10 Insane Ways Ordinary People Stumbled Upon Major Discoveries

There are archaeologists who dedicate their lives to trying to uncover little pieces of history. Sometimes, though, the greatest archaeological discoveries are made by ordinary people who stumble upon them by chance. Ironically, they find things that reveal more about the past than most professionals find in a lifetime of work.

10The Rosetta Stone Was Used As A Building Slab

Photo credit: History For Kids

In 1799, the French army was marching through Egypt. This was a military invasion, but Napoleon had his eyes on more than just land. With the army were 167 scientists and artists, who were sent to explore and examine relics of an ancient culture.

Their greatest discovery came by chance. A troop had made its way to the town of Rosetta, where they prepared to build a fort. One soldier dug up an old stone slab and was using it to build a wall when his lieutenant noticed some strange writing in three languages on the stone.

The lieutenant had the stone sent to the Institut d’Egypte, Napoleon’s scientific base. They identified the languages as Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphic, and demotic. Using their knowledge of Greek, teams worked for years translating the Rosetta stone—and uncovered the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics.

9 Hikers Stumbled Upon The Oldest Frozen Caveman

Photo credit: Helmut Simon

In 1991, two hikers made an incredible discovery while taking a shortcut down the Otztal Alps. Wandering off the beaten path, they soon found themselves in a gully looking at the naked body of a dead man who was over 5,000 years old.

Facedown in the snow, the man’s skin was tight and red and his flesh was eroded. The hikers, sure they’d stumbled upon the scene of a murder, took a photo and rushed back into town to notify the police.

It took a team four days to get the man out. But when they did, they found the mummified remains of a hunter who had died in 3300 BC. The caveman, whose body had been preserved by the cold, is the oldest natural human mummy we’ve discovered. It has given researchers incredible insights into how humanity once lived.


8 A Successful Archaeologist Thought She Was An Egyptian Princess

Photo via Wikimedia

At age three, Dorothy Eady fell down the stairs and nearly died. Afterward, she experienced recurring dreams of being in a huge columned building. She didn’t understand the dreams until her parents took her to the Egyptian exhibit at a museum. There, she cried that she was home.

By adulthood, Eady had moved to Egypt, where she called herself “Omm Sety” and told people that she was the reincarnated lover of Pharaoh Seti I. The archaeologists there would normally have ignored this mad woman except that she had a habit of being right.

Eady discovered the garden of the Temple of Seti I by telling archaeologists, “I remember the ancient garden was here.” They dug where she’d pointed, and it was there.

She also translated ancient Egyptian blocks and wrote scholarly articles that have contributed to our understanding of the Egyptian people. Eady maintained to her death that she was using her memory of a former life.

7 A Japanese Farmer Found A 1,700-Year-Old Seal From An Emperor

Photo credit: PHGCOM

In 1784, a rice farmer in Japan was trying to repair an irrigation ditch. As he worked, he noticed something shiny lodged between two rocks. When he dug it out and washed it off, he was holding a seal made of pure gold.

The farmer brought it to a local scholar, who realized that the seal was a legendary relic gifted by Emperor Guangwu of Han to a Japanese emissary during the first state meeting between China and Japan in AD 57.

The seal was also the first time that the Japanese had seen Chinese characters, which were later adopted into the kanji script that Japan still uses today.

6 An Ancient Roman Villa Was Found On Google Earth

Photo credit: All That Is Interesting

Playing with Google Earth, an Italian man was looking at his city from space when he noticed something unusual—an oval shape on the ground that was 500 meters (1,640 ft) long with strange shadows nearby.

When he traced the shapes of the shadows, they looked like the shapes of buildings buried in the ground. Curious, he uploaded his discovery to his blog and then called some local archaeologists to see what they thought.

Based on the man’s tip, the archaeologists started digging and found an entire ancient Roman villa buried under the earth. It was a major historical artifact that was discovered by a man killing time on his computer.

5 A Worker Dropped A Statue Of Buddha And Found Pure Gold Underneath

Photo credit: gba.orgfree.com

For 700 years, a monastery in Thailand kept a statue of Buddha that was made of plaster. In 1935, the monastery ordered some workers to move the statue to the side of an old building used to store relics of no special importance.

During the process, one worker is believed to have fumbled and let the statue crash to the ground. Some of the plaster chipped off and the workers saw the shining glimmer of...Read More HERE