25 of the most incredible discoveries made by ordinary people

I think the great archaeological discoveries do only scientists? As it is not so! Sometimes the ordinary person can detect is that all of science will open my mouth in amazement, and his name will forever remain in history.

Aristotle created a school where he taught pupils, in 335 BC and called it we. Modern archaeologists for a long time could not detect the remnants of this ancient University. The ruins of the famous Aristotle's Lika in 1996 found a simple builders were preparing the site for construction of the Museum of modern art.

In 2011, in Taizhou road workers expanding a road, came across a large solid object at a depth of about two meters. Realizing that they face a historical artifact, the workers called archaeologists. As it turned out, the road was the tomb with the mummy, which today is considered the best preserved of all found in China.

One of the most famous sculptures in the world for several centuries was buried on the Greek island of Milos. Found her simple peasant seeking underground ancient marble slabs for construction. Only then did she fall into the hands of archaeologists, and then in the Museum.

In this case, the discovery was made not even a man but an animal — more precisely, the badger from the vicinity of the German city Pillar. Digging his hole, he was thrown to the surface human bones. They attracted the attention of the police. What we are talking about the ancient remains, the police called scientists. In the place of badger dens were discovered, the burial site of the 12th century, an ancient pagan burial in Brandenburg.

After the death of a certain George Davis, his family, examining the heritage, found an ancient figure of a soldier in original box. As it turned out, Davis bought it in 1934 and then never thinking about purchasing. Appraiser of Antiques, which gave the figure, said stunned the heirs of that soldier was made in 1912 by the famous Karl Faberge by the order of Nicholas II to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. In total, he made 50 such soldiers. The Davis heirs sold the figure at auction for $ 5.2 million.

27 may 1653 digger Adrian Quintin worked in the yard of the Church of Saint Brice in French (now Belgian) Tour. Among the clods which he threw a shovel from the pit, the digger saw the gold coins. As it turned out, Quincy found the grave Hellenica I, the leader of the Franks, who after the death in 481 BC was buried in his capital at Tournai. A nice addition to the finding was a mountain of gold that were in the king's tomb.

In 2000, Rick Norsigian bought in Yosemite national Park a stack of old glass negatives for $ 45. After many years, he wondered about their origin and suspected that the author photos can be a great American photographer Ansel Adams, who lived and worked in Yosemite. The examination revealed that the photos were indeed made by Adams. Later Norsigian sold the negatives for $ 200 million.

Bog butter — a fatty substance that is sometimes found in the peat bogs of Ireland. It is believed that it was prepared from animal fat or milk. According to scientists, the oil was hiding in the swamps or in order to save it, either as offerings to the gods. In June 2016 Carver peat found a 10-pound piece of marsh oil, which was stored in the quagmire of supposedly 2000 years. The substance is well preserved. According to archaeologists, it was even edible, however, no one dared to check it out.

In Britain, a brother and sister, to understand things in the family home, has discovered an unusual two-foot vase, presumably from Chinese porcelain, and attributed it to the appraiser. The amazement told them that the vase dates to the 18th century and once belonged to the ruling at that time in China the Imperial dynasty Qianlong. Being put up for auction, after a fierce fight of applicants rarity was sold for 88 million dollars. This is a record price for the subject of Chinese art.

A Italian, out of curiosity razglyadyvali your city on Google Earth, I noticed the remains of the oval structure where the weave of shadows from projections on the ground resembled a building. He posted a screenshot in his blog and called local archaeologists. Those starting excavations at the place have discovered a Roman Villa.

In 1784 a Japanese farmer clearing an irrigation ditch for the rice fields, found a seal of pure gold. He took it to a local scientist. It turned out that the find — the legendary seal that the Emperor Uate Guanwu presented to the Japanese Emperor during the first meeting, the Japanese and Chinese rulers in the year 57 BC.

Housewife from Hertfordshire with her son out of interest researched field with a metal detector and found ten inches under ground gold pendant with the crucifixion, dated to the 15th century. As reported by the independent valuers, the cost findings are exceed 300 thousand dollars.

