9 Ancient Mysteries Scientists Are Still Trying to Solve

A bronze object no one has matched to a purpose. A sky disc that was reworked several times before it was buried. Viking swords that share a name but not the same steel. This archaeology documentary follows nine ancient mysteries where the evidence survived but the explanation did not, and shows how much researchers have managed to recover. Some of these cases now have strong answers. In 536 CE the sun dimmed across much of the Northern Hemisphere, and ice cores and tree rings point to volcanic eruptions. Tooth enamel from Avaris shows that Egypt's Hyksos kings rose from a community that had lived there for generations. Other questions are still open: what the Roman dodecahedra were for, how the Nebra Sky Disc was used, and why Hatshepsut's statues were broken. We keep the answered and the unanswered apart. THE NINE MYSTERIES • Roman dodecahedra – twelve-sided bronze objects with no proven use, and a new find from Norton Disney, England • The Nebra Sky Disc, Germany – a Bronze Age picture of the sky, altered again and again • Ulfberht swords – Viking Age blades with the same name and very different metal • Avaris and the Hyksos, Egypt – who were the "rulers of foreign lands"? • Codex Gigas, the "Devil's Bible" – a 75 kg medieval book and the legend of how it was made • 536 CE – the year the sun dimmed, and the evidence frozen in polar ice • The Guanches and the first Canary Islanders – where they came from, and why they did not vanish • Çatalhöyük, Türkiye – a Neolithic town where the dead were buried beneath the floors of homes • Hatshepsut – the female pharaoh whose name and images were removed after her death SOURCES: Dodecahedra – Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group: https://nortondisneyhag.org/?page_id=... Dodecahedra – Guggenberger and Leach 2025, The Antiquaries Journal: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000358152510... Nebra Sky Disc – State Museum of Prehistory, Halle: https://www.landesmuseum-vorgeschicht... Ulfberht – Williams 2009, Gladius: https://doi.org/10.3989/gladius.2009.218 Ulfberht – Astrup and Martens 2011, Gladius: https://doi.org/10.3989/gladius.2011.... Hyksos – Stantis et al. 2020, PLOS ONE: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.... Hyksos – The Hyksos Enigma, Austrian Academy of Sciences: https://thehyksosenigma.oeaw.ac.at/ab... Codex Gigas – National Library of Sweden: https://www.kb.se/upptack-samlingarna... 536 CE – Sigl et al. 2015, Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14565 536 CE – Büntgen et al. 2016, Nature Geoscience: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2652 Canary Islands – Serrano et al. 2023, Nature Communications: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40... Canary Islands – Cuello del Pozo 2024, European Journal of Archaeology: https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2024.4 Çatalhöyük – Larsen et al. 2019, PNAS: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904345116 Çatalhöyük – UNESCO World Heritage Centre: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1405 Hatshepsut – Wong 2025, Antiquity: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.64 Hatshepsut – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queen Hatshepsut Restored: https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/quee... #AncientMysteries #Archaeology #AncientHistory