"The Cosquer Cave (Marseille, France) was discovered in 1985 by a diver, Henri Cosquer, deep under the sea (the original entrance is about 115 feet below present-day sea level) but its paintings were not mentioned until 1991 after three divers died in the cave when they got lost." Source: The Bradshaw Foundation.
"The gallery slopes up for about 360 feet under water before reaching a huge chamber that partly remained above the sea and where many prehistoric paintings and engravings are preserved on the walls, as well as remains on the ground (charcoal from fires and torches, a few flint tools). This is the only painted cave in the world with an entrance below present-day sea level where cave art has been preserved from the flooding that occurred when the seas rose after the end of the last glaciation."
"...The results of the 2018 research in the Ampelakia Bay head and Straits are particularly significant since: a) A new 'amphibian' technique was successfully applied to investigate ancient remains in the shallows, b) the unearthing of a large ancient public building was continued, yielding examples of original marble works of Greek sculpture and c) marine sediment data was acquired which will contribute together with other geophysical and archaeological elements, in reconstructing the area’s paleogeography with particular reference to the shape of the Bay and Straits at the time of the Battle of Salamis."
"Who built the Sphinx? The most compelling evidence that the Sphinx was built for the Egyptian Pharaoh Khafre during his reign (2520-2494 BC) is in the architecture, geology, and archaeology of the Sphinx and its related monuments." Source: Ancient Egypt Research Association.
Khafre ruled during the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. He was the son of Pharoah Khufu, thought to have commissioned the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Khufu had another son, King Djedefre, but "until recently, experts thought that King Djedefre was a murderer and outcast who couldn't possibly have had the power to create the Great Sphinx," according to the Smithsonian Magazine (2013?). The new evidence described in the above video "makes him a more likely candidate."
It's possible that the sphinx actually shows the face of Khufu, rather than Khafre or Djedefre.
There's also a possibility that the Sphinx predates the 4th Dynasty. This theory is controversial, but if true it would mean that the statue wasn't built by any of these pharaohs:
"More recently, a new theory emerged that places the statue’s origins much further back, to some 9,000 years ago. Supporters of this hypothesis point to extensive erosion of the limestone near the top of the Great Sphinx, arguing that the last time the region experienced enough rainfall in the region to cause this type of erosion on limestone was 7000 B.C." Source: The History Channel (2015).
"More traditional Egyptologists reject this view for several reasons," according to NBC News. "First, a Sphinx built earlier than 7000 B.C. would upset our understanding of ancient civilization, as there is no evidence of an Egyptian civilization this old."
One outlandish theory -- that the pyramids and the sphinx were built by refugees from Atlantis -- led to an interesting discovery.
The possibility that the Sphinx predates Egyptian civilization itself has led to all sorts of speculation that the statue was actually constructed by aliens. Why aliens would build a statue of a lion's body with or without a human head (the original may have been the head of a lion) has never really been explained as far as I know. Presumably, the statue had some kind of astronomical significance, but never mind that. The problem with the Ancient UFO crowd is that they immediately turn to aliens whenever they run into one of these ancient mysteries. Even if the Sphinx was built before the Egyptians came along -- which I doubt -- it would only prove, once again, that prehistoric people were a lot more advanced than we have been led to believe.
"The Great Sphinx of Giza (... English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread)... is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre." (Wikipedia)
The Terrifying One may have a more complicated history, however. According to Colin Reader, an English geologist, it's possible that the Sphinx wasn't originally a statue of the pharaoh at all. It may have been a lion, a representation of the sun god. The pharaoh's out-of-proportion head may have been added later, turning the statue into a sphinx.
"Colin Reader has proposed that the Sphinx was the focus of solar worship in the Early Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2134 BC). He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a complex which predates Dynasty IV (c. 2613–2494 BC). The lion has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations." (Wikipedia)
"... In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet ... or 'Horus-at-the-Horizon' ..."
