Unsolved Mysteries of History: The Questions Your Teacher Couldn’t Answer

as the field of archaeology has advanced in the last couple of centuries we've learned a great deal about the history of the human race and along the way we've solved several Mysteries that are perplex Scholars for years we've uncovered tons of evidence regarding who built the pyramids and how they did it we recently figured out how the Romans made such durable concrete and much more but for all we've learned there are still several places of History whose Secrets continue to elude even the most dedicated researches today we're going to dive into four of the most

popular Unsolved Mysteries of History ones that despite our best efforts still don't seem to have a convincing answer sometime around the year 250 ad a civilization known as the meire began growing in Central America centered around the yakatan peninsula in the modern day nations of Mexico Guatemala and Biz the Maya grew rapidly with the development of many city states complex trade routes alliances and conflicts but there was a lot more to the m than just this they were responsible for creating Grand Step pyramids detailed sculpted monuments and art from Jade and obsidian perhaps most impressively

they were also excellent mathematicians and astronomers able to make calculations about celestial bodies with high accuracy and had a numbering system so Advanced that it even included a symbol for zero already placing them A Step Above most of their contemporaries around the world at the time however nearly all of this came to an end around the 9th century ad in an event known as the M collapse according to archaeological and scouted records it was around this time that in a span of about 50 years the entire civilization experienced a near complete political collapse a rapid

population Decline and the abandonment of nearly every major city this story can be seen through the decline of dated monuments as the M were well known to inscribe the year on many of the structures they erected the archaeological record shows that cities one after another stopped putting up dated structures as organized Society began to collapse and the last date was inscribed on a stone tablet in the year 9 n the mea didn't completely die out of course since we're still around a couple of hundred years later when corz arrived to conquer the azdc further north

and millions of their descendants are still alive today however they never came close to regaining the level of central organization and power that they' held at their Peak there have been over 80 different theories attempting to explain the collapse of the meire and there is no universally accepted Theory among Scholars so we'll go over the few that are the most likely the first is drought according to the drought Theory many consecutive years of poor rainfall caused a decline in agricultural fertility uprooting organized society as it became too difficult to feed a large population this easily

explains the abandonment of cities as people moved back into the countryside to hunt scavenge and fish for themselves in smaller more sustainable communities evidence for this theory is the finding that for a period of about 200 years coinciding with the collapse it seems that miso Amica experienced a warming period an analysis of geological layers from the time show that there was a decrease in rainfall in many of these years it sounds pretty comprehensive but critics of the theory point out that if there really was a devastating civilization ending decades long drought it's odd that the

Mayers seem to be the only ones affected while other civilizations to the north and to the South continued their business as usual or even flourish during this period of time agricultural collapse also could have been the culprits even without a drought despite having highly Advanced farming methods including the use of feces as fertilizer and man-made dams and reservoirs it's possible that the may could have expanded too quickly leading to Rapid soil erosion deforestation and the decline of biodiversity that took a toll on their food production there's also the disease Theory some have suggested that there

may have been an epidemic of tropical parasites such as the protoo and tri panaris or intestinal round worms like ascaris parasites like these can cause a number of symptoms but the most devastating of these would have likely been diarrhea which would have hampered Nutritional Health and hydration of people at a young age while simultaneous making them more susceptible to other illnesses or conditions and finally there's the war Theory there were certainly rival M states that regularly went to war with each other but a major war between them is not usually implicated as a cause for

the total societal collapse instead several researchers have proposed that it was a foreign Invasion that was responsible the toltech was a nearby civilization in Mexico that reached its peak right around the time of the M collapse and since there is already evidence that they raided and attacked a few places along the borders of the M it's a fair assumption that they may have led a large scale campaign into Mayan territory destroying and disrupting Society there to the point where it never recovered but at the end of the day we just don't know which of these

if any are true it could easily be a combination of some of them or something else that we've yet to discover on top of this there are even researchers who don't believe a collapse happened at all with one prominent scholar outright saying in my belief no such thing happen it seems this is one archaeological mystery that we just aren't going to solve anytime soon Alexander the Great is undoubtedly one of the most famous people in history tuted by Aristotle before inheriting the Macedonian Throne from his dad just age 20 he inherited a military campaign against

the Persians ultimately his incredible success on the battlefield would result in him ruling over one of the largest empires in history stretching from Greece to India though he would only rule over this vast territory briefly as in untimely death from malaria at age 32 would see the Empire had constructed Splinter and divide almost immediately after his passing legendary leaders such as Alexander are generally given the most elaborate of tombs and with his power and influence You' expect his arrival the melum of the first chin Emperor and its terra cotta army or perhaps the Taj Mahal

and its Timeless Beauty but actually we have no clue what his tomb looks like or where his body even is shortly before his death he requested that he be buried in the Temple of Zeus Ammon at the sea Oasis in Egypt as Alexander was widely perceived even by himself as a literal son of Zeus after his death his body was placed in an elaborate coffin of gold but complications arose before his funeral could even begin firstly his wish to be buried at the SE Oasis was outright ignored on the way back to Macedonia the funerary

Caravan carrying his coffin was hijacked by one of his generals Tommy the first who sent his body to Memphis Egypt where it was held on display for a few years then after consultation with an article a few years later it was moved to a more permanent melum in Alexandria where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage for believers in the toic cult of Alexander the Great who revered him as a God after this the details get a bit murky and it's mostly due to the Romans it's said that in 61 BC General pompe the great

stole Alexander's Jewel studded cloak and that a few years after this the tomb was visited and possibly looted by Caesar it's also alleged that clear Patra stole gold from the melum to finance her war against Octavian after which the tomb was visited by Augustus and then looted by Caligula who stole his breastplate in the year 199 ad the tomb was sealed to protect it 200 years after this John kotam asked to visit Alexander's resting place and wrote his tomb even his own people know not over the next few centuries descriptions of his tomb got less

and less clear with perhaps the last somewhat reputable mention coming from Leo the African in 1494 who described a small Chapel in the middle of the ruins of Alexandria but today we have absolutely no clue where this is the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities have financed nearly 150 official attempts to locate the tomb and they have all come up empty-handed there are theories and Scattered evidence that he is secretly the True Body in the Tomb of Philip II of Macedon in Greece or that he did end up actually being buried in Sea like he wanted

but there's no consensus and only circumstantial evidence at best for most theories what's unfortunate is that there's a good chance it's in the part of the ruins that are now underwater the Bronze Age was a period of History lasting from around 3,300 BC to around 1200 BC characterized by the widespread use of bronze for tools and weapons the post of child of the Bronze Age with the civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean along the coasts of today's Greece turkey Egypt and Cyprus here trade flourished cities were booming and War was regular all the things you would

expect to see in a historical record from a fairly populated region with lots of resources however sometime around the 12th century BC much of this suddenly collapsed in contrast to the m collapse we discussed showing the abandonment of cities and the declining population the late Bronze Age collapse was a notably violent and intense event in the 50 or so years between 1200 and 1150 BC the hiti Empire the New Kingdom of Egypt the meinian kingdoms in Greece and the cides of Babylon all suddenly and abruptly fell into a period of fragmentation chaos and destruction archaeological

records show dozens upon dozens of cities and settlements in the region that were leveled to the ground many of which were never occupied again population levels dropped reading and writing disappeared and trade routes had to start from scratch now it should be mentioned that initial estimates of the scale of this destruction which was originally cited as every city in the area have been found to be a bit exaggerated but it was still a really significant amount for example nearly every site on the coast of turkey shows a destruction layer corresponding to this time a layer

scen in sights in many other countries with many also showing evidence of burning the mystery here is what could have possibly caused all of these great Empires and trading kingdoms to suddenly crumble or enter a period of serious cultural upheaval and economic dysfunction we'll start with the ones that blame natural disasters the Heckler three volcanic eruption in Iceland has been dated by some to this time period and it is believed to have caused a volcanic winter that could have easily led to the events of the late Bronze Age collapse however this date is a bit

murky with other estimates putting the eruption closer to the year 900 BC long after the collapse of taken place and it's very possible that it wasn't as powerful as some think another explanation is a large drought which is almost always an explanation whenever an ancient Society collapses this drought could have not only harmed agriculture but also led to large- scale migration that disrupted and destabilized population centers leading to Civil Wars invasions you name it other researchers have also suggested that an early strain of the Bubonic plague could be responsible a hypothetical precursor to the Black

