- 1 week ago
Santa Claus isn’t just a holiday myth — he was a real person, and his story just got way more interesting. Archaeologists in Turkey believe they’ve identified the real sarcophagus of Saint Nicholas, the man behind the Santa legend. The discovery sits beneath an ancient church and has historians buzzing. In this video, we dig into who Saint Nicholas really was and why this find matters so much. Christmas history just got very real. Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Big news! Santa is real, and he looks like this.
00:04I know, it's not exactly how we picture the jolly old guy,
00:07but a recently discovered tomb might just be the proof we've been waiting for
00:11to show that St. Nicholas was real, and Turkish.
00:16Turns out, he wasn't a North Pole native, but a kind-hearted bishop from the 4th century,
00:21famous for giving gifts to everyone.
00:23The legend says he was a wealthy man born in the ancient city of Patara,
00:27modern-day Turkey, who traveled to the countryside to help the poor and the sick.
00:32For centuries, though, people couldn't be sure he actually existed.
00:36Some historical sources say he was buried in Myra, which is now called Demra, Turkey.
00:41Since the 80s, archaeologists have been digging around this area, trying to prove it.
00:46And now, their Christmas miracle has finally come true.
00:50After digging six feet deep in an annex of St. Nicholas' Church,
00:54they uncovered a mysterious limestone tomb, about two meters long.
00:59While they're pretty sure this is St. Nick's final resting place,
01:03they're still searching for an inscription to confirm its exact age.
01:07Now, if we're talking about the fictional Santa Claus,
01:10legend says his home is in Lapland, Finland.
01:14Back in 2018, archaeologists made an interesting discovery
01:17that could finally prove that Santa was real.
01:20They were digging at a site called Tiny Aro when they stumbled upon about 200 burial pits.
01:27But when they looked inside, there was definitely no sign of Santa.
01:31Actually, there were no human skeletons at all,
01:33just a bunch of things like pottery and animal bones.
01:36So no one really knows what this place was.
01:39That was the complete opposite of what happened with a group of archaeologists
01:43working in the ancient city of Petra, Jordan.
01:46Since 2003, there have been rumors about hidden chambers beneath the famous monument
01:51called Al-Qasne, also known as the Treasury.
01:5521 years later, a team finally decided to dig and uncovered an intact tomb.
02:02Inside, they found at least 12 human skeletons and artifacts,
02:06estimated to be over 2,000 years old.
02:09Hundreds of thousands of tourists travel to Al-Qasne every year,
02:13and most of them probably go there to see the site of the Holy Grail
02:16in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
02:20So, do you want to know the funny part?
02:22One of the skeletons in the tomb was clutching a ceramic chalice
02:26that looked a lot like the Holy Grail.
02:29You probably remember the devastating fire
02:32that caused massive damage to Notre Dame in Paris back in 2019.
02:35Because of that, the building, originally built between the 12th and 13th centuries,
02:41had to be restructured.
02:43But archaeologists saw it as a golden opportunity
02:46to dig into the site and uncover its hidden secrets.
02:50The team was only allowed to dig about 16 inches beneath the floor.
02:54But that was enough.
02:56As soon as they removed the floor tiles and cleared away a thin layer of dirt,
03:00they spotted the top of a lead coffin.
03:02Then, they found some limestone sculptures,
03:06including life-sized heads and torsos.
03:09Altogether, they uncovered over 1,000 fragments of different works of art.
03:15Ancient statues have been found in the most random places,
03:18including a sewer.
03:20In July 2024, Bulgarian archaeologists were checking a Roman sewer
03:24in the ancient city of Heracliosyntica,
03:27when they found a nearly 7-foot-tall marble statue of Hermes,
03:31the Greek messenger deity.
03:34This town was completely devastated and abandoned after two earthquakes,
03:38one in the year 388 and the other in the year 425.
03:44But somehow, it didn't destroy this statue.
03:47In fact, its head was found in surprisingly good condition.
03:51Finding ancient artwork is definitely fascinating.
03:54But imagine stumbling upon an entire hidden city in the Amazon rainforest.
03:59Using high-tech lasers, researchers uncovered a lost civilization
04:03with thousands of structures and a whole network of roads, canals, and houses,
04:09all buried beneath the dense jungle.
04:11This city was built around 2,500 years ago,
04:15in an area located in the shadow of a volcano.
04:19Which, by the way, could have erupted and destroyed this civilization at some point.
04:25It's hard to say exactly how many people lived there,
04:27but experts estimate they stayed up there for about 1,000 years.
04:31This discovery proves ancient people also had huge, organized cities in the middle of the Amazon.
04:40A similar thing happened in Campeche in southern Mexico.
04:44An archaeologist was doing some research on the internet
04:46when he accidentally discovered a hidden Maya city.
04:50This area, now called Valeriana, was huge,
04:54about the size of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
04:56It had pyramids, sports fields, amphitheaters, and paths connecting different districts.
05:03Thanks to satellite images,
05:05archaeologists uncovered an entire unknown civilization from the Bronze Age.
05:10They were checking out aerial images
05:12when they discovered 100 prehistoric settlements in the Pannonian Plain,
05:16a region that includes parts of what's now Serbia and Hungary.
05:20The people who lived there are now known as the Tica Site Group.
05:24And it looks like they were a pretty well-organized society,
05:28skilled at growing food, hunting, and fishing.
05:32Google Earth helped a team to uncover a mysterious set of 400 ancient gates in Saudi Arabia.
05:38These gates, scattered across the desert, are thought to be from thousands of years ago.
05:44They're made of stone and arranged in weird formations
05:47that have left archaeologists scratching their heads.
05:50I mean, they don't look like they were meant for funerals,
05:53and they don't seem like structures where people lived.
05:56So, we still have no idea what they are.
06:00Technology is really changing archaeology.
06:03Thanks to artificial intelligence, and, well, a $1 million prize,
06:08we've finally been able to decipher
06:09part of an unreadable and super-damaged ancient scroll.
06:13The Herculaneum Scrolls were discovered by workers digging up the ancient town of Herculaneum
06:20near Pompeii in 1752.
06:22But their condition was so bad that, for years, they were considered indecipherable.
06:28Thankfully, AI has helped unveil their secrets.
06:31Based on the study so far,
06:33experts believe that one of these scrolls was written by a philosopher
06:36who valued pleasures, like music and food, above all else.
06:41No doubt, Stonehenge in England is one of the most mysterious places on Earth.
06:46Some theories even suggest it was built by extraterrestrials.
06:50After more than a century of research,
06:52archaeologists are still figuring out how it came together.
06:56See that big altar in the middle?
06:58Turns out, it came all the way from Scotland.
07:01And that's pretty wild, considering this massive sandstone block weighs over 6 tons,
07:07and the people who built Stonehenge more than 4,000 years ago
07:11didn't have the luxury of wheels or modern tools.
07:15We can find some pretty amazing stuff in the oceans, too.
07:19In 2013, a mysterious shipwreck was found about 20 feet underwater off the coast of Kenya.
07:26At the time, no one knew where it came from.
07:28But now, researchers are pretty sure this could be a ship from Vasco da Gama's fleet.
07:35You know, the famous Portuguese navigator,
07:37best known for being the first to sail from Europe to India
07:40by rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
07:43If it's confirmed,
07:45this shipwreck could be one of the earliest European shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean.
07:51Ancient treasures can take many forms, including a bottle.
07:55Recently, archaeologists in Norway uncovered a 150-year-old message in a bottle
08:01during an excavation of a Viking burial mound.
08:04The bottle contained a letter written by Anders L'Orange,
08:08an archaeologist who worked on the site back in the 1800s,
08:11along with his business card and a few coins wrapped in paper.
08:15The letter gave some details about the excavation,
08:18though it seems L'Orange got a few things wrong,
08:21like the exact number of Viking shields discovered.
08:23At the end of the letter, he wrote a personal note in Runic's script,
08:29Emma Gade, My Girlfriend.
08:31So it gave us not only insights into history,
08:34but also a peek into his love life.
08:36Imagine leaving cookies and milk out for Santa,
08:39and he does actually show up,
08:41but with a furry companion that is not a reindeer.
08:45According to folklore,
08:46Krampus is a big, scary creature with horns and hooves,
08:50and he goes out looking for children who've been bad.
08:57The name Krampus might derive from the word Krampin,
09:01which means rotten or cramp, which means claw.
09:04Nobody's completely sure where Krampus came from,
09:07but some people think he's been around since before people started celebrating Christmas.
09:12Some say that people have been celebrating Krampus since the 6th or 7th century,
09:18which is a super long time ago.
09:20But there are no writings about Krampus before the 16th century,
09:24so solid details about him are still a mystery.
09:28There are also theories that suggest Krampus is the son of the ruler of the underworld.
09:34Krampus is like the total opposite of Santa Claus.
09:37He is this scary, mythical creature who looks a lot like half-goat and half-demon.
09:43He has fur all over and sharp teeth.
09:46Krampus carries chains,
09:48which are believed to symbolize how people once tried to keep bad spirits under control.
09:53He likes to shake those chains for a bit of drama,
09:56and sometimes these chains have bells of different sizes jingling along.
10:01He also brings bundles of birch branches,
10:04and he uses them to punish naughty kids.
10:07Some folks think these birch branches might have had a special meaning in ancient pagan rituals.
10:13If you like to explore such stories, like, share, and subscribe to How About.
10:21In some versions, the birch branches are replaced with a whip.
10:25Krampus was said to be sometimes seen with a sack or a basket strapped to his back.
10:30And that was not for carrying toys or gifts.
10:33That was for hauling away bad children.
10:35Some say he might take them away for further punishment,
10:39or even on a one-way trip to the underworld.
10:43Krampus goes by different names in different places,
10:46like Black Peter and Klaubauf, to name some.
10:49In parts of Europe, people celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6th.
10:53The night before St. Nicholas Day is what they call Krampus Night.
10:58During this time, Krampus performs his spooky tricks to frighten naughty kids.
11:03Sometimes he is with St. Nicholas, and sometimes he's on his own.
11:08St. Nicholas usually looks like a bishop in fancy clothes, carrying a golden staff.
11:13He is all about good kids, but Krampus is in charge of naughty ones.
11:19St. Nicholas hands out gifts, while Krampus gives out coal and birch branches.
11:24There is also a tradition to offer Krampus a special strong drink made just for him.
11:29In 1923, the Krampus tradition was banned by the Austrian government of the time.
11:38In the 1950s, the government gave out pamphlets with titles like
11:42Krampus is an Evil Man.
11:44But as the 20th century was wrapping up,
11:47some people started to get interested in Krampus all over again.
11:51They wanted to bring the tradition back, and they did it.
11:54It's still going strong today.
11:56In places like Bavaria, people are still making their own hand-carved wooden masks
12:02to keep the Krampus spirit alive.
12:05During Krampus celebrations, people dress up in all sorts of costumes.
12:09These characters include Krampus, St. Nicholas, a woodsman, angels, and an old woman.
12:15Krampus' costume usually has elements like a furry suit, horns, a demon mask, and hooves.
12:21He might have also had props like bells, birch branches, a basket on his back, chains, and a walking staff.
12:30Traditional Krampus' costumes were made from not-so-animal-friendly materials.
12:35But these days, they're often made out of cheaper materials, like fake fur and latex.
12:40Every year, as Christmas approaches,
12:42there's a pretty unique tradition that happens in the alpine villages of Austria.
12:46It's a tradition that's been around for over 1,500 years,
12:51and it still gets everyone excited, especially in the Austrian region of Tyrol.
13:00Families gather to watch the Krampus parade.
13:03In this parade, young guys dress up in fur suits and wooden masks and attach cowbells to themselves.
13:09They even ride on chariots with fire.
13:13During these festivities, you'll spot Krampus figures and their gang of elves mingling with the crowd.
13:19They're on the lookout for innocent bystanders, often older kids and adults.
13:24These red-eyed costume folks carry prickly brooms and birch branches.
13:29When they spot a target, they chase their victims until they give in.
13:33They might even shake chains and whip their birch branches around to make the spectators a little jittery.
13:40Most of the people from Tyrol think this tradition is good fun.
13:44They're often found munching on roasted chestnuts while enjoying the whole thing.
13:48Traditionally, children leave their shoes out and wait.
13:52If they've been nice, they find treats in their shoes.
13:54But if they've been bad, they might find a birch rod, which is not a fun surprise.
13:59Nowadays, Krampus isn't actually dragging kids to the underworld.
14:04But he still likes to play some pranks.
14:10In Staria, there's a tradition where Krampus gives families birch bundles.
14:14People paint these twigs gold and display them in their homes all year long.
14:19They serve as a reminder to kids that Krampus is watching, even if they temporarily forget about him.
14:25In smaller, more isolated villages, Krampus has other scary companions, like a wild man with antlers.
14:33At the same time, there are some cities in Austria where a tamer, friendlier version of Krampus can be seen.
14:39He is more like a funny figure than someone scary.
14:42In an Italian town, they have an annual Krampus festival in early December.
14:47At dusk, the Krampus comes out of an old cave and chases kids, even adults sometimes.
14:54He gives them a nudge on the legs to remind them to behave.
14:57To calm Krampus down, children and young people have to recite a prayer.
15:02There are similar figures in nearby areas.
15:05In many parts of Croatia, Krampus is pictured as a demon wearing a cloth sack around his waist,
15:14along with chains around his neck, ankles, and wrists.
15:18As part of the tradition, when a child gets a gift from St. Nicholas,
15:22they also get a golden branch to show their good deeds for the year.
15:26But if the kid has been naughty, Krampus takes the gifts and leaves a silver branch instead
15:31to remind them of their not-so-great behavior.
15:35Krampus can also thank the hype for buying stuff in the 1800s for his growing popularity.
15:41Around that time, people were all about trying new things,
15:44so manufacturers saw an opportunity to make money off Krampus.
15:48It started when the Austrian authorities let go of the control over postcard production.
15:53This allowed businesses to produce a variety of Krampus-themed postcards,
15:58and they really took off.
15:59When mass media-like postcards became a big thing in Germany and Austria in the 1890s,
16:05Krampus got caught up in the craze.
16:08They started making special holiday cards, called Krampus Carden.
16:12But these cards weren't about spreading warm and fuzzy feelings.
16:15The ones that said greetings from Krampus were quite different.
16:19Many of these postcards showed Krampus going after children,
16:23leading them away, or carrying them off in his bag.
16:27Not the kinds of cards you would send to your grandma.
16:29Some postcards meant for grown-ups showed Krampus as a woman,
16:33and sometimes with women.
16:34Until 2004, most people in the United States
16:41probably had no clue about Krampus or those Krampus cards.
16:46But then, one art director named Monty Beauchamp
16:49put together a book filled with Krampus cards
16:51and also set up an art show based on them.
16:54It's hard to say if Monty is the main reason
16:57why Krampus became a thing in the United States.
16:59But ever since, Krampus has become sort of a funny, ironic figure in America.
17:05And the real kicker occurred in 2015
17:08when they came out with a big Krampus movie.
17:11Not a low-budget one, but a proper comedy horror film called Krampus,
17:16starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette.
17:18So even though Krampus is pretty new to America,
17:21this alpine legend is like the original Bad Santa
17:24who's been around for generations.
17:28That's it for today.
17:29So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
17:31then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
17:34Or if you want more, just click on these videos
17:36and stay on the bright side.
Be the first to comment