This content explores intriguing anomalies and mysteries surrounding ancient history, from potential man-made structures in Antarctica and the debated age of the Sphinx, to the nature of cursed objects, the biblical city of Sodom, and the preservation of ancient knowledge in Pompeii.
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on the bottom of our planet lies The
Frigid land of
Antarctica the coldest and most
inhospitable continent in the
world stretching over 5 million square
miles Antarctica is covered in ice
sheets that reach more than a mile
deep the average daily temperature is
49° f and wind speeds can reach over 100
mph today the only inhabitants of this
Baron landscape are scientists who work
in research stations scattered across the
the
continent mainstream geologists have
long believed that ancient humans never
settled on Antarctica because of its
hostile climate but
incredibly in
2016 satellite images revealed a curious
formation emerging from the ice that
some researchers believe could
be a man-made pyramid
recently there have been a number of
reports of pyramids huge Great Pyramids
in Antarctica they jut out of the ice
and snow and they look perfect just like
those in Egypt but they dwarf those in
Egypt like the Great Pyramid one has a
perfectly square base that is 2 km
Square in each Direction
is it possible therefore that our
ancestors did actually reach the Antarctic
Antarctic
continent and perhaps even settle there
a man-made pyramid beneath the Antarctic
Ice if such an incredible notion is true
then it naturally begs some
questions how was such a massive
structure built on Antarctica when was
it done and by
whom Antarctica we have been told from
the geologists has been under ice for
many millions of years however there is
evidence that it could have been free of
ice certainly in certain
areas until perhaps 4,000
BC there are a large number of stories
from Polynesia of so-called culture
Heroes who reached the Antarctic
continent a French academic by the name
of aror put together all of these
different stories in a book titled out of
of
Antarctica the Polynesian people's
stories describe This Strange Land with
these white rocks that come out of the
water which are icebergs and other
creatures such as seals and Penguins and
seem to describe an area that we now
know as
Antarctica the Polynesian peoples
believed this was the place of the
ancestors and they said this is where uh
we came from originally why did they
believe this if this was
untrue is it really possible that the
coldest place on
Earth was once warm enough to be
inhabited by
humans well in 2017 German geologists
collected core amples
from deep within the frozen Antarctic
seafloor in order to analyze what the
continent's climate might have been like
thousands of years
ago what they discovered was
astonishing in the case of that
expedition in early
2017 we used a very special seaf Flor
drill r that uh hasn't been used before
in Antarctica so when we used this
special drill rig
and the settlement came up we saw
immediately more than 60 different taxa
of plants similar to something that you
would find in a rainforest in a
temperature regime that was similar to
what we today know from Northern
Italy and finding that on the Antarctic
continent that was the most exciting
thing because the climatic conditions
doesn't today allow any vegetation to
survive under those conditions So based
on that location and the environment we
found I think that the Antarctic
continent and the secrets that still
need to be recovered will tell us a lot
about planet
Earth Cairo
Egypt sitting at top a plateau just a
few miles west of the Nile River is the Giza
Giza
necropolis perhaps the most famous
collection of ruins in the entire
world believed to be constructed during
ancient Egypt's fourth Dynasty around
2550 BC these Limestone monuments
attract thousands of tourists every day
who come to Marvel at the immense
pyramids forbidding
tombs and a mysterious Stone Sentinel
known as the
Sphinx I think you can argue that the
Sphinx is the most recognizable statue
anywhere in the
world its scale is
immense it's one single piece of
stone it is cut from the natural rock of
the Giza
Plateau the Sphinx stands 240 ft long 66
ft tall and 62 ft
wide for thousands of years this massive
statue has been an object of both
Fascination and
wonder but even after centuries of study
the Sphinx holds many secrets that
archaeologists are still trying to
unravel the Sphinx that we know today
the Sphinx from the Great Pyramids of
Giza is the most famous of all sphinxes
but there are sphinxes all over ancient
Egypt there are smaller sphinxes there's
an Avenue full of sphinxes between the
temples but the great sphin of Geer is
something very different it's a single
sculpture it sits in a very particular
place it doesn't seem to have performed
the same function at all what was it for
this is what we really want to
