Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries Ruined by Morons

In 2013, a Chinese microblogger named Shen was on vacation in Egypt when he came across a vandalized engraving at the Luxor Temple, which was constructed around 1400 BC. Someone had etched the words “Ding Jinhao was here” in Chinese characters on the ancient structure. Shen took a picture of the defacement and shared it on the Chinese blogging website, Weibo. It didn’t take long for online sleuths to trace the name to a 15-year-old schoolboy. Apparently, he had written those words years earlier, during a trip to Egypt with his parents. The boy’s parents publicly apologized on Weibo, stating that Ding was remorseful. In response, China’s Foreign Minister implored citizens to act responsibly abroad, to avoid similar embarrassments.

Offa’s Dyke is an ancient earthwork, dating back to the 8th century, that runs along the border of England and Wales. It was undisturbed for over 1,200 years until 2013, when a large stretch of it was completely flattened. Roughly 148 feet of the Dyke was destroyed by a local landowner, to build a stable. Experts described it as like “driving a road through Stonehenge”. Surprisingly, the perpetrator walked away with a little more than a slap on the wrist. His defense was that he didn’t know the Dyke existed, despite living there his entire life. While that may make little sense, archaeologists worry that such actions set a bad precedent for the protection of historic sites.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada is home to ancient artwork, considered sacred by Native American tribes from the area. In 2010, a 20-year-old paintballer and full-blown moron vandalized a series of petroglyphs, images that have been engraved into rocks for centuries, by shooting at them with a gun. Experts compared it to “having a paintball fight in the Sistine Chapel”. Paint was splattered across the ancient paintings, and the culprit was eventually punished for this abhorrent crime. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, fined nearly $10,000, and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service, which was quite lenient, considering the fines could have reached $100,000.

In 2007, workers building an IKEA in Nanjing, China, demolished about 10 ancient tombs, which were roughly 1,800 years old. Archaeologists believed these tombs belonged to wealthy families of that era, but we’ll never know for certain, as they were lost to make way for the Swedish furniture store. You’d think this incident would serve as a cautionary tale and urge greater efforts to protect such sites. Unfortunately, history repeated itself in 2013, when more tombs, dating back 3,000 years, were destroyed in Guangzhou, to build a metro line. These tombs were still actively being studied, at least, until they were sacrificed for modern transit.

The Elgin Marbles are ancient Greek sculptures that were crafted during the 5th century BC. In the early 19th century, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed these sculptures and took them to the British Museum in London. Despite Greece’s repeated requests for their return, Britain refused. Adding to the controversy, the British severely disfigured the marbles. In an attempt to polish them and restore their original color, the museum scraped away intricate details, causing irreparable damage to them. Although the museum eventually admitted its mistake, they deflected some blame to the Greeks, claiming that the sculptures were improperly cleaned before the British even took them.





#5: Mayan Pyramid

This is yet another story from 2013, which seems to have been a particularly bad year for archaeology. In Belize, a Mayan Pyramid which stood for more than 2,300 years, was demolished by bulldozers. Nothing could be salvaged from the ruins, as the structure was almost completely decimated. Shockingly, this was done so that a construction crew could get limestone rocks, which they needed to build a road. The incident was baffling to archaeologists, who believed that the construction company was well aware that it was a historical site, considering the structure was about 100 feet tall, and very clearly a pyramid. The act was not only senseless, but also deeply disrespectful to the rich history it erased.

In 2020, a cave in Australia which was inhabited for at least 46,000 years, was blown up by mining company Rio Tinto, to expand an iron ore mine. Precious artifacts had been excavated there, such as a 4,000-year-old human plait, woven out of hair from several individuals. DNA testing showed this hair belonged to the direct ancestors of the Aboriginal people still living in the area. While Rio Tinto apologized and were ordered to pay compensation to the traditional owners, no amount of money can restore the 46,000 years worth of history they blew up. Following a parliamentary inquiry in December 2020, the company was also ordered to rebuild the caves.

Giuseppe Ferlini was an Italian soldier from Bologna who later became a treasure hunter, a more extravagant title for a thief. His military career took him to Egypt in the 1830s, and in 1834, he went on an expedition to Meroë, an ancient Egyptian settlement, in present-day Sudan. The Sudanese Governor-General permitted Ferlini to excavate the location, which he then used as an opportunity to plunder and destroy it. Meroë was home to several pyramids, which were apparently in good condition before Ferlini got to them. However, his greed pushed him to level these ancient structures in search of treasures. While he did find what he was looking for, Ferlini ultimately destroyed over 40 pyramids in the process.

Michel Fourmont was sent by French King Louis XV to Greece in the 18th century, to search for surviving Byzantine manuscripts. After traveling the region for over a year, he found no valuable manuscripts. So, he decided to look for even older ones, and found roughly 300 in Sparta. Instead of preserving them, he proceeded to transcribe and simply destroy them. He believed this gave his transcriptions exclusivity, and wrote in his letters how excited he was to be destroying these ancient sites. Thankfully, he was summoned back to France before he could reach Olympia, which he also planned on destroying. Today, all of Fourmont’s published work has been invalidated, as there is no way of verifying the information he transcribed.

Heinrich Schliemann was a 19th-century archaeologist, who became famous for discovering Troy, then very quickly blowing it up. He was more or less an amateur archaeologist, who attempted to excavate the mound of Hisarlik, the site where Troy once stood. His main blunder was using dynamite to excavate the site, which caused irreparable damage to most of it. Schliemann believed the lower layers housed the city described in Homer’s Iliad, a book he was obsessed with. This caused him to disregard the upper layers, and he annihilated most of the city in the process. Classicist Kenneth Harl joked that Schliemann did what the ancient Greeks could not: he destroyed the walls of Troy.





Were there any archaeological blunders that we forgot to include in our list? Let us know in the comments section!