Most of the historical information has been obtained from written sources. But what we know about the past is just the tip of the iceberg. Many events of antiquity were not immortalized in stone and were forever forgotten.
We do not know anything about what has irrevocably sunk into oblivion. But here and there archaeologists make discoveries that do not fully match the written sources. We find relics of civilizations in places where they shouldn't have been.
Now no one can say exactly how these objects ended up there. It is possible that some incredible events were not documented in writing. Many of the great travelers who changed our world did not return home and were unable to share their stories.
10. Roman sword in Canada
On Oak Island in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, a television team accidentally discovered an unexpected find: an ancient Roman sword that had been here since the 200s AD.
The discovery shocked everyone. This means that travelers from Ancient Rome traveled to North America 800 years before the Vikings. But not only that was found. Other people have also discovered strange things in Canada: a crossbow bolt stuck into a tree; a barrow similar in style to the Roman; Carthaginian coins and even a stone with an inscription in Latin. All items are approximately 1800 years old.
It is hypothesized that a group of Roman and Carthaginian travelers went west 1800 years ago. It is possible that they never returned to their homeland and were buried on the island. This explains the existence of Roman tombs in Canada and the lack of travel records in Ancient Rome.
Nevertheless, this has not yet been confirmed, and the fact that the discovery was made not by archaeologists, but by television people, gives rise to certain suspicions. But there is still a lot of evidence, and if experts check it, it will rewrite the history of the arrival of the first immigrants from Europe to North America.
9. Chinese inscriptions on oracle bones found in the USA
According to John Ruskamp, another group of travelers visited America before the Vikings: the Chinese.
He discovered unusual hieroglyphs carved into ancient bones found in 82 locations in the southern United States. All inscriptions were made in the same style and do not look like cultural objects of local peoples. However, the specialist is convinced that these are not just random scribbles. He believes these are Chinese inscriptions carved on oracle bones.
Divination bones are one of the oldest forms of writing that fell out of use in the Middle Kingdom around 1046 BC. If Ruscamp's hypothesis is correct, then this could mean that Chinese settlers arrived in North America about 3,000 years ago.
The Chinese inscriptions have survived quite well. One engraving discovered in the American state of Arizona can be translated as follows: "We spent 10 years together away from others, the expedition is over, the return to the house of the Sun is announced, the expedition is completed in full." This appears to be a message left by travelers in the New World.
8. Ancient bones of great apes in Ireland
A neat tomb was found near the Irish Tara Hill. The bones were buried with royal honors, but they do not look like the remains of an ordinary monarch, but more like a monkey.
And this is not the only set of ancient great ape bones found in Ireland. In County Armagh, another monkey skull was found, which has lain here for about 2,300 years. No one knows how these primates came to be here. An unknown person in antiquity for some reason arrived with monkeys in Ireland and buried them here.
It is possible that the primates were brought in by traders, but there is a more extravagant explanation. There is an ancient Irish legend about foreigners endowed with magical powers who arrived in Ireland on a large ship and ruled over the people from Tara Hill. Some believe that this legend is based on a real event, and the sorcerers were actually Egyptians with more advanced technologies at the time.
Of course, it is too risky to believe this hypothesis based on the remains of monkeys, but there is stronger evidence. DNA testing of the bodies of the ancient Irish showed that they had Middle Eastern ancestors. And not far from Tara Hill, the remains of a boy with an Egyptian ornament were discovered.
7. Native American legends about white giants
In 1857, a Comanche Indian told the story to the public. “Many moons ago, three-meter pale-faced people, who were much richer and more powerful than all other people with fair skin, inhabited a huge part of the country. The giants drove the Indians out of their own homes, slaughtered them and took over the valleys where their fathers lived.
It looks like a metaphorical exaggeration of what is happening now. However, everything changed when a medallion and two coins from Ancient Greece were discovered in the US state of Oklahoma. Donald Yates, a genealogist, collated the facts and realized that they were related.
The Choctaw tribe also has a myth about a "race of pale-faced giants" who lived in what is now Tennessee. Likewise, other American Indians have suspiciously similar stories. The ancient Greek scholar Strabo wrote about the "Western Continent". This suggests that he had some knowledge of America.
Yates believes that these Native American legends may not have been entirely fictional. It is likely that the Greek explorers discovered America and entered into armed conflicts with the aborigines, leaving the memory of the indigenous people about themselves.
6. Mayan frescoes with light-skinned warriors
The frescoes inside the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza depict scenes of people who are not very similar to the Mayan neighbors. On the murals, one can see fierce battles between people very heterogeneous for pre-Columbian Mexico. Some have pale skin, others have pitch black, and still others have dark skin.
Perhaps this is just an artist's fantasy. But there is other evidence that people of different races could fight in the territory of modern Mexico. For example, when Hernán Cortez arrived here, he was greeted as a “white overlord,” which means that there was another fair-skinned person before him.
