They Found a Lost Civilization Behind This Wall

Bright Side

Archaeologists just uncovered something wild behind a wall in the Saudi Arabian desert — an ancient lost city called al-Natah. 🏜️ Turns out, this place was home to around 500 people way back in 2400 B.C. It wasn’t just a random camp — it had defense towers, neighborhoods, roads, even farmland and a cemetery. The whole setup shows these people went from wandering nomads to full-on city life. They lived there for nearly a thousand years, which means it was working really well for a long time. It’s like finding an ancient mini-metropolis in the middle of nowhere — and it totally rewrites what we thought we knew.  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00There you are, trekking across a desert on foot.

00:04It's hot, you're terribly thirsty, and now you gotta walk around this stupid wall.

00:09Wait, a wall in the middle of a sandy, lifeless nowhere?

00:13Exactly, a wall in the northern Saudi desert.

00:17Archaeologists have just made a super exciting discovery,

00:21and what they found was not just a single wall.

00:23No, it was a whole ancient walled city that might date back to 2400 BCE.

00:30They think this place was home to around 500 people and could have been used for a thousand years.

00:36This discovery is groundbreaking.

00:38It means that the area could have been way more advanced than anyone expected.

00:42This city was well-organized, with different zones for living,

00:46towers and strong walls for protection, and different sections for all kinds of daily life.

00:51This ancient city, now called Al-Natah, was basically an oasis town.

00:56And it's great, since it can give us a peek into what life might have been like in this desert thousands of years ago.

01:02Apparently, they had clearly separated areas, like residential sections, a cemetery, farmland, and even a town center.

01:10This oasis city, found in the Kaibar area, is the first big organized settlement from the 2nd or 3rd millennium BCE

01:18that researchers have uncovered in northwestern Arabia.

01:21The first surveys show that this town, which covered about six acres, had several districts,

01:27including the residential area, the cemetery, and the legal one, with courts.

01:31The houses were set up in neat rows, all connected by small roads.

01:36Those streets kept the residential area separate from the rest of the town.

01:40Back then, most people in this region were nomadic herders, always moving around.

01:46But archaeologists have been sure that, during the Bronze Age,

01:50northwest Arabia had small, walled towns and oasis centers scattered across it.

01:54These connected oasis towns were unique, offering secure places for people to live, store goods, and trade.

02:02They started showing the beginnings of urban planning,

02:05which hints that people of that time were already starting to settle down and organize communities more seriously.

02:11The research team estimated that there were about 50 homes in Al-Natal,

02:16but that number could go up to 70 as they keep digging.

02:19They think that a few hundred people lived there,

02:22And probably one of the coolest things is that some houses went up to three stories tall.

02:28Built on a slope near a couple of major trade routes, this city was set up in a prime spot.

02:34Now, one of the most impressive things about this place is its water supply.

02:39The oasis had springs and aquifers, which are underground water sources,

02:44and such conditions were perfect for farming.

02:46Those water sources meant residents could grow their own food,

02:50making the town self-sufficient.

02:52The outer walls probably helped control who could enter the town and get access to its resources.

02:58This settled way of life was an impressive shift from nomadic living to a more agro-pastoral lifestyle,

03:05which means a mix of farming and herding animals.

03:09Another find that supports this theory is a bunch of tools,

03:12like grinding stones, mortars, and pestles, discovered inside the town.

03:16People there must have ground grains and prepared food.

03:20They had a diet of cereals, meat, and milk from animals they raised themselves.

03:25These astonishing findings show that the inhabitants of the town could easily feed themselves

03:30and were surprisingly advanced for that time.

03:33Thanks to better access to Saudi Arabia in the past couple of decades,

03:37archaeologists now have a much clearer picture of what life there was like thousands of years ago.

03:42The most exciting thing is that Al-Natal might have been part of a whole network of similar fortified oasis towns

03:50spread across the region, and all of these connected sites could show us how trade routes and small settlements

03:56worked together at that time in that arid area.

