10 Mysteries of the Ancient World
At the current rate of discovery, there will soon be no mysteries left to solve, leaving all manner of scientists unemployed. Just kidding, the wacky minds of past civilizations have left us plenty of work, sometimes inconsequential but always enlightening.
10 Egyptian Animals
The ancient Egyptians were keen naturalists and tedious archivists, allowing modern researchers to piece together the region’s ecology as it flourished 6,000 years ago.
Animal iconography was a common motif, and the assortment of local beasts was preserved through a variety of media, including carvings, rock art, ceremonial pieces, and murals on tomb walls. Combined, these sources provide a thorough record of Egyptian fauna and a depressing reminder that of the 37 large mammal species that once roamed the Earth, only eight remain.
Instead, they found evidence for numerous past flooding events, which regularly occurred before Cahokia was founded. The floods took a hiatus and then returned with a vengeance around the time that the population declined. Therefore, the city’s great riparian lifeline, which ensured its existence, guaranteed its downfall as well.
8 Mysterious Cave Mural
Archaeologists working at a Neolithic hot spot near the Turkish city of Konya were baffled by a cave mural depicting what appears to be an extensive collection of Etch A Sketches enshrined beneath a leopard-skin rug.
Initially discovered during previous excavations in the 1960s, researchers had not been able to agree on the interpretation of the mural. Some considered it the world’s oldest map, showing the ancient community at Catalhoyuk during its apogee around 9,000 years ago. Others chalked it up to crazy, prehistoric abstractions—unknowable themes dreamed up by artists who are long gone.
Researchers now believe they’ve cracked the conundrum: The mural records a past volcanic eruption. The cells represent the settlement viewed from above, the odd spotted object is nearby Mount Hassan, and the formerly unintelligible lines branching therefrom are flows of magma and pillars of smoke.
Supporting that hypothesis, the mound pictured in the mural has two humps of similar size like those on Mount Hassan, which are known as Small and Big Mount Hassan. Furthermore, pieces of pumice (ejected volcanic rocks) found within the area suggest that an eruption occurred about 8,900 years ago when Catalhoyuk was thriving.
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