Top 10 Greatest Archaeological Discoveries Ever
#10: Tutankhamun’s Tomb
The Valley of the Kings is the final resting place of many Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, but throughout its history, a number of tombs have fallen victim to grave robbers. Tutankhamun’s tomb was different; remarkably, though grave robbers did break in shortly after it was initially sealed up, most of its contents were intact when archaeologists found it in 1922. Today, Tutankhamun’s gilded mask makes him arguably the most famous and recognizable Pharaoh in history. Considering Tutankhamun only reigned for about ten years and died between the young ages of 18-19, that’s quite the legacy. Along with the mask, the tomb also contained a statue of Anubis, the God of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, and a dagger made from a fallen meteor.
#9: Antikythera Mechanism
This mysterious object was found submerged in Grecian waters at the turn of the 20th century, located inside an ancient shipwreck. The strange device was already 2000 years old when it was found, and despite being eroded by the sea for all that time, it was still eventually identified as the world’s oldest computer. Finally, another century after its discovery, and we now know definitively what it did: it was a device used to chart the positions of celestial bodies so that the Ancient Greeks knew when eclipses would happen. It took a 3D reconstruction of the entire device in 2021 to get a better understanding of how it worked, though its purpose was suspected for decades.
#8: Lascaux
In 1940, a young man stumbled across the entrance to a 17,000-year-old cave system in the south of France – all thanks to his dog. Lascaux Cave was quickly excavated and was found to contain hundreds of cave paintings depicting the fauna that lived in rural France thousands of years ago. It was one of the most incredible collections of cave paintings ever unearthed, but not the only one. In neighboring Spain, the Cave of Altamira was found between the late 1870s and early 1880s and boasted cave paintings even older than the ones in Lascaux, with some dating back to 36,000 years. Both Lascaux and Altamira are major UNESCO sites in France and Spain respectively.
#7: Lucy
When this skeleton was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, it completely changed everything we thought we knew about human evolution. The skeleton was dubbed “Lucy” because the team of scientists who found it happened to be listening to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” during the excavation. Despite this conventional name, Lucy was part of a newly described species at the time, “Australopithecus afarensis” (affa-REN-sis), and was over 3.2 million years old. The significance of the discovery has made Lucy an important part of modern Ethiopian culture. Fifty years earlier, another fossil from a closely related species, “Australopithecus africanus”, was found in South Africa – a skull dubbed the “Taung Child” (tawng).
#6: Troy
For centuries, historians debated not only whether the Trojan War actually happened, but also whether the lost city of Troy ever existed at all. The Trojan War is the focus of one of Ancient Greek’s most famous epic poems, Homer’s “Iliad”, and legendary Greek heroes like Achilles and Odysseus fought in it – but Troy’s location became lost knowledge. Throughout the 1800s, many researchers argued that Hisarlik (hih-SARR-lik), a site in western Turkey, was probably the elusive city. Finally, after decades of debate, experts came to a consensus that yes, Hisarlik is in all likelihood Troy. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to find conclusive evidence that the Trojan horse existed – but Troy’s identification was hugely important for historians.
#5: Sutton Hoo
One of the most remarkable Medieval graves anywhere in Europe was excavated in England in 1939. The owner of an estate in Suffolk, Edith Pretty, enlisted some archaeologists to find out what was underneath the burial mounds on her property. What they uncovered was astounding, so much so that the story inspired a 2021 film, “The Dig”.The most promising mound contained an entire long ship and innumerable artifacts, including pieces of armor made of gold and other Anglo-Saxon relics. Though it’s one of the UK’s most impressive archaeological discoveries, it’s still not entirely clear whose grave it actually is. Most evidence suggests it was the final resting place of a famous, East Anglian King, Rædwald (red/rad), who ruled the region around 1400 years ago.
#4: The Terracotta Army
This is one of the most significant archaeological finds of all time… and it was discovered completely by accident! The Terracotta Army was first uncovered in the Shaanxi (shawn-SHEE/CHEE) province of Western China by a group of farmers in the 1970s. The army resides within a tomb constructed over 2200 years ago as the resting place of Qin Shi Huang (chin sheux H’WONG), the First Emperor of China, which is why it’s so elaborate. In the parts we’ve been able to excavate, there are over 8000 soldiers made out of clay, there to guard Emperor Qin in the afterlife. But even more astonishing is the fact that the entire necropolis is believed to be almost 40 square miles in size, with most of the site hidden in vaults that aren’t yet accessible.
#3: The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Sea Scrolls
Written mostly in Hebrew, the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Sea Scrolls are some of the oldest Abrahamic (ay-bruh-HAMMICK) religious texts in existence. They were discovered in a cave in the West Bank in the mid-1940s, but in the decades since, we’ve continually found more and more scrolls ready to be translated in a handful of additional caves. The scrolls are so significant because they’ve allowed historians and theologians to chart the development of the Bible much more accurately, and provided new information about the dawn of Christianity thousands of years ago, as well as the history of Judaism and the Holy Land. They’re unquantifiably important and still have a lot to teach us.
#2: The Rosetta Stone
For centuries, archaeologists had absolutely no idea how to decipher Ancient Egypt’s complex hieroglyphics. Without a starting point, they were unable to understand the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments and artifacts. But that all changed with the discovery of the long-lost Rosetta Stone in 1799, an enormous slab of stone inscribed with everything needed to start translating. The text it contained wasn’t actually all that interesting, but the same pᴀssage was written three times in different languages, and one of those languages was Ancient Greek. By using the Greek, which is still widely understood by researchers, we were able to decipher the hieroglyphs and unlock the secrets of Ancient Egyptian writing.
Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few Honorable Mentions:
Ötzi the Iceman
In 1991, Ötzi’s Body Was Found Naturally Mummified in the Alps 5300 Years After He Died
The Library of Ashurbanipal (aw-shure-BONNY-paul)
These Clay Tablets Were Found in the ‘50s & Contain the Oldest Extant Work of Literature (EX-t’nt)
Knossos (NAW-sis)
This Palace Is Over 3000 Years Old & Was the Hub of Crete’s Ancient Minoan Civilization
Richard III’s Grave
A Parking Lot in England Was Found to be the Final Resting Place of Richard III in 2012
The Madaba Map (mah-DAH-bah)
The Oldest Surviving Map of the Holy Land, This Floor Mosaic Was Excavated in the 1880s
#1: Pompeii
Among the most famous ruins in the world, Pompeii was destroyed by a devastating eruption from Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. The village was left forgotten until the 16th century, over 1500 years later, because it had been completely buried underneath volcanic ash. But that ash kept Pompeii largely intact when it was finally excavated, with people frozen in place where they’d died during the disaster. Today, it’s one of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions and a tremendous source of Roman history. As tragic as this story is, Pompeii has taught us more about Roman life than many other ancient archaeology sites anywhere in the world.