04:00Now, at the same time, this recent discovery isn't the only one that has the scientific world buzzing with excitement.

04:06How about we visit Egypt and see for ourselves?

04:10After all, archaeologists have just found a stash of ancient Egyptian and Greek treasure underwater.

04:17They were exploring the lost city of Thonis Heraklion, off the coast of Egypt, which sank more than 1,000 years ago.

04:24This city was legendary, and nobody even knew where it was until it was rediscovered in 2000.

04:30Now, they're uncovering more and more, and on this dive, they found a pile of gold and silver treasures.

04:38Those were probably used in rituals to bless Egyptian pharaohs when they took the throne.

04:43The researchers even found an ancient Greek temple dedicated to Aphrodite and some super-old Greek weapons.

04:50Frank Gaudio, the lead archaeologist, said it was astonishing that those delicate objects had survived the disaster that brought the city down.

04:58Back in its prime, Thonis Heraklion was one of the biggest port cities in the Mediterranean.

05:04It was a huge center of social life and was the main entry point for ships from Greece coming into Egypt.

05:10But tragically, due to rising waters, earthquakes, and a catastrophic tidal wave,

05:16the soil underneath the city literally turned into mush.

05:20And then the entire city sank into the Mediterranean.

05:24It was forgotten until Gaudio's team founded in 2000.

05:27Since then, they've been uncovering new parts of the city and piecing together its history little by little.

05:34If a lost underwater city doesn't seem impressive enough, we can travel to the Amazon.

05:39The discovery made there is truly mind-boggling.

05:43For centuries, people have talked about lost cities deep in the Amazon, like El Dorado,

05:48that mythical city of gold that lured Spanish explorers into the jungle.

05:52A lot of them never came back.

05:54Then, in the 1900s, a British explorer named Percy Fawcett went searching for what he called

06:00the lost city of Z, and he, too, disappeared.

06:05But now, finally, scientists have actually found proof that those lost cities in the Amazon were real all along.

06:12A team of scientists use a tech called LIDAR, which basically allows you to see through thick jungle from above by bouncing light beams off the ground.

06:21They flew over the jungle in Bolivia in a helicopter about 650 feet up and mapped out those hidden ancient cities.

06:29What they found were ruins of a huge urban settlement built by the Casarabi people, who lived there from 500 to 1400 CE.

06:37And it wasn't just a couple of buildings here and there.

06:40No, the LIDAR maps revealed massive urban centers, pyramids, platforms, roads, canals, and causeways, all carefully laid out.

06:50Turns out the Amazon wasn't just an untouched jungle.

06:53It was once home to big, complex cities.

06:56A scientist from the German Archaeological Institute explained that Europeans had long ignored the possibility of ancient Amazonian cities, but the LIDAR maps showed they were wrong.

07:08The new maps have revealed 26 sites, including 11 that no one even knew existed.

07:14Researchers have discovered two main city sites, Landivar and Kotoka.

07:19They had massive moat causeways stretching out like spokes on a wheel, linking the main cities with smaller surrounding settlements.

07:27Some of the canals even connected the cities to rivers and a big lake, which allowed water to flow through the area.

07:34Over the years, scientists found scattered ruins all over this region.

07:38But the thick jungle made it nearly impossible to connect the dots and see if or how they were related.

07:44With LIDAR, the whole layout came to life, showing that those sites were part of a much larger, organized urban system.

07:52It's now also clear that the sites had a greater meaning, since everything is lined up in a way that could be symbolic of the spiritual beliefs of the inhabitants.

08:02The Qasarabi culture isn't as famous as the Maya, but they had a thriving society in an area that faced huge challenges, like yearly flooding.

08:11And although the nearby Andes had their own monumental sites, the Qasarabi were doing something absolutely unique.

08:19They even had reservoirs to store water, which suggests they might have been dealing with occasional droughts, which is pretty unusual for the Amazon.

08:28Actually, those terrible droughts could be why the Qasarabi eventually left their cities around 1400 CE.

08:34That's it for today.

08:37So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

08:42Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.

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