Travel through time and space, explore the journey of beauty, and look at the six major cultural relics listed in discover magazine, and the Terracotta Warriors, as the embodiment of the army more than 2,000 years ago, also made the list.
Goddess of the Age of Obscurantism: Venus of Willendorff
图源：Bj rn Christian T rrissen
Traceability: About 30,000 years ago, In Europe, Austria
Present collection: Museum of Natural History, Vienna, Austria
The most famous figure of the goddess is the Venus of Milo in the 2nd century BC, but it is not the oldest sculpture of the goddess. The Venus of Villendoff, a mysterious work of art that predates ancient Greek and Roman mythology by more than 20,000 years, is affectionately known as "Prehistoric Venus" by anthropologists and archaeologists.
The Venus of Wielendorf, unearthed in Austria, is only 11.1 cm tall and has an obese body, with exaggerated breasts, buttocks, abdomen and locally exaggerated prominences, no foot or facial features, and pigment spots that indicate that this tan limestone artifact was once painted red.
Archaeologists excavated sites near Vienna in 1908 on the banks of the Danube For about a week, followed by several excavations spanning the entire 20th and turn of the century. With the continuous improvement of archaeological techniques and methods, 2 statues of Venus and nearly 200 similar figurines have been excavated.
The Venus of Villendoff is a goddess of nearly 30,000 years and reflects the typical social characteristics of the Ice Age. It is impossible to know who the prototype is, and why did the people of the Ice Age carve these figurines? Researchers believe that they can be used as a symbol of fertility, and the female figurines with rich breasts and fat buttocks are a symbol of the goddess worship of the matriarchal society, a goddess world, indicating that this time is in the period of female-centered matriarchal clans, and the exaggerated proportion also emphasizes symbolic characteristics such as female reproductive traits and fertility.
The pinnacle of human civilization that emerges in the wilderness of the Americas: the Olmec civilization and megalithic statues
Image source: Fer Gregory
Traceability: About 3400 years ago, on the Gulf Coast of Central America
Current Collection: A number of Museums in Mexico, including the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City
The Olmec civilization originated in the swamp forests of the Gulf Coast between about 400 and 1400 BC and is known as the mother culture of all the cultures of the American continent. More than two thousand years later, in 1862 AD, a farmer inadvertently hit a huge stone with a hoe, unveiling a strange peak in the history of human civilization.
The majestic statues face up to the sky and are 5 to 10 feet tall, each weighing more than an adult elephant. They have become the most important symbol of olmec civilization. The heads are chiseled from basalt, and inexplicably, the megalithic statues have flat noses, thick lips, and almond-shaped eyes, but each face has a different expression, and they are generally considered to be portraits of olmec rulers.
The first stone statue was excavated in Tressa Potes, in the foothills of the Tuxtlas Mountains. But archaeologists later found more stone statues nearly 60 miles from the basalt source, but how did tens of tons of stone go through tens of kilometers of transportation and eventually be carved and displayed in the central square? It was extremely difficult under the conditions of low productivity at the time; what is even more bizarre is that these megalithic statues seem to have been broken and buried a long time ago, and archaeologists speculate that perhaps the new rulers seized power and deliberately destroyed the old statues, and with the annihilation of the Olmec civilization, such works disappeared permanently.
Curse of the Pharaoh: Tutankhamun's Golden Mask
Traces: 3300 years ago, the new kingdom of ancient Egypt
Present Collection: Egyptian Museum in Cairo
When it comes to Egypt, most people first think of the mysterious pharaoh, and the most mysterious and strange thing is the tomb of King Tutankhamun and his golden mask. The 9-year-old king came to the world, died violently at the age of 19, and the cause of death was once classified as murder, and the life of the young king was shrouded in mystery. The 24-pound mask is draped over the wrapped mummy, and the pure gold base is studded with lapis lazuli, turquoise and other semi-precious stones. Exaggerated tubular whiskers protrude from the chin, vultures and cobras hover around the forehead, and the gods are blessed together, symbolizing the unity of Lower and Upper Egypt.
In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the almost intact tomb of King Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, a royal necropolis along the Nile, and with the discovery of the imperial tomb, the mysterious gold mask reappeared. Throughout the ages, tomb robbers have emptied most egyptian royal tombs, so Tutante's mausoleum is the first and only one that has not been stolen.
The violent death of the director of the Cairo Museum, Mr. Gemil Mehrair, and the reason for the sudden death of at least forty archaeologists after that are related to the Tomb of Tutankhamun, which also cast a mysterious and strange fog over the golden mask, and even from the academic circles to the folk, there is a saying of "the curse of the pharaoh", some people explain it with the theory of virus parasitism, and some people think that it is Tutankhamun's anger. In short, the "mysterious curse" accompanied by the reappearance of the golden mask sensationalized the world.
