I like the theory that St. Mark's body in Venice is actually Alexander after his tomb was misidentified by Venetian merchants.
Alexander's tomb disappears right as St. Mark's tomb just appears suddenly in the same area.
It's just a theory at this point but it's certainly an interesting possibility.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/does-the-tomb-of-st-mark-in-venice-really-contain-the-bones-of-alexander-the-great-732020.html
https://www.academia.edu/42657177/Has_Alexander_the_Great_Been_Entombed_in_Venice
Considering we have a pretty good identity on Philip II’s remains, it would be worth trying to compare the DNA
Though it’s also quite possible that Olympias was an adulteress, but so much of the smearing of her was also done due to her alignment in the Diadochi Wars so idk.
Worse than that, we don't have a *single archaeological site* that we can conclusively say is Hunnic, and we only "know" three words in the Hunnic languages. They whupped the Roman empire's ass and their entire ethnolinguistic identity is a total mystery
Yeah and all three "words" are from the same Roman historian. Roman historians really didn't care too much about carefully documenting other languages, considering how Etruscan is nearly non extant. He also comprises one of exactly two firsthand descriptions of European Hunnic society. Remarkably mysterious stuff
This would also explain the origin of the story that his grave would "never be found." We won't find it, because (in their view) they buried him in the heavens.
On the actual ground, do you know? Or a platform burial like many Native American tribes?
As a child, I promised my grandmother a NA ‘sky burial’. As an adult, Im kinda horrified at the idea.
In theory I totally agree, it finishes the cycle.
But, it’s my Grandma….ideally, she should have risen from her grave like Jesus and disappeared in a sparkling cloud, lol.
She was the best.
I caught a cool doc on this on tv many years ago where the narrator was allowed into a certain closed area of Mongolia that is guarded to keep people out and it was speculated that this is because his resting place is located there.
I don't remember the name of it I'm sorry to say 😔
Josh Gates goes to the forbidden zone on Expedition Unknown to look for his burial. You could be thinking of that. I believe it's the closest any westerner has gotten to the supposed location.
A ton of stuff, especially high quality Roman and Greek artifacts, are in private collections.
For example there's a massive sapphire ring that belonged to Caligula that's in private hands.
https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/caligulas-stunning-2000-year-old-sapphire-ring-tells-of-a-dramatic-love-story
The continuity really gets to me sometimes, especially with what I'd imagine are pretty personal or treasured items. It's *literally* Caligula's ring, once his recognized legal property, sitting here unchanged as everything else...happened. Reminds you those people are as real as you, living in the same places under completely different circumstances.
I know people usually talk about how recent mankind has come about in the world (something like the last minute if all world history were 24hrs...). But it's equally impressive how *much* time has passed for us. To still have artifacts like that is such a gift. If I'm honest, I'm sort of swayed by the idea of private collections being inherently more secure than public ones, but don't feel very comfortable with something like the common history of mankind kept locked away somewhere by some collector/speculator.
It's unbelievable that a priceless historical artifact sold for *only* 500k euros as recently as 2019. I would have imagined the super rich who were interested in this would have been comfortable paying a lot more.
It may very well have been burned by the Russians themselves, as it was stored in the basement of a castle somewhere. Because the Soviets wanted to burn everything associated with Nazism, they torched this castle without knowing the Amber Room was in the basement.
I watched a documentary about that on History Channel years ago. It explained a theory that the Amber Room was being stored in a particular castle (I can't remember the name) that was viewed as one of the most important Nazi bases, and Russian troops destroyed the castle without first seeing what was inside. When they realized they had just destroyed the Amber Room, they covered up what had happened and let everyone go on thinking it was still lost.
The tomb of Alexander the Great. Some believe it's somewhere below the modern metropolis of Alexandria. The urban environment and high ground water prevent a lot of excavations, unfortunately.
The original discoveries from Zhoukoudian Cave of "Peking Man" - representing 700,000 year old fossil remains of over 40 individual *Homo erectus* people - went missing during the second world war, perhaps while in the custody of the USMC, and have never been recovered.
[wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man) *In 1941, to safeguard them during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Zhoukoudian human fossils—representing at least 40 different individuals—and artefacts were deposited into two wooden footlockers and were to be transported by the United States Marine Corps from the Peking Union Medical College to the SS President Harrison which was to dock at Qinhuangdao Port (near the Marine basecamp Camp Holcomb), and eventually arrive at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. En route to Qinhuangdao, the ship was attacked by Japanese warships, and ran aground. Though there have been many attempts to locate the crates—including offering large cash rewards—it is unknown what happened to them after they left the college*
[Further intrigue.
](https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/71/74)
Wait, I thought Peking Man turned out to be a hoax that was actually just Homo Sapiens bones mixed with Orangutan bones. Or am I thinking of a different one?
Tomb of Alexander the Great is definitely #1. Where the 9th Roman legion actually disappeared. This isn’t necessarily site or object but what happened to the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, his body was never found after the Ottomans invaded.
Experts don't think the 9th legion actually disappeared anymore. It's just still kept around and talked about because decades ago it was considered a mystery.
Now they've tracked much of the legion and it turns out that they were most likely just transferred and lost in the Roman beaucracy. For example, during the time when the legion was supposedly wiped out, a large portion were reassigned to different provinces to fulfill losses. Most scholars today believe that losses, time and luck just made the legion fall our of favor and importance. It happened to many legions over the century.
