We’re SO thankful to have Professor Jarvis, and the rest of his team back from their adventures in Ghana this summer. In honor of the time they spent exploring the digital archaeology of heritage buildings of West Africa, we’ve pulled together 10 of the most mysterious archaeological finds on earth.
1. The Terracotta Warriors
The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin She Huan, the first Emperor of China. The figures, from the estimated late third century BCE, were found by local farmers in 1974 in the Lintong District, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China, Shaanxi province. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor, and the purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The figures vary in height, depending on the roles they fulfill, with the tallest being the generals. There were thousands of figures found, including warriors, chariots, and horses — other terracotta non-military figures were found near, including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. The majority of these figures remain buried in the pits near Qin She Huang’s mausoleum.
2. The Antikythera Mechanism
The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient greek artifact, generally referred to as the first known analogue computer and orrery, used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes. It was retrieved off the coast of Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, and was found with numerous other large artifacts (including bronze and marble statues, pottery, unique glassware, jewelry and coins). The mechanism was largely ignored until archaeological Valerios Stais found that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it. The complexity of the mechanism’s manufacture suggests that it has undiscovered predecessors made during the Hellenistic period. The construction relied on theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers, and it is estimated to have been created around the late second century BC.
3. Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. It is composed of a ring of standing stones, with each stone around 13 feet high, 7 feet wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are located in earthworks (artificial changes in land level) in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. It is believed that it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC. Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from it’s earliest beginnings, but it is still being researched. It is largely regarded as a British cultural icon, and has been a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument since 1882 when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986, as well as being owned by the Crown, and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
4. Nazca Lines
The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs, found in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. The largest figures reach up to 370 meters, and scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The designs are shallow lines in the ground, created by removing naturally occurring reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath. They vary in complexity, where some are simple lines and geometric shapes, others are zoomorphic designs of animals (birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, monkeys, and humans) and include phytomorphic shapes, such as trees and flowers. Archaeologists vary in their interpretation of the deigns, but in general, they believe they carry religious significance. They were mostly preserved naturally, due to isolation and the dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau. The lines are currently visible from aircrafts, surrounding foothills, and other high places. Unfortunately, as of 2012, the lines are thought to be deteriorating because of an influx of squatters taking over the area.
5. Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin is a long linen cloth (14 ft 5 in × 3 ft 7 in), bearing the negative image of a man, alleged to be Jesus of Nazareth. It is currently held in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, located in Turn, Piedmont, northern Italy. The cloth is believed by some groups to be the burial shroud that Jesus was wrapped in when he was buried after crucifixion. It was first contested in 1390, when a local bishop wrote that the shroud was a forgery and that an unnamed artist had confessed. Some radiocarbon dating of a sample of a shroud is consistent with this date (1988 three tests dated the piece to be from the Middle Ages, between the years of 1260 and 1390). The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the shroud. In 1958, Pope Pius XII gave his approval to use the image in devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, while Pope John Paul II referred to the shroud as “a mirror of the Gospel”. Despite the multitude of tests and investigations surrounding the status of the Shroud of Turin, the nature of the image and how it was fixed on the cloth remain largely unknown. It is still being intensely studies, and remains controversial.
6. Göbekli Tepe
Göbekli Tepe (Turkish for “Potbelly Hill”) is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The tell, an artificial mound formed from the refuse of people living on the same site for thousands of years, has two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature. The first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A stage, believed to date back between the 10th - 8th millennium BCE, massive circles of T-shaped stone pillars were erected (the world’s oldest known megaliths). Thanks to geophysical surveys, more than 200 pillars in 20 circles are currently known, and each pillar has a heigh of up to 20ft, and weigh up to 10 tons. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B stage, the pillars are smaller and stand in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. The site was abandoned after that stage, and younger structures in the area now date to classical times. The details of the structure’s function remain a mystery. From 1996 to his death in 2014, Klaus Schmidt led a German archaeological team to excavate the site. He believed that it was utilized as a sanctuary where people from a wide region would congregate periodically, and that it was not a settlement.
7. The Voynich Manuscript
The Voynich Manuscript is an illustrated codex, hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum (prepared animal skin) on which it is written has been carbon dated to the early 15th century (between 1404 and 1438). It may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. Although some of the pages are missing, around 240 remain in the binding. The text is written from left to write, while most of the pages also include illustrations or diagrams (some pages are even foldable sheets). The manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both WWI and WWII. It is one of the most famous cases in the history of cryptography, and no one has successfully deciphered the text. The mystery of the meaning and the origin o the manuscript excites the publics imagination, and has led to the Voynich Manuscript being the center of novels and speculation. In 1969, the manuscript was donated by Hans P. Kraus to Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
8. The Cochno Stone
The Cochno Stone is a large cup and ring marked rock at Auchnacraig, Faifley, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland (next to the Cocoon farm). It is also known as “Whitehall 1” and “the Druid Stone.” The stone, from the bronze Age, measures 42 feet by 26 feet, and was first documented in 1887 by the Reverend James Harvey. It boasts one of the finest sets of petroglyphs in Scotland, containing around 90 carved indentations. During the early 1960’s, the stone was repeatedly damaged by vandals, as well as by people walking all over it. In 1964, Glasgow University archaeologists recommended it be buried to protect it from further damage, and it has since been buried, until 2015 when it was partially re-exposed for investigation during a 3-day dig. There are multiple interpretations for the carvings, and History research Alexander McCallum has this to say: “Some people think that the Cochno Stone is a map showing the other settlements in the Clyde Valley – that’s one of the theories. I think it was probably used for lots of things; it was never used for just one thing and over hundreds of years it changed use. As far as the symbolism goes, some believe it’s a portal, of life and death, rebirth, a womb and a tomb – people believed in reincarnation, so they would go into the earth and then come out again.”
9. The Library of Ashurbanipal
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, is a collection of thousands of clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC. Centuries before the Library of Alexandria was erected, Ashurbanipal’s Library had been buried by invaders. This gives modern historians a unique look into information regarding people of the ancient Near East. The materials were found in the archaeological site of Kouyunjik (ancient Nineveh, capital of Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia. The site is in modern-day northern Iraq, near the city of Mosul. The Babylonian texts can be separated into two different distinct groups: the literary compositions such as divination, religious, lexical, medical, mathematical and historical texts as well as epics and myths, (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh), and the legal documents of the time period. The royal library consists of approximately 30,000 tablets and writing boards, but the majority of them are severely fragmented. Interestingly enough, for all these texts in the library only ten contain expressive rhythmic literary works such as epics and myths.
10. The Dead Sea Scrolls
Many thousands of written fragments have been discovered in the Dead Sea area. They represent the remnants of larger manuscripts damaged either by natural causes, or through human error (interference). They are ancient Jewish religious, mostly Hebrew, manuscripts found in the Qumran Caves in the West Bank near the Dead Sea. researchers have assumed a collection of 981 different manuscripts, spread between 11 caves, and discovered in 1946/47, and more in 1956. Scholarly consensus dates the Qumran Caves Scrolls from the last three centuries BCE and from the first century CE. Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with John Hyrcanus and continuing until the period of the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE), supporting the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls. These texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.