When the Victorian South Bridge was constructed across a precipitous valley in Edinburgh in the 1780s, enterprising townsfolk wasted no time in turning the 19 arches into storage and accommodation. Over the ensuing years, they allowed the arches to become dirty and congested, and later they filled them in with rubble, until ex-internationalist Scottish rugby star Norrie Rowan rediscovered a tunnel leading from the cellar of his Edinburgh pub in the 1980s.
Uluburun Shipwreck, Bay of Antalya, Turkey
When sponge diver Mehmet Akir came across peculiar disks of metal (referred to as "metal biscuits with ears") off the coast of Turkey in 1982, he had no doubt they were ancient and called in archaeologists. Subsequent underwater work uncovered the remnants of a ship that sank in the 14th century BC. The long submersion had rendered the cedar hull largely absent.
Uluburun Shipwreck, Bay of Antalya, Turkey
A decade of investigations confirmed that the vessel was a merchant ship, with her cargo of ceramic jars and bronze ingots still in place and "besides the so-called spectacular items such as hippopotamus' and elephant tusks, jewellery, and some other bronze objects," he said. "The most spectacular one among the artifacts was a gold scarab bearing the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti."
Lascaux Cave, Montignac, France
The man who discovered the cave was not even human! - Well, according to some records, a dog detected a hole in the ground in September 1940. 18-year-old dog owner Marcel Ravidat and three of his friends immediately jumped on the hole, believing to have discovered a way to gain access to a former local manor house.
Lascaux Cave, Montignac, France
A local teacher enlisted specialists to attest to the truth of the ancient work. The authorities opened the cave to the public in 1948, but it soon became apparent that the quality of the air inside the cave was deteriorating and posing a risk to the paintings. The authorities closed the cave in 1963 and now it is very difficult to get to, although builders constructed a copy of the cave just down the road. This amateur enterprise continues—an amateur archaeologist recently used the facsimile to conjecture that Lascaux and other European cave paintings were the earliest surviving lunar calendar, recording the reproductive cycles of animals.
Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran Caves, West Bank
In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd trying to find his lost sheep, pitched a rock into a nearby cave and heard the jar break. Curious, he ventured inside to find jars filled with ancient papyrus scrolls dating from 3rd century BC to 1st century AD. He happily discovered his treasure and sold them for a total of seven Jordanian pounds (which would be roughly $340 today) to an antique dealer in Bethlehem. A few years later, those jars would change hands for a cool $250,000.
Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran Caves, West Bank
Later excavations in the Qumran Caves uncovered nearly 1,000 separate scrolls penned by a (now extinct) Jewish group known as the Essenes, which believed in mystic ideas. The scrolls include some of the earliest known fragments of the Bible. Collectively, the scrolls shed light on the birth of Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity. Since the Qumran Caves are situated in the West Bank, which is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Jordan Museum in Amman now divide the scrolls.
Serdica Amphitheatre, Sofia, Bulgaria
As hordes of tourists poured into the Bulgarian capital, engineers started excavating the foundations for a new luxury hotel in 2004. Then they hit a snag when they found thick walls buried under the earth. Archaeologists uncovered the lost amphitheatre of the Roman town of Serdica exactly where they believed it had been built to amuse Roman inhabitants almost 1,800 years ago.
Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England, UK
Following the death of her husband, a correspondence was set about by Edith Pretty in strange mounds on the land attached to her large home. Self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown was brought in, and an excavation was commenced in 1938. When the largest of the barrows was carefully begun and the soil was carefully removed, disbelief was found – a tomb buried within a massive ship was discovered. Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons dating from the 7th century were scattered across the site.
Terracotta Army, Xi'an, China
Farmer Yang Zhifa and his brothers had begun digging a well for their village in 1974 when, instead of water, they found odd bits of clay soldiers. Archaeologists rushed into the scene and unearthed an entire terracotta army of over 8,000 soldiers, 670 horses, and 130 chariots. Yang received a reward, but he and his fellow villagers - for whom he had just been digging a well - were moved to another village so work could continue.
FAQ's
1. What was the Rosetta Stone and how was it found?
Unearthed in 1799 by French soldiers rebuilding a fort in Egypt, this stone slab was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs because it bore the same text in three different scripts.
2. How was the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery made?
In 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd threw a rock into a cave near the Dead Sea looking for a lost goat, heard pottery shattering, and discovered ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts inside clay jars.
3. Was the Terracotta Army found by accident?
Yes, in 1974, local farmers in China were digging a water well near Xi'an when they struck fragments of terracotta pottery, leading to the excavation of thousands of life-sized imperial soldier statues.
4. How was Pompeii rediscovered?
Pompeii was accidentally found in 1599 during the digging of an underground channel to divert the River Sarno, though systematic excavations did not truly begin until decades later in 1748.
5. Who discovered the Lascaux Cave paintings?
In 1940, a teenager named Marcel Ravidat dropped his tennis ball down a hole in a French hill; when he returned with friends to explore, they found the cave walls covered in prehistoric animal art.
