25 Most Incredible Archaeological Finds

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]We all love a good archaeological discovery. Every time something significant is found in the ground, it tells us a little more about the places and people who existed before us and laid the foundations of the lives we enjoy today. An archaeological discovery doesn't have to be ancient in order for it to be amazing. It just has to make you sit back and say, "Wow." Every discovery you're about to see in today's list has the wow factor. So enjoy this collection of spectacular archaeological finds from all over the world.

[00:00:37]At some point in ancient Chinese history, it must have been said that you could judge the quality of a person by the number of horses that were sacrificed in their honor when they died. That would explain why there are a whole 600 horse skeletons at the tomb of Duke Xing of Xi, which has been in the process of being excavated since early 2019 after initially being discovered in 1964.

[00:01:03]The Duke was the ruler of the state of Xi from the year 547 B.C.E. to 490 B.CE.

[00:01:11]But during those years, he was known as Lu Chu Jang. He only gained the honorary title of duke after he passed away. He was largely credited with bringing peace and prosperity to the region after a period of turmoil brought on by a battle between previous co-rulers and Kui Shu. This may explain why he was afforded what the ancient Chinese would have considered a generous sacrifice when the time came to bury him. As well as all the horses, there are also two pigs and 30 dogs, making this the largest animal sacrifice dedication to a single person in all of China.

[00:01:51]Animals are only one type of offering that was made to the gods in times of antiquity. Just about every object and substance you can imagine has been tried as a tribute to the deities at some point in history, including huge lumps of butter. Butter tributes were common in ancient Scotland and Ireland, and some of them are still buried in the ground. Irishman Jack Conway came across this 22 lb eggshaped butter lump in Mlog Balk, County Meath in 2016 and initially believed it was cheese because of its strong odor. Experts at the Irish National Museum informed him that it's actually butter. It's around 2,000 years old, and if he was feeling hungry, he could try a bit because it was technically still edible.

[00:02:39]Understandably, Jack passed on the offer. The location of the bog would be considered no man's land between three separate Irish kingdoms 2,000 years ago, and so it was probably buried by someone who hoped to claim the area and was seeking the blessing of the gods to do so.

[00:02:57]When we refer to ancient Greece as ancient Greece, we oversimplify the issue of what ancient Greece was. The Greece of thousands of years ago went through many social and political changes, and we're still in the dark about many of them. Even now, as we begin a new decade, we are still having to reassess what we know of early Greek culture because of a discovery made in December 2019. The discoveries were the resting places of two so far unknown individuals who were considered so important that they were buried in tombs lined with gold leaf 3 and a half thousand years ago. The tombs were found in Pyos, not far from the final resting place of the so-called Griffin Warrior, whose burial site was discovered in 2015 and contained more than 3,000 pieces of treasure ranging from weapons to jewelry. They were once dome-shaped but collapsed centuries ago and were subsequently covered in foliage, preventing their discovery until now.

[00:03:58]Not only is this a lot of gold by ancient Greek standards, but some of the gold artifacts depict 16 pointed stars, a symbol that's known to have been important in Greece as of around 600 B.CE, but not this early, or not until now. Anyway, a classic philosophical question is what came first, the chicken or the egg? It's a difficult one to answer, but we know that chicken eggs have been around for a very long time. Here's an example of a still complete one found in Alsbury, England, dating back 1700 years to the time of Roman occupation. The egg was one of four found during archaeological work at a site in the town, but the other three had already broken open and still reportedly had a foul odor even after so many years in the ground. The focus of the ongoing work at the site is an ancient pit into which people used to toss objects for good luck, just as many people do today with wishing wells.

[00:05:00]Apparently, eggs were among those tomic objects. Because the pit was heavily water logged, many of the items at the bottom of it are still spectacularly well preserved, which explains why the patterning on the shell of the egg is still so clearly visible. When it was found, it was still in a woven basket.

[00:05:20]As eggs were associated with fertility and rebirth, according to ancient Roman culture, it's likely that whoever threw the basket into the pit was trying or hoping to start a family.

[00:05:33]Archaeologists often specialize within a specific topic or period of history. And so when they describe something they've discovered as the find of the millennium, they should usually be taken with a pinch of salt. Someone working in another archaeological field will almost certainly disagree with them. That being said, this 2,000-year-old Iron Age shield found in Yorkshire, England in December 2017 is definitely a stunning discovery. It comes from a warrior's grave that also contained the remains of his chariot and two of his horses. For many years, it's been debated whether decorated shields like this one, which contains an intricate pattern of swirls and raised features, were purely ornamental, or whether they were used in combat. The presence of a puncture hole on this shield, along with evidence that the shield had been repaired at least twice, seems to settle that argument.