In addition, the ancient people left a legend called "Dance of the Giants". In it, the white giant joined the Maya and helped them defeat the black titan, who vexed them. One controversial hypothesis is that the myth describes a real event. The black giants were supposed to be the Aztecs who came from the north, and the whites were the Vikings.
As early as 1789, there was speculation about the Old Norse explorers who reached the territory of modern Mexico. For example, Ari Marson, on his way to Greenland, went off course due to unfavorable weather conditions. According to this theory, he entered the Mayan territory a little earlier than the Aztecs and could have left an imprint on their history.
5. Temple of the Egyptian goddess in India
On the west coast of India, there are ruins of a temple to the goddess Pattini. This is not unusual. But there are rumors that inside it there is a secret room with the tomb of the Egyptian goddess Isis.
At the moment, the ruins are owned by a Hindu temple, so no one can check what is actually there. But according to writer Chris Morgan, the rumor about Isis' tomb may be true.He believes that the ancient Egyptian traveler arrived in India and founded here the cult of his goddess, from which Pattini herself is believed to have originated.
Morgan points to a certain similarity in the legends: for both women, the spouses were killed and quartered. He believes that Pattini is an Indian evolution of the Isis concept that was spread through this tomb. Similarly, Egyptian culture in general influenced Hinduism.
4. Peruvian village of giants
When colonists from Spain first arrived in Peru, the conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon documented everything he could in the Chronicle of Peru. It contains a detailed and accurate description of the cultures of the captured indigenous peoples, as well as details of the surrounding world and, rather unusual, a village erected by the Titans.
Cieza de Leon recorded the legend of the indigenous people about the giants who arrived in large reed boats. He said: "They were so huge that ordinary people were knee-deep." According to legend, the giants built wells that surpassed the technological capabilities of the indigenous population, and erected huge villages to match them. But a great fire came and killed the giants.
Interestingly, however, Cieza de Leon claims to have seen the village and the wells. He said they were big enough to fit the legend. He also claimed to have stumbled upon a giant's skull and thigh bones. In addition, other Spaniards allegedly saw teeth weighing about 200 grams.
Now we do not have these artifacts at our disposal, so we cannot prove the above. But it is difficult to understand why Cieza de Leon would have to invent all these lies in order to confirm the myth of the indigenous people.
It is also unclear what he saw. Was he cheated? Or did he make it all up himself? Or the Spanish colonists did find evidence in Peru that foreigners had already been here.
3. Ruins of Marcahuasi
In the Andean Cordillera, you can see unusual mountains known as the ruins of the Marcahuasi, which were apparently hewn by people. These ruins are shaped like human heads. One of them is a rough copy of the Egyptian Sphinx.
It is likely that these stones took on a similar shape under the influence of erosion. But some don't think so. There is a hypothesis that the stones were deliberately polished by some people. But such versions are loved mainly by fans of various marginal theories of aliens or mystical healing abilities.
One of the most popular assumptions was put forward by an archaeologist who is convinced that the ruins were erected by representatives of the biblical civilization Mishma. They allegedly arrived in Peru and carved crude copies of the miracles they saw in Egypt. The hypothesis came to him in a dream, which, of course, can hardly be called a scientific approach.
Even if the ruins were not erected by aliens or biblical peoples, the question of who created these stunning works of art remains open.
2. Three heavenly bags
This unusual pattern can be seen all over the world: something that looks like handbags, usually three in number, hangs in the sky. And nobody knows what it really means.
The oldest of such drawings was found in Turkey. It depicts three bags hovering over living creatures. But similar patterns can be found all over the world, for example, in India, Egypt and even Central America. These pictures bear a resemblance to Middle Eastern art. It is likely that the authors of such works come from this region.
Therefore, it is curious that the New Zealand Maori tribe also has the image of three bags. They have a legend about a hero named Tanya. He went to heaven for three baskets of knowledge, which strangely resembles a drawing in Turkey.
Perhaps this is just a coincidence. It is possible that the ancestors of the Maori are of Middle Eastern origin.
1. Red Giants from Lovelock Cave
In 1911, miners working in Lovelock Cave (Nevada) during excavations discovered a huge number of ancient Indian relics. Among them was an even more amazing find - the mummified remains of a red-haired man, whose height was 198 cm.
The cave has turned into an archaeological site. Incredibly strange things were discovered, for example, huge sandals (sole length - 38 cm), which apparently belonged to a very tall person, as well as a giant handprint (twice the size of the palm of an ordinary person).
Some believe that this discovery echoes the legend of the Indian tribe of Payutes about the invasion of their land by the red and freckled cannibals of the C-te-cache. The giants arrived in boats, hunted the locals until they drove the cannibals into the cave and burned them alive there.
The original red-haired mummy has been destroyed, making it impossible to verify the truth of the legend. There are alternative explanations. Some people claim to have seen a mummy. If this is true, then the C-te-cash were in fact brutal immigrants from Europe who terrorized the local population and died in Nevada.
We recommend watching:
An overview of the most incredible archaeological finds that shocked the world scientific community:
