- 3 hours ago
It turns out that ancient monuments hold great secrets! For example, do you know that sometimes you can find an entire residential complex inside a cave? Or, for example, that ancient pyramids hide secret rooms? This and much more you will find in this video!
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00:00A comfortable abode with a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean Sea will serve as a perfect rain shelter.
00:07Well, this is what a real estate advertisement might have looked like for Neanderthals 100,000 years ago.
00:13Welcome to the weird and wonderful caves you could live in. Or not.
00:17Of course, back then, neither real estate and advertising had been invented yet.
00:21Never mind the fact that Neanderthals couldn't build houses and often lived in caves.
00:26Yet, one of those caves looks an awful lot like a residential building.
00:31It's situated inside a high limestone cape called the Rock of Gibraltar.
00:37If the Neanderthals had had an economy, the caves inside this rock would have cost a bundle.
00:42Navigators discovered it in 1907. They just spotted a big hole inside the fortified rock.
00:49For many years, scientists have studied this place and found some traces of Neanderthals.
00:54They discovered ancient tools in the cave and bones of old animals.
00:58But the coolest thing was, they found four caves inside the rock.
01:03It was like a residential complex.
01:06Neanderthals lived alongside neighbors and helped each other hunt and fish.
01:10They created feather decorations and painted abstract drawings on the walls.
01:14Imagine our ancient predecessors hanging out in these caves 100,000 years ago.
01:19And now, scientists hang out there and study the primeval past of Neanderthals in detail.
01:26At the end of 2021, archaeologists uncovered a gap inside one of the caves leading to an unknown tunnel.
01:33They crawled through this hole and opened a new space under the cave roof.
01:38This place has been closed off from the outside world for over 40,000 years.
01:42And it seems it was one of the most prestigious apartments in the entire mountain complex.
01:48It has high ceilings with ancient stalactites.
01:51The ruined stone curtains divided the apartment into several rooms.
01:55Scientists also found the remains of ancient animals and scratches on the walls.
02:00It seems that Neanderthals had never lived here.
02:03But they used to visit this place.
02:06Archaeologists found the shell of a sea snail called dogwell.
02:09One of the Neanderthals brought it here for some reason.
02:13But the primary owners of this place were hyenas.
02:17These caves show that Neanderthals were closer to humans than to monkeys.
02:21They had a way of life and even some customs.
02:24There's still a lot of work ahead.
02:26And scientists hope to find new rooms inside this rock.
02:30Meanwhile, in 2003, archaeologists discovered another early dwelling on the Isle of Flores in Indonesia.
02:37Among the green jungle, they found a cave with ancient tools.
02:41At first, everyone thought the human ancestors lived here.
02:44But then, scientists discovered an unusual skeleton of an adult.
02:49A thorough analysis showed the skeleton belonged to a 30-year-old woman,
02:53three and a half feet tall, just above the waist of an average adult.
02:58The woman's weight was equal to the weight of an adult shepherd.
03:01The skeleton didn't belong to Neanderthals or Australopithecines.
03:06It was a new unknown species, which scientists called Homo florociensis, or simply the hobbit.
03:12Also, there were remains of unusual ancient animals in the cave.
03:16It was an elephant the size of a cow, some large storks, and giant rats.
03:22Archaeologists have found out that hobbits were not the owners of this place.
03:26The main inhabitants were the rats the size of a cat.
03:29Maybe they were fighting the hobbits.
03:32Some analysis shows that Homo florenciensis wasn't our direct ancestor.
03:37They were in a separate branch of evolution.
03:39The hobbit skeleton looks more like that of a monkey than of modern humans.
03:44In 2009, in the dense jungle of Vietnam, archaeologists discovered Song Don, the largest cave in the world.
03:52If you go inside the cave and shout, you'll hear your echo a long time.
03:57In some places, the height of this cave reaches half the height of the Empire State Building.
04:02And the total area is larger than one central block of New York.
04:07Song Don is one of the three caves in the Vietnamese jungle.
04:10Many intricate mazes connect these caves.