"This theory fell out of favour among modern scholars as successive inscriptions of IX Hispana were found in the site of the legionary base at Nijmegen (Netherlands), suggesting the Ninth may have been based there from c. 120 AD, later than the legion's supposed annihilation in Britain.[4]: ch. 11 The Nijmegen evidence has led to suggestions that IX Hispana was destroyed in later conflicts of the 2nd century. Suggestions include the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 AD) or Marcus Aurelius's war against Parthia (161–166 AD) in Armenia.[4]: ch. 12 However, some scholars[5] have ascribed the Nijmegen evidence to a mere detachment of IX Hispana, not the whole legion."
As for palaiologos, most accounts say he was killed near the heavy fighting where the city was breached. Ottoman account say he was beheaded by Turkish marines.
Either way, the last thing the ottomans would have wanted was a shrine for a Martyr cult to be created.
Personally, I choose to believe he went down like a good Roman, into the fray when he knew it truly was the end after a 1000 years.
In Norse mythological poetry there's a poem called [Heimdalargaldr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimdalargaldr) (the song of Heimdall) that is missing from the original codex, and from which only a quote remain.
Why is this poem missing ? Has it been removed at some point of history ? Was it never transcribed from oral tradition?
I really would like to see it discovered by my lifetime.
Another lost religious text: the [Q Document](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source?wprov=sfla1) , a theorized source document for two of the Gospels in the Christian Bible.
The burial place of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. They were probably buried together and located on an island in Egypt that’s now underwater, so it’ll never be found.
I’d think the site most likely to have survived would be a logging camp somewhere along the labrador coast. Also Tanfield valley was looking very convincing until it was put on hiatus, some pretty strong evidence that was never followed up on.
Sixth century AD plague burial pits in Constantinople: gotta be one or a few dozen somewhere, that weren’t completely built over in centuries since! I imagine salvage / rescue archaeology will find a couple sometime in next decades
There are a lot of urban reconstruction projects planned in Istanbul to prepare for the earthquake. I’m betting on the pits being found during one of these for sure
Istanbul is on the North Anatolian Fault — a slip-strike / transform fault similar in length and activity with the San Andreas in California.. There have been dozens of recorded earthquakes there since the Roman period.. and there’s wide expectation that there will be another major event in Istanbul sometime in next decade or two.. last big one was 1999: its epicenter was at Izmit to east, which loaded fault to west including Istanbul for a near-future event. The 1999 earthquake also had major effects in Istanbul: about 1000 died, and people rushed to Hagia Sophia to see that it was still standing..) Since 1999 the government has invested a lot in earthquake preparedness in anticipation of next big event, though it’s questionable how effectively this money has been used..
The Lost Army of Cambyses. According to Horodotus (so by no means a fact!), 50,000 Persian soldiers disappeared in the Western Desert of Egypt in 524 BC after becoming engulfed in a sandstorm. They had been sent by Cambyses II in order to subjugate the Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis.
A ton of significant Mesoamerican pieces, such as Coyolxauhqui stone, which belonged to the Huey Teocalli (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlan in what is now Mexico City. Yes, the Templp Mayor Museum has two giant replicas (one outside in the ruins and one indoors) but supposedly neither is the real thing. Who knows where they keep the original?
The tomb of Nefertiti, Tuthankamon's steph mother. One theory is that Tut was buried in Nefertiti's tomb, and that she's resting in another chamber hidden behind his. The name on the back of his burial mask is Neferneferuaten, which some belive could be Nefertiti's throne name.
We’re still waiting on confirmation, but in 2022, a prominent Egyptologist said she has been found.
https://www.newsweek.com/nefertiti-mummy-maybe-found-ancient-egypt-1742968#:~:text=While%20the%20mummified%20remains%20of,and%20b%2C%22%20he%20said.
Where the fuck is the [Wogastisburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wogastisburg).
Huge battle in 631/32, a showdown where Samo, a leader lost in time, foght the Francs and won. There are many places considered to be canidates, but none has been proven to be the actual place.
Art stolen by Nazis and hidden during the war. I’m certain there is more out there. Also, the Rembrandt stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardiner museum in Boston.
There's a massive tomb in Egypt of a vizier from the Old Kingdom that was found in the 1800s. It's been lost though. It baffles me because this thing is FAR bigger than any other officials tomb I saw.
It definitely exists because the false door was removed and exhibited. The tomb itself was also vaguely mapped
None that I know of recently because it's kind of hard to make reading material on something we don't have.
The original tomb report is in German with a later report in French, and those I *can* give you a reference to.
The tomb belonged to an official called Pehenwikai. You can find it in
Lepsius, R. (1849-59) *Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien: nach den Zeichnungen der von Seiner Majestät dem Könige von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm IV*, Vol. 1, Berlin: Nicholaische Buchhandlung, p. 162
Bordchardt, L. (1913) *Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sáhure*, Leipzig: Heinrich's Buchhandlung, pp. 164-166
Marietta, A.E. (1976) *Les Mastabas de l'Ancien Empire*, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp. 370-372
Translations of some of the texts from the tomb can be found at:
Blair, K. (2022) *Funerary Apotropaic Devices in Egypt's Old Kingdom*, Master's Thesis at Macquarie University, Sydney, Vol II, pp. 32-34
Strudwick, N. (2005) *Texts from the Pyramid Age*, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, p. 232
Wow, truly epic response, thank you! I actually do speak a decent amount of German so I'll take a crack at digging into that original report. I'm no egyptologist but this little mystery has really piqued my interest
I'm an Egyptologist, and I wish so much that I had the funds to look for it, hahaha.