know no one has understood exactly what
means because for literally thousands of
years the Sphinx was buried up to its
neck in sand so it's only a head
sticking out of the sand for much of its
history there is a very famous painting
of Emperor Napoleon standing in front of
the Sphinx buried still at this point up
to its shoulders you might think what
does Napoleon got to do with Egypt and
the Sphinx well in fact Napoleon LED an
invasion of Egypt in
1798 which had a big impact back in
Europe in raising awareness and interest
in ancient Egypt
sites it wasn't until the 1920s that a
team of archaeologists led by engineer Emil
Emil
Barz succeeded in unearthing the Sphinx
from the Desert Sands they were able to
expose it and to so to reveal for the
first time in centuries that this was
not just a head a disembodied head but a
a full Sphinx
sculpture and this is a watershed moment
for us understanding what the
Sphinx archaeologists and egyptologists
like myself believe that the Sphinx was
sculpted around 2500 BC by King keine as
a part of his funerary complex but a lot
of Scholars disagree about the sphin and
there's a lot of mystery surrounding
when was the Sphinx actually
sculpted one of the most important
documents we have to do with the dating
of the Sphinx is the inventory
Steeler this is a commemorative stone
that actually records details of how the
Pharaoh kufu repaired the Sphinx after
lightning the significance of this is
that kufu came before cfre the pharaoh
who is conventionally said to have
constructed the
sphin the inventory Stella has an
inscription that goes back to about 4600
years ago and that inscription says that
the Sphinx is a much older structure
that the Egyptians adopted and repaired
and venerated
based on the inscriptions on the
inventory Stila there are some
archaeologists who believe that the
Sphinx is so ancient that it could
predate any records in human history
that are known to
exist and some researchers are convinced
that physical evidence of the Sphinx's
true age can be found on the structure
itself the first time I visited the
Sphinx was in the summer of 1990 my
early studies of the Sphinx looked at
the erosional features on the body of
the Sphinx and comparing that to other
erosional features right on the Giza
plateau and what I found was the body of
the Sphinx and the walls of the Sphinx
enclosure are weathered differently than
everything else on the Giza
Plateau the rest of the plateau shows
classic wind
erosion but what is on the Sphinx is
water weathering it's rainfall
precipitation and this makes no sense
when the Sphinx is sitting on the edge
of the Sahara Desert that has been a
bone dry desert for literally thousands
of years so what I concluded is that the
body of the Sphinx and therefore the
original Statue had to go back to
prahara times when there was a much more
temperate climate much more moisture
much more rainfall and it has to go back
not just a little bit into that period
but quite far back given that we have
incredible amount of weathering and
erosion on the
Sphinx I now think that it goes back to
the end of the last ice age Circa 10,000
BC I am convinced that it is a ruin from
Cincinnati
Ohio just outside the city on a normal
Suburban Street in an ordinary
neighborhood is the home of Greg and Dana
Dana
newerk from the outside their home is
not much different from any other house
on the Block get some Fork action going
on yeah but inside it contains something quite
quite
extraordinary because there is a room in
the basement that is filled with a
collection of strange objects sent by
people from all over the world that are
believed to be
cursed Greg and I lead normal lives and
we we go about our life the same way
that everyone else does we just happen
to be caretakers for very strange
objects the way that we got started
collecting cursed objects was complete
accident it wasn't something that we had
set out to do
never would have imagined myself doing
this we were just interested in in general
weirdness my wife and I investigate all
manner of high
strangeness and we were both very
interested in the idea of cursed objects
we slowly gained a reputation as being
particularly good people for this and so
anytime anyone had a problem with an
artifact they would come to us and say I
don't know what to do with this this
thing is affecting my life will you just
take it off my hands it'd be easier to
just give it to you and let you deal
with it so we built up this collection
of very bizarre
things visitors to the new Kirk's home
are given ample warning that the
basement is filled with objects that are
cursed we have a lot of haunted robes
but curiously every day the new Kirks
receive requests from people who are
eager to view their cursed collection
you think with cursed objects you want
to avoid them but there is a draw to
them when an object is said to be cursed
another word you could use is special
it's special if this chair is cursed