04:13Inside, you can find unique plants and trees that live separately from the outside world.
04:18It's a real underground jungle.
04:20In some places, you can find collapsed ceilings that let the sunlight in.
04:25Besides unusual trees and plants, ancient stalactites hang there.
04:30Some limestone deposits are more than 450 million years old.
04:34They were here even before dinosaurs appeared.
04:36There are also many rivers in the cave.
04:39Rainwater coming down from holes in the ceiling has formed them.
04:42Fast streams resemble slides in a water park.
04:45They lead to unknown underground labyrinths.
04:48Scientists have studied only a small part of all these caves.
04:52The next unusual cave is in New Zealand.
04:55Hundreds of thousands of fireflies live inside.
04:58Each of them glows with a blue light.
05:01Together, they light up the cave.
05:02It may seem to you that you're on another planet.
05:05But you can't stay there for a long time.
05:08Special air measuring devices are everywhere.
05:10Scientists monitor the level of carbon dioxide necessary for the normal existence of fireflies.
05:17These insects are sensitive to the environment.
05:19If there are many people in the cave, or they stay there too long,
05:23the park staff will ask them to leave the place.
05:25It's like you're literally stealing oxygen from the fireflies.
05:29We've seen some pretty amazing caves so far.
05:32But how about a scary one?
05:34We're going to the desert of Yemen's Almara province.
05:37What we're looking for is not a cave.
05:40It's just a black hole in the ground, right in the middle of the desert.
05:44It's big, the size of a basketball court.
05:47It's not its size that could scare you, but what's inside.
05:51Scientists are still not sure what it is.
05:54From the depths of this black abyss, a disgusting smell of rotten eggs constantly comes out.
05:59And sometimes, you can hear some strange, frightening sounds.
06:05The blackness of the giant hole in Yemen absorbs all the sun's rays.
06:10So, you won't see what's there even with a powerful flashlight.
06:14People flew over this place by helicopter.
06:16They filmed using drones and the most powerful lenses,
06:19but they didn't catch anything except darkness.
06:23It looks like a big ink spot in the middle of golden sand.
06:26The locals are afraid to approach this place.
06:28They believe the cave leads to another dimension where evil creatures live.
06:33At the moment, the giant hole in Yemen is one of the most poorly studied and mysterious phenomenon of nature.
06:40How did it appear?
06:42How old is it?
06:43Where does it lead?
06:44Scientists are trying to find the answers to these questions.
06:47There are theories that the hole appeared because of construction work.
06:52Geologists drilled the soil nearby in search of minerals.
06:54It could have caused fluctuations in the Earth's crust and collapsed the surface.
06:59But no one can prove this theory.
07:01Yet.
07:02And now, imagine a place where sunlight has not penetrated for more than 5 million years.
07:08There's little oxygen, and it's cold and damp.
07:12Still, life is born in this place.
07:14Not only microbes and bacteria, but also something bigger.
07:18The living conditions in this cave are very different from the usual ones.
07:22So, in a sense, this cave is like another planet.
07:26It's the Movil Cave in the southeast of Romania, near the Black Sea.
07:30The entrance is a small hole in the ground.
07:33Inside, a tunnel leads deep below the surface.
07:36The levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide are above normal inside the cave.
07:42The air here is half as much oxygen as on the surface.
07:46People can't be here without an oxygen mask.
07:49But other creatures living here can.
07:51The cave is home to 48 species of living organisms.
07:5533 of them are unknown.
07:58Here, you can meet some unusual insects.
08:00White snails and white spiders.
08:03Millipedes with huge whiskers.
08:05Transparent shrimp.
08:06And unique species of leeches.
08:08They all live here, thanks to the little bacteria autotrophs.
08:13They absorb carbon dioxide and release food particles.
08:16Bacteria feed on it.
08:17Other larger organisms feed on these bacterias.
08:21And some bigger organisms eat those little ones.
08:24In the end, everyone gets food.
08:26In this cave, evolution has created a biological system separate from the rest of the world.
