Top 20 Greatest Archeological Discoveries Ever
#20: Göbekli Tepe
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While this site was first noted in 1963, its importance wasn’t recognized until decades later. In the mid-90s, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt realized that the stone slabs in the area were the tops of prehistoric megaliths and began excavating. What he unearthed was a site of massive circular structures on stone pillars dating all the way back to the Neolithic period. The megaliths at Göbekli Tepe are the world’s oldest, erected as early as 9500 BCE. No one really knows what the site was used for, but the carved reliefs provide glimpses into prehistoric religious practices. What we do know is that Göbekli Tepe is one of the world’s oldest human settlements, marking the transition from nomadic lifestyles to permanent habitation.
#19: The Oldest Footprints in North America
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In 2018, human footprints were found in British Columbia, Canada, that dated back about 13,000 years. At the time, these were the oldest footprints discovered in North America. But just a few years later in 2021, that record was shattered. Archaeologists working in New Mexico’s White Sands national park unearthed tracks that are between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Not only does this almost double the record for “oldest footprint in North America,” but it completely restructures our understanding of early North American settlement. Prior to this game-changing discovery, most experts dated the continent’s earliest habitation to between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago.
#18: Richard III’s Grave
This controversial figure ruled as King of England and Lord of Ireland until 1485, when he died in the Battle of Bosworth Field. With his death, the Wars of the Roses came to an end, and with it, the Middle Ages in England. His reign was later immortalized in Shakespeare’s eponymous play. Following Richard III’s death, his corpse was quickly buried and lost to time … until 2012. That year, researchers discovered the foundations of a Medieval church underneath a modern parking lot, and it was there that they found the skeleton of Richard III. After more than five centuries, we had finally found one of England’s most notorious rulers.
#17: Madaba Map
In the late 19th century, construction began on a new Greek Orthodox church in Jordan’s capital city of Madaba. While building the new structure, workers unearthed an ancient mosaic on the floor of the existing church. This mosaic is now known as the Madaba Map, and it shows parts of the Middle East. Dating to the sixth century, the map contains the oldest known depiction of both Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Not only that, but it was used extensively to locate sites mentioned in the Bible, and it is currently the oldest geographic floor mosaic in the world.
#16: The Serapeum of Alexandria
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Serving as the greatest library of its age, the Library of Alexandria attracted scholars to Egypt and served as the ancient world’s symbol of knowledge. It proved so popular that a so-called “daughter library” was later created called the Serapeum of Alexandria. The Serapeum lasted a bit longer than its famous father, and it was finally destroyed in the year 391. The site later became a Muslim cemetery. In the mid 1940s, the foundations of the Serapeum were discovered. With it, one of the greatest centers of learning in human history was unearthed.
#15: Knossos
Found on the Greek island of Crete, Knossos is often regarded as the oldest city in Europe. And that’s saying something! Featuring a massive and world-renowned palace complex, Knossos was the primary capital of the ancient Minoan civilization, which inhabited both Crete and other Aegean Islands. The civilization prospered from about 3500 BCE to 1100 BCE, but it’s believed that Knossos had been inhabited since the Neolithic period. An amateur archaeologist named Minos Kalokairinos discovered the location of Knossos in 1878, and the ancient site was unearthed by Sir Arthur Evans throughout much of the early 1900s.
#14: Ötzi
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Just imagine mountaineering through the Alps when you stumble across an ancient human corpse embedded in a glacier. This is exactly what happened to German tourists Helmut and Erika Simon in September of 1991. They found what is now known as Ötzi the Iceman, a natural mummy dating to about 3230 BC. Ötzi is the oldest natural mummy in European history, having died about 5,000 years before he was found preserved in ice. Regardless, the body is in remarkable condition (considering its age), and it has provided researchers an incredible glimpse into Copper Age Europeans and their lifestyles.