Death one interesting theory is that iron and the new weapons that accompanied its invention were ultimately responsible proponents of this Theory claimed that as iron working spread in popularity from present day Bulgaria and Romania small groups of Bulan Raiders or mercenaries armed with higher quality Spears and long swords could face off against the larger armies of the Mediterranean this would be especially true if said Warriors had developed techniques to counter Chariot Warfare which was heavily relied on in the Reg one historian posits that if numerous groups of fast attacking mercenaries like this prove that they

could easily cut down chariots people could begin to think that their army has no winning chance leading to deserting which would only make the raids more common and more deadly but most intriguing of all is the theory that the late Bronze Age collapse came as a result of the elusive sea people the sea people are mentioned in several historical texts including by Pho rames II and were known to be in the process of attacking the Mediterranean civilizations before and during dur the Bronze Age collapse for example one inscription reads they came boldly sailing in their

warships from the midst of the sea none being able to withstand them putting together these ideas many historians came to the conclusion that the societal collapse may have been caused by these large scale organized invasions from some mysterious people who likely originated from modern-day Libya and Morocco while some tribes associated with the sea people such as the Luca uh named in historical text many of their Origins are a complete mystery others interpret the sea people Theory as not only including these attacks but also the mass arrival of migrants traveling by boat presumably after some sort

of natural disaster as for who the sea people were and what part they played in the Bronze Age collapse if any is still very much unclear the most likely cobit is probably several of the possible causes acting together it doesn't seem very likely that a single one of them could bring down an entire civilization much less several at once but two or three of them hitting at the same time would certainly have disastrous [Music] effects for decades it was taught that human civilization began around 6,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent a region in the Middle

East encompassing parts of modern day Syria turkey and Jordan and then spread out from there however as we investigated more sites and as improved technology gave us access to more data we now know that there were several places on Earth where civilization arose independently we refer to these Beginnings as cradles of civilization and there are currently believed to be six cradles ranging from Mesopotamia to China to Central America and just as we were starting to nail down a timeline for the development of cities writing and organized Society one Discovery came along and threatened to shake

up everything we thought we knew about our own history this was gek tape a site in Southeastern turkey which was first discovered in the 1960s but whose true potential wasn't fully realized until the 21st century as of a report in 2021 Les Le than 5% of the site had been excavated and we've already uncovered some groundbreaking discoveries for starters kcle tee appears to be the oldest known human settlement on Earth with its earliest inhabitants possibly setting up camp as long ago as 9,600 BC nearly 12,000 years ago but it isn't just a collection of old

huts and tools kcle tape features numerous megaliths circular compounds and intricately carved pillars many of these pillars are decorated with detailed images of animals such as lons Bulls gazel ducks and snakes while other pillars seem to represent humanoid figures with arms and loin cloths carved onto them in fact a lionlike sculpture was found just outside the settlement in an area filled with flint and Limestone fragments perhaps indicating that the people here had specific areas designated as a sort of sculpting Workshop showing just how important it was to the people living there human bone fragments have

been located and thousands of tools have been recovered including many blades and projectile points which were either for arrows or Spears but all of this discovery has really led to more questions than answers for instance why were settlements of the scale coming together in Turkey 12,000 years ago or were they the first to develop sustainable agriculture or were they brought together by some ancient religion and speaking of religion what part does it play in the iconography of the site with no Wren language to even attempt to decipher we don't know much about the people who

built this place what's more is that we're actually quite lucky to have found it in the first place when it was inhabited the area area was wooded and filled with plants and animals but it was fairly easy to locate in the modern era as its visible Mounds now sit in the middle of an arid desert which is what caught the attention of its first excavators in the 1960s it makes you wonder what other sites from this time period or perhaps even earlier are hidden around the world in less fortunate environments perhaps very deep underground or

covered by thick vegetation holding the secrets to Humanity's distant past just waiting to be Unearthed [Music]