08:40The Great Pyramid was created as the final resting place of ancient Egyptian monarch Khufu.
08:47According to legend, French leader Napoleon entered the Great Pyramid and came back out looking shaken and super pale.
08:54He never revealed what he saw inside, but whatever it was, is said to have affected him for the rest
09:00of his life.
09:01When Napoleon entered the pyramid, he would have walked through a super tight and ascending passageway.
09:07He'd then go through another passageway known as the Great Chamber.
09:11This corridor would have been much taller than the previous one and would have cobbles, too.
09:17He'd then reach the King's Chamber, the centerpiece of the Great Pyramid, which was lined with huge blocks of granite.
09:24But it wouldn't have looked as grand as we might imagine.
09:27There are no hieroglyphics decorating its walls, as Egyptians only began decorating the burial chambers of pyramids much later on.
09:35The pharaoh's tombs deep inside the pyramid would have also been filled with treasures,
09:40from chunks of gold to the world's most expensive jewelry.
09:43But this would have all been looted a long time ago.
09:47The only thing that probably would have been left in there would have been a huge sarcophagus,
09:52which would have once contained the king's mummy.
09:55He'd also have to walk past the queen's chamber.
09:58This room most likely didn't hold any queens, though, as pyramids were usually only built for one person.
10:05There are mysterious tunnels leading from here.
10:08To this day, no one is really sure what they're there for.
10:11And that's not the only mysterious and creepy thing Napoleon may have encountered,
10:16as stories of pharaohs leaving ancient curses on pyramids go way back.
10:21Many pyramids had warnings written on the outside,
10:24telling of horrifying things that would happen to those who entered and disturbed the peace.
10:30We might not know what exactly Napoleon found in the Great Pyramid that scared him so much,
10:35but we know for sure what was found in Tutankhamen's tomb.
10:40Tutankhamen was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was only eight or nine years old when he took to the throne.
10:45He became a cultural phenomenon when his tomb was discovered almost completely intact in 1922.
10:52His pyramid sits in the Valley of Kings in Thebes, modern Luxor, which is in Egypt.
10:58Unlike the Great Pyramid, Tutankhamen's tomb was covered in beautiful wall decorations.
11:04The walls told the story of how he would travel to the afterlife through the underworld.
11:08Egyptians believed all people would have to take this journey,
11:12so they would fill their tombs with objects and paintings to help them get there.
11:16There'd also be spells painted on the walls.
11:19They believed this would help people pass over to the next realm.
11:23The journey would be pretty long, and for that reason,
11:26the ancient Egyptians would also fill the pyramids with food.
11:30Tutankhamen's pyramid was filled with eight fruit baskets.
11:33They even found something called gingerbread fruit in there.
11:37The rooms were jam-packed with furniture, statues, clothes, and staffs,
11:42amongst a whole bunch of other things.
11:44You'd likely find a lot of clothes and expensive jewelry in the pyramids as well.
11:49The ancient Egyptians wanted their ancestors to travel in style to the afterlife.
11:54They put Tutankhamen in his final resting place,
11:57with over 50 pieces of clothing, all of the highest quality.
12:00There were tunics, scarves, gloves and headdresses, and a ton of jewelry.
12:06Bracelets, pennants, necklaces, rings, and scarabs for protection were all found inside.
12:12Each of them was made of gold or precious stones.
12:15There were also fans made of ostrich feathers to keep the old pharaoh cool in the hot Egyptian sun.
12:22But the temperature inside the pyramids never actually went above 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
12:27The ancient Egyptians developed a super cool air conditioning system that we don't fully understand even today.
12:35Tutankhamen's pyramid also contained 130 walking sticks made from ebony, ivory, silver, and gold to help him on his journey.
12:44There were three chariots hidden away in case he got tired of all the walking.
12:48They also put 11 boat paddles inside, but there was no sign of any boat.
12:53The pyramids would be littered with the pharaoh's favorite scents and perfumes.
12:58During the excavation of Tutankhamen's pyramid, it quickly became clear that it had been robbed during ancient times.
