58:44but the exact motives remain a mystery. Artifacts found with the bodies indicate the high status of

00:58:50the deceased, and strangulation may have been considered an honorable way to send her companion

00:58:55to the afterlife. For the Mosheika, whose temples and tombs often contain evidence of sacrifices,

00:59:00a rare case of kin sacrifices, a perfectly preserved cave inhabited by prehistoric people. In the Spanish

00:59:08province of Cantabria, archaeologists discovered a 16,800-year-old dwelling in the Lagarma cave complex.

00:59:15This place is known for its Paleolithic wall paintings and its significance for paleoanthropology.

00:59:22Inside the cave, 4614 artifacts were found including stone and bone tools, fur items, needles, proto-harpoons,

00:59:30seashells, decorative pendants, as well as remains of deer, horses and bison.

00:59:35This dwelling is described as one of the best preserved Paleolithic dwellings in the world.

00:59:40It is an oval space outlined by stone blocks and stalagmites, supporting a framework made of sticks and hides.

00:59:48To study the dwelling without disturbing its integrity, non-invasive methods were used,

00:59:53continuous tomography, 3D mapping, molecular genetic analysis of soils and objects,

00:59:58mass spectrometry and hyperspectral imaging. Thanks to these methods, it was possible to

01:00:04preserve historical treasures while studying a site of national significance. This discovery makes

01:00:09it possible to see the daily life and cultural characteristics of a society that lived almost 17,000

01:00:14years ago. The gear was prepared for death. On the border of Chile and Argentina stands a volcano,

01:00:22Lululaylaco, almost 7,000 meters high. There is half as much air up there as at the base it's extremely

01:00:28cold and even professional climbers find it hard to reach the summit. It was there at the very top that

01:00:34three children were found in 1999. They lay in the frozen ground for about 500 years and were preserved as

01:00:41if they had fallen asleep just yesterday. These are not just empty words. The cold preserved them

01:00:46so well that you can see their skin, hair, eyelashes and even the folds in their clothes. The most famous

01:00:51of the three is called the Maiden. She looks like a sleeping girl, sitting with her head slightly bowed.

01:00:57Not a dried-out mummy, not a skeleton, but a child who seems to have been put on pause five

01:01:01centuries ago.

01:01:02And now, something that gives you goosebumps, the children didn't end up there by accident. It was an

01:01:07Incan ceremonial that even has a name – Capacocha. For major events, the Inca sacrificed children to

01:01:13the mountain gods. Before their death, the child was prepared for several months. They were given the

01:01:19finest food the kind only noble people ate. They were given special drinks and coca leaves to chew.

01:01:24And then they were led to the summit, into the cold, into the thin air, higher and higher,

01:01:30to a place from which there is no return. Scientists have figured this out in every detail.

01:01:35Air analysis showed how the girl's diet changed in the last months, and the plants placed with her

01:01:40in the grave helped determine the time quite accurately. The ceremony took place around the

01:01:45year 1499. That is why in Europe, Columbus was just beginning to explore the route to the New World.

01:01:51On the other side of the planet, this girl was already sitting on a 7000-meter peak.

01:01:56Today, the Maiden of Lulia Ilaco is kept in a museum in the Argentine city of Salta,

01:02:01a special refrigerated display case that replicates the conditions of the summit. The same cold,

01:02:05the same humidity. Without this, the body would begin to deteriorate. So, the girl who froze 500

01:02:10years ago is still kept in the cold. Otherwise, she wouldn't be preserved. And it's precisely thanks

01:02:16to this cold that scientists were able to reconstruct the last months of her life almost day by day,

01:02:21what she ate, what she drank, when she climbed to the summit.

01:02:27Progress and development for some have turned into misfortune for others. In this case,

01:02:32for the residents of Villarinho das Furnas, this is a village in Portugal. It was 2000 years old.

01:02:37People lived here even during the times of the Roman Empire. And three Roman bridges that survived

01:02:42to the present day now lie at the bottom of the reservoir, along with all the other buildings.

01:02:46Before the flooding, about 300 people lived here. They kept chickens, cows, pigs, sheep and goats.