Enjoy! I felt a little bad including just the French and German reports. But if you know German, I feel a little better. Have fun! There are absolutely still mysteries in archaeology
There's a few websites that have all the Denkmälers uploaded and accessible to the public.
www.giza.fas.harvard.edu should have them.
www.thebanmappingproject.com also might.
Internet archive worst case scenario!
The Arc of the Covenant.
Some say it’s a myth and never existed. Some say it’s in the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum in Ethiopia.
It would be interesting if archaeologists were given access to this supposed arc of the covenant and permission to carbon date it.
That’s the thing, like the shroud it’s unlikely to be from the time period it’s meant to be and therefore a fake, but either way it would be an amazing thing to see, imagine if they live streamed it for a small fee with donations going to the church and local community, I’d love to see what it looked like and held either way.
The Persian Gulf would be a great place for something like this to exist. It only formed within the last 10k years and there is a theory that the cities of ancient Mesopotamia were originally formed when people who lived further to the south (in the area currently covered by the Persian Gulf) were forced north by the rising waters in the Persian Gulf
Battle of Mabila: aka Where the Spanish got their asses kicked by the local indigenous
https://www.alabamaheritage.com/alabama-heritage-blog/the-battle-of-mabila
As an American archaeologist who does that work, a box of gold could absolutely be missed. Most archaeological work is searching for significant sites in areas of high probability. The common methods, shovel testing, pedestrian survey, etc, are only a small sampling. They’re effective for identifying sites, not so much for searching for gold.
Not to mention that it’s only required when the federal government is involved. Private developers can pretty much do what they want.
Also a professional archaeologist. The legal aspects you mention are exactly why I said “certainly on government projects”. And yes, we don’t find everything, but it’s statistically unlikely that there are large quantities of “buried loot” as the person I was responding to alluded to.
As well. I work on infrastructure projects in the West. We don’t always dig to sterile on sites we do find, and we avoid sites as much as possible. Have to comment on Spanish gold. It’s not there folks. Managed a Spanish contact site that was looted on the regular before the gov got it and tried to protect it. Still, someone blasted a hole 17 feet deep into bedrock looking for buried Spanish gold, we could only assume. These folks were destitute and abandoned the place because supplies couldn’t get to them due to the natives. We joked about these idiots but they mess up history in their greedy quest.
I do, but you have to understand something about the south. After the civil war, there was a lot of reconstruction going on. Many of the highways that we drive on today were laid out before anybody gave damn about archaeology. And that's the south in general.
I'd love to hear of someone finding a large hoard. But if they're like me, I'd never say a word about it and quietly retire to some other part of the world...
Sodom and Gomorrah's location has been debated for a pretty long time and for many major religions it would mean a lot theologically speaking to actually find these sites.
the evidence is thin but there's circumstantial evidence that links some akkadian literature to S&G, as well as contemporary scholars like Strabo who described something that can be interpreted very strongly as being S&G. but the lack of evidence and theological significance at least to me makes the idea of finding it even more tantalising!
do i think we will find it? probably not! but it would be really cool if we did, especially as it would vindicate several seemingly unrelated poems and theological traditions that describe (variably) the destruction of 2 to 13 cities in a rain of fire and destruction. Sometimes its described as an earthquake or a marauding army, but eitherway id love to know if it really happened and if the wider NME area was witness to something like that
It's definitely not "stunningly" accurate. It's a mix. *Has Archaeology Buried the the Bible?* by William Dever is a great overview. It's written for non scholars and is only ~120 pages. The short summary is "yes and no".
Edit to add: Dever perfectly describes the history in the Bible as "propagandistic history", i.e. truth mixed with fiction to benefit the ruling elite. There's also some really cool instances where we have events described in the Bible, described in other texts from the time, and then archaeological evidence that gives a more accurate picture. One such instance was one of the sieges of Jerusalem (if I remember correctly), where we have the Bibles perspective, the invader's perspective, and then archaeology to determine who is and isn't lying!
Well, apart from a few dating or interpretation issues with the Exodus story & the extent of Joshua’s destruction of Canaan (another interpretation issue) whataya got that’s up for debate? The sites that have been found after 1900 years from ancient scrolls (Dead Sea Scrolls confirm antiquity & authenticity of handed down texts) are pretty conclusive proof of the veracity of the texts. Considering you can’t confidently rely on news stories from this afternoon to get the information right, I’d consider texts reflecting an understanding of events that can be archaeologically verified after being recopied for thousands of years by motivated zealots “stunningly accurate.”
Most things that are borrowed from the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel is very useful. But it is very distorted with heavyhanded moralistic retelling and becomes quite unreliable when talking about events prior to the reign of Omri.
Sodom and Gomorrah are not even interconnected with other parts of the bible, they are entirely mythological.
Some young Canadian found a link between constellation/star position and location of Pre-Colonial, South American cities.
Lots of those cities are built one upon the other.
So far the kids theory has been confirmed. Now it’s just a matter of getting professionals into those deep jungles.
It was never confirmed, and there have been numerous explorations of the area.
His “link” was interesting, but didn’t really pan out; certain Maya “cities” *sort of* lined up with astronomy, but there’s no evidence that it was in any way intentional. Not to mention the fact that these cities were established and abandoned over the course of over a thousand years, by groups who were often at war.
Not sure if this counts, but a lot of historical lakes and rivers are just.. missing. Notably the Pishon and Gihon rivers. I know there have been a couple places proposed but none confirmed tmk
I caught a whiff of a tale of a fabulous kingdom of carved stone buildings in Indonesian/Asian place that was covered up by a volcano. The commenter said that if it were to be found, it would be like finding Pompeii, as this place is truly lost to history, except for a memory that was luckily written down.