13:05There was damage to doors and traces of oils left in empty jars.
13:10It looks like someone rated the pyramid for gold and the scents, perfumes, and oils that had been left for
13:16King Tut.
13:17There was still a bit of perfume, which was made from coconut oil and frankincense, left in one bottle.
13:23It seems like pharaoh Tutankhamen loved board games.
13:27There was an ivory traveling set of Senet in his pyramid.
13:31Although we don't know for sure exactly how to play it,
13:34we have figured out it was sort of an ancient Egyptian version of backgammon.
13:38It looks like it was a two-player game where the goal was to knock your opponent off the board.
13:43Not really sure who Tutankhamen's mummy was supposed to play with, though.
13:48The ancient Egyptians had some rituals that may seem pretty strange to us.
13:52For example, they used to shave their eyebrows off if they ever lost a cat.
13:57So it's not too surprising they put some really weird things inside pyramids.
14:02Archaeologists discovered a collection of mummified cats and scarab beetles in pyramids
14:07that date back more than 4,000 years.
14:10They were found in the pyramids of Saqqara, which is south of Cairo.
14:14They also found a bunch of makeup kits and mirrors inside.
14:18Makeup was worn proudly by both men and women in ancient Egyptian times.
14:23Eyeliner was the most popular cosmetic.
14:26The Rosetta Stone was one of the best discoveries ever made in pyramids.
14:30It was found by our man Napoleon Bonaparte and his team.
14:33It's a black granite rock that dates back to 196 BCE.
14:39It's transcribed in Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphic.
14:43When it was translated in 1822,
14:45we got the key to understanding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics for the very first time.
14:51The discovery of Queen Hatshepsut's mummy in 1903
14:55changed our understanding of the Egyptians forever.
14:58After she had passed away, her successor, Sadmusi III, removed most of the evidence of her reign.
15:05So we basically knew nothing about Egypt's first great female leader.
15:09She's now gone on to become one of the few and most famous female pharaohs of Egypt.
15:15Pharaoh Khufu even had a fully-fledged boat in his pyramid.
15:19Archaeologists uncovered more than 1,200 pieces of a giant boat near the Great Pyramid at Giza.
15:25They reassembled the boat, and it's a whopping 144 feet long.
15:30It's most likely a solar boat,
15:32which was designed to carry the resurrected king with the deity Ra.
15:37Fun fact!
15:38The Pyramid of Giza is the last remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
15:43The other six are the Hanging Gardens,
15:45the Colossus,
15:46the Temple of Artemis,
15:48the Mausoleum,
15:49the Lighthouse,
15:50and the Statue of Zeus.
15:52This pyramid was also the world's tallest man-made structure for 3,800 years,
15:57and it's the biggest pyramid in Egypt.
15:59It took a staggering 2.3 million blocks of limestone,
16:03and some weighed as much as 80 tons.
16:06It took an incredible 100,000 laborers,
16:09and a whopping 23 years to build.
16:11Its original height was a mega 480 feet.
16:15In 2017,
16:17archaeologists discovered something weird about Egypt's Great Pyramid.
16:22There's a hidden void that's at least 100 feet long,
16:25and no one really knows why it's there,
16:27or what's actually inside it.
16:29The weird void is the first inner structure discovered
16:33within the 4,500-year-old pyramid since the 1800s.
16:37Scientists used cosmic rays to detect the massive hole,
16:40but are still no closer today to finding out what's inside.
16:44The ancient Egyptians took a lot of care building the pyramids,
16:48and everything was strategically placed and structurally sound.
16:51So it's super unlikely that this hole is due to blocks falling over time.
16:56Loads of pyramids also contained small model figurines called Ushabti.
17:01These represented attendants.
17:03They believed they would come to life to serve the pharaohs in the afterlife.
17:07But it's amazing that all this stuff actually fit inside.
17:11There isn't actually a huge amount of space inside the structures.
17:14It's mostly just rock.
