Not all incredible discoveries are made by trained scientists or adventurers like Indiana Jones. In fact, a lot of the most important archaeological discoveries are made completely by accident!
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5. Derinkuyu City
Cappadocia, a region in Turkey, is dotted with immense structures called “fairy chimneys.” They are made of a rock soft enough to carve and people have been carving living spaces into them for thousands of years. There are a number of known underground cities in Cappadocia, but the one located underneath Derinkuyu is among the most impressive. In 1963 a man was doing renovations on his home when he tore down a wall that led to a room, connected to a long passageway. That passageway was one of thousands in the Derinkuyu underground city. It is incredibly elaborate with 11 storeys, 15,000 airshafts, and enough room to house 20,000 people. The city features wine cellars, homes, stables, livestock pens, freshwater wells, and more. Even more impressive is the fact that they had an incredible defense system, being able to shut large stone doors to seal the city from the inside and seal each level off from one another in times of invasion. There have been absolutely no cave-ins in the city and it is still safe enough to house the archaeologists who are studying it. The mystery behind this find is...no one knows who built it!
4. Lascaux Caves
The story behind one of the most significant archaeological finds in history goes like this: In southwest France in the year 1940, four teenagers and a dog named Robot were out for a walk when Robot decided to chase a rabbit into a hole in the ground. The boys chased after their dog, thinking he had found a tunnel to buried treasure, which was somewhere around this area according to a local story. They found they were surrounded by vivid paintings of animals and decided to make some money by showing it their friends (if they bought a ticket). News travels fast and soon archaeologists were on the scene. They determined the paintings were authentic examples of cave art from the Paleolithic Period, about 17,000 years old. The cave has over 600 paintings and 1500 engravings, nearly all of them of extinct species of fauna and flora. Today, the cave is closed to visitors, who have inadvertently caused the deterioration of the paint literally just by breathing around them.
3. WWII Bomb
In 2013, construction workers in Belgrade were in for a surprise when they went to work at 11p.m. in the city center. While working on Budimska Street in downtown Belgrade, workers unearthed an amazingly unexploded bomb that had been buried 20 feet below the streets since 1941. It weighed over 1 ton and contained 1300 pounds of explosives. The bomb was safely excavated after the area was evacuated and was taken to a military base, where it was destroyed safely on February 5, 2016.
2. Roman Villa
A man living in Wiltshire, England was attempting to run electricity to a building in his backyard so his children could use it as a recreation room when the electricians running the cable declared they had found something. They had unearthed an elaborate mosaic tile, which turned out to be the bottom floor of an ancient Roman Villa, built around 175 AD. The villa was incredibly well-preserved and so intricate, it may have been the home of a Roman Emperor. It’s believed the villa was once three-storeys high. Among the finds here were oyster shells, suggesting they were specifically cultivated for the family, elite pottery, and the coffin of a Roman person which was being used as a flowerbed. The find is one of the most important of its kind in years, because the site has not been touched for nearly 1500 years, allowing scientists and archaeologists to study how the wealthiest 1% of Roman society lived in incredible detail.
1. Venus de Milo
You’ve almost certainly heard of and seen photos of this famous Greek statue, but what you might not have known is that she was discovered completely by accident. In 1820, a peasant by the name of Yorgos Kentrotas came across a cave covered in a slab of marble while he was searching for building blocks. Some people are up in arms over who actually made the discovery, with some crediting Yorgos Bottonis and his son Antonio. Whoever found it certainly wasn’t looking for it. The Venus de Milo has become one of the most iconic classical works of art, probably because very little is known about her. She is called Venus, but she very well may be a depiction of Aphrodite. She may not even be a goddess at all, but the lover of the sculptor, or someone else entirely. Her lack of arms has transformed her into a surrealist piece and left many questioning how her arms were broken off, but the rest of her remained undamaged.
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