Reader's controversial theories are based on the premise that the sphinx is far older than commonly believed. He apparently agrees with the water-erosion hypothesis, "a fringe claim contending that the main type of weathering evident on the enclosure walls of the Great Sphinx was caused by prolonged and extensive rainfall that would have predated the time of Djedefre and Khafre, the Pharaohs credited by most modern Egyptologists with building the Great Sphinx and Second Pyramid at Giza around 2500 BC." (Wikipedia) "Egyptologists, geologists and others have rejected the water erosion hypothesis and the idea of an older Sphinx, offering various alternative explanations for the cause and date of the erosion."
In the next video, Robert Schoch, an associate professor of Natural Sciences at Boston University, explains the water-erosion hypothesis on the Joe Rogan show.
The reason why the sphinx was built depends, in large part, on how old the statue is. Reader and Shoch's theories may be "fringe," but the truth is that we really don't know much about the sphinx to begin with:
"The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose." (Wikipedia)
"... It is impossible to identify what name the creators called their statue, as the Great Sphinx does not appear in any known inscription of the Old Kingdom and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or its original purpose. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deityHor-em-akhet ... and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his 'Dream Stele'".
"An enormous stone sphinx representing the pharaoh Ramses II has spent nearly a century in the Egypt Gallery of the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. But today (June 12) the sphinx was relocated in 'a monumental move' that saw the colossal statue 'floating' on so-called air dollies — a technology that uses high-powered air compression in a manner similar to hoverboards, museum representatives said in a statement." Source: Live Science.
"Artists may have often turned to drugs at times to help them find inspiration, but it seems cannabis has also played a role in preserving precious artworks within ancient caves in India." Source: Daily Mail.
"A mixture of hemp, clay and lime plaster is responsible for preserving paintings and intricately carved scenes in the sacred Ellora Caves, which were hewn from rock 1,500 years ago."
Note: The Ellora Caves are an "uninterrupted sequence of monuments dating from AD 600 to 1000," according to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. "... these 34 monasteries and temples, extending over more than 2 km, were dug side by side in the wall of a high basalt cliff, not far from Aurangabad, in Maharashtra."
The rest of this video series on Ostia Antica can be found here
Ostia Antica, not to be confused with the modern suburb of Ostia, is the name given to the archaeological site of the port city of ancient Rome.
"According to Livy Ostia was founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. In Latin ostium meant entrance, a reference to the location of the town at the mouth of the River Tiber. At the beginning it was just a castrum, a fortified settlement, which protected Rome from enemies attempting to attack the city by sailing up the river. Eventually the nature of Ostia changed and it became a commercial and cosmopolitan town where advanced forms of trading were developed." Source: Roman Art Lovers
Video Notes: "The House of Apuleius was built in the republican period, as is indicated by a few remains of opus quasi reticulatum [a kind of brickwork]. The house was rebuilt in the Antonine period, after 148 AD (opus mixtum; dated brickstamps were found). It was excavated in 1885-1886 by Lanciani." Source: Ostia - Harbor City of Ancient Rome (photographs of the site and a floor plan of the house can be found here).
Ostia was sacked by pirates in 68 BC. "During the sack, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators were kidnapped," according to Wikipedia. Pompey the Great took advantage of this disaster to get a new law passed, the Lex Gabinia, which gave him the authority to raise an army and clear the pirates from the Mediterranean once and for all. Pompey crushed the pirates in about a year, greatly increasing his fame, power and political influence.
In later years, Ostia was expanded to meet changing conditions and the demands of increased trade. According to A Guide To The Ancient World, by Michael Grant, "the [Ostia] harbor was too small to handle all the ships that now sought entry and the larger of them could not pass the sand bar at the river mouth," so the emperor Claudius [AD 41-54] "constructed a large artificial port two miles to its north, equipped with a towering lighthouse and linked to the Tiber by two canals." This new harbor turned out to be vulnerable to storms, so more modifications were made to solve the problem "and caused Ostia's activity and prosperity to reach its peak."
"In the following century," according to Grant, "emphasis shifted to the harbor quarter inaugurated by Claudius and Trajan [who expanded the work started by Claudius], which under Constantine I the Great (306-7) assumed an autonomous entity of its own under the name of Portus ... Meanwhile the city of Ostia itself had become much more a residential center than a trading town; the big apartment houses were allowed to go to ruin, but the construction of lavish new private houses went ahead."