17:18The majority of us have believed for a really long time
17:22that Stonehenge, one of the most iconic monuments in the world,
17:26was an ancient calendar because of its alignment with the summer and winter solstices.
17:31But no one could figure out how it really worked.
17:35Now a team of researchers have come out with another study.
17:38It turns out that Stonehenge could have functioned like the solar calendar.
17:43It's a similar principle to the solar calendar ancient Egyptians used to have,
17:47the one based on a year composed of 365.25 days.
17:53Each of the stones from this big mysterious sarsen circle represented one day within a month.
17:59Sarsens are what we call these large boulders.
18:02It's actually a perpetual calendar, where people could track every winter solstice sunset.
18:08That way, those who live near Stonehenge, which is today Wiltshire, UK,
18:13could keep track of the days and months of the year.
18:16We all now understand this mysterious calendar system because of this interesting discovery in 2020.
18:22The team has identified the source of 50 of the 52 sarsens that make up the iconic stone circle
18:28we all know about.
18:30They analyzed the chemical composition of these sarsens and traced their origins to the West Woods in Wiltshire,
18:36which is about 15 miles away from the monument.
18:39Not only did these 50 sarsens come from the same source,
18:43but they were also placed in their current position at approximately the same time.
18:48They make the outer circle of Stonehenge, together with a horseshoe-shaped inner ring.
18:53Near the center of the monument, there are smaller rocks, known as bluestones.
18:59The team traced the origins of the bluestones all the way to Wales.
19:03They also discovered that the sarsens share a common chemistry,
19:08over 99% silica with trace elements.
19:11Two sarsens were different from each other and also different from the main cluster.
19:16These sarsens were arranged in three different formations at Stonehenge.
19:20Thirty of them formed this huge stone circle that dominates the monument.
19:25Four station stones ended up in a rectangular formation outside the circle,
19:30while the rest, located inside the stone circle, were constructed into five trilithons.
19:37A trilithon is when you have two vertical stones with a horizontal lintel at the top.
19:43Thirty, five, and four are pretty interesting numbers in the context of this calendar system.
19:48The 30 uprights that are spread around the main sarsen ring could represent days of the month.
19:55If you multiply that by 12, you get 360.
19:59Add on five more, those from the central trilithons, and the result is 365.
20:06And to really adjust the calendar to match a solar year,
20:09you need to add one extra leap day for every four years, right?
20:13The team believes that ancient people used the four station stones to keep track of this part.
20:19So, in this system, they paired the summer and winter solstice every year with the same pair of stones.
20:26Ancient people started building Stonehenge about 5,000 years ago,
20:30and it took more than 1,000 years to finish the work.
20:33But the Stonehenge you see today is not the complete, original version from the beginning.
20:39People have broken and taken away many of its old bluestones and sarsens.
20:43The entire structure also changed over time since there were generations and generations,
20:49180 of them to be precise, that passed since the beginning of Stonehenge,
20:53who would participate in the building and rebuilding of it.
20:58People created Stonehenge in four stages.
21:01They first built a circular enclosure that stretched over 330 feet, 100 meters, in diameter, and went around 56 pits.
21:10A high bank flanks the ditch of the enclosure, while there's a low bank on the outside.
21:15Some theories even say that this part was some form of a communal cemetery.
21:20Later, in the second stage, builders added a horseshoe of sarsen trilithons.
21:25In the third stage, they constructed a ceremonial avenue that was nearly two miles long.
21:32It possibly traced the path of the bluestones.
21:35People moved from the Aubrey Holes to the Q&R Holes,
21:38a double arc that these bluestones have been arranged into.
21:41At this stage, builders also reorganized the entrance stones and recut the main enclosure ditch.
21:48During the fourth stage, the stones were broken, and builders etched carvings into the sarsens.
21:53Later, the bluestones ended up being modified again.
21:58Builders didn't leave any written records about how they managed to drag these heavy stones to the site
22:04and get them to stand so perfectly upright.
22:06But there are theories that say their techniques were more closely associated with woodwork than masonry.