01:02:52The pastures were on the hills. There was almost no arable land. So, the houses leaned against each

01:02:57other and the second floors hung right over the narrow streets. This was a living village that

01:03:02simply went about its life for 2000 years until, in 1972, a Portuguese electric company decided to build

01:03:09a hydroelectric power plant here. The village was in the way. So, they decided to flood it. The residents

01:03:15began to be relocated in 1969 and the last person left the village in 1971. The compensation for the land

01:03:21was one escudo for every two square meters. At that time, it was literally the price of a single sardine.

01:03:28They paid a little more for the houses, but not much more. Out of anger. People took everything they

01:03:33could. They removed the tiles from the roofs, took apart the doors and windows and left only bare walls.

01:03:38Half a sardine per second square meter for 2000 years of history. In 1972, they blew up the retaining walls,

01:03:44and the water swallowed the village. It seemed like the end of the story, but the story took an

01:03:49unexpected turn. When there is a long drought in the region and the water level in the reservoir drops,

01:03:54the walls of houses begin to rise from beneath the surface. The outlines of streets. The remains

01:03:58of bridges. The village literally comes back from under the water. And people from all over the country

01:04:04come to see it. Former residents and their descendants gather here every year, stand on the shore and look

01:04:09at the roofs of the houses, where their parents and grandparents grew up. Books have been written

01:04:13about Villa Rinnea, several documentary films have been made, there is a museum and there are children's

01:04:19books. The electric company has long been forgotten, but the village, which was bought for the price of a

01:04:23sardine, has lived on in people's memory for half a century after it was drowned. It's sad to realize

01:04:28what was lost and to think about all those people who are living through this nightmare. They are forced to

01:04:34live their land and their unique way of life. Not an octopus. 300 million years ago. In 1988,

01:04:42in the state of Illinois, a small fossil was extracted from a layer of stone, unremarkable and just a bit

01:04:47larger than a palm. They examined it and saw eight tentacle fins and a characteristic body shape. The

01:04:53surrounding rock was 300 million years old. This meant that octopuses appeared 150 million years earlier

01:04:59than science had previously thought. The article was published in 2000. Guinness recorded it as the

01:05:06oldest octopus on the planet. Evolution textbooks were updated and dozens of studies on the history

01:05:11of cephalopod molluscs were rewritten from scratch. All based on a single unremarkable stone from Illinois.

01:05:18For 25 years no one really paid much attention to this fossil. Then scientists from the University of

01:05:23Reading scanned it with a next generation x-ray so powerful that it can see structures inside the stone

01:05:28that ordinary light could never detect. It's kind of like an x-ray in a hospital, only a thousand times

01:05:34brighter. And inside they found a tiny rasp with rows of teeth, an organ that all molluscs have without

01:05:39exception. Octopuses have seven or nine teeth in each row. Here there were 11. It wasn't an octopus,

01:05:46but a relative of the Nautilus. A sea mollusk with a coiled shell that has survived to this day almost

01:05:52unchanged and is sometimes called a living fossil. The creature had partially decomposed before it fossilized.

01:05:59Its shape had changed so much due to its position that for 25 years everyone saw it as an octopus.

01:06:05The Guinness editorial team commented briefly, we are removing the entry until new evidence appears.

01:06:11Octopuses now appear in the history of life on earth much later and the whole picture of their

01:06:15evolution changed because of a single analysis. At the same time the fossils from Illinois turned out

01:06:20to be the oldest soft tissues of a Nautilus relative in the world. They broke the previous record by

01:06:26220 million years at once. The mistake led to another discovery. And here's what's most troubling.

01:06:32This fossil had been lying in the museum for 25 years with the correct label, was cited in serious

01:06:37scientific papers and was taught to students how many exhibits are standing behind glass right now with

01:06:43the same kind of incorrect labels, quietly waiting for a new x-ray. No one to eat the corpses right

01:06:50now.

01:06:51The Zoroastrian Tower of Silence on Malabar Hill, a sacred place for the Parsi community, is under threat

01:06:57due to the declining vulture population. In this area these birds play a key role in the ritual of

01:07:03Dachmenashini, exposing the bodies of the dead so they can return to nature. However, the decline in

01:07:10scavenger numbers in Mumbai, which began in 2015, has put this ancient tradition at risk. The Tower of Silence,

01:07:17or Dachma, which is over 300 years old, is a circular structure symbolizing eternity in the Zoroastrian faith.