#13: Mohenjo-daro
A large human settlement dating to 2500 BCE, Mohenjo-daro is one of the oldest cities in the world. Located in modern-day Pakistan, Mohenjo-daro was one of the most ambitious cities of its day, complete with street grids, a sewage system, and many other ingenious feats of engineering. It was a remarkable settlement that showcased the creativity and boundless imagination of humanity. Unfortunately, Mohenjo-daro was completely abandoned around 1900 BCE, as the local Indus civilization went into a decline. It remained lost to time until the 1920s, when an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India located the ancient city. Sixty years after its discovery, Mohenjo-daro was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
#12: Antikythera Mechanism
This mysterious object was found submerged in Grecian waters at the turn of the 20th century, located inside an ancient shipwreck. The strange device was already 2000 years old when it was found, and despite being eroded by the sea for all that time, it was still eventually identified as the world’s oldest computer. Finally, another century after its discovery, and we now know definitively what it did: it was a device used to chart the positions of celestial bodies so that the Ancient Greeks knew when eclipses would happen. It took a 3D reconstruction of the entire device in 2021 to get a better understanding of how it worked, though its purpose was suspected for decades.
#11: Troy
For centuries, historians debated not only whether the Trojan War actually happened, but also whether the lost city of Troy ever existed at all. The Trojan War is the focus of one of Ancient Greek’s most famous epic poems, Homer’s “Iliad”, and legendary Greek heroes like Achilles and Odysseus fought in it – but Troy’s location became lost knowledge. Throughout the 1800s, many researchers argued that Hisarlik, a site in western Turkey, was probably the elusive city. Finally, after decades of debate, experts came to a consensus that yes, Hisarlik is in all likelihoodTroy. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to find conclusive evidence that the Trojan horse existed - but Troy’s identification was hugely important for historians.
#10: Tutankhamun's Tomb
The Valley of the Kings is the final resting place of many Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, but throughout its history, a number of tombs have fallen victim to grave robbers. Tutankhamun’s tomb was different; remarkably, though grave robbers did break in shortly after it was initially sealed up, most of its contents were intact when archaeologists found it in 1922. Today, Tutankhamun’s gilded mask makes him arguably the most famous and recognizable Pharaoh in history. Considering Tutankhamun only reigned for about ten years and died between the young ages of 18-19, that’s quite the legacy. Along with the mask, the tomb also contained a statue of Anubis, the God of the Dead, and a dagger made from a fallen meteor.
#9: Sutton Hoo
One of the most remarkable Medieval graves anywhere in Europe was excavated in England in 1939. The owner of an estate in Suffolk, Edith Pretty, enlisted some archaeologists to find out what was underneath the burial mounds on her property. What they uncovered was astounding, so much so that the story inspired a 2021 film, “The Dig”.The most promising mound contained an entire long ship and innumerable artifacts, including pieces of armor made of gold and other Anglo-Saxon relics. Though it’s one of the UK’s most impressive archaeological discoveries, it’s still not entirely clear whose grave it actually is. Most evidence suggests it was the final resting place of a famous, East Anglian King, Rædwald, who ruled the region around 1400 years ago.
#8: Olduvai Gorge
This isn’t one specific archaeological location, but an entire locality housing some of the most important works relating to paleoanthropology - or, the study of early humans. Found in the northeast corner of Tanzania, Olduvai Gorge has been invaluable in our understanding of early human culture and evolution. Researchers have unearthed ancient stone tools and Hominid fossils. Occupation of the site is believed to stretch back nearly two million years, when it was inhabited by an archaic human species called Homo habilis. Without Olduvai Gorge and its riches of archaeological material, our understanding of archaic humans would be much more limited.