[00:06:28]The remains of the warrior were also found at the grave and have been dated back to around 300 B.CE. He was almost certainly a member of the Paresi tribe, of which very little is known. And so, the grave is a priceless source of information about their culture.

[00:06:46]Objects buried in shallow earth are often found by civilians or archaeologists who know where to look.

[00:06:52]But when something has been buried much more deeply, it often takes major construction works to bring them to the surface. That was the case with this collection of ancient Greek artifacts discovered during the construction of a metro network below the streets of Thessaloniki in April 2019.

[00:07:10]The most astounding discoveries are ornate statues of Aphrodite, the famous ancient Greek goddess. But there are also rings, gold wreaths, and countless pieces of pottery. So many artifacts have been discovered that the metro project has had to be delayed while archaeologists come in to extract everything from the ground safely. Aside from the objects, researchers also discovered the Dummanus Maximus stone road that would have been the main street in the city during the sixth century and the remains of what may have been the city's first ever Christian church. Taken together, the artifacts demonstrate that Thessaloniki was once a powerful trading city and center of religion and likely remained so for a thousand years before falling from prominence in the medieval era.

[00:08:02]Most of us are guilty of thinking that tax avoidance by the wealthy is a modern era problem. But the truth is that tax avoidance has existed for as long as the concept of taxation. In fact, experts from the British Museum believe that tax avoidance is the most likely reason that $5 million worth of Norman era coins turned up in a field in Somerset, England in January 2019.

[00:08:28]Adam Staples and Lisa Grace, a couple of experienced metal detectorrists, stumbled over the find by accident and were amazed when they found out that their find was the largest ever discovered from the period following the Norman conquest. There are over 2,500 coins in the collection, some of which bear the head of William the Conqueror and are therefore exceptionally rare.

[00:08:52]Given that they were stored together, they were likely buried by a wealthy landowner, hoping to avoid paying taxes on his horde. For whatever reason, the landowner never came back to retrieve his coin collection. And so, it lay undisturbed until Adam and Lisa came along almost 1,000 years later.

[00:09:12]Here's another concept that's been around for a lot longer than people tend to assume it has. Baby bottles. These cute drinking vessels found in Germany were once used to store milk and serve it to infants and even have animal designs to make them more attractive to babies. Traces of milk from domesticated animals have been found inside the vessels which date back to the Bronze Age and are around 3,200 years old. As very little is known about what was fed to infants during this era, they're a priceless window into the past and show us that actually not that much has changed when it comes to how we approach the difficult task of persuading a baby to take its milk. Any baby who had one of these to keep it fed was lucky. Back then only approximately 1/3 of all infants were expected to survive their first year and even then only half would make it through to adulthood. The sophistication of the design confirms something, though. These near prehistoric people loved their children just as much as we love ours today.

[00:10:19]Some controversy surrounds the authenticity of this next discovery, but we'll report it at face value. If the scientists and researchers of Bulgaria are correct about this discovery, then the very first golden treasure in history was created in northeast Bulgaria by the Varna people and is approximately 7,000 years old. That would not only make this the world's oldest human-made gold, it would also give the Varna a strong claim to being the oldest of all the European civilizations.

[00:10:52]The collection of golden treasures is diverse, including beads, animal designs, rings, and necklaces. The stories say that the whole collection was found by chance during the late 1970s when a canery was being built in the region, and 22-year-old Rejo Marinov picked them up with his excavator. He stored them in a shoe box for a few days before taking them to a local archaeologist.

[00:11:16]that qualified him for a financial reward equivalent to seven times his monthly salary. Perhaps the most surprising object in the whole collection is a golden boomerang, which buries the idea that the device is an Australian invention.

[00:11:34]There's also some controversy about the so-called Jaguar God cave of Chichinita in Mexico. It's known that the site was found by farmers in 1966.

[00:11:44]But for reasons that have never been clear, the authorities chose to wall up the site and prevent anyone from gaining entry for more than 50 years.