A codebook for cracking dead text, the Rosetta Stone
Traces: 2200 years ago, the ancient Egyptian city of Rosetta
Current Collection: British Museum, UK
This is another ancient Egyptian treasure, now in the British Museum, one of the three treasures of the town hall and the most popular world-class artifact. The stele is 1.14 meters high and weighs 1680 pounds, and although about a third has been scattered over time, the full text inscription mentioned above has been preserved. The Rosetta Stone, made in 196 BC, is inscribed with an edict marking the first anniversary of the coronation of King Ptolemy V of Ancient Egypt, and is chiseled into black basalt stone slabs in ancient Greek, the official hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, and the popular cursive Script of the time, The Demok script. This three-character inscription can not only decipher the meaning and structure of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but also gain insight into the socio-political system of ancient Egypt, unlock all the works of ancient Egyptian civilization, and become an important milestone in the study of ancient Egyptian civilization today.
In 1799, French soldiers discovered the artifact during Napoleon's campaign against Egypt, but traveled to England during the Anglo-French War, where it was preserved and publicly displayed in the British Museum since 1802, because the ancient Greek in the three languages was decipherable at that time, so scholars and the public immediately recognized the potential of deciphering hieroglyphs using ancient Greek, and thus understanding the script and grammatical structure of these lost languages. But the process of deciphering was long and difficult, and it was not until 20 years later that the Frenchman Jean François Champolion successfully cracked it, and it turned out that Egyptian hieroglyphs also had a phonetic effect.
The mysterious underground legion - the Terracotta Warriors of the Mausoleum of The First Emperor of Qin
Traces: 2200 years ago, Shaanxi Province
Current place of collection: Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum
The first emperor of the qin dynasty ordered the construction of the grand Qin Tombs for more than 30 years, and the underground palace was built with various palaces and displayed many strange treasures. The site of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin covers an area of 56.25 square kilometers, the entire project has recruited 720,000 manpower, and the maximum number of people using the tomb is nearly 800,000, and the number of workers and the duration are unprecedented. The most widely popular burial in the Qin Tombs is the eighth wonder of the world, the Terracotta Warriors. Thousands of life-size terracotta warriors were listed in uniform military formations in the trenches. However, the original glorious color quickly oxidized in the air with the discovery of the funeral pit and disappeared, leaving only an earth-yellow legion composed of more than 8,000 life-size figurines.
In 1974, farmers stumbled upon the first statue while digging a well. Since then, three major excavations have uncovered 2,000 terracotta warriors, although more than 6,000 others may still be buried. A 2014 study in the Journal of Archaeological Science showed that each statue appeared to depict a real soldier in Qin Shi Huang's army, their personal hairstyles, hats, robes, facial hairs were lifelike, and even their ears were unique, and the bronze weapons unearthed are still very sharp to this day.
Since 1974, the archaeological work on the mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin has never stopped, and new discoveries have been made continuously. In December 2019, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang unearthed the earliest single golden camel seen in China, as well as a new type of terracotta warriors and horses of "lower and lower military officials"; on October 18, 2021, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was selected as one of the top 100 archaeological discoveries and protection and display outstanding projects in the past century.
The Religious World in the Ancient Scrolls: The Dead Sea Scrolls
Traces: About 2,000 years ago, on the West Bank and israel's Dead Sea coast
Current collection: Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The greatest discoveries are often unintentional, and this is how one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls, was discovered. In 1947, Bedouin shepherd Mohammed Ed Dieb searched for a wandering goat along the rugged cliffs of the Dead Sea, and in a narrow cave he found clay pots filled with ancient scrolls, part of nearly 1,000 volumes or fragments kept between 300 B.C. and 70 A.D., that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Archaeological findings have revealed that about 230 parchment scrolls reproduce stories and passages from the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament, and the copies may have predate the biblical compilation. It also contains other religious texts and non-biblical texts, a large part of which are prophecies about the end of the world, most of which are written in Hebrew, but also include ancient Hebrew, Aramaic dialects, Greek, Latin and Arabic and other foreign languages, forming a corpus of more than 25,000 parchment and papyrus, which is a literature for the study of the history of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Judging from the decipherable content, the researchers expressed their opinions on the authorship of the scroll. Some say the texts come from different denominations; others classify them all as a Jewish sect that lived near 12 caves in the 1st century AD.
Over the years, as archaeological excavations advanced, more scrolls reappeared in nearby 12 caves and some further afield. Due to drought, salinity, weathering, and harsh desert conditions, only some of the scrolls were intact, and most of them deteriorated and damaged. The restoration of the scrolls is like a jigsaw puzzle, carefully reassembling fragments through matching clues and physical and chemical materials. Since many of the reels are made from animal skins, DNA sequencing may be helpful in the future. In 2020, scientists such as Sarit Anawa conducted a joint study in which DNA tests were performed on 26 of the fragments, successfully matching fragments from the same organism.
Source: Network, Editor: mhpj136139