Archaeological sites are precious windows into human history, but some individuals have managed to destroy these irreplaceable treasures through sheer stupidity, carelessness, or greed. Join us as we explore the most shocking and devastating archaeological destructions that will make you cringe and shake your head in disbelief!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for the most egregious incidents
00:04in which archaeological wonders were destroyed by ineptitude.
00:10In 2013, a Chinese microblogger named Shen was on vacation in Egypt when he came across
00:28a vandalised engraving at the Luxor Temple, which was constructed around 1400 BC.
00:34Someone had etched the words, Ding Xin Hao was here, in Chinese characters on the ancient
00:39structure.
00:40Shen took a picture of the defacement and shared it on the Chinese blogging website
00:44Weibo.
00:45It didn't take long for online sleuths to trace the name to a 15-year-old schoolboy.
00:57Apparently he had written those words years earlier, during a trip to Egypt with his parents.
01:02The boy's parents publicly apologised on Weibo, stating that Ding was remorseful.
01:07In response, China's foreign minister implored citizens to act responsibly abroad, to avoid
01:11similar embarrassments.
01:16Offa's Dyke is an ancient earthwork, dating back to the 8th century, that runs along the
01:21border of England and Wales.
01:22It was undisturbed for over 1200 years, until 2013, when a large stretch of it was completely
01:28flattened.
01:29Roughly 148 feet of the dyke was destroyed by a local landowner, to build a stable.
01:35Experts described it as like, driving a road through Stonehenge.
01:38Surprisingly, the perpetrator walked away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
01:42His defence was that he didn't know the dyke existed, despite living there his entire
01:46life.
01:47While that may make little sense, archaeologists worry that such actions set a bad precedent
01:52for the protection of historic sites.
01:58Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada is home to ancient artwork, considered sacred
02:02by Native American tribes from the area.
02:05In 2010, a 20-year-old paintballer and full-blown moron vandalised a series of petroglyphs,
02:10images that have been engraved into rocks for centuries, by shooting at them with a
02:14gun.
02:15Experts compared it to, quote, having a paintball fight in the Sistine Chapel.
02:19The incident was splattered across the ancient paintings, and the culprit was eventually
02:22punished for this abhorrent crime.
02:24He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, fined nearly $10,000, and ordered to complete 50
02:30hours of community service.
02:31Which was quite lenient, considering the fines could have reached $100,000.
02:37In 2007, workers building an IKEA in Nanjing, China, demolished about 10 ancient tombs,
02:44which were roughly 1,800 years old.
02:47Experts believe these tombs belonged to wealthy families of that era, but we'll never know
02:51for certain, as they were lost to make way for the Swedish furniture store.
02:55You'd think this incident would serve as a cautionary tale, and urge greater efforts
02:59to protect such sites.
03:01Unfortunately, history repeated itself in 2013, when more tombs dating back 3,000 years
03:07were destroyed in Guangzhou, to build a metro line.
03:10These tombs were still actively being studied, at least until they were sacrificed for modern
03:15transit.
03:16The Elgin Marbles are ancient Greek sculptures,
03:28that were crafted during the 5th century BC.
03:30In early 19th century, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, and the British ambassador
03:35to the Ottoman Empire, removed these sculptures and took them to the British Museum in London.
03:41Despite Greece's repeated requests for their return, Britain refused.
03:45Adding to the controversy, the British severely disfigured the marbles.
04:00In an attempt to polish them and restore their original colour, the museum scraped away intricate
04:04details, causing irreparable damage to them.
04:08Although the museum eventually admitted its mistake, they deflected some blame to the
04:12Greeks, claiming that the sculptures were improperly cleaned before the British even
04:16took them.
04:30This is yet another story from 2013, which seems to have been a particularly bad year
04:34for archaeology.
04:35In Belize, a Mayan pyramid which stood for more than 2,300 years, was demolished by boulders.
04:42Nothing could be salvaged from the ruins, as the structure was almost completely decimated.
04:47Shockingly, this was done so that a construction crew could get limestone rocks, which they
04:51needed to build a road.
04:53The incident was baffling to archaeologists, who believe that the construction company
04:57was well aware that it was a historical site, considering the structure was about 100 feet
05:01tall and very clearly a pyramid.
05:04The act was not only senseless, but also deeply disrespectful to the rich history it erased.
05:11In 2020, a cave in Australia, which was inhabited for at least 46,000 years, was blown up by
05:19mining company Rio Tinto, to expand an iron ore mine.
05:33Precious artefacts had been excavated there, such as a 4,000-year-old human plait, woven
05:38out of hair from several individuals.
05:40DNA testing showed this hair belonged to the direct ancestors of the aboriginal people,
05:45still living in the area.
05:55While Rio Tinto apologised and were ordered to pay compensation to the traditional owners,
06:00no amount of money can restore the 46,000 years worth of history they blew up.
06:05Following a parliamentary inquiry in December 2020, the company was also ordered to rebuild
06:10the caves.
06:18Giuseppe Fellini was an Italian soldier from Bologna, who later became a treasure hunter
06:23– a more extravagant title for a thief.
06:26His military career took him to Egypt in the 1830s, and in 1834 he went on an expedition
06:31to Merui, an ancient Egyptian settlement in present-day Sudan.
06:35The Sudanese governor-general permitted Fellini to excavate the location, which he then used
06:41as an opportunity to plunder and destroy it.
06:54Merui was home to several pyramids, which were apparently in good condition before Fellini
06:59got to them.
07:00However, his greed pushed him to level these ancient structures in search of treasures.
07:05While he did find what he was looking for, Fellini ultimately destroyed over 40 pyramids
07:09in the process.
07:14Formont was sent by French King Louis XV to Greece in the 18th century, to search for
07:18surviving Byzantine manuscripts.
07:21After travelling the region for over a year, he found no valuable manuscripts.
07:25So he decided to look for even older ones, and found roughly 300 in Sparta.
07:30Instead of preserving them, he proceeded to transcribe and simply destroy them.
07:35He believed this gave his transcriptions exclusivity, and wrote in his letters how excited he was
07:40to be destroying these ancient sites.
07:42Thankfully, he was summoned back to France before he could reach Olympia, which he also
07:46planned on destroying.
07:47Today, all of Formont's published work has been invalidated, as there is simply no way
07:52of verifying the information he transcribed.
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08:14Heinrich Schliemann was a 19th century archaeologist who became famous for discovering Troy, then
08:19very quickly blowing it up.
08:20He was more or less an amateur archaeologist, who attempted to excavate the Mound of Hisarlik,
08:25the site where Troy once stood.
08:27His main blunder was using dynamite to excavate the site, which caused irreparable damage
08:32to most of it.
08:33Schliemann believed the lower layers housed the city described in Homer's Iliad, a book
08:37he was obsessed with.
08:39This caused him to disregard the upper layers, and he annihilated most of the city in the
08:43process.
08:44Classicist Kenneth Hall joked that Schliemann did what the ancient Greeks could not.
08:49He destroyed the walls of Troy.
08:51So were there any archaeological blunders that we forgot to include in our list?
08:55Let us know in the comments section.