1. 3. Mystery and intrigue surround the next archaeological discovery on our list — that of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The Egyptian pharaoh's lavish burial chamber was discovered in 1922 by a team of archaeologists led by British Egyptologist Howard Carter. When Carter and his team entered King Tut's tomb for the first time, they were confronted with a variety of treasures, including two "ebony-black" effigies of the king and an array of gold-covered couches carved into the shapes of exotic animals. The treasures of the tomb were so incredible that Carter and his team helped protect them from grave robbers by perpetuating a myth that anyone who entered the tomb would suffer under the dead pharaoh's curse. But this alleged curse hasn't stopped archaeologists from continuing to explore the famous burial chamber nearly 100 years later.
2. 4. In A.D. 79, an erupting volcano Vesuvius enveloped the Roman city of Pompeii in a cloud of volcanic gases and debris, killing any of the city's residents who did not manage to flee. The remains of the city and its citizens were buried under a layer of pumice stone and ash some 19 to 23 feet (6 to 7 meters) deep. Pompeii remained undisturbed for over a thousand years until, in the late 16th century, an architect named Domenico Fontana stumbled upon the ancient fresco-covered walls of a Pompeii residence while working on an infrastructure project. However, no further excavations were made at the site until the mid-18th century, when workmen digging a foundation for the summer palace of the King of Naples unearthed the remains of Herculaneum (a nearby town that had suffered the same fate as Pompeii). Pompeii itself was intentionally excavated not long thereafter. Centuries later, the city continues to be a popular attraction for tourists, and many artifacts from the site can be viewed at the Naples National Archaeological Museum.
3. 5. Young shepherd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls by accident in the 1940s while looking for a stray goat near the ancient site of Khirbet Qumran. Located in the West Bank, near the Dead Sea, the first settlement at Qumran dates back about 2,600 years, but archaeologists believe the scrolls were penned between 250 B.C. and A.D. 68, according to the Biblical Archaeology Society, long after that first settlement had given way to a second settlement. There were seven scrolls initially found by the shepherd inside of a ceramic jar in a cave near Qumran. Later, researchers and public officials discovered more than 900 other manuscripts in 11 caves in the surrounding area. These scrolls include copies of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Kings and Deuteronomy, as well as hymns, calendars and psalms. Some of the works represent the earliest known copies of parts of the Hebrew Bible. Many of the original copies are kept in Jerusalem, with several scrolls on public display at The Shrine of the Book, a wing of the Israel Museum.
4. 7. In 1974, paleoanthropologists working in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia unearthed hundreds of bone fossils belonging to the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis. The bones represented about 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of that species, who lived approximately 3.2 million years ago. Scientists dubbed this skeleton "Lucy." For decades, Lucy represented the only known skeleton of A.afarensis(several other bones belonging to members of the species were found in the 1970s, but more complete specimens weren't unearthed until the 1990s). Like modern humans, A.afarensis walked upright on two legs, but recent studies suggest that Lucy and her kin also used their load-bearing arms to climb trees, where they may have searched for food or hidden out from hungry predators.
5. 9. After centuries of speculation, the grave of King Richard III was finally unearthed in 2012 by archaeologists at the University of Leicester in England. The king, who was immortalized (for better or for worse) in Shakespeare's play "Richard III," died in battle in 1485. Rather than a regal funeral, King Richard's body was reportedly interred at the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester, the location of which was lost to history.
6. 1. Rosetta stone - In 1799, the group of French soldiers rebuilding a military fort in the port city of el-Rashid (or Rosetta), Egypt, accidentally uncovered Rosetta stone – Dating back to 196 BC, this stone was inscribed with a decree of the Ptolemy the Fifth, on three languages - Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script and Ancient Greek. Captured by the British in 1801, it is kept in the British Museum. On the 27 September of 1822, J-F. Champollion presented the decoding of the inscription to the French Academy. Thanks to the presence of a bilingual text on the Rosetta stone, it became possible to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. During the Hellenistic period, the Greek and Egyptian cultures merged. Greek was the official language of the court, and Egyptian hieroglyphs were used only by the Egyptian priests in a formal context. Demotic writing was used for everyday purposes. A trilingual decree is the epitome of a multicultural society. And although the stone is named after the place where it was found, it is not known in which temple the stele was originally located.1
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7.1. 2. Troy - Few archaeological sites are as hotly debated as Troy, the ancient city where, according to Homer's Iliad, the ruler of Troy, King Priam waged war with the Greeks over the kidnapped Helen. Helen was the wife of Menelaus, ruler of the Greek city of Sparta, but she fled with Paris, prince of Troy. Since Paris refused to return Elena, a war ensued that lasted 10 years. In another poem by Homer, The Odyssey, he talks about how Troy was destroyed. The Trojan War took place between a coalition of the Achaean tribes and the Trojans and is famous for the fact that the Achaeans (ancient Greeks) took Troy with the help of military cunning. The Greeks built a huge wooden horse and left it in front of the gates of Troy, while they themselves swam away. Hidden in the horse sat the warriors, and on the side of the horse was the inscription "This gift was left to the goddess Athena."
8. 6. In 1974, Chinese farmers unearthed one of the biggest archaeological finds of the 20th century — the terracotta army of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259 B.C. – 210 B.C.). The clay warriors, as well as their chariots and horses, were painstakingly carved and then buried near the emperor's tomb to defend him in the afterlife. Other terracotta figures, including acrobats and musicians, were also buried with the late ruler. Located underground near the city of Xi'an in China's Shaanxi province, this huge collection of ancient figures is situated less than a mile from the pyramid-shaped mausoleum of the first emperor.
9. 8. Located in the southeast Pacific, Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, is best known as the home of approximately 1,000 giant "head" statues, or moai. There are an estimated 900 moai on Rapa Nui, which were carved and erected sometime between the 11th and 17th centuries A.D. he figures, which consist of oversized heads atop long torsos, range in height from 6 feet (2 meters) to over 30 feet (9 m), though one unfinished moai on the island is over 65 feet (20 m) tall.The moai, and the ceremonial platforms (ahu) around which they typically stand, were built by a group of Eastern Polynesian settlers, who came to the island sometime around the first century A.D. The Rapa Nui people worshiped their ancestors and depended on these ancestral gods for protection and good fortune during life and the afterlife.
10. 10. Archaeologists from the University of Arizona have made the monumental discovery of a giant Maya plateau, possibly the largest and oldest Mayan monument discovery to date using LiDar. The monument, measuring almost 4600 feet long at a height of 30-50 feet is located at the recently discovered site of Aguada Fénix located in Tabasco, Mexico near the border to Guatemala.