[00:11:53]Predictably, that's led to some suspicions that something was found in the cave that the authorities would prefer we never saw for ourselves. Now, it's been reopened. The objects we have been allowed to see are 1,000-year-old Mayan artifacts, some of which are in pristine condition thanks to being sealed up in their underground bunker for centuries. The name Jaguar God Cave comes from its many sculptures of Balamu, who, as you've probably already guessed, was a jaguar god in ancient Mayan culture. Other items waiting in the darkness included grinding stones, incense holders, and several ornate decorative plates. We'll never know why archaeologist Victor Segoia Pinto went along with the order to seal it with rocks or what he found in there when he entered in 1966.

[00:12:41]He's sadly no longer with us to share his secrets.

[00:12:47]Given all the Mayan, Inca, Olme, and Mesoamerican people who once lived in South America, there are several contenders for the title of oldest city of the Americas. But there can only be one winner. The winner is Karal in the Supa Valley of Peru, which you may sometimes hear referred to as Karal Chupacagaro.

[00:13:09]Archaeologists believe that the first people came to settle in the city approximately 4 12,000 years ago, and it eventually grew to home a population of around 3,000. For the time, that was enormous. The temples, plazas, streets, and houses that were built here were created during the same years the ancient Egyptians were building their pyramids. At the center of the site is a tall temple 92 ft high and 500 ft deep.

[00:13:37]At every other site like this in South America, weapons have been found buried in and around temples and plazas, but there are none at Keral. The Andian people who lived here must have been peaceful souls. Sadly, that probably left them wide open to attack.

[00:13:56]A farmer in Norway got a huge shock at the end of 2019 when he found out that the field he'd been working on and tending to for years had a huge Viking ship buried just beneath it. And the ship had been there for 1,000 years. The vessel, which is over 50 ft long, was found by way of a happy accident.

[00:14:17]Archaeologists in the area were using ground penetrating radar in the hope of finding evidence of an old settlement they thought once stood close to Adoi, but they found the boat instead. Both ends of the boat have been damaged by plows in the centuries it's been down there. But aside from that, it's largely unharmed and appears to have been placed there deliberately as the centerpiece of a burial mound. The design of the ship is typical of the era for the Vikings, who were known and feared for their ability to make ships that could move quickly and take enemies by surprise.

[00:14:51]It's known that Harold Fairhair, the first true king of Norway, had two major military victories in Edoy. And so, the boat and its mound were probably dedicated to the memory of someone who had served the king well in battle.

[00:15:07]in England where an ancient Roman villa complex complete with a beautiful mosaic was found in a farmer's field in Rutland in November 2021. It's especially notable because the mosaic depicts scenes from Homer's Iliad. Designs like this before have been found in mainland Europe, but never before in the United Kingdom. The mosaic was discovered quite by accident by a farmer's son who was walking through a wheat field on his father's land and came across a few fragments of old pottery. When he bent down to pick it up, he noticed a pattern on the ground, and professional archaeologists were quickly summoned to the scene. The work likely dates from Britain's late Roman period, perhaps the late 4th or early 5th century. The mosaic was likely the floor of what would have been a large dining or reception room in the villa. Subsequent investigations have also revealed the presence of large outbuildings around the footprint of the villa, so there might be more to come from this site early in 2022. The farmer has pledged not to use the field for any farming activities until the work is complete.

[00:16:20]Traveling north from England, we pass through Scotland and eventually reach the Orcne Islands, which is where we find our next discovery. It's a collection of Viking era burials and grave goods, including a particularly fine example of a Viking sword and scabbard. The weapons, along with buckles and arrows, have been buried at this site in Papo West for about 1,200 years. Viking experts say that the sword is a Person type D blade, which is one of the heaviest and most deadly that the Nordic warrior race ever created. The only other sword of this type that's ever been found was discovered on the aisle of IG in the 1830s. So, archaeologists have been waiting a very long time to find another example.

[00:17:08]Swords were usually buried next to their Viking owners, but this blade was laid directly on top of the body inside the grave. Experts aren't yet sure of the significance of this, or even if there's any significance to it at all. The sword is extremely corroded, but it's hoped that a thorough clean and restoration work will bring out its finer details.

