10 Mysterious Ancient Technologies Science Just Can't Explain!

From ancient Greek military science to the advanced weaponry of the Vikings, plus a mysterious pillar in India that has experts scratching their heads – here are ten amazing ancient technologies that science still can’t explain!

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10: The Wedge of Aiud
The aluminum wedge of Aiud is either a mysterious piece of early technology that doesn't make any sense to anyone/ or something left behind by aliens. It's definitely controversial, ever since it was discovered in 1973 in Romania on the muddy bank of the Mures River. Some reports claim that the object was discovered under a pile of sand, alongside a collection of mastodon bones.

9: Greek Fire
Greek Fire was the medieval equivalent to the flamethrower. It was an incendiary weapon first utilized in warfare back in 678 AD. What makes this such a remarkable technology is that all these years later, nobody has been able to replicate the formula that the Greeks used to create the highly flammable liquid known as Greek Fire.

8: Damascus Steel
Damascus steel is the most legendary type of metal ever crafted by human hands. It is still recognizable today by the distinctive wavy light and dark pattern seen on its surface. Damascus steel is beautiful, and it was highly valued hundreds of years ago because of its extremely sharp edge, its rigid strength, and its shocking flexibility.

7: The Antikythera Mechanism
The Antikythera mechanism is often hailed as the world's first ever computer. But despite all the praise this thing gets, scientists don't really know what it is, what it was used for, or where it even came from. The best that anyone can come up with is that the device replicated the motions of the heavens. By just holding this mechanism in your hands, you could track the route taken by the sun, the moon, and the planets in the solar system with startling accuracy.

6: The Iron Ashoka Pillar of Delhi
The Iron Ashoka Pillar of Delhi – located of course in New Delhi, India, seems to be rustproof. It doesn't look like much from the outside. The iron pillar is only about 22 feet (6.5m) tall, it's sitting in an empty square, and there's really not much to look at unless you know what you're looking for.

5: The Baghdad Battery
The Baghdad Battery is about 2000 years old, coming from the ancient Parthian period, which lasted from between 250 BC to 250 AD. The exact science behind the Baghdad Battery is simple enough. It was a jar made out of clay with a stopper of asphalt and an iron rod stuck through a copper cylinder.

4: The Ulfberht Sword
The Ulfberht sword is one of the most mysterious weapons ever discovered. This fascinating blade was crafted by the Vikings about 1000 years ago, and there have been about 170 of them found so far by archeologists. But what's really shocking and unbelievable about these Viking weapons is that they were forged using technology that wasn't available for another 800 years after the Viking era had already ended.

3: Zhang Heng’s Seismoscope
Zhang Heng worked as a Chinese scientist and expert mathematician back during the Han dynasty. During his life, he crafted one of the most advanced pieces of scientific technology in the ancient Chinese world. This guy managed to put together a seismoscope to detect earthquakes way before we had the Richter scale.

2: Roman Concrete
Roman concrete outlasts modern concrete by thousands of years. We use modern concrete to build everything in our society, and yet our modern concrete is known to start breaking down after as few as 50 years. On the flip side, even one thousand years after the Roman Empire disintegrated, their concrete structures have not.

1: The Wrinkled Stone
The wrinkled stone may look like a piece of advanced technology in which a stone was folded in such a way to fit into another piece of stone just like a jigsaw puzzle. But it’s not! The scary truth about this wrinkled stone is that it's actually modern, and was crafted by a Spanish sculptor named Jose Manuel Castro Lopez, who has been experimenting with hand sculptures carved skillfully from granite and quartz.

#mysterioustechnology #ancienttechnology #unexplained #talltanic

[RandomnessTube.]

The earthquake detector is very impressive.

[SeanBolen-lh]

The thumbnail image is the creation of an artist. You can tell the "squeezed" block has been carved down into that shape in the way the surfaces no longer match.

[bradflint]

The secret to Roman concrete is to leave the mix with some dry clumps in it, so that years later when the concrete cracks and water seeps in, the dry clumps then get wet and harden the newly cracked material; simple yet ingenious.

[MikeBaxterABC]

The aluminum wedge could have easily been made from asteroid metal ... If you were heating a found asteroid (this is known to happen) it would be mostly iron ... but as you heated it the aluminum would come out first as it melts at a cooler temperature.

[JamesStripling]

"Damascus" is a very broad term used to describe various kinds of patterned steels. Much "Damascus" steel is pattern welded, a mechanical process of layering different kinds of steel together in the forging process. What you are referring to is crucible or "Wootz" steel. The patterns in this steel are a result of impurities in the iron. The Wootz mines played out about 200 years ago and this iron was no longer available. Recent metallurgy has allowed the recreation of this once sought after steel. Wootz was superior in its day. We have better steels now, but this is a good steel with stunning eye appeal.

[robertsmyk]

The iron pillar was very important because at the time of construction such a large quantity of iron was rare and very expensive and to erect it with easy access to the public, it never was stolen because of it's size and weight and the manner of it's placement deep into the substrate. It was also very difficult to be damaged or defaced by protesters.

[HWK]

There is always a reasonable and logical explanation for everything.

[aleksandargorgevik]

The Romanian aluminium wedge did NOT disappear, you just want to create a mystery where none exists.

[MLG]

That aluminium artefact would be totally awesome if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s an excavator tooth!!! They are used quite often because the aluminium doesn’t create a spark when clashing with rock etc... quite handy when you’re digging around something like gas lines!..
It’s broken off the bucket, fallen in the dirt and then later recovered by archeologists. 😂🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️👏👏👏👏

[RelaxMode]

Maybe time travellers were living long years ago.

[ryanthompsonthompson]

The first artifact could be from the Old World.

[buzzlaw]

is it really hard to understand that modern concrete companies avoid the labor intensive ancient concrete?

[eliwood]

I think what the wedge was used for
from when I saw it first time ever, was a catapult.
When you wined the wheel back there's a little metal wedge that falls down in between the gears to hold the catapult back before you release it, and it shoots.

[briankane]

WHY F. F. S. Don't they also talk about Plutonum, Uranum, Germanum, Polonum, etc. to match their Aluminum?

[crmrpage]

So you end with one that is really just a MODERN sculpture... So Science can't explain that one either??

[LarryLezon]

Learned to use a flame thrower in Infantry training in the Marine Corps - nasty thing but heavy and not long lasting - but very, very effective.

[Muthurtucker]

Yeah, Damascus steel has totally been replicated. Search it on YouTube.

[paulgreen]

What a pleasant surprise - straight into the discoveries, without any of the usual "Welcome to the channel", or "Like, subscribe and hit the bell notification".

[JOHN-tkvl]

ALUMINUM is not in my periodic table! ALUMINIUM is.

[best-bullysscotland]

I'd like to know if that wedge was the same size as the scoop marks found