In 1935 Buddhist monastery hired workers to move the plaster statue of the Buddha to the wall of the building where they kept religious relics, of no great value. The workers dropped the statue. It broke away from a piece of plaster, and the workers noticed as out of the chip flashed gold. Splits the rest of the cast, they found underneath a statue of pure gold. Today this statue is exhibited in a special pavilion of the monastery and is the largest Golden Buddha in the world.

Builders, demolition of old houses in a small town in the Turkish province of Nevehir, found underneath, at a depth of about one hundred meters, the ancient city. Scientists still don't know its exact square — according to preliminary calculations, it is equal to half a square kilometer.

When clearing the jungle under the banana plantation at the mouth of the river Diquis in Costa Rica, the bucket of a bulldozer stumbled upon extremely hard objects, which were large stone balls. The exact time of the creation of the balls scientists are still not set, apparently, this is the end of 14th — beginning of 15th century, the era of pre-Columbian civilizations. These balls are considered to be one of the most important monuments of ancient Indian civilizations of Costa Rica.

In 1799, during the conquest of Egypt by Napoleon's army, the troops of the French captain Pierre-françois Bouchard discovered near the town of Rosetta a slab of rock with strange inscriptions. When it was examined by scientists, it turned out that the inscriptions on the ancient Egyptian and Greek languages. Rosetta stone later became the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

One of the most valuable exhibits of the British Museum is Hexascii treasure — a collection of ancient coins and household items. It was discovered by Eric Lowell, a resident of the village Hoxne in the County of Suffolk, in 1992. Losing hammer, Eric began to search for him using a metal detector, but instead found 14865 silver coins, more than 200 copies of silverware and a lot of gold jewelry. The treasure was dated to 407 BC. Its approximate cost is 1.75 million pounds.

A Danish resident by the name of Klaus decided to help my son to do homework on the history of the region. During the research they found on his farm "Messerschmitt" BF-109 the war. According to the grandfather, who had to forget the history of the war years, the plane crashed on a farm in the last year of the war. He has not damaged the buildings and lay on the distant plot, so I eventually forgot about it.

On 19 September 1991 two German tourists found in the woods frozen in the ice of the human body. Thinking that they are dealing with traces of the crime, the tourists called the police. But the police examined the body and gave it to the archaeologists. According to them, discovered the human remains about 4000 years old. This discovery proved valuable to study the life of ancient tribes in Europe.

In 1989 an unremarkable collector, bought at a flea market for $ 4 — only because he liked the frame. When he took the picture out of the frame, found between her and the canvas of the old document. This was one of the first prints of the Declaration of independence.

18-year-old French auto mechanic Marcel Ravida in September 1940, when walking with friends through the forest, found the entrance to the cave. Going there, the boys saw a lot of ancient rock paintings. They agreed to keep the discovery secret, but lasted only a week. One of them opened the mystery of a local teacher and expert on antiquities. The cave of Lascaux is still considered a valuable source of knowledge about the life of ancient man.

In 1947 two shepherds looking for a lost goat near Qumran on the Dead sea, came upon a cave, where they found jars with ancient scrolls. It was the famous Dead sea scrolls — ancient manuscripts from the sacred texts, which are considered to be the most valuable legacy of early Christianity. However, shepherds, Bedouins, not knowing their value, sold the jars with scrolls in just $ 21.

The couple, examining the attic of the house, found a bunch of old magazines, one of which was the very first Superman comic. The magazine was sold at auction for a million dollars. It's funny that cleaning the wife started because they were forced to move out of the house because of the financial claims of the Bank. Certainly after the sale of treasure financial matters with the Bank was safely settled.

In 1974, a Chinese farmer digging a ditch, stumbled upon the clay figure, trapped by an ancient statue. Thus was discovered the terracotta army — the most valuable monument of the Qing dynasty.

Archaeologist Howard Carter in the early 20 th century for many years sought in the Egyptian desert tomb of Tutankhamun, but the search always failed. He helped the boy the water boy: when the archaeologist was about to finish the expedition, the, playing with a stick, stumbled on a stone slab. Starting to dig this place, Carter discovered the tomb of the famous Pharaoh.