it's different from every other chair in
the world and that makes it unique that
makes it interesting and that draws our
attention every single time and the fact
that that specialness is that it hurts
people that appeals to a certain maab
streak that we all have as human
beings people think of cursed objects as
being being kind of fun and spooky but
working with them it feels a lot less
about that and a lot more about that
kind of heavy responsibility to keep
some of these objects with us under lock
and key and maybe out of the wrong
hands and maybe in a place that's safer
not only for for everyone else but for
them the new Kirk's collection includes
several objects that are considered to
have the power to inflict harm on anyone
who comes near them
this is the cursed deer skull we drove
down to Nashville to pick up from a
woman who saw this in an antique store
and took it back to her office and
almost immediately her employees started
getting sick one of her employees was
hit by a car and then the wall that this
was hanging on actually fell down and
took half of the building with
it there are certain objects
specifically in our Museum that without
people knowing why they feel this the
way that they feel they will definitely
have heart palpitations
anxiety we've had people almost faint
we've had people throw up we've had
people dry Heap people have very
visceral physical reactions to being
objects among the accursed objects in
the new Kirks collection is a deadly
ring that is claimed to kill anyone who wears
wears
it a Bible used during a failed exorcism
and a doll that is believed to spread
illness wherever it
goes but of all the cursed objects the
Newks have come across there is one that
is so harrowing they refuse to keep it
in their collection it is an unsettling
wooden Effigy known as the
Chrome the Crone really is the
definition of kind of a cursed object it
is a carved statue of a woman someone at
some point in time took this object and
attached The Noose and the
nails it was given to us by some hikers
who found it in the cat skills off the
beaten path in a
cave they took it home and initially
started to experience really frightening
things their animals were behaving
strangely they were finding wet
footprints on the ground and they didn't
know what to
do someone who we had work worked with
previously put them in contact with us
and after you know having some
communication with them they they sent
the Crone to us people who would get
near the Crone they would be just
overwhelmed with
anxiety this guy came all the way from
Canada to come and see the Crone he
begged us to take it out of the
box almost
immediately his eyes roll up in the back
of his head and he starts to believe
from his
mouth and he has a violent seizure and
he has to be taken out by the paramedics
and that's when Dan and I looked at each
other and we said we have to do
something about
this it got to a point where the Crone
was just too dangerous for even us to
take care of and what we wanted to do
was bring her back to the cat skills
which is where she's [Music]
[Music]
from to remove the Cron's curse the new
Kirk's plan was return to the area where
it was originally found by two hikers
many years
before at which point they would remove
the nails embedded in the Crone in a cleansing
cleansing
ritual we wanted to bring her back and
every time a nail was pulled out the
intention was that we were pulling that
curse out of the
object we hiked into the woods for
miles and I set up a circle the idea of
setting up a circle was basically just
to create an energetic space for
containing this
ritual the whole time we were doing this
we were hearing
footsteps and strange sounds that
weren't animals around our
Circle but we couldn't see
anything we were absolutely terrified
but we start performing the ritual I
pull the nails out soon as that happens
we feel this almost electric pop in the
air when we were done every coyote on
the mountain just started
howling and the ritual was finished and
what we were looking at was just a block
of wood and we just kind of knew that we
had done what we went there to
do in the lower Jordan River Valley 8
mil north of the Dead Sea
a distinct Ridge rises from the
landscape but this is no ordinary
Ridge because buried under layers of
dirt and rock are the ruins of an
ancient city that dates back almost 4,000
4,000
years modern archaeologists have named
the site tal El
hamam when you look at tal ham from
satellite imagery it's long and it's
narrow it's about a mile from anend to
end we believe that as many as 50,000
people occupied the city according to
experts tall El hamam is shrouded in
mystery we don't know what it was named
in ancient times or who lived there but
in recent years some archaeologists have
theorized that tal El hamam is actually
the ruins of the biblical city of
Sodom in Genesis you have these cities
Sodom and more and there's wickedness