01:07:24It is located on a 22-hectare forested area. The outer circle of the tower is designated for animals

01:07:30and men, the middle one for women, and the inner one for children. Before placing the body in the Dachma,

01:07:36the relatives prey in special structures called bungli, and then the remains are carried to the

01:07:40handia by special caretakers. According to Zoroastrian traditions, contact with the dead body is

01:07:46considered defilement, and vultures play an important role in ensuring cleanliness and maintaining the

01:07:52natural balance. But urbanization, changes in habitat and environmental problems have led to a sharp

01:07:58decline in the number of these birds. The decomposition process of bodies has slowed down, which has created

01:08:04difficulties in performing the ritual. Lakes under the ice

01:08:09More than 400 subglacial lakes have already been found in Antarctica, and each of them has been

01:08:13isolated from the rest of the world and the atmosphere for millions of years. And this means

01:08:18that life there could be completely unique and ancient. Scientists have already drilled into two

01:08:23small lakes and discovered microbial life. But what happens in the large lakes remains a mystery,

01:08:28because there is no sunlight there, so microbes can't use photosynthesis. For life to be more diverse,

01:08:35the water the lake needs to move, so that nutrients and oxygen are distributed evenly. On the earth's

01:08:41surface this is done by wind and sun. Under the ice, the source of heat and movement can be geothermal

01:08:46heat rising from the depths of the earth. This heat is capable of creating currents in subglacial lakes,

01:08:52mixing the water and making it more hospitable for life.

01:09:01The Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouli, along with archaeologists, is trying to achieve the

01:09:07return of the Rosetta Stone and 16 other artifacts back to Egypt. I fully support them, because the

01:09:13history of ancient Egypt should belong to modern Egypt. The Prime Minister believes that the artifacts

01:09:19were taken out of the country illegally and unethically. He has created a petition that has already gathered

01:09:24more than 2500 signatures. Previously, the Egyptian government requested that the UK return the

01:09:30artifacts to their homeland, but now they are demanding it.

01:09:34Mostafa Madbouli claims that the Rosetta Stone and other artifacts will be repatriated.

01:09:38It's only a matter of time. As you can see, even in the world of archaeology, global events are happening

01:09:44that people couldn't have imagined before. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, a year after

01:09:50Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, by a French officer who was leading excavations in the city of Rashid

01:09:56and the Nile Delta. The stone had text in three different languages, Greek, Demotic and Egyptian

01:10:02hieroglyphs. This artifact was seen as an intercultural key to translation, which could provide unprecedented

01:10:08insight into ancient civilizations. The text of the petition reads as follows. The confiscation of the

01:10:15Rosetta Stone, among other artifacts, is an act of encroachment on Egypt's cultural treasures and

01:10:20identity and is a direct result of cultural colonial violence against Egyptian cultural heritage.

01:10:25History cannot be changed, but it can be corrected. And although the British Empire's political,

01:10:31military and governmental rule in Egypt ended many years ago, cultural colonization is not yet over.

01:10:37Interestingly, Egypt is not the only country demanding that the United Kingdom return its artifacts.

01:10:42For example, Greece is demanding the return of the Parthenon marbles to their homeland.

01:10:46But the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, does not support the wishes

01:10:50of archaeologists from around the world. After all, she understands very well that the popularity

01:10:54of British museums would significantly decrease. Have you ever thought about what it would be like

01:10:58if the ruler of a country was a person without a face and something like that has already happened

01:11:03in our history? The tragedy and mysteries of the Goodwin Sands. Between England and France,

01:11:09there is the Dover Strait. For centuries, merchant ships, warships, smugglers and passengers have

01:11:16passed through it. And off the southeast coast of England, about 10 kilometers from the town of

01:11:21Dill, there is a place that sailors used to call the devourer of ships. This is the Goodwin Sands.

01:11:26On the map is just a sandbank, but over the past 700 years more than two.

01:11:312,000 ships have been wrecked here, and the number of deaths, according to some estimates,

01:11:36reaches up to 50,000 people. The scariest thing about this place isn't just the storms and fog,

01:11:41but the sand itself. During low tide, it can seem solid, almost like dry land. After a shipwreck,

01:11:47people would get out of the water, stand up and think they were saved. But then the tide would come

01:11:51back. The sand would become soft and sticky again, and everything would start sinking down. One of the

01:11:57most famous ships claimed by the Goodwin Sands was the Admiral Gardner, an East India Company vessel.

01:12:03In January 1809, it sank with a cargo of 48 tons of coins. For almost 200 years the ship lay

01:12:10at the

01:12:10bottom, until it was found in 1984. Then about a million coins were raised from the bottom,

01:12:16and the site itself was made a protected area with a restricted perimeter. But that was not the only

01:12:22discovery. In 1740, a Dutch ship called Rooswick sank here. Nearly 250 people died on board. In 2017,

01:12:30large-scale underwater excavations began, and archaeologists raised silver bars, coins, leather

01:12:36shoes, glass bottles, tin spoons, and even a sealed chest from the bottom, which still hasn't been opened.

01:12:42And the strangest thing is that the Goodwin Sands claimed not only old sailing ships. During World War

01:12:482, on December 1, 1943, an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and

01:12:54crashed right onto this sandbank. The crew was incredibly lucky. All 10 people survived. Today,

01:13:01this is the only known wreck of such a plane in the UK, and during strong low tides, you can

01:13:06see it along

01:13:06with the remains of ships. Now major disasters here are almost impossible. There is GPS, accurate maps,

01:13:12and navigation systems. The last serious tragedy happened in 1954, when the South Goodwin lightship broke

01:13:20free from its anchors during a storm and capsized. Six people died. The Goodwin Sands are not just a

01:13:27dangerous spot on the map. Beneath them still lie ships, coins, weapons, airplane wreckage, and human remains.

01:13:33For 700 years, the sea has claimed people and things here, and then sometimes, during excavations or a

01:13:39strong low tide, it would return small pieces of these stories back. The forest swastika. Sometimes

01:13:46an idea can literally take root in the ground, in a forest among trees that have been growing for decades.

01:13:51In the 1990s, strange plantings of pine trees were first discovered in Germany. So, in autumn, but when

01:13:58the leaves on the neighboring trees fell, the crowns remained green and formed a swastika. Such plantings

01:14:02were found in at least four places. The most famous one is near Uckermark in the north of the country.

01:14:07The trees were planted in the 1930s, 140 spruces in the shape of a perfect Nazi emblem. It's only

01:14:13visible from the air. From the ground, it's just a forest. From a helicopter, it's a symbol of power

01:14:17sent deep into time. What struck me wasn't the idea itself, but the method. This isn't graffiti,

01:14:21it's not a drawing on a wall. This is an engineering project planting a forest for the long term so

01:14:25that

01:14:25in 60 years, someone looking down from above would understand whose territory this is. After the

01:14:29reunification of Germany, such areas began to be cut down. They were afraid that fans would go there, that it

01:14:35would become a place of power for those who believe that it's still not over. And you know, there's a

01:14:40certain special irony in that. Everything they wanted to erase keeps growing back, even in the

01:14:44literal sense. The Nazis created symbols not for their contemporaries, but for their descendants,

01:14:48so that their cult would continue to live on even if nothing was left, no flag, no borders,

01:14:53only the forest.

01:14:54The discovery rewrote the history of alcohol.

01:14:58The process of alcohol distillation has roots that go much deeper than previously thought.

01:15:04New excavations in the tomb of Liu He, the ninth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty,

01:15:08showed that as far back as 2000 years ago, people in China knew how to produce distillate.

01:15:13Scientists found a bronze vessel called the Heavenly Pot, which served as a key part of a device for

01:15:18distilling wine. Before this, historical texts indicated the appearance of such technologies

01:15:24only during the Yuan Dynasty, that is, a thousand years later. Liu He, despite his short reign,

01:15:30left behind an impressive legacy. In addition to the distiller itself, his tomb contained the

01:15:36oldest painting of Confucius, as well as thousands of pieces of armor made of iron, copper and lacquered

01:15:41leather. All of this testifies to the high level of craftsmanship during the Western Han period,

01:15:47an experiment with a replica bronze vessel showed a distillation efficiency exceeding 70% while

01:15:53preserving the taste and aroma of the beverage. It was originally thought that this vessel could

01:15:58have been used for perfume essences or medicine. But now it is clear, its main purpose was the

01:16:03production of alcohol. The results of the study helped to deepen our understanding of the evolution

01:16:08of brewing and other alcohol-related practices, complementing historical records and revealing the

01:16:14potential of early Chinese inventors. Is it possible to bring back the mammoth? At first glance, it seems

01:16:20like the solution is almost ready. If, after tens of thousands of years, we still have the skin,

01:16:26muscles, internal organs and even blood, we just need to find a suitable cell and repeat what was once

01:16:32done with Dolly the Sheep. And what's more strange is that one day scientists really almost pulled this

01:16:38off with an already extinct animal. In 2000, the last female Pyrenean ibex named Celia died. Her cells

01:16:45were preserved in advance. And a few years later, a clone was created from them. The baby was born alive,

01:16:51but only lived for a few minutes due to a serious lung defect. Nevertheless, this was the first case when

01:16:57an

01:16:57extinct animal was actually brought back to life, even if only for a short time. With mammoths, there's

01:17:03one unpleasant difference. Celia had intact, preserved cells. No one has found such cells in mammoths yet.

01:17:09Even skin that looks intact after 40,000 years may be beautifully preserved on the outside, but inside,

01:17:16the DNA is already broken into a huge number of fragments. That's why it's impossible today to take

01:17:21a cell from the Yarkovsky mammoth and make an exact copy of it. And that's exactly why modern projects have

01:17:27taken a different path. Colossal Biosciences is not trying to clone a specific mammoth.

01:17:32The company takes cells from the Asian elephant and changes the genes associated with mammoth traits

01:17:37fur, fat metabolism, ear shape and resistance to cold. In 2025, they showed so-called woolly mice.

01:17:45Several genes were altered so that the animals developed long fur and other traits associated

01:17:50with adaptation to cold. It looks funny, but the point is, the project was serious. To check if it's

01:17:57possible to make several necessary changes, work together in a single living organism. And then

01:18:02Colossal made an even bigger splash with the so-called dire wolves. In 2025, the company presented

01:18:10three white wolf pups, Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, and claimed that they had essentially brought an

01:18:16extinct species back to life. However, many scientists immediately disagreed with this. In reality, the

01:18:22researchers took cells from a modern grey wolf and altered about two dozen sections of DNA to produce

01:18:27several traits characteristic of its extinct relative. As a result, they created an animal that outwardly

01:18:34resembles the ancient dire wolves. But genetically, it still remains a heavily modified grey wolf.

01:18:39And this debate directly concerns the mammoth. If you take an Asian elephant, change dozens of genes,

01:18:46give it thick fur, small ears and resistance to cold. At what point does it stop being an elephant

01:18:53and become a mammoth? And genetics is only half the problem. You also need to get a normal embryo

01:19:00and then somehow carry it for almost 22 months. Using female Asian elephants, who are already endangered,

01:19:07for a lot of experiments is a pretty controversial idea. That's why Colossal is also working on artificial

01:19:13womb technology at the same time. But so far, no one has managed to grow an entire elephant,

01:19:18let alone a mammoth, this way. So if one day we get to see the first mammoth of the 21st

01:19:23century,

01:19:24it will almost certainly not be a resurrected Jarkov mammoth. What we'll see is a completely new animal,

01:19:30a modern elephant, whose genome has been altered to bring back some of the traits of the woolly mammoth.

01:19:35And here another question arises. How humane is it to do all this in the first place? To get a

01:19:41single

01:19:41viable offspring, it might take dozens or even hundreds of failed embryos, pregnancies and experiments.

01:19:49And it won't be extinct mammoths participating in this, but living Asian elephants, which themselves

01:19:57are endangered. That's why the debate about bringing back the mammoth today is not only about

01:20:02whether it's technically possible, but also about whether it's worth doing at all.

01:20:07The Antarctic Sphinx. One of the most discussed discoveries in recent years is an object in the

01:20:13area of a mountain ridge at coordinates 74 degrees 10 minutes south latitude and 164 degrees east

01:20:20longitude. Researchers call this the Antarctic Sphinx. The structure is colossal, about 2 kilometers

01:20:26long and more than 300 meters high. When looking at high-resolution satellite images, the resemblance to

01:20:32the Egyptian Sphinx seems uncanny. The object clearly shows the outlines of a head, broad shoulders and

01:20:38a distinctive protrusion resembling the nemes, the ceremonial headdress worn by ancient pharaohs.

