5 Ancient Mysteries We Still Haven't Solved

Today, in side projects, we're going to profile five old

mysteries

that we've

solved

and

solved

and if you enjoy a good mystery, especially a good murder mystery, then I think you might want to check out my new podcast, The Casual Criminologist, which covers some of the darkest themes. things we could find in crime history, from the UK doctor who was the worst serial killer in history to the time an American socialite supposedly murdered her best friend with her car and supposedly got away with it and much, much more, but it's also quite relaxed, it's a little more free-form, there were occasional laughs because it's not death, funny weekly shows wherever you get your podcasts, also on YouTube, recently, there are links below and let's get into the video history, gives us context and helps us. understand how we got to where we are today or why a historical event occurred the way it did.

Such small changes here or there could have resulted in wildly different results, of course, that only really works if we know what really happened. Unfortunately, there are many historical events. where records that could tell us exactly what happened disappeared or were lost to history is a real concern, which is partly why universities have such huge libraries with tons of obscure documents to catalog everything so we don't lose anything again. Of course, anything that was lost before being cataloged is basically unrecoverable, yet that doesn't stop historians and archaeologists from trying, and since the industrial revolution there has been a concerted effort to plug the gaps in the historical record as best we can. with that.

In mind we have five

ancient

mysteries

that we have not yet fully solved and without further ado let's get into them. The first mystery in today's video is not a strange event or a lost city but a person about whom the only thing. What we know with absolute certainty is that Zoroaster also known as Zarathustra was a man who lived in what is now eastern Iran born to nomadic parents supposedly became a priest when he was young before having a divine revelation at the age of 30 years. We won't bore you with extensive theological details here, but what he learned from this revelation would eventually become the basis of the religion known as Zoroastrianism, famously practiced by the

ancient

Persians and the not-so-ancient Freddie Mercury, but it's not just about empires. powerful and world-famous musicians who illustrate the reach of Zoroaster, tenants of Zoroastrianism, are believed by some historians to have influenced other religions, including the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Incredibly, Zoroastrianism is

still

practiced in parts of Iran and India today, making it one of the oldest contiguous religions in the world. the earth, so Zoroaster and his theological ideas were really important historically, so what else do we know about him? The answer is, well, not much, although we have a decent picture of Zoroaster's religious ideas, the man himself is almost as legendary as the gods he spoke of, historians don't know exactly where he was born or even when. The most orthodox historical conclusion is that Zoroaster lived at approximately the same time as Cyrus, the great founder of the first Persian empire which would place his life around the 19th century. 7th century BC C., but Cyrus also has some historical blanks, as seen in this era, history as a profession was less about real facts and information than about telling a good story, hence the Persian empire is often seen as despotic and tyrannical despite in reality, as the technical term is quite cold, the bad reputation we have of the Persian empire comes largely from Herodotus, a Greek historian who despite being called the father of history included many obvious legends in his historical writings, which means that you cannot take the source solely at his word and you have to split your hair to discover what is real and what is not as such, with both Cyrus and Zoroaster it is difficult to untangle the legend that surrounds these two with the actual historical fact, which is a trend you will notice. a lot if you study ancient history, for example, here is a drawing of cyrus the great with wings with that in mind, some scholars think that zoroaster could have lived as early as the 6th millennium bce.

C., that's a serious assumption, but it really is for the best. we can do it with the information we have available, if we want to know more we will probably have to go to Iran to get it and we probably won't, the next entry in this video is one that if I have seen any history channels on YouTube with which we probably you are quite familiar. It is the late collapse of the Bronze Age. Now we won't spend much time on this one because there are a billion videos on the Bronze Age collapse that go into far more detail than we could in a couple of paragraphs, so with that in mind we'll just give you the notes version off the cliff and then maybe you want to go read or look at the bronze age applause somewhere else, why would you want to do it right?

