Have you heard of five artifacts in the history of archaeology?
Everything seems to have passed through the modern era, and even with advanced science and technology it is impossible to replicate.
To this day, experts are still unable to explain their origins, which shocked the entire archaeological community.
What exactly are these five "cultural relics"?
How strange are they?
The first object that shocked the archaeological community was a crystal cup left over from the Warring States period in China.
There was no hint, just putting the crystal cup in front of everyone, and everyone must think that it was nothing special, just the glass we usually drink.
However, if you were to tell that the cup was born more than two thousand years ago during the Warring States period, it will surprise everyone.
The "Warring States Crystal Cup" was excavated in 1990 in Shitang Village, Hangzhou, and archaeologists were stunned when they were unearthed, almost thinking that tomb robbers accidentally left it.
The Crystal Cup is now in the Hangzhou Museum and has become the "Pearl of the Town" in Hangzhou.
People who have seen the crystal cup will know that the crystal cup is wide and narrow, with flared corners, smooth inside and outside, 15.4 cm high, 7.8 cm in diameter, and 5.4 cm in diameter, with no grain on the surface and slightly amber texture.
The most amazing thing about this crystal cup is that it is not only large, but also made of crystal, the quality is very good, very rare, the polish marks are very good, and the curved surface polishing process.
It is difficult to imagine how cups were made in the Warring States period before 2000, when productivity and economic technology were so backward.
Experts in mineral-related fields say this high-purity crystal is not found in China. After a crystal cup was found at the Yuhang Hemudu site in Zhejiang, archaeologists named it "Zhejiang West Chalcedony Crystal Cup". Archaeologists and archaeologists were amazed at the materials and craftsmanship used to make crystal cups.
The second thing that shocked the archaeological community was the Delhi Iron Pillar in India.
Today, the iron pillar stands within the walls of the ancient capital of Buta (Kudubu Tower) on the southern outskirts of India's capital, New Delhi, and looks so inconspicuous that one might even think it was made of clay, if not introduced by a guide.
Once you enter the pillar, however, you will find that it is made of iron with some incomprehensible Sanskrit engraved on it, which looks very old, but there is no rust on it.
The Delhi Iron Pillar is 7.25 meters high, weighs 6.5 tons, the diameter of the upper end is 0.3 meters, the diameter of the lower end is 0.42 meters, standing here all year round, there is a local legend that the iron pillar has magical powers, if a person can rotate with his back to it, then the wish of his heart will come true.
The Delhi Iron Pillar is thought to have been removed from eastern India by the rulers of the time in the 5th century AD, meaning that the walls of the Kudubu Tower Wall were not its original birthplace.
In the past, India believed that the Delhi Iron Pillar was cast 2300 years ago by the Ashoka people who crossed India. The bamboo pole has a strange name, "Golden Pagoda", which means "Tower of Wisdom". At that time, people thought that the tower had fallen from the sky. But later experts identified the iron pillar and found that it was made more than 1500 years ago, which means that it has nothing to do with Ashoka.
But even so, the suspicion of the iron pillar by experts has not diminished. How powerful can this "iron bull" really be? Why does it make such a sound? Let's get closer to it and see what's going on! An ordinary piece of iron. As we all know, iron is the most rusty metal, not to mention hundreds of thousands of years, and ordinary cast iron will rust after about ten years of laying.
Even in modern society, we still haven't found a way to completely eliminate rust from iron.
The Delhi Iron Pillar is exposed to sunlight and nature all year round, and after centuries of wind and frost, rain, snow and frost, how on earth did it not get any special protective measures without rust?
Experts took samples from the iron pillar and found that it also contained a large amount of phosphorus, which may be that the chemical reaction during the casting process produced a natural protective film, making the Delhi iron pillar rust-free all year round.
If so, ancient India is certainly more advanced than people think.
The third object that shocked the archaeological community was a cloud-patterned copper five-pillar vessel from the Western Zhou Dynasty.
To modern people, it looked like a router made of bronze, but when it was first unearthed, it embarrassed the people of the time.
The bronze statue was unearthed in Anhui in 1959, when local residents were trying to build an airport, but dug up an ancient tomb with a history of more than 3,000 years.
In addition to this handicraft, hundreds of precious cultural relics have been unearthed in the ancient tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty, but the most striking of them is the bronze ware.
The bronze is 31 cm high and weighs 5.25 kg, mainly consisting of a base and five columns of equal height. The square seat is hollow, the four walls are slightly bulging, and there are double grooves carved on it. The shape is simple and atmospheric, and it is called "cloud-patterned copper five pillars" by experts.
When this cloud-patterned copper five-pillar was first unearthed, the history of the founding of New China was only 10 years old, but the experts involved in archaeology were experienced and went through many ancient tombs, but still do not know what the bronze is for.
Even the famous historian and archaeologist Guo Moruo is no exception. But in the book "Oracle Bone Science Fa Fan", his name is written very clearly: Liu Dajie (1897-1966), a native of Gong County, Henan. He was a poor student. He hadn't read many books. He went through ancient books but did not find any relevant records.