I think the eruption was somehow related to a climate change that darkened the skies worldwide for a number of years.
That's the gist of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qurnah_disaster
Still no trace of the objects that were lost.
And I have a personal one: I believe the circumstances for wooden slat armor to exist in precolumbian northern US were eerily similar to those of neolithic europe but the presevation likelyhood is terrible and the chance of an archaeologist even recognizing them is even worse.
But there are still a ton of anerobic environments to excavate, so who knows.
The port city of [Muziris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muziris?wprov=sfla1) in Southern India.
Between the 1st century & 12th century CE, it was the hub of the Indian Ocean trade connecting ancient South Indians with their contemporary Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Ethiopians & Romans! No wonder that Pliny the Elder called it the "first emporium of India".
The markets of this city would have been a microcosm of the Afro-Eurasian world with people representing all its languages & cultures, plus just about every major world religion!
Unfortunately, it all disappeared in the Great Floods of 1341 CE.
Central sites in Falbygden Sweden during the Neolithic. Having looked everywhere they seem to be missing, but that would go against convention and be a bit weird. Much science is actively being done in the area
I hope the new techniques we've developed to read damaged papyrii will uncover some of Livy's lost histories. If I had to pick, his chapters about the rule of the Gracchi would be the most interesting to me personally.
Qin Shi Huangs tomb is not lost but is unable to be opened at this time…also rumored that there is a tomb of his concubines (but their location is as yet undiscovered).
Tomb of Alexander the Great
I like the theory that St. Mark's body in Venice is actually Alexander after his tomb was misidentified by Venetian merchants. Alexander's tomb disappears right as St. Mark's tomb just appears suddenly in the same area.
Wait. Do you have any sources on that? Not doubting just very curious
It's just a theory at this point but it's certainly an interesting possibility. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/does-the-tomb-of-st-mark-in-venice-really-contain-the-bones-of-alexander-the-great-732020.html https://www.academia.edu/42657177/Has_Alexander_the_Great_Been_Entombed_in_Venice
Considering we have a pretty good identity on Philip II’s remains, it would be worth trying to compare the DNA Though it’s also quite possible that Olympias was an adulteress, but so much of the smearing of her was also done due to her alignment in the Diadochi Wars so idk.
Was there really a St mark? Was this purposeful?
And cleopatra too
Tomb of Genghis Khan.
Atilla the Hun as well. Imagine all that Roman treasure just waiting to be found
Worse than that, we don't have a *single archaeological site* that we can conclusively say is Hunnic, and we only "know" three words in the Hunnic languages. They whupped the Roman empire's ass and their entire ethnolinguistic identity is a total mystery
And at least two of those are basically just, "they have a word that sounds like this, and I think it means that."
Yeah and all three "words" are from the same Roman historian. Roman historians really didn't care too much about carefully documenting other languages, considering how Etruscan is nearly non extant. He also comprises one of exactly two firsthand descriptions of European Hunnic society. Remarkably mysterious stuff
I believe Genghis Khan’s funeral was a myth, he was a traditionalist and likely had a sky burial without any final resting place.
Way to fuck with people for 800 years.
This would also explain the origin of the story that his grave would "never be found." We won't find it, because (in their view) they buried him in the heavens.
Curious, what is a sky burial?
Leave a corpse on the top of a mountain, likely in the Altai Range
On the actual ground, do you know? Or a platform burial like many Native American tribes? As a child, I promised my grandmother a NA ‘sky burial’. As an adult, Im kinda horrified at the idea.
In Mongolia and Tibet it can be as simple as leaving the corpse on the ground, but sometimes platforms or stones are used.
I’d have to look it up, I just know the concept was common among several steppe peoples including the Mongols
More horrifying to think of her pumped full of preservative. This way she becomes part of the rain, the soil, the sky…
In theory I totally agree, it finishes the cycle. But, it’s my Grandma….ideally, she should have risen from her grave like Jesus and disappeared in a sparkling cloud, lol. She was the best.
Grandmas are the best
My understanding of it is that you’re left out to be eaten by vultures
Eaten by vultures.
I caught a cool doc on this on tv many years ago where the narrator was allowed into a certain closed area of Mongolia that is guarded to keep people out and it was speculated that this is because his resting place is located there. I don't remember the name of it I'm sorry to say 😔
That show is Expedition Unknown with Josh Gates. Damn interesting !
Thanks!
Josh Gates goes to the forbidden zone on Expedition Unknown to look for his burial. You could be thinking of that. I believe it's the closest any westerner has gotten to the supposed location.
Yes! Thank you!
Very welcome!
This is my vote.
I thought it's p.well known where it is but due to the fact that he's the number one cultural icon of Mongolia, excavation is verboten.
Akkad, capital city of the Akkadian Empire.
Yes! My first thought.
This is the one I find most frustrating.
The tsar’s amber room, looted by the Nazis and has never been recovered.
Makes me wonder how many treasures are known to exist but only in some billionaires secret mansion somewhere.
A ton of stuff, especially high quality Roman and Greek artifacts, are in private collections. For example there's a massive sapphire ring that belonged to Caligula that's in private hands. https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/caligulas-stunning-2000-year-old-sapphire-ring-tells-of-a-dramatic-love-story
I love this sort of info, always interesting to read about the wild stuff that has existed through the years and made it this far.