there's inequity in the city but then
God decides no this city is doing a
horrible kinds of things so I'm
literally going to rain fire sulfur down
I'm going to destroy this
city God said enough is enough fire and
burning Stone came forth out of the
heavens from Yahweh and consumed the
city in fact the Bible says that every person
person
crop plant tree twig anything that was
living was destroyed the Sodom and gomor
story is fascinating and it's meant to
be a metaphor an understanding of oh
when human beings don't do what they
should do here's what God does to
destroy us you it's God's power being
manifested it's an act of
God the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah has long been associated with
the wrath of God until recently many
scholars thought that the story was only a
a
myth so why do some experts now believe
that tal El amam could be the remains of
the city of
Sodom there is more geographical data in
the biblical text for the location of
Sodom than there is for any other
biblical site the Bible was very very
clear that it was north and east of the
Dead Sea and it was very clear that it
was east of Jerusalem and Tama matches
geographics of the text it matches the
time frame of the text it matches all
the possible descriptions of the text
describes it the idea that tal Elam
matches the location of Sodom in the
Bible is
intriguing and researchers also claim
that there is physical evidence on
site that confirms the biblical
description of sodom's Destruction
the actual destruction event is recorded
in just two verses in Genesis 19: 24 and
25 where it talks about the fact that
rock and fire came down from the heavens
and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah one
theory is that an incoming meteor or meteor
meteor
fragment exploded over the North End of
the Dead
Sea and destroyed talah
ham there are there are numerous proxies
that give strong indication that an air
burst or impact event have occurred the
first is the evidence of thermal damage
that's represented through melted
building materials and partially melted Pottery
Pottery
fragments the second is the appearance
and occurrence of microspheres very very
tiny spherical shaped melted pieces of
mineral grains and sand
and the third is a high concentration of
rare Earth elements Rare Earth elements
are very common in asteroids not so
common on the earth what's interesting
is that the middle layer of tal hamam
has a really high salt
concentration it's so salty that a lot
of times we excavate Pottery that's just
coated with thick salt crystals that's
pretty unusual why is is that layer so
salty well it's the same salt as found
in the Dead Sea probably because this
airburst event pushed a massive amount
of dirt water and salt over the
landscape a meteor explosion in the sky
if tal El hamam really was Sodom could
such an explosion be the reason why the
city is now buried in dirt that has a
high concentration of salt
some experts believe the answer is yes
and they point to the biblical story for
further evidence of the connection
between the destruction of Sodom and
salt the story of Sodom essentially
picks up in Genesis 19 where you have
these two angels that look like men who
travel down to visit lot who's living
down in Sodom and lot shows them
tremendous Hospitality you're supposed
to be kind to immigrants you're supposed
to be kind to foreigners as lot has
done God has decided to destroy the city
because of its
wickedness so the Angels grab lot and
his family and as they're leaving Sodom
the Angels give them the command don't
even look back and then you have this
fascinating detail where it says that
Lot's wife turned and looked back and
she turned into a pillar of salt
what could be the significance of Lot's
wife turning into a pillar of
salt does this detail from the story
support the theory that a meteor
explosion in the sky buried Sodom in tur
and salt
perhaps but is a meteor explosion a
natural event or is it an act of God
there's been a lot of question about
fire and brimstone coming down from the
heavens right this is one of these
Unexplained Mysteries and there have
been a lot of theories and this probably
has something to do with wanting
evidence that proves Faith a lot of
people believe in these stories and
archaeology can confirm them I think
from a point of view of science as we
look at the biblical text and we look at
the statement of this was fire and
burning Stone from God out of the
heavens if such an event actually
occurred would it have left some
evidences around well of course yes
that's all confirmed by the Science Now
science can't tell me one way or the
other whether it's an act of God but the
event is
confirmed Pompei Italy 79
ad at approximately 1:00 p.m. on a
peaceful late summer day this ancient
Roman city in the shadow of Mount vvus
is shaken by a massive volcanic
eruption within minutes superheated gas
and lav engulf the city and its