01:20:43The comparison of scales is striking. While the Egyptian Sphinx in Giza is 73 meters long,

01:20:49its Antarctic counterpart is 27 times as long. The official scientific explanation states that what we

01:20:55see is a yardang, a geological formation created by centuries of wind erosion. The wind in this part of the

01:21:01continent reaches speeds of 300 kilometers per hour hour and according to geologists it simply carved

01:21:06out this peculiar shape from the rock. However, mathematical analysis of the symmetry of the

01:21:11object's face shows that its features are too well proportioned to be the product of random natural

01:21:15forces. In 2025 an independent group of researchers, using thermal scanning data, discovered a large cavity

01:21:22beneath the head of this structure. Its volume is estimated at 40 000 cubic meters. The entrance to this

01:21:29chamber is almost the perfect rectangle about 10 meters wide, which is now hidden under a 40 meter

01:21:34layer of compacted snow. This discovery brings to mind the legends of the Hall of Records, which is

01:21:39supposedly hidden beneath the paws of the Sphinx in Egypt. Perhaps in Antarctica we are not just seeing a

01:21:44quirk of nature, but the original source, a monument after which the sanctuaries of the ancient world were

01:21:49modeled. The fact that the object is oriented strictly to the east, just like its counterpart in Giza, almost

01:21:54completely rules out the theory of random geological weathering. The most gigantic object in the

01:22:00universe. And the last mystery on this list is no longer on Earth. This is Olympus on Mars, the largest

01:22:08volcano

01:22:09and the highest mountain in the entire solar system. If you measure from base to summit, its height is about

01:22:1526 kilometers. For comparison, Everest is less than 9 kilometers, so that's Martian scale. Olympus Mons is

01:22:23three times higher than the tallest mountain on Earth. And its base stretches for about 500 kilometers,

01:22:29that's not just a mountain anymore, that's an object the size of an entire country. But the strangest thing

01:22:34is that if a person were to stand on its slope, he probably wouldn't even realize he's standing on a

01:22:39volcano.

01:22:40The slopes of Olympus are so gentle that the ascent would look like an endless plain. The true scale of

01:22:44this mountain

01:22:45can only be seen from space. Scientists explain its size by the peculiarities of Mars. Gravity is

01:22:51weaker there. That's why the volcano could grow much higher than mountains on Earth. And also,

01:22:55Mars most likely didn't have such active plate tectonics as we do. On Earth, the plates move and

01:23:01a hotspot gradually creates a chain of volcanoes. But on Mars, the source of lava could stay under the

01:23:06same spot for a very long time. Eruption after eruption, layer after layer, and over millions of

01:23:12years a giant was formed. But Olympus has a feature that makes it even more interesting.

01:23:16The base of the volcano is surrounded by a huge cliff several kilometers high. Some of its features

01:23:22resemble structures that appear on Earth where lava meets water. And from this, a bold theory emerged.

01:23:28Perhaps at one time Olympus stood next to an ancient Martian ocean, or maybe it was actually a giant

01:23:33volcanic island. Imagine Mars not as a cold red desert, but as a planet where water may have lapped around

01:23:39a

01:23:39colossal volcano. If that's true, then we're not just looking at a huge mountain. This is evidence of

01:23:45a completely different Mars. A more lively, warmer Mars with oceans, shores, and processes that seem

01:23:51almost impossible today. Now, Olympus is considered an extinct volcano. It no longer erupts, there's no

01:23:58sea around it, and the planet itself looks dead and frozen. But its size still reminds us that Mars was

01:24:03once more than just a red dot in the sky. It was a world with its own geological power, its

01:24:09own

01:24:09catastrophes, and possibly its own water. And after that, it's strange to come back to Earth and think

01:24:15that we've already figured almost everything out. Here, our continents crack. Billions of years of

01:24:20history disappear. Swamps preserve bodies, sands swallow ships, and under a Chinese burial mound,

01:24:26a sealed tomb has been lying for more than 2000 years. And nearby, on another planet there is a volcano

01:24:3126 kilometers high that may have once looked out over an ancient ocean. Write in the comments which

01:24:38of these stories surprised you the most and liked the video. Every like and comment helps the channel

01:24:43grow. Subscribe and turn on notifications, because a new video is coming soon.

100 Ancient Sites Abandoned So Suddenly, Everything Was Left Exactly Where It Was

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