22:13They made mortise holes and protruding tenons because they wanted to slot these stones together,
22:19and they used tongue and groove joints to do that.
22:21When they dug the hole for the stones, they placed timber poles at the back of the holes that were
22:26used as brace support.
22:28Then, they moved the stone into a position and hauled it upward with ropes.
22:32They packed rubble into the hole to make sure the stone stayed in place.
22:36A pre-industrial farming society put this fascinating monument together using only tools made of stone and bone.
22:44Not even the wheel had been invented yet.
22:47This unusual formation is also known as ringing rocks.
22:51The stones you can see at Stonehenge have some pretty odd acoustic properties.
22:55When you strike them, they produce a loud clanging sound.
22:59That could be one of the reasons why people bothered to transport them over such a long distance in the
23:04first place.
23:05In some ancient cultures, people believed that these rocks contained healing powers.
23:11It's a really popular location that attracts over a million visitors a year.
23:15When it first opened to the public, visitors were allowed to walk among the stones.
23:20They could even climb on them as there weren't any restrictions.
23:23Until the 19th century, visitors would regularly chip off pieces of the rock to take them home as souvenirs.
23:30They would also engrave their initials into the stones.
23:33They camped within the circle and dug fire pits,
23:36not realizing that the digging pits could seriously undermine the stability of the entire monument.
23:41Over time, visitors have encountered more and more restrictions
23:45until the monument was finally roped off in 1997 because of the serious erosion of the stones.
23:51That means if you want to visit, you can only view it from a distance
23:55unless you want to pay extra for the stone circle experience,
23:58which can be arranged outside of normal visiting hours.
24:02Stonehenge originally had two entrances that led into the enclosure.
24:06There was a wide one to the northeast and one that was a bit smaller and located on the southern
24:11side.
24:12If you look at it today, you can see there are many more gaps.
24:16This is mostly because of tracks made later that once crossed the monument.
24:21The ground within Stonehenge has been severely disturbed,
24:24and it wasn't just about random visitors digging fire pits.
24:28There was a group of people who dug a large deep hole within the stone circle in the 17th century
24:33because they were looking for treasure.
24:35Then there was Charles Darwin,
24:37who also did some digging because he was studying earthworms in the area.
24:41He wanted to know how these worms could impact objects in the soil over time.
24:45He observed how a fallen stone there had sunk deeper into the ground
24:49and realized it was happening because of the activities of these tiny creatures
24:53who churned through the soil all the time.
24:56In 1963, there was a theory that Stonehenge had been built as some sort of computer
25:01that predicts solar and lunar eclipses.
25:03Later, some proposed it was actually constructed as a monument to ancestors that had passed away.
25:09This theory says the permanence of its stones represented the eternal afterlife.
25:15The average sarsen you can find there weighs 25 tons,
25:19while the biggest one weighs around 30 tons.
25:22If you want to get an idea of how massive these stones really are,
25:27you can go behind the visitor center in the outdoor gallery
25:29to check out a replica sarsen stone.
25:32It's a true copy of a freestanding upright
25:34from one of the trilithons that are located in the inner horseshoe of the monument.
25:39There are five Neolithic houses at Stonehenge
25:42based on real archaeological evidence of houses found in that area.
25:46Each of them had stake-built walls and a chalk floor.
25:49Some even had furniture.
25:52There was also a lot of trash discovered,
25:54which means people in this area used to like celebrations and feasting.
25:59Research has shown that people lived in these houses for 50 to 100 years,
26:03around 4,500 years BCE,
26:06which was the time when the builders brought the sarsen stones to Stonehenge.
26:10During the time they were building Stonehenge,
26:12generations of people went through major changes themselves,
26:16from the Stone Age to the Early Bronze Age.
26:18They were no longer as static and isolated.
26:21They started to travel and trade more,
26:24which means they communicated way more than their ancestors,
26:28even internationally.
26:29This is how they could have spread the word about Stonehenge.
26:32And it's also when the whole mystery and fascination with the monument began.
26:36The
26:37and the
26:37and the
26:37and the