surroundings in an instant thousands of
people are buried alive as a city that
was once their
tomb nearly 2,000 years after the
eruption pompe is a city that remains
Frozen in
time this eruption was what we call a
pyroclastic eruption where clouds of of
Ash and debris hundreds of degrees hot
came flowing down the mountain flash
flying everything in its path and
miraculously the heat of this Cloud was
enough to carbonize and preserve rather
than destroy all kinds of information
we have well-preserved
architecture wood and organic materials food
food
stuffs human
remains animal remains that have been
preserved for 2,000 years beneath uh
this volcanic
debris today the excavated ruins of
Pompei offer archaeologists and tourists
a breathtaking look at the doomed ancient
ancient
city perhaps the most intriguing
Discovery found beneath the ash from
Mount vesuvius's eruption was an ancient
Roman structure located not far from
pompe known as The Villa De
papyri the villa de piri was a Roman
luxury Villa that was full of sculpture
and marble and bronze The Villa was
discovered by chance in 1750 by well
diggers who tunneling about 75 ft
through volcanic debris first hit a
colored marble floor with an amazing
pattern made up of bright red and yellow
Marbles and we think this was once the
vacation home of a Roman senator of the
highest rank of an old Noble family
named Lucius calpernius
piso the volcanic ash that buried Villa
De papayi did not only preserve the
physical structure it also entombed a
library that contained more than 18800 Papyrus
Papyrus
Scrolls these scrolls are an
extraordinary record of the thoughts and
writings of people who lived nearly
ago those texts were discovered when the
city was excavated and some of the
artifacts were first found they people
who discovered them didn't know what
they were they thought that maybe they
were pieces of branches or logs because
they were rolled up and carbonized until
someone finally realized these are texts on
on
Papyrus the villa de piri library is
significant because it's the only
surviving library from Antiquity with
its contents there were Scrolls found
that date to the 3D 2nd and 1st Century
BC in the 1st Century ad about 300 of
them or so have been
unscrolling they contain mostly philosophic
philosophic
texts some poetry some literary
criticism a little bit of history but
many of the scrolls are so tightly bound
together and carbonized that there's
them fear of damaging the Scrolls has
left many of them virtually untouch for
over a 100
years but new technology has presented a
potential opportunity to read these
mysterious ancient
texts scientists in the computer science
department at the University of Kentucky
have developed a new method known as virtual
virtual
unwrapping which uses a sophisticated
x-ray machine to scan the Scrolls
without damaging them the virtual
unwrapping that we innovated basically
allows a
360° set of views to be collected from
an object that rotates in front of an x-ray
x-ray
beam this is a real scroll that's 2,000
years old and in
crosssection we can see there's there's
damage there are parts that are missing
sections that are broken now we're using
our software for the Second Step which
is to trace these wraps all the way
through so that we can build a 3D model
that lets us flatten that out and then
read the text that's on it and once
we're done we've achieved this image
it's on the left which is the final
completely unwrapped
version this is a quote from
democratus who was an early Greek
philosopher and is very well known for
having postulated with others that
materials are made of
atoms I think it's remarkable that 2,000
years ago Greek philosophers were
postulating what we now know is true from
from
science thus far the team has been able
to digitally scan two complete Scrolls
and a number of
fragments they hope that in the future
technology will advance and allow them
to reveal even
more but what Secrets might be contained
in those 2,000-year-old Scrolls one
exciting possibility that has been
suggested is that the original letters
written by Jesus's Apostle Paul could
have been kept within the library of
villa de
papy The Villa of the hyrie was in tuned
about 40 to 50 years after the death of
Jesus at this time the original Apostles
are now outdoing their mission work in
various parts of the
Mediterranean so it's entirely likely
that the Villa of the papy could have a
collection of copies of Paul's
letters if the letters from the Apostle
Paul circulated and found its way into
the collection such a discovery would
represent the earliest Christian
material that we have almost dating back
to the time of Christ and the disciples
being able to use these techniques to
understand history in a way that's
almost forensic is going to bring
surprising things forward and we're
going to be revealing more secrets than
we'd ever imagined before [Music]
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