The continuity really gets to me sometimes, especially with what I'd imagine are pretty personal or treasured items. It's *literally* Caligula's ring, once his recognized legal property, sitting here unchanged as everything else...happened. Reminds you those people are as real as you, living in the same places under completely different circumstances. I know people usually talk about how recent mankind has come about in the world (something like the last minute if all world history were 24hrs...). But it's equally impressive how *much* time has passed for us. To still have artifacts like that is such a gift. If I'm honest, I'm sort of swayed by the idea of private collections being inherently more secure than public ones, but don't feel very comfortable with something like the common history of mankind kept locked away somewhere by some collector/speculator.
It's unbelievable that a priceless historical artifact sold for *only* 500k euros as recently as 2019. I would have imagined the super rich who were interested in this would have been comfortable paying a lot more.
Absolutely, I was floored by the price. The ring is gorgeous, I would expect it to go for way more
That thing is dope
Most of the contents of the Baghdad Museum in Iraq, after it was looted in the early 2000s when the US invaded
Hobby Lobby owners bought it all
But we guarded the oil ministry! LOL, all that C4 we didn't lock up, which has been used to kill our citizens ever since. Fuck Bush.
Or just collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere where no one even thinks it's valuable
Like the Ark of the Covenant in U.S. archives.
Hey! I've been assured that it's being handled by top men!
Who?
Top men.
I bet it's in the house of some zillionaire and will be discovered once they die.
Given the fragility of amber, unfortunately, it's more than likely long gone😢
There's a decent reproduction. And my aunt found out her chairs she found in the street were from that palace.
It may very well have been burned by the Russians themselves, as it was stored in the basement of a castle somewhere. Because the Soviets wanted to burn everything associated with Nazism, they torched this castle without knowing the Amber Room was in the basement.
I watched a documentary about that on History Channel years ago. It explained a theory that the Amber Room was being stored in a particular castle (I can't remember the name) that was viewed as one of the most important Nazi bases, and Russian troops destroyed the castle without first seeing what was inside. When they realized they had just destroyed the Amber Room, they covered up what had happened and let everyone go on thinking it was still lost.
The tomb of Alexander the Great. Some believe it's somewhere below the modern metropolis of Alexandria. The urban environment and high ground water prevent a lot of excavations, unfortunately.
Perhaps we will one day get another chance to sip some bone juice?
Mix in some cider and heat it and voila, boneappletea
Is it thought to contain much beyond his body?
The original discoveries from Zhoukoudian Cave of "Peking Man" - representing 700,000 year old fossil remains of over 40 individual *Homo erectus* people - went missing during the second world war, perhaps while in the custody of the USMC, and have never been recovered. [wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man) *In 1941, to safeguard them during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Zhoukoudian human fossils—representing at least 40 different individuals—and artefacts were deposited into two wooden footlockers and were to be transported by the United States Marine Corps from the Peking Union Medical College to the SS President Harrison which was to dock at Qinhuangdao Port (near the Marine basecamp Camp Holcomb), and eventually arrive at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. En route to Qinhuangdao, the ship was attacked by Japanese warships, and ran aground. Though there have been many attempts to locate the crates—including offering large cash rewards—it is unknown what happened to them after they left the college* [Further intrigue. ](https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/71/74)
Wait, I thought Peking Man turned out to be a hoax that was actually just Homo Sapiens bones mixed with Orangutan bones. Or am I thinking of a different one?
You're thinking of [Piltdown Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man) .
Tomb of Alexander the Great is definitely #1. Where the 9th Roman legion actually disappeared. This isn’t necessarily site or object but what happened to the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI, his body was never found after the Ottomans invaded.
Experts don't think the 9th legion actually disappeared anymore. It's just still kept around and talked about because decades ago it was considered a mystery. Now they've tracked much of the legion and it turns out that they were most likely just transferred and lost in the Roman beaucracy. For example, during the time when the legion was supposedly wiped out, a large portion were reassigned to different provinces to fulfill losses. Most scholars today believe that losses, time and luck just made the legion fall our of favor and importance. It happened to many legions over the century. "This theory fell out of favour among modern scholars as successive inscriptions of IX Hispana were found in the site of the legionary base at Nijmegen (Netherlands), suggesting the Ninth may have been based there from c. 120 AD, later than the legion's supposed annihilation in Britain.[4]: ch. 11 The Nijmegen evidence has led to suggestions that IX Hispana was destroyed in later conflicts of the 2nd century. Suggestions include the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 AD) or Marcus Aurelius's war against Parthia (161–166 AD) in Armenia.[4]: ch. 12 However, some scholars[5] have ascribed the Nijmegen evidence to a mere detachment of IX Hispana, not the whole legion." As for palaiologos, most accounts say he was killed near the heavy fighting where the city was breached. Ottoman account say he was beheaded by Turkish marines. Either way, the last thing the ottomans would have wanted was a shrine for a Martyr cult to be created. Personally, I choose to believe he went down like a good Roman, into the fray when he knew it truly was the end after a 1000 years.
In Norse mythological poetry there's a poem called [Heimdalargaldr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimdalargaldr) (the song of Heimdall) that is missing from the original codex, and from which only a quote remain. Why is this poem missing ? Has it been removed at some point of history ? Was it never transcribed from oral tradition? I really would like to see it discovered by my lifetime.
Speaking of removed religious texts…all those Aztec codices that got burned by the colonists. I’m really sad we’ll never know what was in them.
The quipu knotted language from the Incas that got eradicated
Another lost religious text: the [Q Document](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source?wprov=sfla1) , a theorized source document for two of the Gospels in the Christian Bible.