#7: Cave of Altamira
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If you’re interested in early humanity, then you can’t go wrong with the Cave of Altamira. Archaeology has uncovered many notable caves relating to ancient humanity, including Lascaux and another in the small Spanish town of Ardales. But nothing beats Altamira. Also located in Spain, this cave houses numerous prehistoric drawings and paintings, most of which depict local animals. After the site was discovered in 1868, the suggestion that the paintings were prehistoric were met with some skepticism - not only owing to the nature of the drawings, but because no other prehistoric cave art was known to exist in Europe. But the research eventually prevailed, and it’s now believed that the paintings are around 36,000 years old.
#6: The Terracotta Army
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This is one of the most significant archaeological finds of all time… and it was discovered completely by accident! The Terracotta Army was first uncovered in the Shaanxi province of Western China by a group of farmers in the 1970s. The army resides within a tomb constructed over 2200 years ago as the resting place of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, which is why it’s so elaborate. In the parts we’ve been able to excavate, there are over 8000 soldiers made out of clay, there to guard Emperor Qin in the afterlife. But even more astonishing is the fact that the entire necropolis is believed to be almost 40 square miles in size, with most of the site hidden in vaults that aren’t yet accessible.
#5: Dead Sea Scrolls
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Written mostly in Hebrew, the Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the oldest Abrahamic religious texts in existence. They were discovered in a cave in the West Bank in the mid-1940s, but in the decades since, we’ve continually found more and more scrolls ready to be translated in a handful of additional caves. The scrolls are so significant because they’ve allowed historians and theologians to chart the development of the Bible much more accurately, and provided new information about the dawn of Christianity thousands of years ago, as well as the history of Judaism and the Holy Land. They’re unquantifiably important and still have a lot to teach us.
#4: Pompeii
Among the most famous ruins in the world, Pompeii was destroyed by a devastating eruption from Mount Vesuvius in the year 79 AD. The village was left forgotten until the 16th century, over 1500 years later, because it had been completely buried underneath volcanic ash. But that ash kept Pompeii largely intact when it was finally excavated, with people frozen in place where they’d died during the disaster. Today, it’s one of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions and a tremendous source of Roman history. As tragic as this story is, Pompeii has taught us more about Roman life than many other ancient archaeology sites anywhere in the world.
#3: The Library of Ashurbanipal
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Famous writer H. G. Wells once called the Library of Ashurbanipal “the most precious source of historical material in the world.” He wasn’t far off. English historian and traveler Austen Henry Layard found the ancient library in the remains of a palace in 1849. It consisted of over 30,000 clay tablets, which provided an enormous wealth of information relating to ancient civilizations of the Middle East. The tablets date to the 7th century BCE. Perhaps the greatest find within the Library of Ashurbanipal was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is widely considered to be the oldest piece of literature in human history.
#2: Lucy
Several famous fossils have revolutionized our view of early Hominins. Discovered in 1924 in South Africa, the “Tuang Child”, a skull of Australopithecus africanus, was described as the “missing link between ape and human”, although anthropologists initially resisted the idea that humans had evolved in Africa. Eclipsing the Tuang Child in renown is Lucy, the 3.2 million year old remains of an Australopithecus afarensis. Unearthed in 1974 in Ethiopia, she was named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, which the research team was playing on repeat. The completeness of her remains gave us much more information on the evolution of bipedalism and brain size. In 1994, Ardi, the skeleton of an Ardipithecus ramidus thought to be 4.4 million years old, was also found in Ethiopia, becoming the most complete early hominid specimen ever discovered.
#1: The Rosetta Stone
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For centuries, archaeologists had absolutely no idea how to decipher Ancient Egypt’s complex hieroglyphics. Without a starting point, they were unable to understand the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments and artifacts. But that all changed with the discovery of the long-lost Rosetta Stone in 1799, an enormous slab of stone inscribed with everything needed to start translating. The text it contained wasn’t actually all that interesting, but the same passage was written three times in different languages, and one of those languages was Ancient Greek. By using the Greek, which is still widely understood by researchers, we were able to decipher the hieroglyphs and unlock the secrets of Ancient Egyptian writing.