The new harbor of Portus was sacked by the Visigoths in 408 AD.
Video from 2009. Edgerton searched for the site back in the Sixties.
"There is little to see today of Helike, just a few walls and artefacts scraped clean by archaeologists. The great Greek city, famed across the classical world, sunk into the coastal mud of the Gulf of Corinth in 373 BC during a terrible earthquake. Writers still recalled its fate hundreds of years later." Source: Archaeology News Network.
According to Wikipedia, "Helike was founded in the Bronze Age, becoming the principal city of Achaea. The poet Homer states that the city of Helike participated in the Trojan War as a part of Agamemnon's forces. Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the Achaean League, an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of Aigio. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning twelve and polis meaning city), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage."
In 2001, after decades of searching, the ruins of the city were discovered "buried in an ancient lagoon near the village of Rizomylos. To further confirm that the discovered site belongs to Helike, the earthquake destruction layer consisting of cobblestones, clay roof tiles, and pottery was uncovered in 2012. This destruction layer is in good agreement with ancient texts on the location of Helike and earthquake effects to the city." (Wikipedia)
The search for Helike is a story in itself and led to several other interesting discoveries. For instance, "in 1979 in the Corinthian Gulf, the Greek undersea explorer Alexis Papadopoulos discovered a sunken town and recorded his findings in a documentary film which shows walls, fallen roofs, roof tiles, streets, etc. at a depth of between 25 and 45 m" and a 1994 magnetometer survey "carried out in the midplain of the [Helike delta] revealed the outlines of a buried building. This target (now known as the Klonis site) was excavated and a large Roman building with standing walls was found. Also a well-preserved settlement of the early bronze age was uncovered." (Wikipedia) More information can be found here.
Next video (2009) shows the discovery of an ancient Roman artifact from a dig conducted during the hunt for Helike. I'm not sure if this particular site was Helike or turned out to be something else.
Helike is commonly referred to as a "real Atlantis." This thriving city was literally destroyed overnight:
"One night during the winter of 373 B.C., the city of Helike was obliterated. Some signs of the city’s impending doom were recorded, including the appearance of ‘immense columns of flames’ and the mass migration of small animals from the coast to the mountains several days prior to the disaster. A major earthquake, followed by a large tsunami from the Gulf of Corinth, wiped the city of Helike from the face of the earth. The rescue party that came in the following morning found no survivors." (Ancient Origins)
The sunken city could still be seen under the water for hundreds of years:
"Around 174 AD the traveler Pausanias visited a coastal site still called Helike, located seven kilometres southeast of Aigio, and reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible under water, 'but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water'." (Wikipedia)
"For centuries after, its submerged ruins could still be seen. Roman tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city's statuary. Later the site silted over and the location was lost to memory."
"With its evocative main face and O-shaped mouth, its mysterious zigzag etched lines, the Shigir Idol is now accepted as one of the world’s oldest examples of monumental art." Source: Siberian Times.
"All the more remarkably, it is made of larch not stone yet still survives, thanks to it falling into a peat bog, once a paleo-lake, in which it was superbly preserved."
No one knows what the idol represents. According to Wikipedia, "scholars have proposed various theories about the carvings' meaning. Svetlana Savchenko, a researcher at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum, suggested that the decoration tells the creation myth those who carved it believed in. Other researchers at the museum have suggested that the markings could have served as a navigational aid or map. Professor Mikhail Zhilin, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow, guessed that the statue could depict mythological creatures such as forest spirits. Archeologist Peter Vang Peterson, of the National Museum of Denmark, speculated that the idol could serve as a warning not to enter a dangerous area.
"Scholars noted that the Shigir Idol's decoration was similar to that of the oldest known monumental stone ruins, at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey."
"Modernists, after all, have done far more damage in the long run to the urban fabric of Europe than even the Second World War did; and it stands to reason that they, the modernists, would not want anything to escape their attentions for long, lest anything remain intact to shame by painful comparison their own wretched efforts." Source: TakiMag.