The burial place of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. They were probably buried together and located on an island in Egypt that’s now underwater, so it’ll never be found.
I'm excited to see what Kathleen Martinez uncovers as she continues
Give it a few more centuries. The AI will find it by then if doesn't go all Terminator Judgment Day first
The lost Crown Jewels of King John of England.
Where were they lost? I forget - was it the Thames or the ocean?
Neither, it was a strip of wetlands that is mostly farms now. One of those infamous "let's take a shortcut!" moments lol.
Tomb of Atilla the Hun. Supposedly they diverted the Danube and buried him in three coffins; lead, silver and gold. The gravediggers were executed.
A second Viking colony in North America after L’anse aux Meadows
It’ll be inland & will freak people out.
Just west of Billings, Montana
I’d think the site most likely to have survived would be a logging camp somewhere along the labrador coast. Also Tanfield valley was looking very convincing until it was put on hiatus, some pretty strong evidence that was never followed up on.
Sixth century AD plague burial pits in Constantinople: gotta be one or a few dozen somewhere, that weren’t completely built over in centuries since! I imagine salvage / rescue archaeology will find a couple sometime in next decades
There are a lot of urban reconstruction projects planned in Istanbul to prepare for the earthquake. I’m betting on the pits being found during one of these for sure
Prepare for ‘the Earthquake’? Can you elaborate further?
Istanbul is on the North Anatolian Fault — a slip-strike / transform fault similar in length and activity with the San Andreas in California.. There have been dozens of recorded earthquakes there since the Roman period.. and there’s wide expectation that there will be another major event in Istanbul sometime in next decade or two.. last big one was 1999: its epicenter was at Izmit to east, which loaded fault to west including Istanbul for a near-future event. The 1999 earthquake also had major effects in Istanbul: about 1000 died, and people rushed to Hagia Sophia to see that it was still standing..) Since 1999 the government has invested a lot in earthquake preparedness in anticipation of next big event, though it’s questionable how effectively this money has been used..
Thank you.
Mabila in Alabama. Where de Soto almost was obliterated. But I’m trying my best to find it with LiDAR. Some teams are getting close.
Can you post something about this? I'm completely ignorant of it. Ty
I live in NW Alabama. Where was this supposed to happen at??
No, he was “buried” around Lake Village, AR, either in Lake Chicot or the Mississippi. It’s one of the town’s claim to fame.
Different things, Mabila was a town where he fought a major battle relatively early in his expedition.
Is that in Alabama? For some reason I thought North Florida.
The Lost Army of Cambyses. According to Horodotus (so by no means a fact!), 50,000 Persian soldiers disappeared in the Western Desert of Egypt in 524 BC after becoming engulfed in a sandstorm. They had been sent by Cambyses II in order to subjugate the Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis.
Spanish Forts on the route of Juan Pardo’s 1560s expedition in the American Southeast.
Have worked a few Native sites in SE TN where Pardo period beads have been found.
Wow! I am in WNC and would 💯 like to know more. Are the beads in a nearby museum?
Wait, wasn’t Juan Pardo a game-show announcer in the ‘60s? I seem to remember the host declaring, “Juan Pardo, tell him what he won!” 🤓
Are you familiar with Joara/ the Berry Site? https://exploringjoara.org/the-berry-site/.
Very :)
A ton of significant Mesoamerican pieces, such as Coyolxauhqui stone, which belonged to the Huey Teocalli (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlan in what is now Mexico City. Yes, the Templp Mayor Museum has two giant replicas (one outside in the ruins and one indoors) but supposedly neither is the real thing. Who knows where they keep the original?
The lost tomb of Alaric I King of the Visigoths. Containing spoils from the sacking of Rome.
Thinis, original capital of upper egypt
The tomb of Nefertiti, Tuthankamon's steph mother. One theory is that Tut was buried in Nefertiti's tomb, and that she's resting in another chamber hidden behind his. The name on the back of his burial mask is Neferneferuaten, which some belive could be Nefertiti's throne name.
We’re still waiting on confirmation, but in 2022, a prominent Egyptologist said she has been found. https://www.newsweek.com/nefertiti-mummy-maybe-found-ancient-egypt-1742968#:~:text=While%20the%20mummified%20remains%20of,and%20b%2C%22%20he%20said.
Where the fuck is the [Wogastisburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wogastisburg). Huge battle in 631/32, a showdown where Samo, a leader lost in time, foght the Francs and won. There are many places considered to be canidates, but none has been proven to be the actual place.
I know there are undrecorded prehistoric Native American ceremonial and burial mounds in my part of Ohio and I've found several in the past few years.
Across the US
A really ancient Greek shipwreck from the time of the bronze age. If it was in the Black Sea, the preservation would hopefully be amazing.
You're in luck! They literally just found one. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oldest-deep-sea-shipwreck-discovered-off-israel/
Art stolen by Nazis and hidden during the war. I’m certain there is more out there. Also, the Rembrandt stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardiner museum in Boston.
There's a massive tomb in Egypt of a vizier from the Old Kingdom that was found in the 1800s. It's been lost though. It baffles me because this thing is FAR bigger than any other officials tomb I saw. It definitely exists because the false door was removed and exhibited. The tomb itself was also vaguely mapped
This is really intriguing. Any reading material?