At first, Guo Moruo suspected that it was a musical instrument, after all, the Western Zhou Dynasty attached great importance to the hierarchy, and when people died and were buried, the rules of etiquette were strict. Later, he discovered the artifact and named it "Chiming The Bell", thus changing this misconception. In fact, this cultural relic is not an ancient musical instrument, but a ceremonial instrument used for sacrifice. One of the ways to highlight one's status is with bronze instruments.
However, many experts at the time disagreed with Guo, and some believed that it was a knotted device on a rope, although they could not prove it.
More than half a century later, the use of bronze is still controversial, but its popularity has declined. Until one day, the emergence of routers, it re-attracted the attention of the public. Because routers can achieve Internet access, many people regard it as a substitute for routers. But this is not the case. People developed a new interest in routers until their "crossover" felt like a modern router crossover.
After continuous verification by experts, it was finally determined that the item may be a "prayer vessel" for religious ceremonies to pray for the prosperity of the family.
Why it looks like a router, experts can only answer with "coincidence".
The fourth antique that shocked the archaeological community was the Antikisilla machine in ancient Greece.
Anyone who sees it will be amazed because it looks like a mechanical part, but in fact it is made of bronze and salvaged from the bottom of the sea.
In 1900, a Greek diver was diving near the island of Antiquisilla when he accidentally found the wreck of an ancient Roman shipwreck 42 meters underwater.
After several dive salvages, divers found a large amount of jewelry and bronzes from the wreck, as well as ancient wines.
There is a more unusual thing, made of bronze, that has sunk to the bottom of the sea for many years, and although it has decayed in crates, its mysterious complexity, like part of some kind of large machinery, can still be recognized.
After the artifacts were salvaged from the water, they immediately attracted the attention of European archaeologists. Experts don't know the shape or size of the behemoth, but they find that it has a huge and strange head! Scientists have named this monster "Big-Eared Man". They studied it for a long time, but couldn't say what it was.
The ancient Roman shipwreck set sail from the ancient Greek port of Rhodes, and experts can only determine that it was made by the ancient Greeks and may be 2,000 years old, rather than the original use of bronze.
It wasn't until after 100, in collaboration with scientists at the National Geographic Museum in Greece, that a team of British scientists uncovered some of the secrets behind the bronzes.
Using an X-ray machine, they found that the interior of the bronze bronze was composed of at least 37 gears, which was more mechanically precise than many machines in the 1818th century.
Scientists have also found an ancient inscription on the bronze that appears to describe the machine's primary use, just to make it missing and uninterpretable.
Scientists speculate that all the gears and turntable parts of Antikisilla's machine may have been handmade, most likely a mechanical computer used to study astronomy, and through calculations, it is possible to predict the exact position of the sun and moon on any day on the zodiac chart.
If true, it would mean that this is the earliest computer in history, potentially rewriting the ancient history of ancient astronomy.
The fifth cultural relic that shocked the archaeological community, the "anti-heaven" antiquities that we are more familiar with, came from the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan, China.
The site is 5,000 to 3,000 years old and is known as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
Excavations at the Sanxingdui site began in 1934, paused for a long time, and then continued excavations, and now it has been nearly 90 years, and the excavation of the Sanxingdui site has not yet ended.
In the process of excavation, Sanxingdui unearthed a large number of ancient cultural relics, including bronze, jade, gold, etc., and more famous cultural relics include bronze sacred trees, bronze face masks, etc.
The most striking of these is a bronze bronze statue of a standing figure measuring 2.62 meters tall.
The bronze statue has a very special appearance, with large eyes and a straight nose, and two huge square ears that look like aliens. However, it has a huge pocket containing a battery and a mobile phone charging treasure, which looks like a smart robot. This is the "alien statue" we are going to introduce today, which was designed and manufactured by the Japanese. The pose of the bronze statue is also unusual, its arms are ring-shaped, and there is an empty space between the arms, as if it is still holding something.
Similar to the bronze mask, the face of the bronze statue also shines with a mysterious smile. What are they laughing at? What are they talking about? What kind of story is hidden behind these expressions? How were they created? What will they teach us? Dreamlike.
When the bronze statue was unearthed, experts also found a slender golden scepter and more than 5,000 ancient sea shells near it. But these things have been stolen! How exactly was this bronze statue made? Why is that? This has always been the subject of debate in the archaeological community. Curiously, it has been concluded that neither the golden scepter nor the ancient shells came from the Central Plains, but from the Indian Sea.
It is difficult to say, four or five thousand years ago, there were exchanges between the Central Plains and india?
Logically speaking, the Central Plains culture of that era was still relatively closed. However, in the early 1990s in Henan, there was a "Central Plains fever", and even some well-known universities opened related majors, and attracted a large number of students from home and abroad to study. Why is that? In this regard, experts expressed puzzlement.
To this day, we still don't know where the Sanxingdui site civilization came from, and many people even think that the Sanxingdui site may be alien.
But as we deepen our archaeological excavations, these mysteries will be solved sooner or later, and we can only hope that this day will come sooner rather than later.