Ancient Finds Mystify

NationalGeographic.com has a pair of interesting articles about recent discoveries that are fascinating and perplexing at the same time.

First up, there is this article about the discovery of an 8 million year old swamp cypress forest, fossilized trees and all. The site is located in Hungary, and was discovered by miners who were looking for brown coal. The odd part of the find is that the 16 trees, which range in height from 13-20 feet, are not petrified, which is what commonly happens with trees of this age.

The second article of interest is about the discovery of ancient ruins under the water near Alexandria in Egypt. Now, Alexandria has been around for some time, and has plenty of ancient ruins already in the area from the Greek and Roman occupation. However, the very interesting aspect of the story is that these ruins pre-date Alexander the Great's arrival by more than 700 years. Archeologists and historians believe that the ruins are from a city named Rhakotis, which has been named in writings covering the area, but it's existence has never been confirmed.

I love stories like these, because they remind us that the World still has a few surprises left for us to discover. I think it's amazing that there are still ancient things, hidden away, just waiting for us to find them.