[00:17:32]If someone has the gift of the gab, meaning that they're a gifted and persuasive speaker, we might say that they have a silver tongue. Apparently, the ancient Egyptians sometimes went further with that metaphor and made it literal. In December 2021, a trio of Egyptian mummies with gold tongues were discovered inside a Greco Roman tomb in Oxy Rinkus, Egypt. The limestone tomb had been undisturbed since the time of the 26th dynasty 2500 years ago. Two of the mummies are little more than skeletons, but the third is in such good condition that it still has hair and all of its soft tissues attached. In all three cases, there's a tongue-shaped gold foil leaf where the tongue should be. The Egyptians believed that the dead needed to be able to negotiate their way into the afterlife after they passed away. And so they'd have to be able to speak fluently and persuasively. Perhaps this strange burial practice was a way of helping to ensure that their dead loved ones would be able to do so. A similar burial was found elsewhere in Egypt in February 2021. But other than that, it's a very rare discovery, and we're not totally sure of its meaning.

[00:18:51]We've seen a Viking discovery from the British Isles. So, now let's check one out from closer to the home of the Vikings. In December 2021, Norwegian archaeologists confirmed the discovery of a buried Viking ship next to the remains of an enormous Iron Age long house in Galastad Ostold. They think that the find dates to the 9th century.

[00:19:14]The sheer size of the long house has made historians wonder whether this might have been an important Viking center of politics or religion. It's almost 200 ft long, making it one of the largest in all of Scandinavia. The discovery was made by accident during the creation of a new drainage ditch.

[00:19:33]The presence of the ship next to the long house indicates that it's the final resting place of someone who was considered very important as ship burials were among the highest honors that the Vikings could give to the dead.

[00:19:46]Archaeologists have long suspected that Gileastto was an important trading center for the Vikings because of previous discoveries that have been made in the vicinity, but it now seems likely there was more to what they created here than just a trading center.

[00:20:04]Millions of people all over the world enjoy an occasional beer, but even the most ardent beer enthusiasts might turn down this next discovery. It's an Egyptian beer that was used in rituals some 5,800 years ago, and experts say that it would have had a consistency like porridge. The disgusting sounding conclusion comes from a study of pottery that was recently found at the archaeological site of Neken in southern Egypt. It was made during a time long before the great Pharaoh Nar unified Egypt into a single state. Chemical analysis revealed that the pottery had been used to store beer and also provided us with a surprising amount of information about the makeup of the beer. They found yeast cells, starch granules, tiny traces of plant tissue, and calcium oxalate. Their conclusion is that the beer was brewed from barley, wheat, and grass, and would have been very thick. As if that weren't bad enough, it would also have looked dark and cloudy. In other words, it wouldn't have looked very appetizing. To make matters worse, it would also have been a weak beer with low alcohol content.

[00:21:20]We're heading to Turkey now where archaeologists found a large-scale weaving workshop in the city of Ayaman in early December 2021. They think that the workshop is around 1,600 years old.

[00:21:34]Back then, Aryiaman was called Perry and was one of the biggest cities in the Kingdom of Kagene. It's an area that's been rich in archaeological discoveries over the years with a Roman fountain and aqueduct also discovered here within the past decade. The building they found most recently was identified as a workshop because of the presence of weight stones that were used to turn wool into stronger ropes. It's not the only recent find there, though. The team also found a grain production facility including crushing vessels, sistns, and millstones. Their analysis indicates that work at these sites was brought to an abrupt end in either the 6th or 7th century by a series of severe earthquakes that blighted the area and extensively damaged many of the buildings in Perry. Work at the site has slowed down over winter 2021, but the team hopes to come back in early 2022 to finish the project and find out if there's anything else buried here.

[00:22:39]An exciting find in Japan in November 2021 might have revealed the setting of the world's first novel. The novel is the tale of Genji written in the early 11th century by a noble woman called Murasaki Shikibu. The story is considered a national treasure in Japan and is largely set in and around the Dymp Imperial Residences of the old Hanku palace. It's these residences that archaeologists believe that they've now found. So far, they've excavated what they believe to be the original Kokiden and Tokaden halls. This is where the female palace attendants lived back when this city was called Kiango and was the capital of a kingdom. Today, we call this city Kyoto. If they really have found the Kokidan and Tokaden halls, it's an especially poignant find because it's not only where Murasaki set her novel, but also where she lived when she wrote it, thus creating a physical connection to one of Japan's most celebrated historical figures. Seaun, another lady of the court and a rival author to Murasaki, would also have lived here when she wrote the pillow book in the late 10th century.

