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Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries People Found By Accident

Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries People Found By Accident
VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
These lucky finds changed the course of history. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most significant archeological discoveries that were uncovered inadvertently. Our countdown of the archeological discoveries people found by accident includes The Uluburun Shipwreck, The Venus de Milo, The Terracotta Army, and more!

#10: Ötzi

Imagine going for a lovely mountain hike when you stumble across a 5,000 year old body. Well, that’s what happened to tourists Helmut and Erika Simon, who were walking the Ötztal Alps on September 19, 1991. The German tourists happened upon a mummified body that was frozen in the ice. They believed the death was recent and notified the locals, who sent up a team to extract the remains. The body was salvaged and taken away for tests, which proved that it was not recent at all - the man had died some time around 3200 BCE! Ötzi is now regarded as the oldest natural human mummy in European history and has been deeply studied for information about the Copper Age.

#9: The Lyceum

Few locations in classical Greece were as important as the Lyceum. This temple housed Aristotle’s Peripatetic school, in which he and his members discussed philosophy and science. It was basically an early university, well before the concept of universities became commonplace. The school was founded by the famous polymath in 334 BCE, and lasted until 86 BCE, when the Roman general Sulla destroyed it in the Siege of Athens. The ruins were considered lost until 1996, when construction began on the city’s Museum of Modern Art. Excavations unearthed the remains of the Lyceum, and plans were immediately made to conserve the area and relocate the museum.

#8: The Uluburun Shipwreck

Off the coast of Turkey, in the Bay of Antalya, lies a magnificent shipwreck dating to the Late Bronze Age. And its discovery is thanks to a local sponge diver. Mehmet Çakir was diving for sponges in 1982 when he came across the wreck and then sketched his findings. These sketches attracted the attention of Oğuz Alpözen, the Director of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, who sent a team to investigate Çakir’s findings. They discovered an ancient boat dating to the late 14th century BCE that was carrying a number of trade items. These included weapons and gold, proving the wreck’s significance as an important piece of Bronze Age history.

#7: The Edinburgh Vaults

Back in 1788, Edinburgh completed its South Bridge, which connects Nicolson Street with the High Street, passing over a steep valley in the ancient city. The bridge contains nineteen arches, and in these arches are the Edinburgh Vaults. These vaults have been used for a variety of purposes. They were first used by tradesmen before eventually becoming dens for illicit and illegal activity. Rubble was eventually used to seal the vaults during the 19th century. They remained closed for about a hundred years before Scottish rugby player Norrie Rowan found a tunnel that led into their depths. He and his son personally excavated the tunnels, and they are now a popular destination for ghost tours.

#6: Derinkuyu

There you are, renovating your home and minding your own business when you remove a wall and find a secret room. Curious, you decide to explore and venture forth, discovering that this secret room is actually part of an entire underground city. It sounds like a dream or a movie, but it wasn’t. A Turkish man was renovating his house in 1963 when this scenario occurred, leading to the unearthing of the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu. Extending about 300 feet into the Earth, Derinkuyu consists of a series of tunnels dating back to the Byzantine Empire. These tunnels were reportedly made by local citizens to hide from invading armies during wars. They were used throughout history to escape persecution, before they were finally abandoned.

#5: The Venus de Milo

One of humanity’s most famous sculptures, the Venus de Milo has been housed in the Louvre since 1821. Standing six feet seven inches tall, the statue is known for its slight lean and for missing both of its arms. Believe it or not, this was not intended by the sculptor. Rather, this is how the statue was found in 1820. The Venus de Milo was discovered by a Greek farmer and a French sailor named Olivier Voutier on the island of Milos. It was then purchased by Louis XVIII of France and installed in the Louvre, later becoming a world-renowned piece of art. Interestingly, it wasn’t only the sculpture’s quality that made it famous, but an intense marketing campaign.

#4: The Dead Sea Scrolls

Often considered the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls were essentially just sitting in a cave for over a thousand years. Then a group of three Bedouin shepherds were walking in the Judaean Desert when a man named Muhammed edh-Dhib literally fell into the history books. He had stumbled into a cave, and it was there that he uncovered the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls buried in some jars. Originally thought to be worthless, the scrolls are now considered supremely valuable artifacts of religious and linguistic history. Dated to between the 3rd century BCE and 1st century CE, they mostly consist of ancient manuscripts, including ones that were never canonized in the Old Testament.

#3: The Rosetta Stone

We can thank a French army officer named Pierre-François Bouchard for allowing us to translate Ancient Egyptian script. It was July of 1799, and Bouchard was in Egypt fighting on behalf of Napoleon. During the campaign, he was ordered to rebuild Fort Julien, an old Ottoman fortification built in the 15th century. While sifting through the rubble, Bouchard stumbled upon the Rosetta Stone, which had been used in the fort’s construction as a building material. He immediately pegged the find as being significant, and he was so right. Created back in 196 BCE, the stone is an old decree written in both Egyptian and Greek, and the bilingual text allowed researchers to finally decipher the Ancient Egyptian writing system.

#2: The Lascaux Cave

When you think of prehistoric cave drawings, you probably imagine the ones in Lascaux. The famous cave is covered in over 600 beautiful paintings, most of which are stylized depictions of animals. The cave is found near the French village of Montignac-Lascaux, and the paintings are believed to be 17,000 years old! And this incredible find was made in 1940 by a local teenager walking his dog. 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat was going for a stroll when his canine buddy found a hole in the ground. Ravidat later returned with his friends to investigate the hole, finding the cave and its now-legendary paintings. However, it was open just 23 years before getting re-sealed in 1963 to protect the paintings.

#1: The Terracotta Army

Protecting their emperor in the afterlife are 8,000 clay soldiers known as the Terracotta Army. These soldiers protect the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who served as the first emperor of China between 221 and 210 BCE. Serving as a highly elaborate form of funerary art, the Terracotta Army was literally unearthed in 1974 by a small group of local farmers. They were digging a fifty-foot well in Lintong County, China when farmer Yang Zhifa dug up the head of a terracotta figure. He notified the proper authorities and a team of archaeologists were sent out to investigate. The rest, they say, is history.

What would you do if you literally stumbled upon an ancient site? Let us know in the comments!

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