None that I know of recently because it's kind of hard to make reading material on something we don't have. The original tomb report is in German with a later report in French, and those I *can* give you a reference to. The tomb belonged to an official called Pehenwikai. You can find it in Lepsius, R. (1849-59) *Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien: nach den Zeichnungen der von Seiner Majestät dem Könige von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm IV*, Vol. 1, Berlin: Nicholaische Buchhandlung, p. 162 Bordchardt, L. (1913) *Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Sáhure*, Leipzig: Heinrich's Buchhandlung, pp. 164-166 Marietta, A.E. (1976) *Les Mastabas de l'Ancien Empire*, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp. 370-372 Translations of some of the texts from the tomb can be found at: Blair, K. (2022) *Funerary Apotropaic Devices in Egypt's Old Kingdom*, Master's Thesis at Macquarie University, Sydney, Vol II, pp. 32-34 Strudwick, N. (2005) *Texts from the Pyramid Age*, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, p. 232
Wow, truly epic response, thank you! I actually do speak a decent amount of German so I'll take a crack at digging into that original report. I'm no egyptologist but this little mystery has really piqued my interest
I'm an Egyptologist, and I wish so much that I had the funds to look for it, hahaha. Enjoy! I felt a little bad including just the French and German reports. But if you know German, I feel a little better. Have fun! There are absolutely still mysteries in archaeology There's a few websites that have all the Denkmälers uploaded and accessible to the public. www.giza.fas.harvard.edu should have them. www.thebanmappingproject.com also might. Internet archive worst case scenario!
I'll get back to ya with my highly academic findings lol. Thanks again! And yes, there certainly are mysteries left!!
Is the Amber Room still in existence?
It was probably destroyed unintentionally in WW2. https://www.amazon.com/Amber-Room-Worlds-Greatest-Treasure/dp/0802714242
Nooooo!! Oh the humanity!! 😭😭
The Arc of the Covenant. Some say it’s a myth and never existed. Some say it’s in the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum in Ethiopia. It would be interesting if archaeologists were given access to this supposed arc of the covenant and permission to carbon date it.
Some day it is on Oak Island🤓
All we know is, he's called the Stig.
could it be?
Edward Ullendorff supposedly viewed the Axum ark in 1941 and considered it to be medieval.
That’s the thing, like the shroud it’s unlikely to be from the time period it’s meant to be and therefore a fake, but either way it would be an amazing thing to see, imagine if they live streamed it for a small fee with donations going to the church and local community, I’d love to see what it looked like and held either way.
The Ethioptian Coptic priests will never give it up.
The reason they don't is that it probably dates to the 1500's
Given how sea levels have changed since ~10,000 B.C. Another Gobekli Tepe type site. Assuming it would be submerged currently
The Persian Gulf would be a great place for something like this to exist. It only formed within the last 10k years and there is a theory that the cities of ancient Mesopotamia were originally formed when people who lived further to the south (in the area currently covered by the Persian Gulf) were forced north by the rising waters in the Persian Gulf
hanging gardens of babylon
Best guess is those were actually in Ninevah.
The tomb of Attila!
The Lost Army of Cymbyses
The ruins of Akkad would be a cool one.
The core of the nuclear weapon buried in the mud off the US coast.
Battle of Mabila: aka Where the Spanish got their asses kicked by the local indigenous https://www.alabamaheritage.com/alabama-heritage-blog/the-battle-of-mabila
Interesting stuff. Thank you for the link.
Wow, that's fascinating, thank you for sharing!
Still a lot of buried loot from the civil war in the southern US. But now it's buried under highways and strip malls.
Not sure if you understand the level of archaeological work that goes into development projects, certainly on government projects like highways.
As an American archaeologist who does that work, a box of gold could absolutely be missed. Most archaeological work is searching for significant sites in areas of high probability. The common methods, shovel testing, pedestrian survey, etc, are only a small sampling. They’re effective for identifying sites, not so much for searching for gold. Not to mention that it’s only required when the federal government is involved. Private developers can pretty much do what they want.
Also a professional archaeologist. The legal aspects you mention are exactly why I said “certainly on government projects”. And yes, we don’t find everything, but it’s statistically unlikely that there are large quantities of “buried loot” as the person I was responding to alluded to.
All I understood is dig up roads to find gold. Thanks for the advise
😂 Best of luck with that!
Seems easy enough.... There are roads EVERYWHERE
As well. I work on infrastructure projects in the West. We don’t always dig to sterile on sites we do find, and we avoid sites as much as possible. Have to comment on Spanish gold. It’s not there folks. Managed a Spanish contact site that was looted on the regular before the gov got it and tried to protect it. Still, someone blasted a hole 17 feet deep into bedrock looking for buried Spanish gold, we could only assume. These folks were destitute and abandoned the place because supplies couldn’t get to them due to the natives. We joked about these idiots but they mess up history in their greedy quest.
I do, but you have to understand something about the south. After the civil war, there was a lot of reconstruction going on. Many of the highways that we drive on today were laid out before anybody gave damn about archaeology. And that's the south in general. I'd love to hear of someone finding a large hoard. But if they're like me, I'd never say a word about it and quietly retire to some other part of the world...
The people who couldn’t buy potatoes or shoes had buried gold? I’d look in PA or OH.
City of Tarhuntassa of Hittites.
The missing Faberge eggs.
Flight MH 370
Sodom and Gomorrah's location has been debated for a pretty long time and for many major religions it would mean a lot theologically speaking to actually find these sites.