[00:23:56]There are no guarantees of success when you go out into a field with a metal detector. You can take part in the hobby for your whole life and never find anything interesting. Or you can strike gold on your first go. 13-year-old British school girl Millie Hardwick of Suffukulk, England, didn't quite strike gold on her first go, but she was close enough. On her third trip out with her device, she found an incredibly rare hall of bronze age axes and other artifacts dating back 2,300 years. She was out in a field in Herfordshire with her father when she came across the find, which professional archaeologists have deemed to be a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. That's probably not the sort of thing Millie hoped to hear at the age of 13. The coroner's office now has to decide whether Milliey's axes qualify as treasure. If they do, it's likely they'll be bought by a museum, and Millie will be paid a finder's fee. If not, she'll be allowed to keep her discoveries. Either way, it's a good start to being a metal detectorrist for Millie, who hopes to become a professional archaeologist when she leaves school.

[00:25:06]Some people think that the bloodthirsty way in which the Aztecs went about the practice of human sacrifice is an exaggeration. To those people, we present this early December 2021 discovery from Mexico City, Mexico. It's an old Aztec altar, and it's covered in ashes from burnt human bodies. The 16th century discovery was made very close to Plaza Garibaldi, which is well known to tourists for its vibrancy and mariachi musicians. It's a rare Aztec era find because it comes from a time after the Spanish had already seized the city, which was then known as Tennot Titlan.

[00:25:45]It's likely that the altar was a private one that belonged to an Aztec family rather than a public one used by the Aztec ruling elite who by then would largely have been either imprisoned or dead. Some of the more imaginative archaeologists and historians at the scene have wondered whether this seemingly sacrificial act was a last stand of sorts for the family as they bore witness to the final cycle of not only their lives but of their entire civilization. Although there's no evidence to support the idea of something quite so dramatic, the owners of the altar were almost certainly in hiding at the time, though, as the altar was 13 ft below ground.

[00:26:28]If you visit the river Tames in London, England, you might see mud larkers scouring the banks of the river. It's a curiously British word for a curiously British habit. Mudarkers are amateur archaeologists who spend their free time looking for relics that have been dropped into the tames over the centuries and washed up on its muddy banks. One of the best known of them is Laura Mlim, who has written books on the hobby. In December 2021, Laura made her best find of the year when she came across a 16th century wooden handled sword. This is a special find because wood often decays quickly, but the oxygen-free mud of the tames has preserved it for 400 years. Lara has given the sword to the Museum of London, which sounds like a generous act until you find out she's required to do so.

[00:27:19]Mudarkers are prohibited from offering the items they find for private sale. If the sword is determined to be valuable, which remains to be seen given its broken state, Lara might be paid a finder fee. With no other way to make money from her discoveries, it's no wonder she turned into an author.

[00:27:39]Even after three centuries of digging through its ruins, there's still much that we don't know about Pompei. That's okay, though, because there are still incredible discoveries coming out of Pompei every month. The latest batch of finds comes from a building known as the House of the Library and was reported in October 2021.

[00:27:59]This house is on the western edge of Pompei, which enjoys a spectacular view over the Gulf of Naples and is likely to have been the most exclusive part of the city prior to its destruction in the year 79. Inside it, archaeologists have found a bronze vase, an oil jar, and a circular stone disc with a polished surface. There are still a few tiny fragments of glass paste on the disc, suggesting that it was being prepared for a milling process that would ultimately have produced a pigment called Egyptian blue that was used in painting. Through this discovery, we might have identified the profession or perhaps the favorite pastime of the house of the library's final owner. The property's name comes from an interior room that's been interpreted as a library because of its beautiful fresco of a person carrying a Lyra and a capsa for books. Although the interpretation could easily be wrong.

[00:28:59]The tradition of kings, queens, and other rulers wearing crowns is one that goes back a long way in human history.

[00:29:06]To prove that, here's a discovery from Chandayian Utar Pradesh, India. It's a 4,000-year-old copper crown that may once have belonged to a leader of the Indis Valley civilization.

[00:29:19]This is only the second time that a crown has ever been discovered at an Indis Valley site, which might mean that the practice of wearing them was rare, even among the civilization's leaders.

[00:29:30]The crown is decorated with a fiance bead and a carnelon bead, both of which are precious stones, and further underlying the idea of the crown's owner being somebody of great importance.

[00:29:41]Whoever that person was, they were buried with their crown. It was still attached to their skull when the artifact was discovered. Animal bones were found inside a mud pot within the grave site, suggesting that an unknown animal was sacrificed as part of this person's funeral ceremony. There are early signs of a habitation site about 100 ft away from the grave. So, with a little more digging, we might even find this longforgotten ruler's former palace.