Complicating matters is that many of the jars stand in fields of unexploded munitions, the vestige of a massive U.S. Recent research dates at least some of the stone jars to as early as 1240 B.C., which would make them far older than the human remains buried nearby. Many archeologists, on the other hand, believe they served as funerary urns, though much remains unknown about their purpose, about how they were moved into place, and about the civilization that produced them. Carved largely from sandstone and found in groups ranging from just one to 400, legend holds that giants used them as wine glasses. Thousands of lichen-covered stone jars from the Iron Age, some standing close to 10 feet tall and weighing several tons, dot the mountainous landscape of northern Laos. Since then, large statues, animal sarcophagi, temple ruins, pottery shards, jewelry, coins, and even 2,400-year-old fruit baskets have been pulled from the waves, thus shining new light on this real-life Atlantis. Eventually, all of Thonis-Heracleion sank underwater, where it remained lost to time until being rediscovered in the early 2000s by marine archeologists. Around the second century B.C., however, the city center collapsed due to soil liquification, possibly triggered by earthquakes, tsunamis, or floods. Mythical hero Heracles and Helen of Troy both supposedly spent time there. Thonis-HeracleionĪn Egyptian port city on the Mediterranean Sea, Thonis-Heracleion served as a major trading hub prior to the founding of nearby Alexandria around 331 B.C. Here are 10 of the ancient world’s most perplexing and enduring mysteries, all worthy of a glance back in time: 1. “We’re a present and future-oriented society these days,” Berlin says, “so from my point of view, anyone who cares at all, even a little bit, about the past, that’s great.” Nevertheless, she recognizes the sense of wonder such mysteries inspire. In Berlin’s experience, professional archeologists tend to eschew the role of popular sleuth, especially as it pertains to things like Noah’s Ark and treasure-laden tombs. She adds: “We have learned a lot about how sophisticated many ancient sites were.” “We can see deeper and smaller and finer, and so there are many more questions we can ask and answer.” “Every single new technology that has been made available to archeologists, beginning with carbon-14 dating in the 1950s, has radically pushed the field,” Berlin says. As Berlin points out, a present-day archeologist who finds a clay pellet may use an atomic reactor, among other tools, to deduce its chemical composition, whereas a 19th-century archeologist would have relied on a mere pickaxe and wheelbarrow. “We’re very curious about what we can’t see, about what came before.”Īnd though some mysteries will likely never be solved, others are being chipped away at with the help of new technologies. Berlin, a professor of archeology at Boston University. “People are fascinated by origins, people are fascinated by mysteries,” says Andrea M. Ancient history is flush with unsolved mysteries, some of which, from lost burial sites to sunken cities, have captivated the public imagination for centuries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |