If you’re constructing a new wall, repairing water lines, or doing some other type of construction that includes digging into the ground, something unusual is bound to be discovered. Although these discoveries aren’t always especially noteworthy, they can include the remains of a dead king or an entire mansion buried beneath a city. Take a look at some of the most amazing objects found on building sites that make archeology look like construction.
See which thousands of prehistoric artifacts have been discovered in one Chinese city.
Underneath A Highway, A Byzantine Church Was Discovered.
The ruins of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine Church were discovered along what was once an ancient road by construction workers doing routine maintenance on a modern highway. The church, which was built near Jerusalem, had decorative white marble flooring and a crucifix-shaped baptismal pool.
Oil lamps, pearl shells, glass pots, and other objects were found, among them. Netivei Israel, the National Transportation Infrastructure Company, ceased work after learning of the discovery and has preserved the site for public viewing and historical research.
A Philadelphia apartment building has dozens of coffins under it.
Crews working on the base of an apartment complex in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, discovered about two dozen completely preserved bodies encased in coffins in March of 2017. The coffins are thought to have been part of a nearby First Baptist Church burial ground from the 18th century.
Staff were expected to remove the bodies from the burial ground when the church was relocated around 1860, but they failed to do so fully. The bodies were exhumed, examined, and reburied in Mount Moriah Cemetery.
A 60,000-Year-Old Wooly Mammoth Tusk Was Discovered Beneath A Building.
A fossilized tusk of a Columbian Mammoth was discovered underneath a residential building in Seattle, Washington. The tusk underneath the structure was over eight feet long, and paleontologists estimated the fossil to be at least 60,000 years old after examining it.
The land and building’s owner, AMLI, halted construction and enlisted the help of experts to investigate the mysterious discovery. The tusk is now on display at Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
Underneath the Future Apple Store is a Medieval Hospital.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, as the bubonic plague struck Europe, hospitals were so overburdened with patients that many were abandoned due to a lack of physicians. The base of one of these abandoned hospitals was discovered during the excavation for a new Apple Store in Madrid, Spain, in 2013.
The hospital, which dates from the 15th century, was discovered to have been used to house plague victims. Although it was still in use in the 18th century, it was demolished in the 1850s.
Dinosaur Eggs Found During A Chinese Road Repair.
Thousands of fossilized dinosaur eggs have been discovered in the Chinese city of Heyuan over the years. More than 17,000 eggs have been found since 1996, many by laypeople rather than paleontologists. The first group was discovered by children playing in a building site, who mistook the eggs for stones at first.
Construction workers fixing a road found 46 additional chickens. They enlisted the help of experts to look into the matter. A total of 19 of the 46 eggs were found to be fully preserved, the bulk of which came from oviraptorids that roamed the planet 89 million years ago.
Discover the story of a king who was believed to be lost for all time.
Under a Scottish Bridge, a 19th-Century Time Capsule.
A time capsule from 1894 was discovered by construction workers working on the Ruthven Road Bridge in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland in 2015. A bottle of whisky, a scroll, an 1894 newspaper, and many other small objects were found in the capsule, which was a metal case.
The capsule was sent to the Highland Folk Museum for investigation, and it was determined that it had been hidden in the bridge during construction.
Underneath A Chinese Road, There Is A Mummy.
In the city of Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, eastern China, a preserved mummy of a woman was discovered underneath a road in 2011. The woman was discovered to be a Ming Dynasty member after a thorough examination.
The woman was under five feet tall, dressed in fine clothes, and her hair and brows were still intact. Wang Weiyin, the curator of the Taizhou Museum, also discovered that the mummy was about 700 years old.
In a Chimney, a World War II-era letter to Santa Claus.
The spirit of Christmas was still alive even through one of the most traumatic periods of modern human history. Contractor Lewis Shaw discovered a piece of paper when demolishing the chimney of an old home in Caversham, Reading, Berkshire, England. The folded up paper turned out to be a 1943 letter from a young boy named David to Santa Claus.
The note read as follows: “Greetings, Father Christmas Please give me a Rupert annual, as well as a drum box of chalks, soldiers and Indians, slippers, and any other little toys you might have.” David was discovered to be alive after a social media campaign, and the letter was returned to him.
Underneath an English Town, a 12th-Century Mansion.
The base of a 12th-century mansion was discovered in 2013 during a housing construction project in Wellington, England. People with vast estates had deeds and papers for their property back then, but none were found here.
Despite the lack of detail on the owner, the painting of a knight on the tile is similar to that found at Glastonbury Abbey, making the find all the more remarkable. All that was retrieved from the site was taken to the Somerset Museum to be evaluated.
A Medieval King’s Forgotten Remains.
From 1483 until 1485, King Richard III reigned as King of England and Lord of Ireland. His body was thought to have been captured by the enemy after he died at the Battle of Bosworth Field, though reports of what happened to it afterward differ.
In the city of Leicester, however, researchers and archeologists found a skeleton under a parking lot in 2012. Richard III’s remains were thought to be among them. It was verified that it was the former King of England after radiocarbon dating, radiological confirmation, and DNA and bone analysis. The ashes were then taken to Leicester Cathedral and interred there.
You won’t believe the guy who had a hunch there was something buried where he decided to put his tub!.
Manhattan Covers an African Burial Ground.
Excavation in what is now Chinatown began in 1991 as part of a plan to construct a new federal building in lower Manhattan. During the excavation, the bones of slaves from the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam were discovered in a 17th-century burial site.
Construction was stopped so that the field could be excavated and the bodies could be removed, with some of the remains having living relatives. In 1993, the site was designated as a national historic landmark, and in 2006, it was designated as a national monument.
During the construction of a housing project, a Mayan sports arena was discovered.
In 2006, the ruins of an ancient Mayan ballgame court were discovered during the construction of a housing project in Yucatán, Mexico. The National Institute of Anthropology was consulted at first because no one knew what the discovery was.
The ball court, according to experts Fernando Acevedo and Donato Martin Espaa, was over 2,500 years old and huge, measuring 82 feet long and 15 feet wide. Since sports are such an important part of Mayan culture, the site was preserved and designated as a historical site.
In Berlin, there is an unexploded RAF bomb.
Allied forces dropped over 3.4 million tons of bombs on enemy territory during World War II. Around 15% of these bombs are thought to have never detonated, with many of them missing during the war’s reconstruction.
A two-ton World War II RAF bomb was found underneath a construction site in Schwabian of Augsburg, Bavaria, on Christmas Day 2016, and 54,000 people were evacuated immediately. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual phenomenon in war-torn Europe and other parts of the world.
The Pharaoh Ptolemy IV’s Lost Temple.
The 2,200-year-old abandoned temple of Pharaoh Ptolemy IV was discovered when construction workers were digging a new sewage drain in Kom Shakau village in Tama township in northern Sohag, Egypt. Construction on the site was halted on October 2, 2019, according to the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ secretary-general, Mostafa Waziri.
Following the discovery of limestone inscriptions bearing Ptolemy IV’s name, the team was able to confirm that the temple that had been thought to be destroyed was, in fact, the one that had been lost.
During the excavation of a pool, a cemetery was discovered.
When Vincent Marcello wanted to create a swimming pool in New Orleans in 2011, he was unsure what he would discover, so he hired archaeologist Ryan Gray to excavate the area first. Marcello was right, and Gray discovered 15 wooden coffins under the swimming pool that was supposed to be there.
They were found in the 1980s near the Saint Peter Cemetery in New Orleans, with other bodies discovered nearby. The coffins were removed and transported to Louisiana State University for examination.
Have you ever seen a genuine gold pot?.
A Whale Skeleton That Isn’t in the Water.
In 1849, construction workers in Vermont found the skeleton of a white whale 250 miles inland from the nearest coast while building a new railroad. They knew it was time to warn experts when they discovered the mysterious remains were over 20 feet long.
The experts who were brought in were taken aback by how far the marine mammal was from the ocean and how there were no rivers in the vicinity. They eventually determined that the whale skeleton was over 11,000 years old and survived during the period when that portion of the land was underwater. The discovery is now known as the “Charlotte Whale.”.
Viking Remains in a Mass Grave.
A burial pit of what appeared to be more than 50 executed Viking warriors was discovered while working on a construction site on the side of the road in Dorset, UK. Archaeologists discovered that the pit was divided into two parts, one containing skulls and the other containing the rest of the bodies.
Experts determined that the victims were executed between 910 and 1030 AD and that the remains came from Scandinavian countries.
The Secret Safe of Pablo Escobar.
The US government confiscated one of cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar’s estates in Miami Beach, Florida, about 29 years ago. The property was later re-listed and eventually bought. However, the new owner wanted to demolish the house, and while doing so, he found something unusual.
Workers found a secret safe when tearing down the last pieces of the building. Anything may have been in there, knowing Pablo Escobar. Unfortunately, no information about its contents was ever made public.
Walls of Gold and Silver.
When Giuseppe Cadili and Valeria Giarusso bought an apartment in Palermo, Italy, they hired contractors to demolish some of the walls to make more space. They noticed something strange about the base of the walls during the process.
They were shocked to discover ornate gold and silver paintings on the walls after scrubbing it clean. The apartment once belonged to a North African trader in the 1700s, according to historians.
A Drain Pipe Installation That Resulted In A Gold Mine.
In 2018, utility workers in the Netherlands found a literal pot of gold when laying a drainpipe. They discovered a series of 500 gold coins dating back to the 15th century, with 12 silver coins thrown in for good measure.
The coins, which bear the likenesses of King Henry VI of England, Pope Paul II, and Bishop of Utrecht, David of Burgandy, date from the 1470s and 1480s, according to archeologist Peter de Boer. Despite the fact that the coins needed to be appraised, it was decided that they would be returned to the company that found them as well as the landowner.
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