Probably because it's one of the biggest mysteries in history, so here's the deal in 1200 BC. C. there were several huge empires in the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, you may recognize the names of some of them, the Hittites, the Babylonians, the Mycenaean Greeks, etc., these empires were large and powerful fifty years later they disappeared, according to archaeological evidence, almost all major cities in the eastern Mediterranean were violently destroyed, many of them were never occupied again, so what happened to them? The most powerful states on the planet do not know. We know well when we say we don't know what we really mean is that we don't know for sure that progress has since been made in research into the Bronze Age collapse and historians have settled for now on something known as collapse theory. of the systems, basically everything just stopped working all at the same time, it would be like if the Internet went off, then the TV and then all the Starbucks closed down and that causes the world to collapse overnight, especially the Starbucks thing , there were probably famines, natural disasters, a shortage of tin, being a necessary component of bronze, making it a vital resource to learn about the Bronze Age.

In addition to this, there is a great deal of evidence for a group of people who historians refer to rather blandly as the Sea Peoples. Much information about them is

still

shrouded in mystery, but this is what we know for sure: first, there was an ethnically diverse confederation of peoples originating from the Western Mediterranean, second, they migrated by sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, either to find wealth or to escape hardships in their original homes and, third, they were very good at winning wars. It is not known for certain how much impact they had, but there is historical precedent of armies of unified groups conquering vast stretches of territory and annihilating entire cities thinking of you, Genghis Khan and speaking well of Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan is remembered as the greatest in history. Conqueror, he unified the various nomadic tribes of Mongolia into a unified force of unrivaled warriors and then led them on a military campaign across the Eurasian continent, conquering the passes of Central Asia, northern China and northern Persia, his successors would continue His conquests creating the largest land empire in history and conquering lands in Russia, the rest of China, and the Middle East, Genghis's descendants would create their own empires, including Timur and Babu, who founded the Timurid Mughal empires, respectively, no one is immortal, at least not yet, I'm still waiting for the scientists.

Come on, and as such, Genghis Khan died in August of the year 1227, we don't know exactly how he died, it could have been an illness, hunting injuries, killed in battle or he simply passed away peacefully in his sleep. His body was taken back to Mongolia where a giant mausoleum was built as his tomb becoming a place of reverence for Mongols everywhere a fitting resting place for the great khan (it might at least have been if it was there where he really was). He was buried because this mausoleum is not actually the resting place of Genghis Khan, it is a monument but it is not a tomb, so where was Genghis Khan buried?

I just have no idea. Genghis Khan requested that his body be buried silently without marks or signs, as you do not disobey the great Khan, even when he is dead, he could still catch you. exactly what was done, his body was returned to mongolia after his death and the best assumption we can make from there is that he was returned to kenti in the east of the country where he was born and where he is buried somewhere near Oman. river and that's really the best we can do without turning over every square foot of land in mongolia looking for the guy according to legend. 2000 people attended his funeral, who were then killed by one of his armies, who were then killed by his escort, who then killed everyone they encountered along the way and who then committed suicide when all was said and done now in terms of historical authenticity, that's probably probably not what really happened, but we get the gist that Genghis wanted his body hidden from the world after he was dead, which is a strangely humbling ending for a man who wrote to himself in history with as much blood and conquest as the place where he is buried, we can only speculate about his intentions since about a millennium ago, we reach the Roman Empire, Rome is the time. period in which history begins to be less confusing there is no winged cirus, the great ones to separate or anything like that there were still legends, but at least compared to ancient history it is relatively easy to separate them from historical facts, but the Roman history still has its breaks, one of the most surprising is the final fate of the Ninth Legion.

The story of the ninth begins with Julius Caesar, who inherited the legion when he became governor of Gaul from Caesarea. Present-day northern Italy, Caesar led the legion during the Gaelic Wars in the Roman Civil War after Caesar. he won that civil war, disbanded the legion and settled the veterans in the Italian countryside. These veterans were later called upon by Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, to fight in another civil war and make him the emperor we know today as Augustus. The legion spent some time hovering among them. spain germany macedonia everywhere really before it was finally stationed on the island of great britain the legion was present during the bodica rebellion in 61 AD. where he suffered a disastrous defeat against her then the legion was reinforced but the streak of bad luck continued when in the year 82 AD, the Roman general Agricula had them invade Caledonia, a mythical and legendary place of wonder and magic known today by the name from Scotland.