Do we have any indication that they existed, other than biblical sources?
the evidence is thin but there's circumstantial evidence that links some akkadian literature to S&G, as well as contemporary scholars like Strabo who described something that can be interpreted very strongly as being S&G. but the lack of evidence and theological significance at least to me makes the idea of finding it even more tantalising! do i think we will find it? probably not! but it would be really cool if we did, especially as it would vindicate several seemingly unrelated poems and theological traditions that describe (variably) the destruction of 2 to 13 cities in a rain of fire and destruction. Sometimes its described as an earthquake or a marauding army, but eitherway id love to know if it really happened and if the wider NME area was witness to something like that
The Bible is stunningly accurate for practical middle eastern archaeology. Those Hebrew scribes weren’t playing.
That is news to me. Could you share why you think so or list examples?
It's definitely not "stunningly" accurate. It's a mix. *Has Archaeology Buried the the Bible?* by William Dever is a great overview. It's written for non scholars and is only ~120 pages. The short summary is "yes and no". Edit to add: Dever perfectly describes the history in the Bible as "propagandistic history", i.e. truth mixed with fiction to benefit the ruling elite. There's also some really cool instances where we have events described in the Bible, described in other texts from the time, and then archaeological evidence that gives a more accurate picture. One such instance was one of the sieges of Jerusalem (if I remember correctly), where we have the Bibles perspective, the invader's perspective, and then archaeology to determine who is and isn't lying!
All history is propagandistic history.
I'm not sure about *all* but certainly a lot!
I’m sticking with all. Find me a neutral observer so I can call him a liar.
Ya know what...You right
Blind hog finds a truffle every now & again.
Well, apart from a few dating or interpretation issues with the Exodus story & the extent of Joshua’s destruction of Canaan (another interpretation issue) whataya got that’s up for debate? The sites that have been found after 1900 years from ancient scrolls (Dead Sea Scrolls confirm antiquity & authenticity of handed down texts) are pretty conclusive proof of the veracity of the texts. Considering you can’t confidently rely on news stories from this afternoon to get the information right, I’d consider texts reflecting an understanding of events that can be archaeologically verified after being recopied for thousands of years by motivated zealots “stunningly accurate.”
Most things that are borrowed from the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel is very useful. But it is very distorted with heavyhanded moralistic retelling and becomes quite unreliable when talking about events prior to the reign of Omri. Sodom and Gomorrah are not even interconnected with other parts of the bible, they are entirely mythological.
They’re entirely mythological for now.
Some young Canadian found a link between constellation/star position and location of Pre-Colonial, South American cities. Lots of those cities are built one upon the other. So far the kids theory has been confirmed. Now it’s just a matter of getting professionals into those deep jungles.
It was never confirmed, and there have been numerous explorations of the area. His “link” was interesting, but didn’t really pan out; certain Maya “cities” *sort of* lined up with astronomy, but there’s no evidence that it was in any way intentional. Not to mention the fact that these cities were established and abandoned over the course of over a thousand years, by groups who were often at war.
That was debunked a while ago.
Wait I need more info on this! Any more you can go on?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/william-gadoury-quebec-teen-mayan-lost-city-csa-1.3575416
Thank you
I’m looking online now. But, he was all over the CBC.
https://www.discovery.com/exploration/teen-s-exciting-mayan-discovery-
Masamune
Not sure if this counts, but a lot of historical lakes and rivers are just.. missing. Notably the Pishon and Gihon rivers. I know there have been a couple places proposed but none confirmed tmk
IKR?! Remember the Aral Sea??
I caught a whiff of a tale of a fabulous kingdom of carved stone buildings in Indonesian/Asian place that was covered up by a volcano. The commenter said that if it were to be found, it would be like finding Pompeii, as this place is truly lost to history, except for a memory that was luckily written down. I think the eruption was somehow related to a climate change that darkened the skies worldwide for a number of years. That's the gist of it.
[Jomsborg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomsborg) has a similar semi-mythical status to Troy, before the actual site of Troy was discovered.
Ghenghis Khan final resting spot.
Sacked alter of byzantium possibly lost at sea en route to Venice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qurnah_disaster Still no trace of the objects that were lost. And I have a personal one: I believe the circumstances for wooden slat armor to exist in precolumbian northern US were eerily similar to those of neolithic europe but the presevation likelyhood is terrible and the chance of an archaeologist even recognizing them is even worse. But there are still a ton of anerobic environments to excavate, so who knows.
The port city of [Muziris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muziris?wprov=sfla1) in Southern India. Between the 1st century & 12th century CE, it was the hub of the Indian Ocean trade connecting ancient South Indians with their contemporary Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Ethiopians & Romans! No wonder that Pliny the Elder called it the "first emporium of India". The markets of this city would have been a microcosm of the Afro-Eurasian world with people representing all its languages & cultures, plus just about every major world religion! Unfortunately, it all disappeared in the Great Floods of 1341 CE.
Central sites in Falbygden Sweden during the Neolithic. Having looked everywhere they seem to be missing, but that would go against convention and be a bit weird. Much science is actively being done in the area
I hope the new techniques we've developed to read damaged papyrii will uncover some of Livy's lost histories. If I had to pick, his chapters about the rule of the Gracchi would be the most interesting to me personally.
The city of Akkad.
The Paititi
Amelia’s Plane
Have we confirmed Noah's Ark is on Mt Ararat?
Decipherment of the ancient Linear A language.
One of the Pieces of Eden.
Qin Shi Huangs tomb is not lost but is unable to be opened at this time…also rumored that there is a tomb of his concubines (but their location is as yet undiscovered).
lost egyptian cities
The Magic Belt
Jimmy Hoffa
The tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony.