ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS
Added on: 4th Jun 2015
THE GRAUBALLE MAN
It’s not a strange occurrence for mummified bodies to be found in bogs
but this body, now known as the Grauballe Man, is a bit unique. Not only
is he amazingly well preserved with his hair and fingernails still intact,
it is possible to reconstruct his demise from the information found on
and around his body. Judging from a large wound wrapping around his
neck from ear to ear it seems he was sacrificed, probably in an
attempt to turn a better harvest.
DESERT KITES
Since being discovered by pilots at the turn of the 20th century a series
of low stone walls in the Negev desert of Israel had puzzled scientists for
years. The walls could be up to 40 miles long in some places and were
nicknamed “kites” as a result of their appearance from the air. Recently,
however, it was determined that the walls were actually used by hunters to
funnel large animals into pens or off of cliffs where they could easily be
slaughtered en masse.
ANCIENT TROY
Troy is a city well-known to both history and legend (as well as
archaeology) and was situated in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey.
In 1865, English archaeologist Frank Calvert excavated trenches in a field
bought from a local farmer at Hisarlęk, and in 1868, Heinrich Schliemann,
a wealthy German businessman and archaeologist, also began excavating
in the area after a chance meeting with Calvert in Çanakkale and what they
found has been generally been agreed upon to be this ancient city.
ACAMBARO FIGURES
Although most of the scientific community has now agreed that these
figures were part of an elaborate hoax, their discovery at first created a
bit of a stir. Found in the ground near Acambaro, Mexico were hundreds
of little figures resembling both humans and dinosaurs which for a little
while led some to believe that the ancients were better archaeologists
than previously thought.
ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM
Discovered in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera around the
turn of the 20th century. This 2000 year old device has often been touted
as the world’s first scientific calculator. With dozens of gears it can
precisely measure the position of the sun, moon, and planets simply by
inputting a date. Although there is debate over its exact use it certainly
shows that even 2000 years ago civilization was already accomplishing
amazingly advanced feats of mechanical engineering.
RAPA NUI
Popularly known as Easter Island, this is one of the most isolated places
In the world, thousands of miles off of the Chilean coast in the South Pacific.
The most baffling thing about the island, however, isn’t the fact that humans
even managed to find and settle it but that they then proceeded to construct
enormous stone heads around the island.
THE TOMB OF SUNKEN SKULLS
While excavating a dry lake bed in Motala, Sweden archaeologists came
across several skulls that had stakes driven directly through their craniums.
As if that weren’t bad enough one of the skulls even had pieces of the
other skulls crammed up inside it. Whatever happened there 8,000
years ago wasn’t pretty.
PIRI REIS MAP
Dating to the early 1500s this map shows the coastlines of South America,
Europe, and Africa with amazing precision. Apparently it was constructed
by general and cartographer Piri Reis (hence the name) from the
fragments of dozens of others.
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