Long story short, the Caledonians nearly destroyed the legion in a surprise night attack, but the men repulsed them and later. won a resounding victory at the Battle of Mons Grappy with another victory under their belt, the men of the 9 returned to Roman territory where they quickly disappeared from the historical record and that's it, we have no idea what happened to them after the agricultural invasion there . There is a stone tablet that says the 9th were present at York rebuilding a fort in 108. After that they are simply not mentioned again, there are inscriptions of them later found in the Netherlands, but some scholars They maintain that they were just detachments of the 9th Legion rather than the entire Legion itself, so what happened to them, most dramatically, was that the 9th marched once more towards the Caledonian border, where it was never heard from again.

This theory of annihilation in northern Britain was thought to be supported. for the discovery of a damaged Roman eagle sculpture in the town of Solchester that was believed to possibly be the 9th Legion's eagle banner, unfortunately we have to do our due diligence and let viewers know that some archaeologists think this eagle it's just scrap metal and has nothing to do with the ninth legion stupid historians who take the fun out of absolutely everything other theories about what happened to the knights include the destruction in judea during the second jewish revolt against the romans 132-135, while another offers that the ninth was destroyed by the parthians during the reign of marx aurelius, but these theories are not airtight and there is a lack of evidence that the ninth was even in the eastern part of the empire during these two time periods, Whatever the case, we know for certain that around the century AD 200, the 9th Legion did not exist as it is not included in two independent but identical lists of the 33 legions existing in thatera, so, at least for now, what ultimately happened to the 9th Legion is simply lost to history, as such a sick historian points out. state it, more evidence is needed before more can be said our last entry in today's video takes us to south america to the country of peru in 1553 a spanish conquistador published a book describing a set of trail markers in the south of Peru at the top of an arid area. plateau in the nazca desert, although they were visible from the nearby hills, it was not until the 20th century that airplane pilots flew over them and people realized that they were much more than just trail markers, the nazca lines are a group of enormous geoglyphs created somewhere between 500 BC.

C. and 500 AD. C., that's a wide range, but given the lack of written records about Andean cultures, our best guess is that the vast majority of the lines are simple geometric shapes, but many of the glyphs represent various plant and animal designs. Aesthetically pleasing on their own, but what's even more impressive with these designs is how they were created and how they did it will amaze you. They were created by simply drawing lines in the sand and exposing different colored sand underneath, and I know what you're thinking Simon, that's dumb, what's the problem with these lines of sand and the viewer in the first place?

You're dumb. , just kidding, we love you, especially since you thought this far in a second of video. The absolutely amazing thing about these lines is that, although they are nothing more than drawings on the ground, they have existed for over a thousand years. To say the least, that's crazy, and that's crazy because there are hardly any buildings that last that long. The second secret behind the preservation is the incredibly stable climate of the plateau on which they are located. There is no wind, no rain, no natural erosion. Walking here is like walking. On the moon your footprints will be there basically forever;

In fact, if you want to visit the Nazca Lines in person, the guides will ask you to put on special shoes to make sure you don't mess up the delicate terrain like we said before. Some of these inscriptions are absolutely huge, many of them made from one continuous line and the largest is around 370 meters long, what that means is that they weren't created by some bored guy with nothing better to do, probably I mean, stranger things have happened. The creation of these lines was most likely an organized effort by a large group of people using a lot of mathematics, which begs the question of why they did it, why they created these glyphs, and why they made them so big that no one knew. where.

They were until the invention of the airplane and look, you know the drill, we just don't know for sure in general, this is a very disappointing video for people who want answers, but then why did you click on this video? Generally, academics believe. that there is a religious meaning behind the Nazca lines beyond that vague statement; However, there is really no way to know due to the aforementioned lack of written records; Some have hypothesized that they were created to be seen by deities in the sky, others believe that astronomy and constellations may have played a role that considering the existence of the Mayans would not be implausible, others have postulated that they may even have served as a kind of calendar for agricultural purposes.

There are several more outlandish theories and explanations about the Nazca lines, but honestly they are It's really cool to see, I mean look at this hummingbird, it's pretty impressive, so there you have it, five ancient mysteries that we

haven

't been able to solve yet, although without No doubt some of them, like the Nazca lines, will remain mysteries for the foreseeable future. Historians are working on this. There has been an incredible amount of progress in the last 20 years regarding events like the collapse of the Bronze Age. Even as we speak, historians are certainly making progress and piecing together the story of how we got here and perhaps very soon this list will have to be updated until then thanks for watching remember to like comment subscribe like this spoke zoroaster you